• The long shadow line: History and the war on drugs

    What can the tobacco trade of the 17th century tell us about the modern war on drugs?
    The Independent (UK)
    Monday, October 10, 2011

    tobacco-historyTobacco rose and fell and rose and fell in a 400-year smoking spree that established a pattern for the trade in all addictive substances. Beginning with tobacco, governments have sought to ban drugs as soon as they arrive, invariably invoking their destructive effects on family and nation. Governments waffle between turning blind eyes to the criminals and fighting them bloodily. The ultimate ends of this process – legalisation, social stigma, and, most direly, unfashionability – suggest what will happen to the global market for marijuana and heroin.

  • Federal crackdown on medical pot sales reflects a shift in policy

    California's U.S. attorneys say they are going after for-profit marijuana sellers. Advocates of the sales say they are concerned about buyers with health needs
    Los Angeles Times (US)
    Friday, October 7, 2011

    The Obama administration's crackdown on California's highly profitable medical marijuana industry represents a dramatic departure from the low-key approach it has long pursued. California's four U.S. attorneys said that they are taking aim at large-scale growers and dispensary owners who are raking in millions of dollars while falsely claiming that their medical marijuana operations comply with state law, which does not allow for-profit sales.

  • Feds escalate efforts to close California pot shops

    The moves come as a surprise to owners of medical marijuana dispensaries
    Los Angeles Times (US)
    Friday, October 7, 2011

    Federal prosecutors are threatening to shut down medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California, sending letters that warn landlords to stop sales of the drug within 45 days or face the possibility that their property will be seized and they will be charged with a crime. 'It's a complete about-face' of Obama's promise not to target users of medical pot in states that allow it, one group's attorney says.

  • Netherlands to classify high-potency cannabis as hard drug

    Sceptics say move to group cannabis containing more than 15% THC with cocaine and ecstasy will be hard to enforce
    The Guardian (UK)
    Friday, October 7, 2011

    The Dutch government has said it will move to classify high-potency cannabis alongside hard drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy, the latest step in the country's ongoing reversal of its liberal policies. The decision means most of the cannabis now sold in Dutch coffee shops would have to be replaced by milder variants. But sceptics said the move would be difficult to enforce, and that it could simply lead many users to smoke more of the less potent weed.

  • Dutch drug tourism takes hit in border town

    Cafe owners impose voluntary restrictions on cannabis sales to prove a government ban would not curb crime
    Al Jazeera
    Saturday, October 1, 2011

    Foreign visitors will no longer be welcome to purchase cannabis in the coffee shops of Dutch border city Maastricht, unless they can prove that they are from the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany. All other clients have to return to the illegal circuit in their own country, which will create problems in those countries, according Marc Josemans, chairman of the association of Maastricht coffee shops. "It's also partly the governments' fault in these countries. Never did the Belgian, French, German or Italian, for example, governments take their responsibilities by creating a system like we did in Holland - a safe system where people can buy their cannabis products without being approached for hard drugs and without being contacted by criminals."

  • Dutch city's coffee shops close doors to most cannabis tourists

    CNN
    Saturday, October 1, 2011

    Coffee shops in the Dutch city of Maastricht have banned foreign tourists, except those from Germany and Belgium, from entering their premises. "A number of people will leave disappointed, and we are not very proud of refusing entry to visitors who have come to our shops for the last 28 years and never caused a problem," said Marc Josemans, president of the Society of United Coffeeshops and owner of the Easy Going coffee shop. "The question now will be if they instead buy from the illegal drug runners here or if they buy illegally in their own countries."

  • U.S. wanted Vancouver's supervised injection site closed

    The Vancouver Sun (Canada)
    Friday, September 30, 2011

    A diplomatic cable shows U.S. officials opposed the Insite supervised injection site in Vancouver and wanted the federal and municipal governments to shut it down. The reference to Vancouver-based Insite is found in a U.S. Embassy assessment of Canadian drug policy dated Nov. 2, 2009 and released through Wikileaks.

  • B.C. drug injection clinic can stay open, Supreme Court rules

    Globe & Mail (Canada)
    Friday, September 30, 2011

    insite-victoryThe Supreme Court of Canada has opened the door to supervised drug injection clinics across the country in a landmark decision that ordered the federal government to stop interfering with Vancouver’s controversial Insite clinic. The Court was persuaded by evidence that drug addicts are considerably safer administering their own injections under medical surveillance rather than obtaining and injecting hard drugs on the streets of the city’s troubled Downtown Eastside.

  • Ecstasy trial planned to test benefits for trauma victims

    Scientists hope to overcome tabloid anger after US trial suggests clubbers' drug can bring dramatic improvements for PTSD sufferers
    The Guardian (UK)
    Friday, September 30, 2011

    ecstacy-pilssDoctors are planning the first clinical trial of ecstasy in the UK, to see whether the drug can be beneficial to the traumatised survivors of child abuse, rape and war. Professor David Nutt, the psychopharmacologist who used to head the government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs until he fell out with the Labour home secretary and was sacked, said: "I feel quite strongly that many drugs with therapeutic potential have been denied to patients and researchers because of the drugs regulation."

  • Medical marijuana law under review

    Current law pits doctors against patients and creates backlogs, critics say
    CBC (Canada)
    Thursday, September 29, 2011

    pot-protestHealth Canada began two days of closed-door talks Wednesday about changes to the controversial medical marijuana law that has faced legal challenges and criticism for being ineffective. But even as meetings get underway in Ottawa, there are concerns Health Canada is on the wrong track with a law that asks doctors to ignore a sworn obligation to protect patients’ health, while forcing patients to go to great lengths to obtain a drug that many say eases their pain.

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