• Is France's cannabis debate stuck in a cul-de-sac?

    France 24
    Thursday, June 16, 2011

    The issue of legalising cannabis is once again making headlines in France following the release of a parliamentary report on Wednesday recommending that the drug should be subject to “controlled legalisation”. One leading critic of international drug policy doubts that the debate will inspire a sea change in French policy.

  • On 40th Anniversary Of War On Drugs, Cops Decry Obama's Drug Policy

    The Huffington Post (US web)
    Wednesday, June 15, 2011

    Forty years after President Richard Nixon first declared a war on drugs, the officers who fought in it are calling for a truce. Former law enforcement officials gathered in the District of Columbia on Tuesday to announce their new report. It details the failures of the government's long battle against illegal drugs and denounces the Obama administration's current drug policies. "Since President Nixon declared 'war on drugs' four decades ago, this failed policy has led to millions of arrests, a trillion dollars spent and countless lives lost, yet drugs today are more available than ever," said Norm Stamper, former chief of police in Seattle and a speaker for legalization-advocacy group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

  • A mystery partly solved: How the ‘club drug’ ketamine lifts depression so quickly

    Time Magazine (US)
    Wednesday, June 15, 2011

    ketamineA new study sheds light on why the anesthetic and “club drug” ketamine can relieve depression rapidly — in hours, instead of weeks or months. The findings may help provide new targets for developing antidepressants and increase researchers’ understanding of the devastating disorder. The study, published in the journal Nature, offer support for wider use of ketamine in depression. A drug that could relieve depression quickly has long been sought by pharmaceutical companies and patients.

  • Elected Officials, VIPs and Grassroots Slam Drug War on 40th Anniversary

    Tony Newman (Director of Media Relations, Drug Policy Alliance)
    The Huffington Post (US web)
    June 14, 2011

    nixon

    June 17 will mark forty years since President Richard Nixon, citing drug abuse as "public enemy No. 1," officially declared a "war on drugs." A trillion dollars and millions of ruined lives later, the war on drugs has proven to be a catastrophic failure.

  • A Call to Shift Policy on Marijuana

    Jim Dwyer
    The New York Times (US)
    Tuesday, June 14, 2011

    More people are arrested in New York City on charges of possessing small amounts of marijuana than on any other crime on the books. Nearly all are black or Latino males under the age of 25, most with no previous convictions. Many have never been arrested before. Last year, the police in New York City arrested more than 50,000 people on the marijuana possession charge, New York State Penal Law 221.10, which makes it a misdemeanor to openly possess pot.

  • A Real Debate About Drug Policy

    George P. Shultz and Paul A. Volcker on why the 'war on drugs' has failed—and what to do next
    Wall Street Journal
    Saturday, June 11, 2011

    jointWe believe that drug addiction is harmful to individuals, impairs health and has adverse societal effects. So we want an effective program to deal with this problem. The question is: What is the best way to go about it? For 40 years now, our nation's approach has been to criminalize the entire process of producing, transporting, selling and using drugs, with the exception of tobacco and alcohol. Our judgment, shared by other members of the commission, is that this approach has not worked, just as our national experiment with the prohibition of alcohol failed. Drugs are still readily available, and crime rates remain high. But drug use in the U.S. is no lower than, and sometimes surpasses, drug use in countries with very different approaches to the problem.

  • U.S. can't justify its drug war spending, reports say

    Government reports say the Obama administration is unable to show that billions of dollars spent in the anti-drug efforts in Latin America have made a significant difference
    Los Angeles Times (US)
    Thursday, June 9, 2011

    As drug cartels wreak murderous havoc from Mexico to Panama, the Obama administration is unable to show that the billions of dollars spent in the war on drugs have significantly stemmed the flow of illegal narcotics into the United States, according to two government reports and outside experts.

  • Russia defies growing consensus with declaration of 'Total War on Drugs'

    Under new laws being drawn up addicts would be forced into treatment or jailed, and dealers 'treated like serial killers'
    The Guardian (UK)
    Wednesday, June 8, 2011

    "Sending more people to prison will not reduce drug addiction or improve public health," said Anya Sarang, president of the Andrey Rylkov Foundation, an advocacy group for people with HIV which works with injecting drug users (IDUs). "Russian prisons are terrible places full of HIV, tuberculosis and other diseases. Drugs are often even more accessible there than anywhere else." She added: "What we need instead of this harsh drug control rhetoric is greater emphasis on rehabilitation, substitution treatment, case management for drug users and protection from HIV."

  • Netherlands: Pot shops to be off limits to foreign tourists

    Los Angeles Times (US)
    Monday, June 6, 2011

    The Netherlands plans to ban foreign visitors from pot shops in a move that opponents have labeled "tourism suicide."  The Dutch government is trying to stop drug tourism in the country, according to a recent announcement. Under the plan, the "coffee shops" that sell marijuana will become private clubs limited to adult Dutch citizens who have to show proof of ID and become a member to buy marijuana.

  • More Calls For A Drug War Cease-Fire

    An increasing number of world leaders are concluding that laws against drug consumption do more harm than good
    Mary Anastasia O'Grady
    Wall Street Journal (US)
    Monday, June 6, 2011

    branson-cardosoTomorrow marks the 79th anniversary of the beginning of the end of the U.S. prohibition on alcohol. On that day in 1932 John D. Rockefeller Jr., a vociferous advocate of temperance, called for the repeal of the 18th amendment in a letter published in the New York Times. Rockefeller had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars lobbying for the constitutional prohibition on alcohol. But his letter did more than admit the error of his investment. Because of his moral authority on the matter, it effectively ended the conservative taboo against admitting that the whole experiment had failed.

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