Time to legalize marijuana in Mexico City

from ticotimes.net

Posted: Sunday, July 28, 2013 - By Fernando Gómez Mont and Jorge G. Castaneda

A growing number of Mexicans are asking logical questions: Why should their leaders follow a path that provokes violence, generates human rights violations, erodes the country’s image abroad and costs a fortune?

A woman holds a sign reading, "Make a joint, not war" during a demonstration in support of thelegalization of marijuana, in Mexico City, on May 5, 2012, as part of the 2012 Global Marijuana March held in hundreds of cities worldwide. Yuri Cortéz/AFP

OPINION

Last year, voters in the U.S. states of Colorado and Washington approved initiatives legalizing the recreational use of marijuana. While the details are being worked out, those watching the developments are in not only the United States. Mexico, too, is taking note, having paid an enormous price waging a costly – and, to a certain degree, futile – years-long crusade against drugs in consonance with theinternational community’s punitive approach.

A growing number of Mexicans are asking logical questions: Why should their leaders follow a path that provokes violence, generates human rights violations, erodes the country’s image abroad and costs a fortune – mainly to stem the northern flow of drugs? Why spray and uproot marijuana fields in the hills of Oaxaca, search for tunnels in Tijuana and incarcerate “weed” traffickers in Monterrey if consumption is made legal in parts of the United States? Why deploy such an enormous effort to deter drug trafficking if Washington does virtually nothing to stop the flow of firearms to Mexico – and has concluded that it can, and should, prevent migrants from Mexico and Central America from entering the United States? If Congress can “secure” the border against people, using walls and drones, why can’t it do the same against drugs or guns and, in the process, respect Mexico’s right to design its own policies?

These sentiments are part of the reason for a change in Mexican attitudes toward drugs in general and marijuana in particular. Two former presidents – Ernesto Zedillo and Vicente Fox, who both vigorously fought drug trafficking and consumption while in office – have concluded that this approach is doomed and that a better policy would include decriminalizing marijuana use and commerce. Then-President Felipe Calderón called on the U.N. General Assembly last year to change its focus, eliminating the perverse incentives that strengthen transnational organized crime and gravely affect the rule of law and democracy in some countries.

Mexico is a highly conservative country whose population remains largely opposed to legalizing marijuana. But an increasing number of business, political and academic leaders are shifting their views. The city council of Mexico City, which has authority to legislate health and law enforcement issues, is contemplating a measure that would, in effect, allow the regulated possession and use of marijuana. Already, Mexicans can legally possess five grams of marijuana, an amount much smaller than what is commonly sold, bought or shared. Effectively decriminalizing marijuana would be in line with liberal attitudes in the capital and laws that rest on the firm belief that the right to privacy includes certain personal choices, even – or especially – when not shared by the majority.

We and other former cabinet secretaries – Pedro Aspe, finance minister to Carlos Salinas, and Juan Ramón de la Fuente, health minister to Zedillo – have joined with Mexico’s leading public intellectual and a prominent social activist to push for legalization in Mexico City. The four of us occupied senior posts directly related to the drug issue in Mexico’s previous four administrations. Along with Héctor Aguilar Camín, editor of the monthly Nexos, and María Elena Morera, founder of Mexico Unido Contra la Delincuencia (Mexicans United Against Crime), we are encouraging Mexico City authorities to proceed promptly.

For practical and political reasons, our effort is limited to decriminalizing the use of marijuana in the federal district, though some believe that the same case can be easily made for other drugs in the whole country. A reform that restrains its effects to marijuana is achievable; going further does not seem feasible today. Another reason for moving slowly, though firmly, is the impact this decision would have on the relationship between Mexico and the United States.

President Enrique Peña Nieto opposes legalization but seems open to a broad debate and to whatever consensus would emerge – locally, nationally or regionally. He may accept Mexico City’s decision even if he doesn’t like it, much as U.S. President Barack Obama seems to have resigned himself to the Colorado and Washington legislation. Mexico has ratified treaties banning illicit substances, but these international agreements allow governments to set their own policies within certain limits; consider Dutch and Portuguese leniency. The United States should support its neighbor as it seeks leeway for its own stance, even if that conflicts with U.S. policy.

