Thursday, August 20, 2015

What Bernie Sanders’ Election Would Mean for Legalized Drugs

from golocalprov.com

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Brendan Murray GoLocalProv News Team

Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders; Photo courtesy of wikipedia

Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has called America’s “War on Drugs” a failure and has promised to transform America’s drug policy if elected to the White House.

So what would that look like?

Sanders has said he plans to end the program that has spent more than $51 billion annually and more than $1 trillion since 1980, according to a report by the Drug Policy Alliance.

The independent Senator from Vermont says its time to stop spending money and resources punishing and imprisoning non-violent offenders. He’s proposed treating the underlying mental health issues that cause drug addiction and legalizing marijuana use.

“Millions of lives have been destroyed because people are in jail for nonviolent crimes,” Sanders’ campaign website reads. “For decades, we have been engaged in a failed ‘War on Drugs’ with racially-biased mandatory minimums that punish people of color unfairly. It is an obscenity that we stigmatize so many young Americans with a criminal record for smoking marijuana, but not one major Wall Street executive has been prosecuted for causing the near collapse of our entire economy.”

DC Track Record

Sanders’ voting record backs up his stance on drugs. During his time on Capitol Hill, Sanders made a number of votes against the enforcement of America’s drug policies.

As a Representative in September 1998, Sanders voted against subjecting federal employees to random drug tests. He voted to legalize medical marijuana in July of 2001, and voted against military border patrol to help battle drug trafficking in September of the same year. After being elected to the Senate in 2007, Sanders voted twice to exempt industrial hemp from marijuana prohibition, once in August of 2012 and again in March of 2013.

The election of Sanders, or any candidate who backs the end of the federal War on Drugs, would be a “welcome change” to the country’s drug policy, according to Chris Brown, press secretary for Americans for Safe Access.

“It’s a failed policy,” Brown told GoLocal. “Repealing the War on Drugs would allow the public to see marijuana, and all drugs, in a nonidelogical view and allow them to analyze it for all its properties.”

Brown also said the repeal of the War on Drugs would ensure that patients who depend on the drug to treat legitimate maladies, particularly pain relief, can receive their medicine without fear of becoming an outlaw.

Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, told GoLocal the criminalization of cannabis is a “disproportionate response to what is at worst, a public health issue, not a criminal justice issue.”

Armentano also said that those prosecuted for cannabis-related crimes are disproportionately minorities and young people. This can cause them to distrust government and law enforcement agencies. “This disenfranchises entire cohorts of U.S. citizens who, rather than see law enforcement agencies as protectors, see them as instruments of their oppression.”

He also responded to critics’ claims that legalization will allow teenagers and children freer access to marijuana. He said that criminalizing the substance had not proven effective, and it was time for new techniques.

“Alcohol and tobacco use in teenagers was not driven down by illegalizing these substances for adults, but by educating the target audience and imposing and enforcing age requirements,” he explained. “I don’t see why that would not work when it comes to cannabis.”

‘Not so fast’ say critics

Ron Brogan, a spokesman for the Drug Abuse Resistance Education, known more commonly asD.A.R.E., told GoLocal that despite the assertion by legalization advocates that prohibition has failed, drug use is declining.

“The story that’s not really told is that the drug policing efforts in place are working,” he said. “Cocaine use is down nearly 85 percent since its peak, and drug use in general is significantly down. Prohibition is working.”

Calvina Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation, echoed Brogan’s claims.

“Alcohol is legal for adults and society has done a dismal job of keeping it from our young people, and the same can be said for cigarettes,” she told GoLocal. “Advocates like to ignore that when this country really went after drugs in this country, overall drug use fell by more than 50%. That is not a failure”

Brogan also said that the prohibition of marijuana is the best way to keep drugs like marijuana from falling into the hands of children.

“When the United States government puts an age-restriction down on something like that, the message that is sent is, ‘this is not that bad,’” he said. “That it’s okay for everyone except teenagers, and that does not prove to be effective.”

