Monthly Archives: June 2022

The Early Stages of Drug Prohibition

Many currently illegal drugs, such as marijuana, opium, coca, and psychedelics have been used for thousands of years for both medical and spiritual purposes. So why are some drugs legal and other drugs illegal today? It's not based on any scientific assessment of the relative risks of these drugs but it has everything to do with who is associated with these drugs.

The first anti-opium laws in the 1870s were directed at Chinese immigrants. The first anti-cocaine laws in the early 1900s were directed at black men in the South. The first anti-marijuana laws, in the Midwest and the Southwest in the 1910s and 20s, were directed at Mexican migrants and Mexican Americans. Today, Latino and especially black communities are still subject to wildly disproportionate drug enforcement and sentencing practices.

In the 1960s, as drugs became symbols of youthful rebellion, social upheaval, and political dissent, the government halted scientific research to evaluate their medical safety and efficacy.

In June 1971, President Nixon declared a war on drugs. He dramatically increased the size and presence of federal drug control agencies, and pushed through measures such as mandatory sentencing and no-knock warrants.

A top Nixon aide, John Ehrlichman, later admitted: You want to know what this was really all about. The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what Im saying. We knew we couldnt make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.Nixon temporarily placed marijuana in Schedule One, the most restrictive category of drugs, pending review by a commission he appointed led by Republican Pennsylvania Governor Raymond Shafer.

In 1972, the commission unanimously recommended decriminalizing the possession and distribution of marijuana for personal use. Nixon ignored the report and rejected its recommendations.

Between 1973 and 1977, however, eleven states decriminalized marijuana possession. In January 1977, President Jimmy Carter was inaugurated on a campaign platform that included marijuana decriminalization. In October 1977, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to decriminalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for personal use.

Within just a few years, though, the tide had shifted. Proposals to decriminalize marijuana were abandoned as parents became increasingly concerned about high rates of teen marijuana use. Marijuana was ultimately caught up in a broader cultural backlash against the perceived permissiveness of the 1970s.

This video from hip hop legend Jay Z and acclaimed artist Molly Crabapple depicts the drug wars devastating impact on the Black community from decades of biased law enforcement.

The video traces the drug war from President Nixon to the draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws to the emerging aboveground marijuana market that is poised to make legal millions for wealthy investors doing the same thing that generations of people of color have been arrested and locked up for. After you watch the video, read on to learn more about the discriminatory history of the war on drugs.

The presidency of Ronald Reagan marked the start of a long period of skyrocketing rates of incarceration, largely thanks to his unprecedented expansion of the drug war. The number of people behind bars for nonviolent drug law offenses increased from 50,000 in 1980 to over 400,000 by 1997.

Public concern about illicit drug use built throughout the 1980s, largely due to media portrayals of people addicted to the smokeable form of cocaine dubbed crack. Soon after Ronald Reagan took office in 1981, his wife, Nancy Reagan, began a highly-publicized anti-drug campaign, coining the slogan "Just Say No."

This set the stage for the zero tolerance policies implemented in the mid-to-late 1980s. Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates, who believed that casual drug users should be taken out and shot, founded the DARE drug education program, which was quickly adopted nationwide despite the lack of evidence of its effectiveness. The increasingly harsh drug policies also blocked the expansion of syringe access programs and other harm reduction policies to reduce the rapid spread of HIV/AIDS.

In the late 1980s, a political hysteria about drugs led to the passage of draconian penalties in Congress and state legislatures that rapidly increased the prison population. In 1985, the proportion of Americans polled who saw drug abuse as the nation's "number one problem" was just 2-6 percent. The figure grew through the remainder of the 1980s until, in September 1989, it reached a remarkable 64 percent one of the most intense fixations by the American public on any issue in polling history. Within less than a year, however, the figure plummeted to less than 10 percent, as the media lost interest. The draconian policies enacted during the hysteria remained, however, and continued to result in escalating levels of arrests and incarceration.

Although Bill Clinton advocated for treatment instead of incarceration during his 1992 presidential campaign, after his first few months in the White House he reverted to the drug war strategies of his Republican predecessors by continuing to escalate the drug war. Notoriously, Clinton rejected a U.S. Sentencing Commission recommendation to eliminate the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sentences.

He also rejected, with the encouragement of drug czar General Barry McCaffrey, Health Secretary Donna Shalalas advice to end the federal ban on funding for syringe access programs. Yet, a month before leaving office, Clinton asserted in a Rolling Stone interview that "we really need a re-examination of our entire policy on imprisonment" of people who use drugs, and said that marijuana use "should be decriminalized."

At the height of the drug war hysteria in the late 1980s and early 1990s, a movement emerged seeking a new approach to drug policy. In 1987, Arnold Trebach and Kevin Zeese founded the Drug Policy Foundation describing it as the loyal opposition to the war on drugs. Prominent conservatives such as William Buckley and Milton Friedman had long advocated for ending drug prohibition, as had civil libertarians such as longtime ACLU Executive Director Ira Glasser. In the late 1980s they were joined by Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke, Federal Judge Robert Sweet, Princeton professor Ethan Nadelmann, and other activists, scholars and policymakers.

In 1994, Nadelmann founded The Lindesmith Center as the first U.S. project of George Soros Open Society Institute. In 2000, the growing Center merged with the Drug Policy Foundation to create the Drug Policy Alliance.

George W. Bush arrived in the White House as the drug war was running out of steam yet he allocated more money than ever to it. His drug czar, John Walters, zealously focused on marijuana and launched a major campaign to promote student drug testing. While rates of illicit drug use remained constant, overdose fatalities rose rapidly.

The era of George W. Bush also witnessed the rapid escalation of the militarization of domestic drug law enforcement. By the end of Bush's term, there were about 40,000 paramilitary-style SWAT raids on Americans every year mostly for nonviolent drug law offenses, often misdemeanors. While federal reform mostly stalled under Bush, state-level reforms finally began to slow the growth of the drug war.

Politicians now routinely admit to having used marijuana, and even cocaine, when they were younger. When Michael Bloomberg was questioned during his 2001 mayoral campaign about whether he had ever used marijuana, he said, "You bet I did and I enjoyed it." Barack Obama also candidly discussed his prior cocaine and marijuana use: "When I was a kid, I inhaled frequently that was the point."

Public opinion has shifted dramatically in favor of sensible reforms that expand health-based approaches while reducing the role of criminalization in drug policy.

