Prohibition: The So-Called war on drugs Essay

†¢ Nick Possum: In the thrall of the monster drug barons It is also obvious that so much of the government propaganda regarding those fine sacred herbs Cannabis indica and Cannabis sativa is just bullshit. †¢ Alcohol worse than ecstasy on shock new drug list The position of ecstasy near the bottom of the list was defended by Prof Nutt, who said that apart from some tragic isolated cases ecstasy is relatively safe. Despite about a third of young people having tried the drug and around half a million users every weekend, it causes fewer than 10 deaths a year. One person a day is killed by acute alcohol poisoning and thousands more from chronic use. †¢ Marijuana Delivery Services Flourish In NYC †¢ Scientific American: Large Study Finds No Link between Marijuana and Lung Cancer †¢ Nathan Guttman: Israelis at center of ecstasy drug trade †¢ Law Enforcement Against Prohibition After nearly four decades of fueling the U. S. policy of a war on drugs with over half-a-trillion tax dollars and increasingly punitive policies, our confined population has quadrupled over a 20 years period making building prisons this nation’s fastest growing industry. More than 2. 2 million of our citizens are currently incarcerated and every year we arrest an additional 1. 6 million for nonviolent drug offenses — more per capita than any country in the world. The United States has 4. 6 percent of the population of the world but 22. 5 percent of the world’s prisoners. Every year we choose to continue this war will cost U. S. taxpayers another 69 billion dollars. Despite all the lives we have destroyed and all the money so ill spent, today illicit drugs are cheaper, more potent, and far easier to get than they were 35 years ago at the beginning of the war on drugs. Meanwhile, people continue dying in our streets while drug barons and terrorists continue to grow richer than ever before. We would suggest that this scenario must be the very definition of a failed public policy. This madness must cease! †¢ Inquiry into drug trial that became a nightmare †¢ Sheryl Jackson-Sczbecki: Marijuana — Through The Haze †¢ Peter Dale Scott: o The Global Drug Meta-Group: Drugs, Managed Violence, and the Russian 9/11 o A Ballad of Drugs and 9/11 †¢ 15 Ways the Auto Industry Would Change if it Operated Like Drug Companies. Just say No to drugs — from Pfizer, Merck, Roche and the other major drug pushers. †¢ Marcia Angell, M. D: The Truth About the Drug Companies In 2002 †¦ the combined profits for the ten drug companies in the Fortune 500 ($35. 9 billion) were more than the profits for all the other 490 businesses put together ($33. 7 billion). †¢ Chris Largen’s satirical novel JUNK is â€Å"a riotous exploration of prohibition. † †¢ The Narco News Bulletin †¢ Oscar Heck: Chavez Frias not losing much sleep over the USA’s intent to â€Å"punish† Venezuela (Also here.) I believe that the DEA and other US-based organizations such as USAID, the American Center for International Labor Solidarity, the Center for International Private Enterprise, the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs are fronts for the CIA †¦ and that a part of the CIA’s job is to assure that 1) drug exports to the USA are not halted 2) that this drug trade is controlled by the US government. †¢ 2005-07-31: Oregon Anti-Meth Bill Aimed at Cold Meds. The Senate on Saturday approved a plan to make Oregon the first state in the nation to require a prescription for many cold and allergy medicines, an attempt by lawmakers to shut down methamphetamine labs. †¦ The legislation would require prescriptions by mid-2006 for medicines containing pseudoephedrine and two similar substances, which are used in such popular medicines as Sudafed, Claritin and Theraflu. †¢ Jeanne Lenzer and Nicholas Pyke: Woman Commits Suicide While Testing New Antidepressant. Was Traci Johnson Driven To Suicide By Antidepressants? That’s A Trade Secret, Say US Officials †¢ Jennifer Moody, Albany Democrat-Herald, 2005-06-21: Retired DEA agent will run for sheriff Carl F. Worden, Liaison Officer for the Southern Oregon Militia comments: Please get this out to anyone you know in Linn County Oregon: You’ve got a guy running for Sheriff in Linn County by the name of Michael Spasaro, a former DEA Agent. Don’t vote for this guy unless you want a Sheriff who has no use for the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. I know of this guy, and I know some of the federal drug cases he worked on. He is NOT a guy you want as Sheriff. The Sheriff of a county is the only constitutionally elected official who has the power to curtail illegal federal actions in a given county. With his record, you can throw the Constitution right out the door if he becomes your Sheriff. †¢ 2005-06-23: Federal agents fan out to bust medicinal marijuana providers †¢ America’s War on Cannabis: PostModern Witch Burning †¢ You’ve Been Drafted: Uncle Sam Wants You for the War on Drugs. According to US Congressman Sensenbrenner’s draconian mandatory minimum sentencing bill: If you â€Å"witness† certain drug offenses taking place or â€Å"learn† that they took place you would have to report the offense to law enforcement within 24 hours and provide â€Å"full assistance† in the investigation, apprehension, and prosecution of the people involved. Failure to do so would be a crime punishable by a mandatory two year prison sentence. †¢ 2005-05-27: Bali court sentences Corby to 20 years in jail Prosecutors had demanded life in jail for Corby, who has argued the 4. 