Fay also addressed claims that drug enforcement laws are used to target minorities and young people. She admitted that there are times when laws are used to target those groups, but said drug laws are not to blame.

“If you look at who is and isn’t in prison, you’ll see that there are not thousands of minorities rotting away in prison because they had a small amount of marijuana,” she said. “That’s a myth.”

Related Slideshow: The Highest Marijuana Prices in 2015 in New England by State

Forbes.com recently released a graphic that looks at how much an ounce of marijuana costs in every state in America, as well as the District of Columbia. The national average is $324.

Below is a look at where New England states fall in the rankings, as well as where marijuana is the most expensive and least expensive nationally.

Prev Next

#6 Maine

$305

The Pine Tree State is 19 dollars below the national average.

That is the 38th highest in the country.

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Sunday, August 9, 2015

Causes of Addiction

from ted

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

The War on Drugs Has Failed. Let’s Legalize and Regulate Drugs Instead.

from tapinto.net

By JILL LAZARE

July 21, 2015 at 5:01 PM

CRANFORD, NJ - Heroin overdose deaths in the United States have quadrupled since 2002. If that weren’t alarming enough, New Jersey’s rate of heroin overdose deaths is more than three times the national average and drug overdose is now the leading cause of accidental death in New Jersey. If it were not already clear, this recent surge in heroin deaths show that America’s drug laws are in need of drastic reform. We need to stop treating substance abuse as a criminal act and start treating it as a medical issue. We should end the War on Drugs and instead legalize and regulate the sale and use of narcotics.

I’m proud to say I have already been part of the fight to change New Jersey’s drug laws. In 2013 I testified to the legislature in favor of what is now the New Jersey Drug Overdose Prevention Act, which authorized paramedics and police officers to carry and administer the overdose prevention drug naloxone. I’m pleased that overdose deaths have declined since the law went into effect. Lives are being saved because our leaders realized that our drug laws were foolishly hurting vulnerable people instead of seeking to help those in need.

But there is still much work to be done. An obvious first step would be the legalization of marijuana. The success of legalization in Colorado and Washington should serve as a model to the rest of the country. Legalization will save millions of dollars in police and court costs, keep thousands of people out of jail and prison, and bring millions of dollars in new tax revenue into our state’s coffers. Simple possession of small amounts of more dangerous drugs by adults should be decriminalized immediately. Prohibition has only empowered drug dealers and organized crime.

Our drug laws should focus on treatment instead of punishment. We need to expand drug courts and alternative sentencing programs so that people whose crimes were a result of their substance abuse problems are not sent to prison to become career criminals. But we also need to get tougher on doctors who abuse their prescription writing power by overwriting scripts for pain relievers without seeing the patients in any meaningful way and then simply cutting the patients off without treatment or a plan to wean them off of the pain medication. Such doctors create the addiction without liability or consequences to themselves. That is where the focus of the authorities should be, rather than on the people suffering from addiction.

The recent prison escape of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman demonstrates the futility of an enforcement-only approach. This is the second time he has been able to escape from prison. How can you build a prison that will hold someone who has limitless resources? To me, it makes much more sense to cut off his source of wealth by legalizing and regulating narcotics. Prohibition has only empowered criminals like Guzman. We have tried every enforcement mechanism possible, and none of them have succeeded.

We will look back on the War on Drugs as one of the great follies in American history, alongside the prohibition of alcohol. The trajectory and failure of the two policies is strikingly similar. The prohibition of alcohol empowered bootleggers and the mafia much the same way the War on Drugs has empowered drug cartels. After 13 years of Prohibition, America came to its senses and legalized and regulated alcohol. It’s now time we do the same with drugs.

There is increasing bipartisan consensus for reform of our broken drug laws. While I have disagreed with Governor Christie on many issues, I was proud to work with him on the Overdose Prevention Act and have been heartened by his comments on drug policy reform. As a member of the New Jersey Assembly I will make reform of our state’s drug laws a top priority. I stand ready to work with members of both parties to help bring common sense and compassion to this issue. The War on Drugs has failed. It is time to bring it to an end.