Marijuana reform has gained unprecedented momentum throughout the Americas. Alaska, California, Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and theDistrict of Columbia have legalized marijuana for adults. In December 2013, Uruguay became the first country in the world to legally regulate marijuana. Canada legalized marijuana for adults in 2018.

In response to a worsening overdose epidemic, dozens of U.S. states passed laws to increase access to the overdose antidote, naloxone, as well as 911 Good Samaritan laws to encourage people to seek medical help in the event of an overdose.

Yet the assault on American citizens and others continues, with 700,000 people still arrested for marijuana offenses each year and almost 500,000 people still behind bars for nothing more than a drug law violation.

President Obama, despite supporting several successful policy changes such as reducing the crack/powder sentencing disparity, ending the ban on federal funding for syringe access programs, and ending federal interference with state medical marijuana laws did not shift the majority of drug policy funding to a health-based approach.

The Trump administration threatened to take us backward toward a 1980s-style drug war. President Trump started building a wall to keep drugs out of the country, and called for harsher sentences for drug law violations and the death penalty for people who sell drugs. He also resurrected disproven just say no messaging aimed at youth.

2020 brought the additional challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic a public health crisis that exposed the systemic issues within our society and revealed just how deeply the drug war permeates these systems. People who interact with these systems are unable to take the most basic of steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19 including those in jail or prison, the homeless, people with substance use disorder, those who rely on access to medication-assisted treatment or medical marijuana, and immigrants. During this crisis, it is harder for them to engage in social distancing, and to access necessary medication assisted treatment such as methadone or buprenorphine, or medical marijuana as well as other health and harm reduction resources.

Despite these obstacles, we at the Drug Policy Alliance pushed forward with monumental drug policy reforms in the 2020 elections.In a historic, paradigm-shifting win and arguably the biggest blow to the war on drugs to date,Oregon voters passed Measure 110, the nations first all-drug decriminalization measure.This confirms a substantial shift in public support in favor of treating drug use with health services rather than with criminalization.

Marijuana reform also won big.Voters in Arizona, New Jersey, Montana, and South Dakota passed measures to legalize marijuana for adult use. It was also a historic year for medical marijuana, with victories in Mississippi and South Dakota.

All across the country, in liberal states and conservative ones, people made their voices heard. And they said loud and clear that it is time to end the drug war.

Now Joe Biden is President of the United States and with every new administration brings new opportunities.

Biden has stated that it was a mistake to support legislation that ramped up the drug war and increased incarceration, including the '94 crime bill, when he was in the U.S. Senate. He now says we need a compassionate approach to problematic drug use.

At the Drug Policy Alliance, we agree. And were ready to make change. We look forward to working together on a humane approach to drugs that reduces the role of criminalization and increases access to health based treatment and harm reduction services for people who need them.

We look forward to a future where drug policies are shaped by science and compassion rather than political hysteria.

Learn about DPA's victories in marijuana reform, criminal justice reform, and harm reduction.

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A History of the Drug War | Drug Policy Alliance

The punitive, prohibitionist war on drugs helped prolong Colombias disastrous civil war, the countrys truth commission has found, in a landmark report published on Tuesday as part of an effort to heal the raw wounds left by conflict.

The report, titled There is a future if there is truth was the first instalment of a study put together by the commission that was formed as part of a historic 2016 peace deal with the leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc).

That deal formally ended five decades of civil war that killed more than 260,000 people and forced seven million from their homes. Other leftist rebel groups, state-aligned paramilitaries and Colombias security forces contributed to the bloodshed, with atrocities committed on all sides.

The violence has affected all sectors of Colombian society from political and business elites to rural peasant farmers with drug money funding insurgents, paramilitaries and corrupt politicians. The poorest farmers have often been forced either economically or at the barrel of a gun to grow coca, the base ingredient used to make cocaine.

But the report found that the union of the interests of United States and Colombia led to the construction of Plan Colombia, a massive multibillion-dollar military aid programme that began in 2000, which merged together the counter-insurgency, anti-terrorist and anti-narcotics programmes with the war against narco-terrorism.

The report found that a substantial change in drug policy should be implemented and that a transition to the regulation of drug markets should follow, while also placing some of the blame at the US, who funded Colombias armed forces during the war.

We cannot postpone, as we did after millions of victims, the day when peace is a duty and a mandatory right, as expressed in our constitution, said Francisco de Roux, the truth commissions president at a ceremony in Bogot.

The report called for major changes to Colombias military and police forces, which have received more than $8bn from the US over the past two decades.

It said the militarys objectives should be re-evaluated and all human rights violations committed by security forces should be tried by civilian courts instead of falling under the military justice system.

Like many victims of the conflict, ngela Mara Escobar celebrated the launch of the report as a chance for Colombia to heal after decades of bitter war. Escobar survived sexual violence at the hands of members of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (or AUC), a now-defunct rightwing paramilitary organisation.

Its vital that all Colombians, and the whole world, truly understand what happened during the conflict, which affected so many families and so much of society, said Escobar, who now runs an organisation for female victims of the conflict.

The report also made policy recommendations which could be picked up by the incoming administration of president-elect Gustavo Petro, including reforming the armed forces, the creation of a ministry for reconciliation, and the protection of human rights defenders from political violence.

Petro the first leftist ever elected head of state in Colombia will take office on 7 August. He was a guerrilla fighter with the M-19 militia in his youth and is a firm supporter of the peace process with the Farc.

The leftwing firebrand attended the launch ceremony in Bogot on Tuesday morning, along with his vice president-elect, Francia Mrquez, who was forced to flee her home during the conflict. She will be the first black woman to fill the post.

Outgoing president Ivn Duque, a sceptic of the deal who has been accused of slow-walking its implementation to undermine it, was in Portugal for the United Nations ocean conference.

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War on drugs prolonged Colombias decades-long civil war, landmark report finds - The Guardian

In 2014, a Phoenix cop killed 34-year-oldRumain Brisbon. Police got a tip that Brisbon was selling drugs, so they went to find him. When Brisbon tried to pull what officers said they thought was a gun from his pocket, they opened fire. Only he didn't have a gun at all just a bottle of oxycodone.