Mexicans have paid a high cost in the struggle against drugs. We know that this war cannot be won. This fight should be waged by physicians rather than armed forces. Decriminalization of marijuana is not a silver bullet, but it would be a major step away from a failed approach. Mexico City is the place to start, thanks to the example set in Colorado and Washington state.

Fernando Gómez Mont was Mexico’s interior minister in the administration of Felipe Calderón. Jorge G. Castañeda was minister of foreign affairs in the administration of Vicente Fox.

© 2013, The Washington Post

Canada Liberal Party Leader Says Legalize Marijuana

from thedailychronic

By Phillip Smith |  StopTheDrugWar.orgJuly 27, 2013

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"I'm actually not in favor of decriminalizing cannabis, I’m in favour of legalizing it, tax and regulate" -- Justin Trudeau

VANCOUVER, BC — Canada’s opposition Liberal Party head Justin Trudeau has called for the legalization of marijuana, putting himself and his party on a collision course with the ruling Conservatives ahead of 2015 elections. Trudeau’s stand also differentiates the Liberals from the New Democratic Party (NDP), which has been the progressive party on drug reform, but which only calls for decriminalization.

The Liberals adopted marijuana legalization as a platform in January 2012, but Trudeau had previously lagged behind the party, calling only for decriminalization.

Trudeau revived drug policy as an issue when, at a Kelowna, British Columbia, event Sunday, he spotted someone in the crowd holding a sign calling for decriminalization.

“I’ll take that as a question,” he volunteered. “I’m actually not in favor of decriminalizing cannabis, I’m in favour of legalizing it, tax and regulate,” he said to applause. “It’s one of the only ways to keep it out of the hands of our kids, because the current war on drugs, the current model, is not working.”

In Vancouver on Thursday, Trudeau elaborated.

“Listen, marijuana is not a health food supplement, it’s not great for you,” he told reporters, but added that it was no worse for people than cigarettes or alcohol and he was now willing to go further than just decriminalization.

“I have evolved in my own thinking,” Trudeau said. “I was more hesitant to even decriminalize not so much as five years ago. But I did a lot of listening, a lot of reading, and a lot of paying attention to the very serious studies that have come out and I realize that going the road of legalization is actually a responsible thing to look at and to do.”

The stand places the Liberal Party on a collision course on the road to the 2015 elections with the Conservative government, which is solidly in favour of the status quo, and the NDP, which would only go as far as decriminalizing the possession of small quantities of marijuana.

When Liberals controlled the national government at the beginning of this century, they moved to reform the marijuana laws. But the Liberals only favored a quasi-decriminalization, and they ended up not even being able to move that forward.

The Conservatives have held national power since 2006 and have ratcheted up penalties for some marijuana and other drug offenses. Responding to Trudeau’s comments this week, the party said it was staying the prohibitionist course.

“These drugs are illegal because of the harmful effect they have on users and on society, including violent crime. Our government has no interest in seeing any of these drugs legalized or made more easily available to youth,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

The Conservatives’ position on marijuana puts them out of step with most Canadians on the issue. An Angus-Reid poll last fall showed Canadian support for legalization at 57%, and other surveys have polled even higher.

Will Legalizing Drugs Reduce Crime?

from pjmedia.com

It will only transfer young thugs from one sort of illegal activity to another.

by
DAVID P. GOLDMAN

Bio

July 18, 2013 - 11:15 am

 

 

Enlightened opinion holds that legalizing drugs (at least some drugs, e.g., marijuana) will reduce the catastrophically high American incarceration rate. As Fareed Zakaria wrote last year in Time magazine:

Over the past four decades, the U.S. has spent more than $1 trillion fighting the war on drugs. The results? In 2011 a global commission on drug policy issued a report signed by George Shultz, Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan; the archconservative Peruvian writer-politician Mario Vargas Llosa; former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker; and former Presidents of Brazil and Mexico Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Ernesto Zedillo. It begins, “The global war on drugs has failed. … Vast expenditures on criminalization and repressive measures directed at producers, traffickers and consumers ofillegal drugs have clearly failed to effectively curtail supply or consumption.” Its main recommendation is to “encourage experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of drugs to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens.”