-Jill LaZare is a candidate for New Jersey Assembly District 21

The opinions expressed herein are the writer's alone, and do not reflect the opinions of TAPinto.net or anyone who works for TAPinto.net. TAPinto.net is not responsible for the accuracy of any of the information supplied by the writer.

Saturday, July 11, 2015

We're losing the war on drugs - U.S. should legalize their sale and then tax them: PennLive letters

from pennlive.com

By PennLive Editorial Board
Email the author
on July 10, 2015 at 8:30 AM, updated July 10, 2015 at 8:34 AM

The number of people murdered in the drug war in the United States is larger than the death toll of our military in Iraq and three times greater than the death rate of our soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Mexican drug cartels kill more people than ISIS and they proliferate mainly in the United States - killing teens and adults indiscriminately.

The U.S. is on the verge of legalizing pot in many states. Why not all? In fact, why not legalize the sale of all drugs and tax them?

The U.S. is losing the war on drugs. Terrorists are using drug trafficking monies to fund their activities. Giving Afghanistan millions of dollar each year to stop growing poppy is just going toward making them cultivate and traffic more poppy, which becomes cocaine and heroin. This money is funding the Taliban, ISIL, al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, etc.

If drugs were legal, the U.S. could license industry to sell them and then tax the profits. Some of the money could be used to rehabilitate addicts, and some could be used for internal needs. Addiction would be treated as a medical problem and not as a criminal problem. Jails would be less crowded. It is cheaper to pay for rehabilitation than it is to incarcerate someone for 10 or more years.

Alcohol and cigarettes were at one time illegal. This does not ensure that they run rampant now. Should we criminalize glue-sniffing?

Stop the war on drugs, decriminalize them, and stop funding terrorism, all with one swift blow.

ROCHELLE S. CLEAVER, Dillsburg

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Why Mexican billionaire Ricardo Salinas thinks drugs should be legalized

from reuters

By Ricardo Salinas

July 9, 2015

A group of protesters set fire to the wooden door of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's ceremonial palace during a protest denouncing the apparent massacre of 43 trainee teachers, in the historic center of Mexico City

A group of protesters set fire to the wooden door of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto’s ceremonial palace during a protest in Mexico City, November 8, 2014. Protesters were demanding justice for 43 students who were abducted and apparently murdered and incinerated by corrupt police in league with drug gang members in September. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

“When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before,” John D. Rockefeller Jr., letter to Nicholas M. Butler, 1932

Did we learn anything from Prohibition?

Prohibition was a failure in the 1920s, and, for similar reasons, the so-called war on drugs has been a disaster. Forty years after Richard Nixon declared this war, consumption worldwide is up, violence has increased and the rule of law has collapsed, especially in Latin America.

Basic economics tells us that when there is artificial pressure on supply, prices go up and margins increase — the perfect incentives for criminal activities. The same mistake was made in the United States almost a century ago with Prohibition. As early as 1925, some observers started to see that this policy, far from stopping crime, was leading to the formation of large networks of well-funded crime syndicates.

Franklin Roosevelt was elected in 1932 partly due to his campaign promise to end Prohibition. People who originally favored Prohibition, such as John D. Rockefeller Jr., later fought for its repeal because of the devastating effects it had on agriculture and industry.

A world of crime

The dire results of the war on drugs are clear. Mexico is paying a very high price — a pound of flesh multiplied by a million– for a policy dictated in Washington with the clear support of the United Nations. At least 50,000 people have died in my country as a consequence of this policy in the past decade alone.

In a recent global report on homicides produced by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, it is suggested that poverty and inequality are the main factors that explain the increase in crime rates across Latin America. Curiously in Africa, a region much poorer than Latin America, homicide rates have not shot up and the U.N. report does not offer a coherent explanation why this is the case.

Nevertheless, the report offers valuable information. For example, in 2012, almost half a million people were murdered worldwide. More than a third of the killings took place in Latin America; Europe, by contrast, accounted for only 5% of the homicides. In most regions around the world, violence is decreasing, but not here.