This is not an unusual story for anyone paying attention to the news in America over the last 50 years. Brisbon was one of countless casualties of our ill-conceived War on Drugs. We occasionally catch the names of collateral damage Breonna Tayloris a notable example but for the most part, we've accepted the constant buzz of unnecessary assault, state-sanctioned home invasions, robbery and death as background noise. The War on Drugs is awar,after all, and we can't be expected to monitor every injustice in war,can we?

By now, it is widely accepted that the American drug war has been a colossal failure. Mainstream conservatives like theKoch brothersadmit that our continued obsession with drug crime has had "huge negative manifestations, not only for the individuals who get trapped in that system, but also for society." Even the most fringeGOP fascist looniesnow support legalization of cannabis. Maybe, just maybe, we'll see drug incarceration ratescontinue to fall.

Ah, but the prisons are still standing, and the prisons demand bodies.

But do we think these bodies, without more, will meet the needs of the insatiable criminal-industrial complex? Surely not.

Enter the War on Abortion. Elective abortion is now functionally illegal in more than 20 states. In those states, the mechanisms used to keep providers in check will be those we utilize to deal with all other crimes: police, courts and prisons. At a bare minimum, we can expect that those caught aiding and abetting anyone who seeks abortion care will have their houses raided by SWAT teams, their personal effects scattered about, their bodiestwisted and mangled, theirpets killedand their freedom summarily revoked. The patients themselves are not safe either, no matter how much mainstream anti-choice groups claim they have "never advocated for penalties for women." Women have already been charged with murder, feticide and manslaughter for miscarriages. We'll see more of that.

RELATED:What the anti-abortion movement wants next and how we can respond

But do we think these bodies, without more, will meet the needs of the insatiable criminal-industrial complex? Surely not. A War on Abortion, like a War on Drugs, is an ever-expanding concept, something that adapts to claim as many victims as possible. Even now, the idea that IUDs and Plan B should fall into the category of "abortion" has worked itself intomainstream conservative thought. And if those are valid targets of the War on Abortion, why not synthetic estrogen and progesterone pills? Why not spermicidal lubricant? Why not barrier methods like diaphragms and condoms? Why notonanism?

God forbid the feds get in on this, but if the GOP ever takes control of both houses of Congress again, that's exactly what will happen. Now that the courts are out of the way, nothing would stop a Republican Congress from passing a 50-state ban on abortion that will supersede whatever "safe harbor" laws blue states put in place. Then the anti-choice movement will have fully coopted the machinery used to create so much misery during the Drug War era. You can be sure they will use it. Perhaps the FBI will form an Abortion Crimes Task Force. Perhaps the Customs and Border Patrol will establish an elite Abortion Travel Enforcement unit. Perhaps an entirely new agency, like the DEA, will be necessary to police all the "abortion" happening everywhere a Reproduction Enforcement Agency.

RELATED:How will laws against abortion be enforced? Other countries offer chilling examples

Like their drug warrior predecessors, these abortion warriors will make sure the prisons stay full for yet another generation.

A new war on American soil will help ensure the continued employment of the boys in blue, too. If millions of law enforcement officers could be conscripted into kicking in doors to private homes and killing people over a bag of marijuana or a bottle of Xanax, it should be even easier to find soldiers for the War on Abortion. What more noble cause could there be than saving innocent babies? Like their drug-warrior predecessors, these abortion warriors will make sure the prisons stay full for yet another generation.

Back in 1989, Justice Thurgood Marshalldenouncedwhat he called the "drug exception to the Constitution," referring to the idea that the courts tend to turn the other way when individuals fall victim to the nebulous crusade of the War on Drugs. The Bill of Rights, international human rights standards, our communities' norms and mores, any basic notions of decency; these are all pushed aside to make way for the mass grave we've dug in the name of stamping out narcotics. There is every reason to think that the same atrocities and worse will happen when the government fully commits to the War on Abortion. There is no fantasy too dystopian, no prediction too bleak, no outlook too pessimistic for what lies ahead.

RELATED:The end of Roe v. Wade: American democracy is collapsing

The cop who shot Rumain Brisbon never faced criminal charges for his death. I never heard Brisbon's name until I sat down to write this, or if I did, I don't remember it. I likely will have forgotten it again by next week. When the War on Abortion claims its casualties from the periphery of what reasonable people might call "abortion," will we care any more than we did during the War on Drugs? When the 100th person is shot grasping a bottle of birth control pills, will we remember her name? It seems unlikely.

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The right's war on abortion will become the new War on Drugs - Salon

MANILA, Philippines Developments continue to unfold at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in relation to the killings under the violent war on drugs, a key policy under outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte.

Government data shows that at least 6,252 people have died at the hands of the police during anti-illegal drug operations as of May 31, 2022. This tally does not include victims of vigilante-style killings, which human rights groups estimate to pull the number up to around 30,000.

Documents obtained by Rappler, however, show that the Philippine National Police (PNP) already recorded 7,884 deaths between July 1, 2016 to August 31, 2020.

Families, human rights groups, and other stakeholders bank on the ICC to bring justice to the thousands of victims, as domestic mechanisms prove to be ineffective in what appears to be a futile quest for accountability.

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR), mandated by the 1987 Philippine Constitution to investigate state abuses, was stonewalled by the Duterte government in its own probes a recurring treatment even among other groups that try to assist families of victims.

What has happened with the ICC proceedings so far? Rappler lists key events involving the ICC and Dutertes war on drugs. We will update this timeline as new information comes in.

Then-ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda says her office is keeping an eye on the incidents in the Philippines as the number of deaths in drug war operations continues to rise almost four months into the Duterte administration.

In a statement, she says her office will be closely following the developments and record any instance of incitement or resort to violence with a view to assessing whether a preliminary examination into the situation of the Philippines needs to be opened.

Without naming any official, Bensouda also warns that any person in the Philippines who incites or engages in acts of mass violence including by ordering, requesting, encouraging or contributing, in any other manner, to the commission of crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC is potentially liable to prosecution before the Court.

Duterte threatens to withdraw the Philippines from being a member-state of the ICC.

He calls the international court useless, saying it really is unable to help small countries. This would be the first of many instances when the President would publicly threaten and insult the ICC, including its officials.

Filipino lawyer Jude Sabio files a communication before the ICC over the repeatedly, unchangingly, and continuously mass murder in the Philippines.

He requests the court to commit [Duterte] and his senior government officials to the Trial Chamber for trial and that the Trial Chamber in turn, after trial, convict them and sentence them to corresponding prison sentence or life imprisonment.