As Zakaria observed, “The U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens. That’s not just many more than in most other developed countries but seven to 10 times as many. Japan has 63 per 100,000, Germany has 90, France has 96,South Korea has 97, and Britain–with a rate among the highest–has 153. Even developing countries that are well known for their crime problems have a third of U.S. numbers. Mexico has 208 prisoners per 100,000 citizens, and Brazil has 242.” For African-Americans, the rates are terrifyingly high. In an earlier post I quoted a Pew Institutesurvey noting that “more African American men aged 20 to 34 without a high school diploma or GED are behind bars (37 percent) than are employed (26 percent).”

Why should decriminalizing drugs, though, reduce crime? Criminals do not get involved with drugs because they like drugs, but because they like crime. They tend to be young, unskilled, and marginalized and unlikely to earn a living in the legal economy, while the illegal economy offers them opportunities — especially for those who hold their lives cheap.

The overall unemployment rate for Americans aged 16 to 19 years has reached levels not seen during the postwar period:

It’s considerably worse for minorities.

Forty-five percent of blacks aged 16-19 presently are unemployed, up from 25%-30% during the two George W. Bush administrations. Enormous numbers of young Latin Americans are unemployed as well; it is estimated that the Mexican drug cartels employ 500,000 of them. Decriminalizing marijuana would give a windfall to cigarette manufacturers, for example, but erase the income available to young, unskilled unemployed Americans. If they can’t make a living selling pot, they will sell whatever drug we continue to criminalize, or engage in some other form of remunerative criminal activity, just like the Mexican cartels, who are as happy to make money through kidnapping (for example) as through drug sales.

Is this the inevitable fallout of global economic forces that have made redundant (to use the awful British euphemism) the least-capable among America’s young people? That is the historical pattern. The usual historical solution is to kill off the redundant population, as I observed in a 2011 Asia Times essay.

The Industrial Revolution improved the lives of British workers by every available measurement – life expectancy, consumption, and so forth. But that was true only for those who survived the agricultural revolution to become industrial workers. The agricultural revolution that prepared the industrial revolution displaced a large proportion of agricultural labor. Starvation, emigration and war consumed the redundant population.

The Napoleonic Wars alone killed 188,000 British men, in a population of less than 9 million, the equivalent of 6.3 million in today’s American population. An additional 225,000 were transported as criminals to America (60,000) and Australia (165,000), not counting perhaps 1 million voluntary emigrants during the 19th century from England, Wales and Scotland.

Altogether, the attrition rate of the English and Welsh population at the turn of the 18th century amounted to 15%. Scotland must be considered separately, because the English deliberately cleared the Highlands of people after the 1746 Stuart rebellion. About half a million Highlanders were displaced, almost a third of the Scots population. Whole villages were transported to North America.

America’s prisons are doing today what the Napoleonic Wars, the Australian prisoner transport, and the Highland Clearances did during the 18th century: get rid of a large part of the population. That is a horrible observation, but a logical one. Blacks are the worst affected. The Second World War opened up high-paid industrial jobs previously reserved for whites. And the decline in U.S. industrial employment starting in the 1970s reversed this. The dying city of Detroit is the image of African-American economic status. It is not just African-Americans who are suffering, to be sure. In social pathology of all kinds, the general population is only a bit behind the minorities, as Charles Murray argued persuasively in his 2012 book Coming Apart.

What shall we do? Decriminalizing drugs will not solve the problem. It will only transfer young criminals from one sort of criminal activity to another. We frequently hear the complaint that tough anti-drug laws incarcerate too many non-violent offenders (that is, offenders who were not caught in acts of violence and convicted). If our policy is to exhaust the potential population of criminals through attrition — and that is what it amounts to — the present state of affairs is as good as it gets, for it means that we are incarcerating the criminal population before violent crimes are committed rather than afterwards.

The hypocrisy attending the de facto war of attrition is transcendent. The youth unemployment rate has doubled on Obama’s watch, from around 12% to around 25%, and minority unemployment in particular has soared. Obama has done more to shrink the number of entry-level jobs (by forcing employers to offer health insurance) than any other person in American history. We have put an enormous fraction of America’s young population on the scrapheap, and our fallback is the Scrooge solution, namely prisons and workhouses. One would hope that young people, even those without good economic prospects, would sustain a hope for something better. But thug culture has had done so much damage to morale that things are getting worse, faster.

