Reportaje: Venezuela y EE.UU. altercan a causa de la lucha contra la droga
Washington y Caracas intercambiaron pullas a causa de la cooperación venezolana (o falta de ella) con los luchadores antidrogas estadounidenses esta semana.
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Editorial: ¿Cuánto cuesta construir un túnel con aire condicionado para contrabandear drogas?
De cuando en cuando, las autoridades descubren un túnel electrificado con aire condicionado por debajo de nuestra frontera con México o Canadá, presuntamente construido para el contrabando de drogas. ¿Cuántos túneles como esos falta descubrir? ¿Y cuesta más de un operativo exitoso de contrabando para costear la construcción de un túnel?
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If Salvia Isnât Toxic or Addictive, Whatâs the Argument for Banning it?
The New York Times has a fascinating piece on the growing hysteria surrounding salvia. Researchers are studying its medical potential, college kids are tripping on YouTube, and state legislators are trying to outlaw it entirely.
All of this may soon provoke an illustrative glimpse at the philosophical dimensions of drug prohibition, in that salvia is powerfully psychoactive, yet shows no signs of addictiveness or toxicity. It isnât causing crime or medical emergencies. The short duration of its effects allows users to indulge without becoming incapacitated to the point of impacting their daily lives. In short, salvia simply doesnât fit into the pre-existing categories that drug warriors have carved out in order to justify prohibitions against other popular recreational drugs. So what will they say about it?
Is that a trick question? I give up, Bertha. How? This is the same woman who opposed distributing overdose prevention kits, based on the theory that overdoses might be good for people. So I'm sure sheâll eventually find a solution here that wonât require copious doses of scientific methodology. Rarely in the history of the war on drugs have facts or common sense ever gotten in the way of someone trying to outlaw something. Tell Joe Biden it makes you think youâre a unicorn and heâll have the Saving American Lives from Volatile Intoxicants Act on your desk by nightfall.
But if salvia is ultimately banned at the federal level simply because it makes you insanely high for 5 minutes, one might interpret that as a long-awaited acknowledgement that the war on drugs really is just an attempt to control our minds.
All of this may soon provoke an illustrative glimpse at the philosophical dimensions of drug prohibition, in that salvia is powerfully psychoactive, yet shows no signs of addictiveness or toxicity. It isnât causing crime or medical emergencies. The short duration of its effects allows users to indulge without becoming incapacitated to the point of impacting their daily lives. In short, salvia simply doesnât fit into the pre-existing categories that drug warriors have carved out in order to justify prohibitions against other popular recreational drugs. So what will they say about it?
Though states are moving quickly, Bertha K. Madras, a deputy director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said federal regulators remained in a quandary.
"The risk of any drug that is intoxicating is high," Dr. Madras said. "You're one car ride away from an event that could be life-altering. But in terms of really good studies, there is just very little. So what do you do? How do you make policy in the absence of good hard cold information?"
Is that a trick question? I give up, Bertha. How? This is the same woman who opposed distributing overdose prevention kits, based on the theory that overdoses might be good for people. So I'm sure sheâll eventually find a solution here that wonât require copious doses of scientific methodology. Rarely in the history of the war on drugs have facts or common sense ever gotten in the way of someone trying to outlaw something. Tell Joe Biden it makes you think youâre a unicorn and heâll have the Saving American Lives from Volatile Intoxicants Act on your desk by nightfall.
But if salvia is ultimately banned at the federal level simply because it makes you insanely high for 5 minutes, one might interpret that as a long-awaited acknowledgement that the war on drugs really is just an attempt to control our minds.
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How to Use Drugs Without Ruining Our Lives
Cato Unbound has a wonderful piece, Towards a Culture of Responsible Psychoactive Drug Use, by Earth and Fire Erowid, the founders of Erowid.org. The article provides a rational discussion of why people use psychoactive substances and what can be done to minimize the harms and maximize the benefits of such use. Over the next week, Cato will post responses from Jonathan Caulkins, Jacob Sullum, and Mark Kleiman.