Sabio was the lawyer of self-confessed Davao Death Squad (DDS) member Edgar Matobato, who was the first to publicly come out to accuse Duterte of being behind the killings in Davao City as mayor.

In the documents filed, Sabio says he has direct proof beyond reasonable doubt that Duterte continued these killings at the national level.

Sabio would later withdraw his communication in January 2020, but experts point out this will not affect the ongoing proceedings. He dies on April 12, 2021 due to cardiac arrest.

Then-senator Antonio Trillanes IV and Magdalo representative Gary Alejano file supplemental communication before the ICC urging Bensouda to initiate a preliminary examination to provide a glimmer of hope for the thousands of victims that Dutertes impunity would soon end.

The 45-page document the two submitted highlight Dutertes violent rhetoric, including various pronouncements in which he ordered the killings of suspected drug personalities.

The ICC Office of the Prosecutor announces that it has initiated a preliminary examination to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to establish that the case falls under the courts jurisdiction.

In a statement, Bensouda says her office has decided to pursue this move following a careful, independent, and impartial review of communications and reports documenting alleged crimes.

Then-presidential spokesperson Harry Roque says Duterte welcomes this move because he is sick and tired of being accused of thecommission of crimes against humanity.

Duterte announces that the Philippines will withdraw as a member-state of the ICC. In a written statement, the President says he is withdrawing [the countrys] ratification of the Rome Statute effective immediately.

But the Rome Statute, the ICCs founding document, explicitly states that withdrawal shall only take effect one year after the date of receipt of the notification. Ceasing to be a member-state will also not affect criminal investigations and proceedings that have been started before the withdrawal came into effect.

The Philippine government formally submits to the United Nations its written notice of withdrawal from the ICC. In the letter, the government says its decision to withdraw reflects the countrys principled stand against those who politicize and weaponize human rights.

The transmission of the letter officially triggers the one-year waiting period before the withdrawal takes effect.

Families of drug war victims, through another submitted communication, urge then-ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda to indict and eventually convict Duterte.

The families, convened under the Rise Up for Life and for Rights network, call for an end to madness and for [Duterte], who has likened himself to one of the most evil men in history, to be brought before the ICC and be held to account for crimes against humanity.

The human rights abuses under his administration threaten the core principles of humanity itself, subsuming individual victim experiences, and even state borders, the families add.

The Philippines officially ceases to be a member-state of the ICC, a year after the Duterte government first gave notice of its withdrawal as signatory to the Rome Statute.

While withdrawing does not hinder the ICC from moving forward with possible proceedings, it will most likely make things difficult for investigators, especially in terms of getting cooperation from the Philippine government.

Then-ICC prosecutor Bensouda says she aims to finalize her preliminary examination by 2020 so her office can reach a decision on whether to seek [authorization] to open an investigation into the situation in the Philippines.

In a report, Bensouda says her office significantly advanced its assessment since 2018, adding that they continue to monitor the situation, including reports of threats and harassment against human rights defenders.

Arturo Lascaas, former Davao City top cop and self-confessed DDS hitman, signs a Third Agreement on Limited Use of Information with the ICC. The document shows that the ICC Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) will not use as evidence against Lascaas his confessions about carrying out killings ordered by Duterte himself.

This is unprecedented and considered a first in Philippine history. International human rights lawyer Ruben Carranza says this move is a form of use immunity, while former ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo says the document means that the OTP is treating the witness as an insider, although he could also be a suspect.

This development, however, only becomes public in November 2021, as part of Rapplers investigation into Duterte and the Davao Death Squad.

Bensouda says there is reasonable basis to believe that crimes against humanity were committed in the Philippines in connection with Dutertes war on drugs. These incidents, she points out in a report, occurred at least between July 1, 2016 to March 16, 2019 a day before the Philippines withdrawal from the ICC took effect.

Her office, however, is yet to reach a decision on whether to seek permission to open a formal investigation, given the challenges brought about by restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic.

Families of drug war victims call on the ICC to hold Duterte accountable for allegedly impeding justice, including instances when he repeatedly threatened Bensouda and the court.

In a supplemental pleading submitted to Bensouda, mothers represented by the National Union of Peoples Lawyers say Duterte should be held accountable for his blatant attempt to pervert the course of justice by intimidating and retaliating against the officials of the [ICC].

The Supreme Court junks a petition questioning the validity of Dutertes withdrawal from the ICC, including whether he is legally required to get the concurrence of the Senate in doing such act.

The High Court, voting unanimously, dismisses the petition because it has become moot and academic.

It, however, says the government is obliged to cooperate with the ICC even if it has already withdrawn, according to the full document released months after on July 21, 2021. Despite this, Malacaang remains firm in its decision not to cooperate.

Then-ICC prosecutor Bensouda applies for authorization with the pre-trial chamber to open an investigation into the killings committed during the war on drugs and in Davao City from 2011 to 2016.

Bensouda, in a report, says extrajudicial killings, perpetrated across the Philippines, appear to have been committed pursuant to an official State policy of the Philippine government.

This move comes a day before Bensouda, who has been publicly threatened by Duterte, retires from the ICC on June 15. She is replaced by Karim Khan, who has extensive experience working in international criminal tribunals.

Families of drug war victims earlier call on Bensouda to issue a warrant of arrest against President Rodrigo Duterte and hold him while trial is ongoing.

The ICCs pre-trial chamber greenlights the investigation into Dutertes war on drugs and killings in Davao City between 2011 and 2016.

In the decision, ICC judges conclude that there is a reasonable basis for the Prosecutor to proceed with an investigation, in the sense that the crime against humanity of murder appears to have been committed.

The chamber also observes that it is also apparent that killings took place pursuant or in furtherance of a state policy.

New ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, who succeeded Bensouda, urges the Duterte government to cooperate with his office in the conduct of an investigation into the killings under the war on drugs, as well as those committed in Davao City between 2011 and 2016.

In a statement, Khan says he remains willing to constructively engage with national authorities in accordance with the principle of complementarity and our obligations under the Statute.

The investigation, he adds, seeks to uncover the truth and aims to ensure accountability, as well as focus their efforts to ensure a successful, independent, and impartial investigation.

The Duterte government formally requests the ICC to stop the ongoing investigation into the Philippine situation.

Through a letter signed by Philippine Ambassador to the Netherlands J. Eduardo Malaya, the government avails of an option available under the Rome Statute which allows it to ask the Prosecutor to defer the probe and recognize working domestic mechanisms.

