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Heroin trials to begin in Vancouver,No out of towners need apply
I read a tiny article in one of the local free daily papers that alluded to a heroin trial that is to begin in town soon.If I don't get on this one I'm taking a hostage.I have the medical need and all
In The Trenches
Cheech & Chong and more: a sneak peak at our gala program
Dear friends:
Our 15th Anniversary Gala, on January 13 in Washington, D.C., will honor the dedicated legislators, celebrities, and patients who have fought for an end to marijuana prohibition. Have you reserved your ticket yet?
Here are just a few highlights from our program for the night:
- Comedy icons Cheech and Chong will be honored with the Trailblazer Award for drawing attention to the movement.
- Former Gov. Gary Johnson of New Mexico â a fierce advocate for medical marijuana access â will speak about his vision for ending marijuana prohibition.
- We'll present awards to legislators, a patient, and a physician for outstanding advocacy and leadership in marijuana policy reform.
Please join us in toasting 15 years of remarkable progress. Reserve your ticket to our 15th Anniversary Gala today.
I look forward to seeing you on January 13.
Sincerely,
Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.
P.S. There are only eight days left in our matching campaign! A major philanthropist has committed to match the first $2.35 million that MPP can raise in 2009. Make twice the impact and donate today.
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Medical Marijuana Comment Approved on the Fresno Bee Opinion Talk Blog
http://fresnobeehive.com/opinion/2009/12/what_are_your_dumbest_trends_o.html
My local newspaper, The Fresno Bee, posted an entry in their Opinion Talk Blog asking, "What are your dumbest trends of the decade?"
and continues:
As this decade stumbles to a conclusion, media outlets have begun putting together their best and worst lists. So I'll join in with my picks of the dumbest trends of the decade, and I hope you'll add yours in the comments section. There are plenty of possibilities in this bizarre decade.
I submitted the following comment about medical marijuana, and they included it:
One of the dumbest trends of the decade has to be that city and county governments waste so much time and resources that could be better used to better their communities on trying to circumvent California State Medical Marijuana Laws.
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The Most Insane Anti-Marijuana Argument Ever
Anyone can dream up dumb reasons for keeping marijuana illegal, but it takes guts to equate pot prohibition with the survival of Western civilization. Mary Grabar at Pajamas Media shows us how it's done:
You know, marijuana has only been illegal for 72 years. This isnât a brick in the foundation of anything. Marijuana's prohibition was born out of absurd racist demagoguery, and the counter-culture that subsequently emerged was a symptom of prohibition, not a justification for it.
Ironically, Garbar is trying to fan the flames of what she sees as a massive culture war over marijuana, yet as the comments indicate, she can't even get her own conservative readership to buy into it.
The sanction for alcohol use has lasted for millennia. It has become part of our rituals at meals, celebrations, and religious services. That is a large part of why Prohibition failed.
Marijuana, in contrast, has always been counter-cultural in the West. Every toke symbolizes a thumb in the eye of Western values. So it follows that in order to maintain our culture, we need to criminalize this drug.
The prohibition against marijuana is one brick in the foundation of our society.
You know, marijuana has only been illegal for 72 years. This isnât a brick in the foundation of anything. Marijuana's prohibition was born out of absurd racist demagoguery, and the counter-culture that subsequently emerged was a symptom of prohibition, not a justification for it.
Ironically, Garbar is trying to fan the flames of what she sees as a massive culture war over marijuana, yet as the comments indicate, she can't even get her own conservative readership to buy into it.
In The Trenches
2010: The Year Dispensaries Died?
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In The Trenches
How Chase Bank cheated drug policy groups out of $25,000
Friends,
Recently, I asked you to vote for Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) in a competition on Facebook that would have earned us $25K and a shot at $1 million. Thousands of you took action, catapulting SSDP into fourteenth place. We needed to place within the top 100 to win, so victory was assured.
Or so we thought. As the New York Times reported this Saturday, during the final days of the contest, Chase rigged their own system to obscure the vote count and then revoked the winnings of a few groups, including SSDP and the Marijuana Policy Project!
Clearly, Chase can't be trusted to handle our money. This morning, I canceled my credit card account with Chase, and I hope you'll join me. Please make the Chase Boycott Pledge at http://www.ChaseBoycott.com
To be clear, this isn't sour grapes over not receiving a grant -- this is about demanding honesty and accountability of a corporation that handles billions of dollars of American assets. The banking giant had every opportunity to disqualify us from the start if they disagreed with our mission. Instead, they used our social networks to generate free advertising for their brand, and then revoked the winnings after the contest was over without providing an explanation. When asked by SSDP and the New York Times to produce a vote tally, they smugly refused.
Chase executives are not only out of touch with the principles of honesty and transparency, but they are also out of touch with the majority of Americans when it comes to drug policy. Did you know that 75% of Americans think the War on Drugs has failed and that 53% support legalizing marijuana? This is a mainstream issue that's gaining more support every day.
By boycotting Chase, you'll be sending a message to corporations that they need to earn your trust before they earn your money. http://www.ChaseBoycott.com
And by making a donation to SSDP today, you'll be sending a message that organizations like ours don't need to rely on grants from big banks so long as we can rely on the generosity of supporters like you.
If you donate $25 today, and 999 others take a stand with you, we'll raise the $25,000 that Chase revoked. With more than 400,000 supporters on our e-mail list and Facebook networks, we can make that happen.