1 kg (9 lb) of drugs found by Bali airport officials in her unlocked bag last year were planted. †¢ Sydney Morning Herald, 2005-05-15: PM has left [Schapelle] Corby out to dry: Democrats [Registration required. ] Party leader Lyn Allison said the Government’s letter outlining drug-trafficking allegations among Australian airport baggage handlers should have been sent much earlier. †¢ Nate Blakeslee: The People Left Behind: Elaine Bartlett & Life on the Outside †¢ The Schaffer Library of Drug Policy. Major studies of drugs and drug policy, information on the â€Å"War on Drugs†, charts and graphs of Drug War statistics, US government publications related to drug policy, historical research on drugs and drug policy, the drug legalization debate, and much more. †¢ 2005-04-20: MS Victims to Get Cannabis Drug in Canada A cannabis-based medicine formulated by a UK company to help sufferers of multiple sclerosis has been approved for use for the first time — in Canada. †¢ BBC, 2005-04-18: US church’s illegal tea faces ban The Supreme Court is to consider whether a US branch of a Brazilian religion can import an hallucinogenic tea used as a sacrament. †¢ Kerre Woodham, 2005-04-17: Stakes high in Corby saga You can’t help but feel sympathy for Schapelle Corby, the 27-year-old Australian woman at the centre of a drugs trial in Bali. Surely she cannot have been so stupid as to try to smuggle 4kg of marijuana into Bali, where it would sell for less than it does on the streets of Australia. †¢ R. William Davis: The Elkhorn Manifesto †¦ Marijuana Prohibition was created in 1937, not to protect society from the â€Å"evils of the drug Marijuana,† as the Federal government claimed, but as an act of deliberate economic and industrial sabotage against the re-emerging Industrial Hemp Industry. †¢ Peter Dale Scott: A Post-Election Wrap-Up: Iraq, 9/11, Drugs, Cheney, and Watergate Two †¢ Four Alberta RCMP officers killed during raid Four RCMP officers were shot and killed after conducting a raid on a marijuana grow operation northwest of Edmonton on Thursday [2005-03-03]. †¢ David Adam, The Guardian, UK: Ecstasy trials for combat stress American soldiers traumatised by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be offered the drug ecstasy to help free them of flashbacks and recurring nightmares. †¦ Several studies in the US are planned or are under way to investigate whether MDMA, LSD and psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, can treat conditions ranging from obsessive compulsive disorder to anxiety in terminal cancer patients. †¢ Court allows drug-sniffing dogs during traffic stops The Supreme Court yesterday expanded police power to conduct searches, ruling that an officer who stops a motorist for a routine traffic violation can use a drug-sniffing dog to detect narcotics in the vehicle, even if the officer had no reason to suspect the car would contain drugs. The decision, in an Illinois case, gives law enforcement the authority to use drug-detecting dogs in the course of any minor traffic stop. †¢ J. Orlin Grabbe: The Function of the Drug War The function of the Drug War is to create the Drug Crisis. The Drug Crisis involves billions of dollars in hidden cash flow. Addicted to this flow of money are law enforcement agencies, drug producers and distributors, covert agencies who use it as a source of black funding, and politicians and bankers who are hired to protect the drug revenues. Addiction to drug revenues requires that the drug war be fought so as to be lost. Failure thus becomes the criterion of success. †¢ UK Guardian, 2004-10-13: MPs back legalisation ‘road map’ MPs, peers and former police officers are to back the publication today of the first ever report outlining a â€Å"detailed road map† to the legalisation of drugs in Britain. †¦ Transform’s director, Danny Kushlick, predicted that drugs would be legalised in the not-too-distant future because prohibition had been a catastrophe of startling proportions †¦ †¢ Pot Blocks Cancer-causing Herpes. Ingredient responsible for marijuana’s high could be the basis for new antiviral drugs †¢ Huge Ecstasy Bust Do Israelis control most of the world trade in MDMA? †¢ A Brief History of the Regulation of Controlled Drugs in Britain — Chapter 3 of the Fourth Report of the Shipman Enquiry (2001-2004). †¢ Colin Brown: Opium trade booms in ‘basket-case’ Afghanistan [This] will prove highly embarrassing for Tony Blair, who cited cutting the supply of heroin as one of the main reasons for the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 †¦ †¢ Doctors’ strike in Israel good for health. According to the American Medical Association, adverse reactions to prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals are a leading cause of death and injury in the United States. †¦ As of this writing, there is a doctors strike in Israel. The death rate has fallen so sharply during the strike that the Israeli funeral parlors and burial associations are complaining. †¢ Glen Yeadon: Ambassador of Death, Right-Wing Death Squads, Drug Smuggling: George Bush’s Plan for Iraq †¢ Christopher Largen: A History of Medical Marijuana †¢ ‘DRUG’ OR SACRAMENT? YOUR RIGHT TO DECIDE About the 1999 police raid on the Dutch Santo Daime Church. †¢ Drug report barred by FDA — Scientist links antidepressants to suicide in kids It seems that the â€Å"war on drugs† does not apply to drugs which are making millions for the pharmaceutical companies. †¢ Xymphora: More on George and Drugs †¢ Cannabis online: click now and it’s with you in 24 hours On Thursday [2004-01-29] British drug law underwent its most radical shakeup for decades when cannabis was downgraded to class C. Although simple possession is unlikely to lead to prosecution in most cases, the drug remains illegal and dealing or possession with intent to supply will carry a maximum 14-year prison sentence. But a Guardian investigation has established that at least five large-scale online cannabis vendors are operating in this country, in competition with more established Dutch sites. As a result, the drug has never been so easy to buy online. A copy of (almost) the entire Serendipity website is available on CD-ROM. Details here. Prohibition: The So-Called War on Drugs Page One Page Three A Drug War Reading List Civil Asset Forfeiture Serendipity Home Page http://www. washingtonpost. com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/17/AR2007081701716. html.