For some years I have argued that America needs to revive the Depression-era idea of a Civilian Conservation Corps and similar entities to get young people working. That may seem a distinctly un-conservative proposal from a right-winger like me, but drastic measures are required. It costs nearly $50,000 to incarcerate a prisoner in the state of California, for example. Giving kids jobs doesn’t necessary reduce the prison population, but at the margin it ought to help, at less than half the cost. We should try something beside the Scrooge solution. Obama won’t do anything like this because the construction unions would object.

In the meantime, there’s no benefit to be had from retreating on drug enforcement.

****

Crossposted from Spengler

images courtesy shutterstock /  mycola / DJTaylor 

When Will the Psychiatric Establishment Reject the Drug War and Embrace Psychedelic Research?

from alternet.org

For 50 years the discussion of drugs has been polarized between drugs that are therapeutic and drugs that can be abused.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/ Alex011973

July 17, 2013  |  

 

 

 

 

It is clear that the cultural zeitgeist has turned towards the therapeutic use of psychedelics. Recent articles in The New York Times andCNN are slowly informing the public of the exciting research that MAPS supporters have known about for some time—that some psychedelics, even with their historic baggage, their potential for misuse, and vilified reputation, have some of  the most promising therapeutic potential that we have seen inpsychopharmacology in a generation.

However, what are the attitudes of those clinicians who would be empowered to prescribe these substances, should the  FDA approve them as safe and effective therapeutic agents and the DEA reschedule them to make them able to be prescribed legally?

 

Unfortunately, the discussion around drugs in the United States, for at least the last 50 years, has largely been polarized between drugs that are therapeutic and drugs that can be abused. Even though some of our most effective psychotherapeutic  agents (e.g. stimulants and benzodiazepines) are also some of the most likely to be abused, there is a distinct discomfort that arises among clinicians when a substance, which historically has been abused, is suggested to be therapeutic.

 

Perhaps it is because, as clinicians, when it comes to substance abuse, we often only see the casualties, and this perspective has created a bias that a substance that can be abused can never have therapeutic utility (witness MDMA for the treatment of PTSD or the dramatic response to ketamine from sufferers of severe major depression). Rarely do we hear about how a drug changed someone’s life for the better. In some ways, the more esoteric the substance, the less reflexive resistance it elicits.

 

It was interesting to see attendees at last November’s U.S. Psychiatric and Mental Health Congress in San Diego stop by the understated MAPS booth in the convention hall, where it shared space with much glitzier displays for conventional psychiatric medications. Many people would ask, “What’s MDMA?” having not associated it with the cultural baggage associated with “Ecstasy.” Scientists who want to study compounds such as ibogaine or psilocybin will likely have an easier time getting past the negative biases that have accreted against more commonly used (and abused) substances such as cannabis and LSD. 

 

I would propose that the attitudes that most people have regarding psychedelics fall into one of four broad categories:

 

(1) I have tried them and they have changed my life for the better.

(2) I have tried them and was unchanged or had a negative experience.

(3) I have never tried them but have an open mind about them.

(4) I have not tried them and can only imagine they are more dangerous than helpful. 

 

I suspect that there are more than a few clinicians who fall into category 1, but feel uncomfortable sharing their experiences for fear of compromising their professional reputations. However, I suspect most mainstream psychiatric providers, having seen the negative outcomes of patient substance abuse  and influenced by 45 years of anti-drug propaganda, would ally themselves squarely with those in category 4. I suspect most people reading this Bulletin are in category 1. They are the converted. Through whatever experiences they have had, they believe in the power of these substances to serve as tools to help people towards greater health and emotional wholeness. However, most psychiatric providers have not had these same experiences, and are prone to view the elusiveness with which those in category 1 may share their experiences with a certain degree of suspicion.