ICC Prosecutor Khan announces that his office will temporarily suspend its investigation into the drug war killings in the Philippines but assures the public they will continue its analysis of information already in its possession as well as new information it may receive.This move to pause the probe is a matter of procedure.

ICC Prosecutor Khan says they will ask the Duterte administration for proof that it is genuinely investigating the killings under the violent war on drugs.

In a statement, he says that such information must consist of tangible evidence, of probative value and a sufficient degree of specificity, demonstrating that concrete and progressive investigative steps have been or are currently being undertaken to ascertain the responsibility of persons for alleged conduct falling within the scope of the authorized ICC investigation.

Khan files a request before the ICC pre-trial chamber seeking to resume his offices investigation into the killings under Dutertes war on drugs and those committed in Davao City between 2011 and 2016. In a 53-page document, Khan says information collated by his office does not demonstrate that concrete and progressive steps have been taken or are being taken by the competent national authorities.

He adds that the government failed to show that any individual has been probed for ordering, planning, or instigating the killings. He also says there is no indication that domestic authorities are investigating the alleged systematic nature of these and other killings.

Khan also says the inter-agency drug war review panel does not appear to possess powers or authority independent of the [Department of Justice] or have any specific investigative function. What the DOJ-led panel did appears to be a mere desk review that by itself does not constitute investigative activity.

In response, Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra says he respects Khans view but that he should have waited for our efforts to bear some fruit.

He added: An investigation of this magnitude and complexity cannot be finished in a few months. Rappler.com

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TIMELINE: The International Criminal Court and Duterte's bloody war on drugs - Rappler

For millennia, drugs such as marijuana, magic mushrooms, MDMA, and more, have been used recreationally throughout the world, with many different benefits. But since former President Ronald Reagan's War on Drugs, the world of narcotics and other recreational substances has not only been illegal but has also had negative connotations. Unfortunately, this meant that such substances were not being used even in the beneficial ways they could have been. There are many potential outcomes and uses that such substances could have for the better, like treating anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but because of their legality, scientific research in that field was nearly nonexistent until recently. There has been a rise in the understanding that such drugs don't only cause harm and addiction, as has been portrayed to us by our governments for many years, but rather that they have the potential to alleviate pains and cure people from various diseases and illnesses when used correctly. Many Israeli startups are acting fast on these studies, looking to become the first of their kind to invent breakthrough treatments for patients with various conditions, using safe combinations of illegal substances. Here are just a few:

The female reproductive system is quite complex, and many women suffer from various gynecological diseases and hardships, such as endometriosis, PMS, dysmenorrhoea, menopause, and more. Gynica is an Israeli startup that develops medical treatments using cannabis to target these female gynecological problems. For example, endometriosis is a chronic condition causing severe pain and discomfort as the endometrial tissue grows outside of the uterus in the abdominal cavity or internal organs during the menstrual cycle. This causes inflammation and many more issues other than just pain and discomfort such as bowel and urinary disorders, dyspareunia (painful sex), and neuropathy. Endometriosis is the leading cause of infertility and early hysterectomies and affects around 200 million women worldwide. There is currently no known cause of endometriosis as well as no known cure. The current treatments are anti-inflammatory drugs, surgeries, and hormones which often cause a decrease in quality of life. Deriving active and distinct ingredients from the cannabis plant, Gynica looks to treat endometriosis without the adverse side effects the anti-inflammatory drugs have using one of two products: a vaginal suppository or a lubricant gel. These products are a promising solution for women hoping to ease their symptoms; it is the cannabis plant, that has been frowned upon for so many years, that will bring these women comfort.

Gynica was founded in 2017 by Yotam Hod (CEO) and Dor Hershovitz. With a total of ten employees, the rest of their team consists of Dr. Sari Prutchi Sagiv (VP R&D), Haim Barsimantov (CTO), Lenore Shoham (Managing Director), and Meredith Rose Burak (Director of Global Relations). Gynica is based in Jerusalem and has raised over $5.5 million to date through Tikun Olam Pharmaceuticals. Partnering with Asana Bio Group, who also own Lumir Lab, Gynica has currently completed the worlds first preclinical trial to identify the most effective cannabidiol to treat endometriosis patients. Their vaginal products are planned to be brought to market in the next year with the approval of the Israeli Ministry of Health.

Watching your loved one quickly slip away from the person they once were all because of a debilitating disease such as Alzheimers or dementia; the onset of such illnesses makes both patients and their loved ones feel helpless, especially because there are no known cures. Dementia and Alzheimer's are damaging, chronic, and life-altering brain diseases that impair the ability to remember, think or make day-to-day life decisions. Additionally, patients can have difficulty speaking, and a hard time expressing thoughts, reading, or writing, and they often find themselves wandering and getting lost even in a familiar neighbourhood. Ixtlan Bioscience is a biotech company focusing on developing psilocybin-based (a substance found in magic mushrooms) treatments which are administered in micro-doses aimed at remedial treatment of Alzheimers Disease. Their patent-pending Ixtlan AD Kit is meant for at-home use. Psilocybin agonists such as 5-HT2A enhance the power of gamma-frequency (an indicator in humans of a healthy brain and communication channel involving attention and memory), which emphasizes the role it can have in reducing focal Alzheimers and dementia. Psilocybin has also been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties. Ixtlan Bioscience intends for everyone to benefit from safe and accessible psilocybin medicine, hence their push for an at-home kit. The Ixtlan AD kit consists of micro-dosing of encapsulated 5HT2A receptors in 1/10th of a dose, explicit use protocol, games/exercises which are tailored for different levels of cognitive impairment, an application that monitors the patient, and a home test for detecting psilocybin metabolites concentrations. This also provides data on the individual and the effects the drug is having on their therapeutic power. The benefit of an at-home kit reduces the cost for the patient as they do not need a one-on-one setting with a therapist or doctor and don't have to waste time in a designed clinic. Because of the tiny dose (1/10th), the patient is not cognitively or physically impaired, so they can still carry out day-to-day tasks and resume normal daily activities. Ixtlan Bioscience hopes to provide a glimpse of hope for patients and their loved ones dealing with memory-altering diseases.

