• How legalization caused the price of marijuana to collapse

    The ongoing decline in marijuana’s price after legalization demonstrates how enormously effective prohibition of production and sale is at raising drug prices
    The Washington Post (US)
    Tuesday, September 5, 2017

    All the diverse effects of legalizing recreational marijuana may not be clear for a number of years, but one consequence has become evident almost immediately: Pot has never been so cheap. Steven Davenport of the Pardee Rand Graduate School has analyzed marijuana retail prices in Washington state since legal recreational markets opened in July 2014. Remarkably, prices have fallen every single quarter since. The current retail price of $7.38 per gram (including tax) represents a 67 percent decrease in just three years of the legalization, with more decline likely in the future.

  • The Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users looks back on 20 years fighting for human rights

    The drug-users union known as VANDU marks its twentieth anniversary at a time when B.C. struggles with an unprecedented epidemic of overdose deaths
    The Georgia Straight (Canada)
    Monday, September 5, 2017

    vandumeeting 170903In the late summer of 1997, a poster with a message aimed at drug users appeared on electrical poles around the Downtown Eastside in Vancouver. “Meeting in the park,” one read. “Discussion items: police conduct, violence and safety, ‘Is this your home?,’ washroom facilities, neighbourhood relations....Let’s talk about a community approach.” It was a revolutionary idea, that people who use drugs should gather and organize around shared challenges and interests. That meeting in the park was the formation of the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU).

  • The first count of fentanyl deaths in 2016: Up 540% in three years

    The explosion in fentanyl deaths and the persistence of widespread opioid addiction have swamped local and state resources
    The New York Times (US)
    Saturday, September 2, 2017

    Drug overdoses killed roughly 64,000 people in the United States last year, according to the first governmental account of nationwide drug deaths to cover all of 2016. It’s a staggering rise of more than 22 percent over the 52,404 drug deaths recorded the previous year — and even higher than The New York Times’s estimate in June, which was based on earlier preliminary data. Together they add up to an epidemic of drug overdoses that is killing people at a faster rate than the H.I.V. epidemic at its peak. (See also: We’re undercounting opioid overdoses by thousands)

  • Washington’s pot law hasn’t meant more use by kids, new study says

    Admissions for publicly funded treatment fell in the three years after I-502 was enacted
    The Seattle Times (US)
    Friday, September 1, 2017

    initiative 502Youth use of pot and cannabis-abuse treatment admissions have not increased in Washington since marijuana was legalized, according to a new analysis by the state Legislature’s think tank. Under Initiative 502, the state’s legal-pot law, the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) is required to conduct periodic cost-benefit analyses of legalization on issues ranging from drugged-driving to prenatal use of marijuana. One of those reports was due after three years of legal sales. But the report was limited in scope to just a few impacts — including the degree of youth use and adult use, treatment admissions and criminal convictions.

  • A flagship law is on the brink of collapse as experts say the Tories have ‘blood on their hands’

    Two ‘test cases’ for prosecutions under the law both collapsed
    The Canary (UK)
    Thursday, August 31, 2017

    Empty canisters of laughing gas are a common sight in fields after music festivals One of the Conservative government’s flagship laws has been left on the brink of collapse, as the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced a “full review” of the legislation. But experts are calling for more action to be taken, as they say that the Tories’ “ideological” war has left them with “blood on their hands”. The Psychoactive Substances Act became law in 2016. It covered anything considered a previously so-called “legal high“; that is a drug which contains chemicals producing the same effect as an illegal substance. The CPS review comes after two attempted prosecutions for intent to supply nitrous oxide, or ‘laughing gas’, fell apart.

  • Fatal fentanyl overdoses rise as Australians turn to more potent painkillers

    Eightfold increase in fentanyl-related deaths prompts calls for drug addiction to be treated as a health issue rather than a supply problem
    The Guardian (UK)
    Thursday, August 31, 2017

    fentanyl pillsConcerns are growing that more Australians addicted to pharmaceutical painkillers are turning to highly potent forms of opioids, such as fentanyl. A new report released by the Penington Institute reveals a significant increase in fatal accidental overdoses because of fentanyl, pethidine and tramadol. Unless the national approach to drug addiction changes to a health issue rather than a supply problem, more lives will be lost, warned John Ryan, chief executive officer at the Penington Institute. During 2011-2015, 3,601 people died from an opioid-related overdose – a nearly twofold increase from 2001-2005, according to the report.

  • Laughing gas still illegal despite court decisions, UK government says

    Home Office says nitrous oxide remains banned under Psychoactive Substances Act after collapse of two recent prosecutions
    The Guardian (UK)
    Thursday, August 31, 2017

    nitrous oxideProsecutors could in future decline to bring charges against people suspected of crimes linked to laughing gas after two cases collapsed when courts heard the substance was exempt from the law designed to ban it. The Crown Prosecution Service has indicated that it is considering the effect of the two failed prosecutions on its future charging decisions. But the government insisted that despite the cases, nitrous oxide is illegal under the 2016 Psychoactive Substances Act. Although the judge in one of the cases stressed that it did not set a legal precedent, there have been calls to review the dozens of convictions under the act.

  • Philippines’ Duterte admits murderous ‘drug war’ is unwinnable

    President vows to persist despite horrific death toll
    Human Right Watch (US)
    Thursday, August 31, 2017

    Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has admitted that his abusive "war on drugs" is unwinnable. Duterte told a gathering of military personnel that his promise to eradicate methamphetamine use – known as shabu in the Philippines - "won’t be fulfilled, that this [drug use] really will not end." But Duterte’s admission did not include expressions of remorse for the thousands of victims of his "drug war," including dozens of children that he has dismissed as "collateral damage." He instead echoed the message of his July 24 state of the nation address by insisting the campaign will  be "unremitting as it will be unrelenting."

  • Anti-legalization group urges feds to “systematically shut down” cannabis industry

    Legal marijuana states "are inviting shift in enforcement," says Smart Approaches to Marijuana leader
    The Cannabist (US)
    Wednesday, August 30, 2017

    This month, governors from Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington, the first four states to legalize recreational marijuana, each sent letters to the attorney general defending their respective regulatory regimes, designed to uphold the Cole Memo. That Obama-era memo outlined law enforcement and financial oversight priorities for states that have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use. On the fourth anniversary of the memo, Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), a nonprofit group opposed to marijuana legalization, announced it had sent a report to Sessions and other lawmakers detailing how those states have failed to live up to the responsibilities outlined.

  • What does departure of top US anti-drug diplomat mean for LatAm policy?

    Brownfield called for a more flexible and comprehensive approach to the transnational drug issue
    InSight Crime
    Wednesday, August 30, 2017

    William BrownfieldThe planned resignation of the US State Department's top anti-drug official raises further questions about the future of US counternarcotics efforts in Latin America, against a backdrop of uncertainty surrounding the policy preferences of the administration of President Donald Trump. William Brownfield, the US Assistant Secretary of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) since January 2011, told State Department staff that he would resign by the end of September, Foreign Policy reported on August 27.

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