 

This is why we must have data to support the assertions that these substances are therapeutic. We need to have the science that supports the theories of why these compounds can have the profound effects that they do. Data is the currency of practice change, and without it, all the tales of the converted are relegated to low grade, “anecdotal data”—interesting, but nothing that most people in a professional role would be willing to risk the sanctions of loss of license, professional status, or clinical/academic position to pursue. That’s why what MAPS is doing is so critical for changing the attitudes around these substances and the role that they can play in mainstream psychiatry. By focusing on conditions such as PTSD that suffer from a dearth of effective treatments and by generating robust research findings, their studies provide both hope for difficult-to-treat conditions and compelling data for effective treatments. 

 

Hopefully, it will be only a few short years before the data that MAPS-sponsored studies have generated can be leveraged to make these substances legal as prescribed medicine. When that day comes, MAPS would be wise to take a lesson from the more mainstream pharmaceutical industry and use marketing as a means to change attitudes and encourage appropriate use of these agents.

 

The pharmaceutical industry spent $27.7 billion dollars in 20041 to market medications because that investment was returned many times over in increased sales. MAPS has a mission that is even more important than increasing returns to stockholders: making effective medications available to patients who need them and to advance a more enlightened attitude towards psychedelics. Armed with the data from these studies, the medium of advertising can shift the attitudes of clinicians who will prescribe these medications.

 

The aesthetics of these marketing messages should reflect the controlled and sober use of these compounds for therapeutic purposes. Psychedelic imagery, for example, may appeal to those who have had positive experiences with these compounds, but may also serve to alienate a more conservative medical establishment. As important as marketing is the impact that respected fellow clinicians have on the practice patterns of other clinicians. The mainstream pharmaceutical industry has long known this, and has used “key opinion leaders” or “thought leaders” to deliver marketing talks about new drugs.2

 

Clinicians trust their peers more than a sales representative. Those who are well versed in the research findings and convinced about the benefit of these compounds can engage peers in compelling conversations about the value of these drugs. At the end of the day, stories engage, but data convinces.

 

***

References: 

 

1. Gagnon M-A, Lexchin J (2008) The Cost of Pushing Pills: A New Estimate of Pharmaceutical Promotion Expenditures in the United States. PLoS Med 5(1): e1. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0050001

 

2. Carlat (2010) Unhinged: The Trouble with Psychiatry, Free Press, NY

Survey: 40% of adults in favor of marijuana legalization with tough laws

from cbs


By 

RYAN JASLOW / 

CBS NEWS/ July 16, 2013, 4:22 PM

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Legalize marijuana, say 40 percent of U.S. adults who responded to a new survey from The Partnership at Drugfree.org .

However, the majority of those surveyed believe marijuana should be only legal for adults aged 21 and older, similar to alcohol.

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First U.S. town to regulate marijuana

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Colorado marijuana clubs

This year's survey comes after two states, Colorado and Washington, legalized recreational use of marijuana in last November's elections.

"The reality is that marijuana is now legalized for recreational use in the states of Colorado and Washington and it's clear that society's views on marijuana are evolving dramatically," Steve Pasierb, president and CEO of The Partnership at Drugfree.org, said in a statement. "The data bring to life the fact that parents -- including the large number who favor legalization--- have serious expectations that legal marijuana will be regulated and restricted to protect kids and teens. Those expectations far exceed how legal marijuana is being implemented."

An advertising agency partnered with the nonprofit to survey more than 1,600 adults in early March 2013, 1,200 of whom were parents of kids ages 10 through 19.

The survey reflects a trend of growing acceptance within the general adult population for marijuana. Seventy percent of adults said they supported the medical use of marijuana while 50 percent said they supported decriminalization.

The Partnership points out that many adults, including those who previously were marijuana users themselves, support strong marijuana laws to keep the drugs out of children's hands.

A majority of parents said they think it should be illegal to provide marijuana to underage children at home. Over 80 percent of parents want a ban on marijuana advertising, and when forced to choose, a majority said the number one place it should be permissible to push a pot advertisement is "nowhere."

Interestingly, responders from Colorado and Washington State also supported strict laws. Ninety percent of parents in both states said marijuana should only be sold through licensed growers, and not in places like convenience stores or newsstands. Ninety-two percent of Colorado parents and 96 percent of Washington parents said marijuana smoking should be banned in public places the same way tobacco is prohibited.