Ixtlan Bioscience was founded in 2020 by Yehonatan Cavens (CEO), Ana Parabucki, Ph.D. (Chief Scientist), and Itamar Borochov (COO). Other members of the team include Ori Liraz, Ph.D. (Scientific Advisory), and Christopher Freeman, MD (Scientific Advisory). Ixtlan Bioscience has conducted various clinical trials from pre-clinical, to phase 2 and has had many collaborations with major academic research institutions in Israel, the UK, Portugal, Spain, the U.S., Germany, and Australia.

The COVID-19 pandemic is still here, and some patients of it have been plagued with long-term symptoms relating to it. Though the virus affects the body in numerous ways, the lungs are the most affected organ; this can cause further lung complications such as pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and more. As the viruss effect on the lungs is severe, it can often lead to lung infections that can cause problems to the central nervous system (the spinal cord and the brain). For example, abnormalities in ventilation and gas exchange can lead to lung infections such as hypercapnia/hypocapnia, hypoxia, and respiratory acidosis/alkalosis. These infections can lead to neurologic dysfunction that can sometimes be permanent and life changing. Innocan Pharma is an Israeli cannabis pharmaceutical company developing products of cannabinoids combined with smart delivery formulations. They provide data that meets global standards for safe cannabis-infused medication for patients suffering from illnesses negatively impacting their lungs. Innocan has partnered with Ramot, the team at Tel Aviv University led by Prof. Daniel Often, to create a revolutionary approach to treat COVID-19 by using Cannabidiol. The collaboration is set to produce CBD-Loaded Exosomes that will be administered by inhalation. These allow the potential to provide a highly synergistic effect to help the recovery of infected lung cells and reduce inflammation, since not only do exosomes contain anti-inflammatory agents, but they are also reported to repair tissue damage.

Innocan Pharma was founded in 2017 in Herzliya by Yoram Drucker (VP of Business Development) and Ron Mayron (Executive Chairman). To carry out the collaboration, Innocan Pharma has been granted $450,000 in funds. Innocan Pharma has also signed a worldwide exclusive licensing agreement with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem to develop a CBD drug administered by injection based on liposomes. The company has also investigated products infused with cannabis to treat psoriasis symptoms, muscle pain, and rheumatic pain. Currently, their muscle relief gel is available to the public, while all other products are in trial phases.

Mental health manifests in different variations be it anxiety, depression, PTSD, or others. Psilocybin mushrooms have been shown to have positive effects in treating mental health disorders if they are used in the right wayin small doses. PsyRx safely administers a combination of two drugspsilocybin and ibogaine to help manage the symptoms of different mental disorders. They believe psychedelics are a major part of the solution for mental health and seek to improve current antidepressant treatments through micro-dosing. By using the micro-dosing method, the mushrooms do not cause a psychedelic episode, and patients can resume day-to-day tasks normally. Psilocybin is sourced from magic mushrooms and is shown to have a positive effect in treating depression, anxiety, addiction, and even PTSD. It is one of the two most used drugs in micro-dosing as small doses do not present any visual/perceptual changes. Moreover, ibogaine is the key psychoactive component of the Iboga plant. It is an anti-addiction drug and the main alkaloid of tabernanthe iboga, a shrub native to Central West Africa. While high doses include trance-like states (hallucinations, altered perception of time), low doses suppress appetites and increase feelings of euphoria. By combining the two drugs, PsyRx hopes to treat patients suffering from mental illnesses quickly and effectively within a day or two, rather than most drugs which take at least several weeks to kick in.

PsyRx was founded in 2019 by Itay Hecht (CEO), Kobi Buxdorf, PhD (CTO), and Asher Holzer, PhD (President). The rest of the team includes Noam Barnea-Ygael, Ph.D. (Research Officer), Jonathan Baram, Ph.D. (Lead Chemist), and Noam Permont (VP of Business Development, PR, and IR). PsyRx is currently going through trials at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI). PsyRx, which is located in Tel Aviv, has seven team members and ten employees.

Continuing the conversation on mental health, anxiety is one of the leading mental illnesses today, affecting over 275 million people worldwide. Anxiety for some comes in a form of heightened nervousness for short periods, which is relieved with time while for other patients it is not that simple. Often, anxiety leads to the feeling of being trapped in a whirlwind of fear and panic which causes a rapid heartbeat that for some, cannot be controlled. These episodes can be brought on spontaneously with no known reason and can last for minutes or even hours. Cannabis has been linked with positive effects on anxiety, movement disorders, and pain, and that is where StickIt Labs comes in. The Israeli startup has signed a cooperation agreement with Green Globes Hempacco to produce herb and hemp cigarettes or, cannabis sticks' ' which is a toothpick-like sticks of cannabis components that can be inserted easily into a cigarette. This ultimately aims to reduce anxiety, safely. The patented cannabis sticks contain CBD, but no THC which means that patients can use the sticks to relieve symptoms of their anxiety without feeling the effects of being high and thus do not impair their daily activities. StickIts sticks allow for accurately measured doses of cannabis in each stick, making them easier and safer to regulate.

StickIt Labs was founded in 2019 by Dr. Asher Holtzer (President). Eli Ben Arush serves as the CEO. StickIt Labs is a small business with only four employees, however, has received $750,000 in investment funds from GGII (Green Globe International). StickIt has recently launched on the Canadian Stock Exchange at a value of $50 million. They plan on expanding into different markets in America and Mexico.

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Israeli tech is taking a different stance on the War on Drugs - Geektime

Srinagar: War against drugs has entered a decisive phase after anti-narcotics agencies were able to reduce the poppy cultivation by over 75 percent in Kashmir.

For the last few years, the excise department has gone the whole hog against poppy cultivation. Poppy crop over thousands of kanals of land has been destroyed. Vulnerable areas were put under a scanner which has helped in curbing the menace.

Data accessed by The Kashmir Monitor reveal that the illegal cultivation of poppy has reduced from 2206 kanals in 2018 to mere 549 kanals in 2022.

As per the excise department, the poppy crops over 549 kanals of land have been successfully destroyed this year.

Illegal cultivation of poppy has been eliminated from Kupwara. However, Anantnag, Pulwama, Kulgam, and Shopian continue to have poppy fields. Nearly 430 kanals of land are under poppy cultivation.

In Anantnag, poppy cultivation over 206 kanals of land was destroyed. It was followed by Pulwama where crop spread over128 kanals of land was destroyed. Likewise, in Sjoppian, the crop spread over 40 kanals of land was destroyed. Poppy spread over 56 kanals of land was destroyed in Kulgam.