Will you step up and help us reach that goal by making a donation of $25 right now? http://www.ssdp.org/donate
Never defeated,
Micah
Micah Daigle, Executive Director
Students for Sensible Drug Policy
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Move Over NAOMI, Here Comes SALOME--Vancouver's New Heroin Maintenance Trial About to Get Underway
In the Chronicle's review of the top international drug policy stories of the year last week, the slow spread of heroin maintenance was in the mix. This week, its back in the news, with word that a new Canadian heroin maintenance study in Vancouver is about to get underway.
The Study to Assess Longer-term Opioid Medication Effectiveness (SALOME) will choose a Downtown Eastside location next month and begin taking applications from potential participants in February, according to a Tuesday press release from the Inner Change Foundation, which, along with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, is funding the trial. With selection of participants supposed to last only three weeks, that means SALOME could be underway by March.
SALOME will enroll 322 hard-core heroin addictsâthey must have been using at least five years and failed other treatments, including methadone maintenanceâin a year-long, two-phase study. During the first phase, half will be given injectable heroin (diacetylmorphine) and half will be given injectable Dilaudid® (hydromorphone). In the second phase, half of the participants will be switched to oral versions of the drug they are using.
The comparison of heroin and Dilaudid® was inspired by unanticipated results from SALOME's forerunner, NAOMI (the North American Opiate Medication Study), which began in Vancouver in 2005 and produced positive results in research reviews last year. In NAOMI, researchers found that participants could not differentiate between heroin and Dilaudid®. The comparison of success rate among injection and oral administration users was inspired by hopes of reducing rates of injection heroin use.
SALOME was also supposed to take place in Montreal, but Quebec provincial authorities effectively killed it there by refusing to fund it. SALOME researchers have announced that it will now proceed in Vancouver alone.
With an estimated 5,000 heroin addicts in the Downtown Eastside and a municipal government that has officially embraced the progressive four pillars approach--prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and law enforcementâto problematic drug use, Vancouver is most receptive to such ground-breaking research. It is also the home of Insite, North America's only safe injection site.
The NAOMI and SALOME projects are the only heroin maintenance programs to take place in North America. Ongoing or pilot heroin maintenance programs are underway in Britain, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland.
Blog
Are There Any Good Guys in the Mexican Drug War?
Once again, what passes for a victory in the Mexican drug war is really just another bloody mess:
There's something deeply unsettling about watching the Mexican military mimic the intimidation tactics of the drug lords. Finding peace is simply not on the agenda anymore.
Reporting from Mexico City - The dead drug lord lay on his back, blood-soaked jeans yanked down to the knees. Mexican peso notes carpeted his bullet-torn body, and U.S. $100 bills formed neat rows next to his bared belly.
â¦
Even in a country where pictures of gruesome crime scenes routinely show up on the front pages of newspapers, the Beltran Leyva images have stirred controversy over who staged the tableau and whether Mexican authorities did so to send a taunting message to the rest of his powerful drug trafficking gang.
â¦
"It is the state forces that adopted the basic language of the narco," columnist Luis Petersen Farah wrote in the Milenio newspaper. " 'There's your money,' the photograph seems to say. It's the language of war." [LA Times]
There's something deeply unsettling about watching the Mexican military mimic the intimidation tactics of the drug lords. Finding peace is simply not on the agenda anymore.
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How Come White People Never Get Arrested for Marijuana in NYC?
No matter how you frame it, most people still struggle with the concept that marijuana laws are enforced unfairly. I don't see what's so complicated about this:
You can't explain away a gaping disparity like that. This is not just a matter of cultural differences in marijuana using behavior. White people smoke herb in the streets of New York, too. There is no bigger factor at play here than the discretionary choices police make about who to approach and investigate. It really is that simple and that unfair.
But just because it's racist doesnât mean it's bad, says the city:
Even if I believed that stopping a million people a year in the streets of New York is necessary to drive down violent crime, that still doesnât mean you have to arrest them when marijuana is discovered. None of this even begins to make any sense, and it comes as no surprise that city officials are loathe to attempt an explanation for it.
If you want to reduce violent crime, try legalizing marijuana so there's one less thing to fight over.
Even though surveys show they are part of the demographic group that makes the heaviest use of pot, white people in New York are the least likely to be arrested for it.
Last year, black New Yorkers were seven times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession and no more serious crime. Latinos were four times more likely. [NYT]
You can't explain away a gaping disparity like that. This is not just a matter of cultural differences in marijuana using behavior. White people smoke herb in the streets of New York, too. There is no bigger factor at play here than the discretionary choices police make about who to approach and investigate. It really is that simple and that unfair.
But just because it's racist doesnât mean it's bad, says the city:
Mr. Bloombergâs chief criminal justice aide, John Feinblatt, declined to discuss the cityâs approach to marijuana arrests, or the findings of the study. But through a spokesman, he issued a statement maintaining the pot arrests have helped drive down violent crime.
Even if I believed that stopping a million people a year in the streets of New York is necessary to drive down violent crime, that still doesnât mean you have to arrest them when marijuana is discovered. None of this even begins to make any sense, and it comes as no surprise that city officials are loathe to attempt an explanation for it.
If you want to reduce violent crime, try legalizing marijuana so there's one less thing to fight over.
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