The full report was published July 16 on Drugfree.org.

This kind of intensity of conviction tells us that people aren't just saying that these kinds of regulations are a 'good idea' - they're demanding them,"pollster Scott Kotchko, vice president of Whitman Insight Strategies, said in the statement.

Another recent survey, from the Pew Research Center, found 52 percent of Americans said marijuana use should be legal.

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Medical marijuana patients fight bureaucracy

The medical community also appears to be on board with marijuana, for medicinal reasons only. A May 30 survey in the New England Journal of Medicine of almost 1,500 doctors found 76 percent of physicians in favor for medical marijuana when given a scenario of a patient with metastatic breast cancer who is in pain.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia currently allow medical marijuana.

But, that too can lead to consequences.

Research showed that laxer restrictions on medical marijuana in Colorado led to increased rates of accidental ingestions among children visiting a Denver emergency room.

Medical marijuana mom leaving Wisconsin for Colorado

from madison.com






  STEVEN ELBOW | The Capital Times | selbow@madison.com

Victoria LaChapell was once in so much pain that she couldn’t pick up her children. With the help of marijuana, she says, she’s now able to be an active mother and hold down a job.

“It’s given me my life back,” she told a state Senate committee at a June 12 public hearing.

LaChapell says she suffers from arthritis, autoimmune disorders and fibromyalgia, the result of a bout of lyme’s disease that went untreated. She was speaking against a Republican proposal that would give local and county governments the authority to prosecute marijuana possession cases that prosecutors decide are not worth the time and effort to pursue.

The bill has passed through both Assembly and Senate committees and awaits scheduling for floor votes.

“Droves of Wisconsinites are leaving this state because it’s going backwards, and I may have no choice but to follow them to protect my freedom, and my right to health, and my children’s right to have a mother that can function,” she told the lawmakers last month.

On Monday, the Madison-area mother of four announced that she’s making good on that threat. On the pro-marijuana website Ladybud, she announced that she’s moving to Colorado, where state voter legalized marijuana last year.

I wasn’t able to immediately track down LaChapelle’s phone number, but her blog post cites a number of reasons for her decision, chief among them the fear that Child Protective Services could pay her a visit and possibly even take away her kids.

“I have always said if you believe in something and choose to fight, you have to accept the consequences,” she writes.” I’d accept the consequences freely but I cannot accept what negative effects those consequences would have on my family. No matter how fearless I may feel, my children are afraid of losing their mother and for good reason as the threat of CPS action against families is very real.”

A nurse, she’s also worried that authorities could take away her ability to earn a living.

“Parents are being put on the abuse registry without ever having lost custody of their children,” she writes. “As a nurse, those consequences would strip me of my ability to adequately provide for my family and I’d never be able to practice again. How would my family survive without my income? It would take years to recover from such a devastating blow.”

Asked if LaChapelle's fears of being targeted by Child Protective Services were warranted, Joe Scialfa, a spokesman for the Department of Children and Families, had this to say:

"There are many factors that go into whether or not an investigation is opened after there is a report made of child abuse or neglect. The overarching principal that is adhered to in making that decision is ensuring the safety of children."

LaChapelle’s decision to pursue a regimen of medical marijuana came after years of failed medical treatment.

“It took ten years of chronic pain and trial and error treatment with Big Pharma meds that resulted in disaster before I found the healing powers of cannabis,” she writes. “Ten years of my life were wasted and for 10 years my children had to live without a functional mother.”

LaChapelle, who considers herself a marijuana activist, says she’s struggled with the question of whether to move or to stay and fight in her home state, but ultimately decided that given the current political climate, for now the Badger State is a losing battle.

“I’m not moving in order to take the ‘easy way out,’ as I’ve heard some activists state about decisions like mine. It is a realistic necessity. I’m a mom first and I have to be the best mom I can be and if that means being seen as taking the ‘easy way out,’ then so be it. It’s worth it for my kids.”

Read more: http://host.madison.com/news/local/writers/steven_elbow/medical-marijuana-mom-leaving-wisconsin-for-colorado/article_d5c53552-12c8-5d95-bb62-077e06cb71d3.html#ixzz2ZEdRPjJ7