The excisedepartment destroyed the poppy cropover 21 kanals of land in Baramulla. In Bandipora, Srinagar, Budgam,and Ganderbal, the department destroyed poppy crops over 4,3,88 and 3 kanals, of land respectively.

Tahir Ajaz,Deputy Excise Commissioner (Executive) Kashmir told The Kashmir Monitor that the department is conducting a drive every year to eliminate the poppy cultivation in Kashmir.

The cultivation of poppy is banned in Jammu and Kashmir since 1959. Our employees destroy the crop in every district. We have entered a full elimination phase. We have succeeded in reducing the cultivation by 1/8thin the last few years, he said.

Ajaz said there was no more large-scale cultivation of poppy recorded in Kashmir now. Now, we are focusing on destroying the crop on small patches including lawns and kitchen gardens. Our employees survey a particular areaand accordingly destruction activity begins, he said.

Pertinently, the administration this year involved PRIs, village heads, and chowkidars in every tehsil to curb the menace of poppy cultivation. Religious scholars too were roped in to create awareness about the poppy in Kashmir.

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War on drugs: Poppy cultivation drops by 75% in Kashmir - The Kashmir Monitor - The Kashmir Monitor

The war on drugs is an everyday battle for those who are directly affected by it.

ALSO READ: Former addict commits to war against drugs

This war propelled a mother Lucille Pienaar to open a recovery centre where families and recovering addicts can receive support and care.

Germiston City Recovery and Care Centre was officially opened in April.

The centre offers stay-in facilities, support, treatment, and specialised aftercare.

Centre manager Elna Latchman says the objective is to address the need in the Ekurhuleni area, which is infested with drug and substance abuse.

There was a dire need for a rehabilitation centre, said Latchman.

The community has been very responsive and supportive of the centre. Many send their loved ones to the centre for help. We reached out to the schools in the area to offer our assistance and support, said Latchman.

ALSO READ: Hawks nab man in possession of drugs worth R600k

The centre offers an accredited programme that includes the 12-Step programme.

Medical assistance and guidance are also part of the package.

They have a full-time doctor, nurse, psychologist and counsellors on standby to assist.

Latchman said the rehabilitation of drug and substance abuse is costly, hence some people dont get the chance to get clean.

The effects of Covid have not made it easy for families to get help for their loved ones because of loss of employment.

Drug addiction affects the family, community and society emotionally, financially and physically, said Latchman.

The addict must have the desire to get clean. The family must be prepared to assist or support the addict through the process of recovery. Dealing with the recovery of an addict has to be done holistically, said Latchman.

ALSO READ: Ekurhuleni committee commits to combat drug abuse

She said that sometimes families get left behind during recovery and when an addict is discharged, they are not sure how to offer support.

Our support groups help the family and friends to understand that they too need help in coping with the emotional journey of living with an addict, said Latchman.

She said they opened their doors because they have seen the demand and need from the Germiston community for help.

The centre established the Real Campaign to raise funds for rehabilitation.

Those who need assistance can contact Elna Latchman at 072 935 0320 or 011 826 6026.

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Germinston centre on war with drugs - Germiston City News

It seems that every large city in America has marked off a neighbourhood where drug addicts are free to die in the streets. San Franciscos Tenderloin district, downtown Portland, Skid Row in Los Angeles, Hunts Point in New York, Kensington in Philadelphia: These are places where, by unspoken agreement between society and its outcasts, the normal rules cease to apply and the bodies are collected.

Where its warm enough, people sleep in tents or on the streets. Drugs and sex are openly sold and laws are enforced erratically. The result, which I observed during a 2019 trip toSkid Row, was a hellish concentration of deprivation and disorder, interspersed with a concentrated complex of non-profit and social service organisations.

What was already hellish was made even worse in recent years by the rapid spread of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid some 50 times more potent than heroin. Driven largely by fentanyl, which is now used to cut virtually every other drug, overdoses set a new record in the US in 2021, killing nearly 108,000 people. Up roughly 15% over 2020s record death toll, overdoses killed more people last year than guns and cars combined. In San Francisco, an average of 53 people died every month from overdoses last year, many of them outdoors and on sidewalks in front of buildings.

Before the fentanyl spike, overdoses had been rising in the US for the past two decades while raising little public alarm. But now, with the scale of deaths being declared an emergency and health epidemic, public officials are embracing supposedly radical new solutions to the problem, the most popular of which is harm reduction.

Harm reduction promises reasonableness. Rather than trying to eradicate drug use, the public-health framework, which has been embraced by the White House and cities across America, works to reduce risks by prioritising the safety of individuals over curing social ills. The point is to meet people where they are, according to advocates, not to change them. Its appeal is that it is humane and takes the opposite approach of the failed war on drugs. But thats only part of the story.

Look through the harm-reduction telescope and you glimpse the grand project of the therapeutic society that animates modern progressivism. At one end the individual is seen in minimalist terms, powerless to control their own desires, a victim of systemic forces far beyond their ability to resist. Look through the other end, and you find a maximalist view of the state in which a vast apparatus of administrators surveil and treat citizen-patients based on vague definitions of wellness and harm.

Look back in time, and the rise of harm reduction from the work of devoted activists to the official policy of the federal government traces a larger transformation in American politics. It is a project, in short, of the same political forces who want to defund the police, while empowering a surveillance and enforcement regime that punishes people for making sexist Facebook comments.

While harm reduction has been an official policy for decades in a number of European countries, its expansion in the US, where it began as a grassroots movement during the AIDS crisis in the Eighties, is a more recent phenomenon. San Francisco was an early adopter. In 2000, the citys Health Commission unanimously voted to adopt a harm reduction policy for drug offences. The city effectively decriminalised drug use while at the same time shifting public funding away from enforcement and toward providing clean needles, distributing the drug naloxone, which can reverse opioid overdoses, and offering methadone and other drug treatment plans. In 2020, San Francisco led the country in overdose deaths.

Last year, New York City allowed the opening of two safe injection sites, a term for facilities where drug users can consume their wares under the supervision of a mix of medical professionals and former addicts who can intervene and revive them if they overdose. The clinics have intervened in more than 300 potentially fatal overdoses since they opened, according to staffers. Despite the sites being illegal under federal law, city officials have allowed them to operate without interference, setting a precedent for other cities to follow.