The war on drugs is a war on Latin America

A great deal of the violence that is bringing down our region is a product of the war on drugs The criminal justice systems throughout Latin America and the United States have been undermined as the courts are clogged with victimless crimes such as drug possession. The prisons are overcrowded with victimless criminals. The United States, in particular, is a clear example of this phenomenon, with a quarter of the world’s incarcerations, almost half of them a product of drug-related felonies.

This generates impunity for criminals. They can’t all be caught, and they can’t all be prosecuted with criminal justice systems and law enforcement agencies that are so overwhelmed.

The U.N. report correctly points out that there is a clear correlation between levels of impunity and homicide rates, a phenomenon that is unmanageable in some regions of Mexico and Central America. It should be noted that seven of the eight most violent countries in the world are located on the cocaine route to the United States.

Countries such as Honduras, Venezuela, Belize and El Salvador reported rates of 90, 54, 45 and 41 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, respectively. These are intolerable levels. The inability of the state to bring murderers to justice is a key factor in explaining this violence. Something is definitely and fundamentally wrong in Latin American criminal justice systems, and this subversion of the justice systems is corroding everything else in its wake. The war on drugs is sustained by a circular logic in which the damage generated by this policy is attributed instead to drug-related activities in order to justify it, a perverse inference that generates never-ending violence.

We need to move on

It’s been more than 40 years since the war on drugs was declared in Washington. Mexico has blindly followed the lead of its northern neighbor throughout this period, and there is little to show for it beyond the rise of violence and the steady decomposition of society. The economic forces are too vast. This is a multibillion-dollar industry that has subverted social order and the rule of law. Prohibition only means that the state has renounced its right to regulate narcotics by leaving this activity and its enforcement at the sole discretion of the drug lords.

This war is ravaging our hemisphere. Many know this. But few have the courage to speak up. So here it is: Let’s legalize drugs and regulate them, starting with cannabis. It should be noted that campaigns against tobacco, which is more addictive than cannabis, have been successful. Let’s redirect scarce resources to healthcare and education to highlight the dangers of substance abuse and free up our law enforcement and judicial institutions to focus on violent crime, corruption and the enforcement of property rights, gradually reestablishing the rule of law.

The United Nations promised decades ago a “world free of drugs.” This never happened. Many more people are dying as a consequence of this policy than by consumption of illicit substances. Let’s face it, the war on drugs is a fiasco.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Marijuana legalization as viewed from the trenches of youth: Karina Baffa (Opinion)

from cleveland.com

A man smokes a marijuana cigarette. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Karina Baffa graduated from Fairview High School

Karina Baffa

As a recent high school graduate, I have seen the short- and long-term effects of marijuana from all aspects of my life. I believe that the opinions and viewpoints of our younger generation are vital when it comes to the decision to legalize marijuana.

Even though this drug has positive medical uses and effects, it is still a mind-altering drug that needs to be legally regulated and used responsibly when utilized for recreational purposes.

As a member of society, I believe the legalization of marijuana would implement a plethora of health and economic benefits. Studies portray a decrease in violence and aggressive behavior after someone smokes marijuana, as opposed to people intoxicated with alcohol, who can sometimes get violent and make poor decisions, causing thousands of deaths per year. The fact that marijuana is currently prescribed in 23 states for medical purposes validates that the medical world has approved and accepted the drug. In addition to health benefits, the recent legalization of marijuana in Colorado is already bringing inmore than $30 million of taxable revenue a month.

As a friend, I have witnessed the negative effects of banning marijuana. Starting last year, multiple high schools near me made the decision to begin random drug screenings. I am assuming the goal of this was to keep students away from drugs and make sure that the ones who did use got the right help. Throughout the summer, leading up to the first drug-tested school year, I watched the schools' attempt to keep the students drug-free completely fail. I observed numerous kids who were normally just occasional marijuana users turn to harder and more dangerous drugs that would not show up on the screening. I knew that their approach to the drug tests was not the smartest or most ideal, but I also knew that they all had so much potential to be successful and intelligent. Watching them struggle was very hard for me.