New Yorks experiment follows the three-decade harm reduction trial in Canada, which includes the establishment in 2003 of the Insite safe injection facility in Vancouver. While advocates point to the number of overdoses averted and reversed at these facilities, its possible that the policy led to more overall use, potentially contributing to more overdoses outside the clinics than lives saved within it. In British Columbia overdose deaths were up 151% between 2008 and 2020, with much of the increase coming from Vancouver. In Oregon, another place where hard drugs were decriminalised in 2020, overdose deaths were up 41%, in 2021 from 2020, compared to a 16% increase nationwide.

Some harm reduction programs such as needle exchanges, fentanyl testing strips, and free testing kits for HIV, appear to have been broadly beneficial. But in the absence of a commitment to the full recovery of individuals, harm reduction morphs into a permanent method of managing chronic drug addiction by expanding the nonprofit-bureaucratic sector. Administrators count lives saved and ODs reversed without registering the broader increase in addiction they help to accommodate. Success is measured not by freeing individuals from addiction so they can live full lives, but by the growth of the treatment bureaucracy.

General Jeff, a black community activist who has lived in Skid Row for a decade described a similar dynamic in the approach to homelessness when I spoke with him a few years ago. Theres never been a shortage of funding in modern-day Skid Row, Jeff told me, blasting the areas nonprofits as poverty pimps. This isnt really about trying to end homelessness. Thats just a marketing campaign. Just to make people outside of Skid Row feel good.

Bureaucracy, wrote Christopher Lasch in The Culture of Narcissism, transforms collective grievances into personal problems amenable to therapeutic intervention. Lasch does not pretend that individual moral accountability is sufficient to redress collective grievances or systemic injustices, but nor does he attempt to dismiss it as an anachronism. Morality grounds the sense of dignity and self-worth that provide us with our best internal defence against the unavoidable calamities of fortune. It is not a replacement but a precondition for a meaningful politics of collective action. The transformation observed by Lasch has repurposed the minimalist do no harm ethos as a maximalist licence to redesign society.

Harm reduction was never just about the drugs or the deaths or the diseases, wrote Daniel Raymond, a policy and planning leader at the Harm Reduction Coalition, in a March 2020 essay on Harm Reduction in the Time of the Coronavirus. Rather, writes Raymond in the morally inflationary language used by activists staking out a claim to administrative power, harm reduction is heir to the multiple legacies of the communities and struggles we come from the hybrid wisdom that emerges from communal survival in the face of threats of being dispossessed, disenfranchised, displaced, disappeared.

Because harm can be found anywhere, harm reduction now appears everywhere. The framework is applied to criminal justice, diet and exercise, prostitution, curbing adults sexual attraction to minors otherwise known as paedophilia and a range of other seemingly unrelated fields. Harm reduction, as a framework, acknowledges that white supremacy, patriarchy, classism, fatmisia, transmisia, ableism, xenophobia, and myriad other systems of oppression infuse space and structures and are a part of our socialisation, wrote the authors of an academic journal article on Observing Whiteness in Introductory Physics in March.

The essential alchemy of progressivism is performed by converting drug addiction from a vice afflicting individuals, which they have the power to change, into the basis of an identity group with a claim to government services. The collective grievances relating to the social and economic policies that might have pushed hundreds of thousands of people into drug dependency are first privatised through addiction and then bureaucratised so they can be managed by a class of appointed supervisors. In turn, the power of the bureaucracy is redirected from enforcing behavioural norms to overseeing the consequences of their dismantling.

This transformation is consummated with a novel language that marks the new political identity within the lexicon of professional progressivism. Following the lead of those in harm-reduction and drug-users rights groups, I decide to scrub the word addict from my vocabulary, wrote Sarah Resnick in a piece featured in The Best American Essays 2017 anthology. As alternatives to addict, Resnick finds: person with a substance-misuse disorder; person experiencing a drug problem; person who uses drugs habitually; and person committed to drug use.

The stiltedness of the language would be a small price to pay if harm reduction policies reduced drug dependency but since its not clear thats the case, the effort turns on trying to alter language and perception. Dont be ashamed you are using, be empowered that you are using safely, declared a poster by the New York City Health Department that recently appeared in the subway system. Shame is a useless emotion that often keeps ppl from investing in themselves or others. We should be celebrating ppl who are taking the steps in this poster, tweeted Kassandra Frederique, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, one of the leading drug policy reform organisations in the US. Frederiques statement was retweeted by a spokesman for the New York City Department of Health.

Instead of fostering the behaviour necessary to give someone a genuine sense of self-worth a project that may well be beyond the power of anyone but the individual and their maker harm reduction converts the bare physicality of safety into the cheap currency of empowerment. The message presumes that addicts would not and should not feel shame for their dependency absent external judgements. It minimises the ravages attendant to drug addiction such as criminality, homelessness, despair and decay by framing them as the consequences of unsafe practices, without any connection to the spiritual poverty of dependency. In the religious and humanistic view, shame is the voice of the individuals conscience. Others may seek to shame us, but true shame arises only when the individual has transgressed against their own innate sense of decency. But the conscience has no place in the maximalist world view of the harm reductionists, except as a relic of the retrograde morality that prevents addicts from experiencing empowerment.

At what end is the policy of harm reduction aimed? The war on drugs promised end point was, obviously, unreachable, but the harm-reduction crusade has no ending at all except the construction of a new system of power, no less punitive than the one it seeks to replace.

Many people seem to have accepted that harm reduction efforts are a temporary life-saving measure a way of buying time for people caught in a cycle of addiction while moving them gently toward recovery. But its by no means clear that people doing harm reduction work all see it this way. Some are explicit about the fact that they see nothing wrong with hard drug use and and view attempts to force people into recovery as puritanical efforts to stamp out pleasure.

Others genuinely want to help drug users and other people in high-risk lifestyles by keeping them alive and guiding them toward lives free from addiction. But even those efforts are bound up in the expansionist project to treat an endless and ever expanding litany of harms by means of a bureaucracy in which being exposed to racism and being addicted to drugs are understood as two expressions of the same oppressive system. Harm reduction is friends; the law is cops, wrote one devoted adherent to the practice in a 2019 essay about sex work.

In 2022, the White House National Drug Control Strategy devoted a full chapter to harm reduction. Which is to say that, whatever its beginnings, harm reduction is now the self-talk of the state bureaucracy, not only the law but its spirit.

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How harm reduction captured the US - UnHerd