As a sibling of a recovered addict, I would like to touch upon the argument that insists marijuana is a gateway drug. I have personally seen marijuana lead someone to other drugs and cause them to crave a stronger high. The use of any drug, such as cigarettes, alcohol or marijuana, requires self-control. If the use of marijuana lures someone toward more drugs, it is because that person does not have the self-control to use the substance appropriately. The same goes for alcohol, which kills 88,000 people a year in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is not the drug that leads someone down a bad path, it is the user. Any drug, from caffeine to cocaine, can be a "gateway drug." Whether the drug becomes a gateway is up to the user.

From my personal experiences, I can confidently assert that whether or not marijuana is illegal, anyone who wants to smoke it will do so. The use of marijuana, like practically anything, is bad only if you make it bad. The advantages that legalized marijuana would bring to today's society include more profit for business people and more revenue for government, reduced crime and violence, and a beneficial alternative to detrimental drugs that already are legal, such as cigarettes and alcohol.

Overall, from my viewpoint as a recent high school graduate, I strongly believe the legalization of marijuana would be a positive step.

Karina Baffa graduated Monday from Fairview High School, in Fairview Park, where she researched the ramifications of marijuana legalization as part of a senior project.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

As Americans Legalize Marijuana, Colombians Mourn Drug War Victims

from worldcrunch.com

Patricia Lara Salive (2015-05-13)

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Jeff Oberfelder and his estate near Lake Chelan

-OpEd-

BOGOTA — When I hear about people now selling marijuana legally in the United States, I think of all our fellow Colombians who have died over the years fighting America's absurd war on drugs. I think of Luis Carlos Galán and Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, two politicians gunned down by drug traffickers, and I imagine how these victims could have made Colombia a better place to live. What sense did their deaths have?

Then I hear the story of Jeff Oberfelder, an American marijuana grower whose website details the various strains of cannabis he can sell in the state of Washington. It appears that he became bored with plain old farming, abandoning his apples, cows and poultry, in order to produce marijuana on his estate near Lake Chelan, where he moved so his native Canadian wife could visit her family more easily.

Since mid-2013, Oberfelder has been a licensed marijuana grower, deemed worthy by the regulating Liquor Control Board, which also regulates alcohol sales. He paid the initial $1,000 required, filled out 140 pages of forms, and invested $100,000 to develop his farm, where he cultivated 600 marijuana plants over 15,000 square feet.

He also paid $20,000 for software and security mechanisms, and $10,000 for cameras to monitor the site. His plants met the required standards and biological characteristics, and had no contact with pesticides and other harmful chemicals such as glyphosate, which Colombia's Health Minister Alejandro Gaviria has thankfully banned here.

So as a duly licensed marijuana producer, Oberfelder began his little farm in July 2014, which has since earned him a perfectly legal $500,000.

Photo: Oberfelder Holdings Facebook page

His wife and another person work with him during regular periods, and he hires more hands at harvest time, he tells El Espectador. With this operation, the couple and their five children are earning a living, a very good one. Some of the children smoke joints occasionally, as do Oberfelder and his wife, twice a week. One of the sons has used marijuana to alleviate chronic ear pain, he says.

Obelfelder sells his produce to authorized processors at $6 a gram. They pack them and sell them to retailers, which are currently few in number but growing, given the improving market. And while the marijuana sold on the black market doesn't offer the quality guarantees of that sold in authorized stores, that market hasn't shrunk because its product is cheaper.

The marijuana market is definitely growing in the United States. There are constant television programs and fairs to promote it, and those states where it can be sold are raking in millions of dollars in related taxes. At the end of our conversation, I noted how hard this reality is for many to face in Colombia, where we have lost a lot of valuable people fighting this supposed US-led "war on drugs."

Calling the American drug policy of the past "bullshit," Obelfelder said he can understand that marijuana legalization is hard for Colombians to confront. "And it's sad," he added. "Why did Galán and Lara die? For nothing, just bullshit!"

Read the full article: As Americans Legalize Marijuana, Colombians Mourn Drug War Victims
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