I read the piece last night in its entirety and donât recall finding a single word I disagree with. What struck me is how far removed modern drug education is from even discussing these commonsense principles. Do this information sound dangerous to you?
Fundamentals of Responsible Psychoactive Use
* Investigate the health risks and dangers of the specific psychoactive and of the class of drugs to which it belongs.
* Learn about interactions with other recreational drugs, medications, supplements, and activities.
* Review individual health concerns, predispositions, and family health history.
* Choose a source or product carefully to help ensure correct identification and purity
(avoid materials with an unknown source or of unknown quality).
* Know whether the drug is likely to reduce the ability to drive, operate equipment, or pay attention to necessary tasks.
* Take oneself "off duty" from responsibilities that might be interfered with (job, child care, etc.), and arrange for someone else to be âon dutyâ for such responsibilities.
* Anticipate reasonably foreseeable risks to oneself and others and employ safeguards to minimize those risks.
* Choose an appropriate occasion and location for use.
* Select and measure dosages carefully.
* Begin with a low dose until individual reactions are known and thereafter use the minimum dose necessary to achieve the desired effects: lower doses are safer doses.
* Reflect on and adjust use to minimize physical and mental health problems.
* Note changes in health over time that may be related to use.
* Modify use if it interferes with work or personal goals.
* Check in with peers and family and accept feedback about oneâs use.
* Track reactions to specific drugs and dosages in order to avoid repeating mistakes.
* Seek treatment if needed.
* Decide not to use when the time isnât right, the material is suspect, or the situation is otherwise problematic.
Anyone who has a problem with any of this should contemplate the consequences of allowing young people to learn these lessons the hard way. The fact that these ideas might be considered controversial should serve to remind us how badly our society has demolished its own ability to discuss drug use with people who use drugs.
Event
National African American Drug Policy Coalition Conference
This is a major conference being held at Howard University.
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Release's Drugs, Race & Discrimination Conference
Releaseâs annual conference this year takes the important step of focusing the industry on the complex and damaging practice of routine prejudice in health services.
In The Trenches
Americans for Safe Access: September 2008 Activist Newsletter
California Legislature OKs Job Rights for Cannabis Patients
The California legislature has taken action to guarantee employment rights for cannabis patients. The state senate this month sent to the governor's desk an assembly bill that would prevent discriminating against patients in "hiring, termination, or any term or condition of employment" based on their status as a state-qualified medical cannabis user or a positive drug test for marijuana.
The bill, AB 2279, was introduced by Assemblymember Mark Leno in answer to a California Supreme Court decision that found medical marijuana patients can be fired for positive drug tests, even if their cannabis use is legal under state law and occurs only outside the workplace. AB 2279 is sponsored by ASA and was drafted with assistance from ASA's Legislative Analyst, Noah Mamber.
The bill leaves intact existing state law prohibiting consumption at the workplace and protects employers from liability by allowing exceptions for jobs where physical safety could be a concern.
Gary Ross, speaking to the media
"The California legislature has stood up for the right of patients to work and be productive members of society," said ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford, who represented Gary Ross, the software engineer whose firing became a test of California's medical marijuana law. "Now the governor must act to protect the jobs of thousands of law-abiding Californians who are fighting serious illnesses such as cancer and HIV/AIDS."
The employment rights bill has the support of unions representing nearly 1 million workers in California, as well as the National Lawyers Guild and several HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations. ASA lobbying helped gain the early endorsements of the statewide California Labor Federation, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
California joins Oregon and Hawaii in considering laws to protect medical marijuana patients from employment discrimination.
More about the bill can be seen at www.AmericansForSafeAccess.org/AB2279.
CA Attorney General Directs Law Enforcement on Medical Marijuana
Comprehensive recommendations include protection of dispensaries
Guidelines for California medical cannabis patients and the operation of dispensaries that serve them have been issued by the state's attorney general.
Under the new guidelines, California law enforcement agencies should not take qualified patients into custody or seize their cannabis, so long as they are abiding by state law and local regulation. In instances where medical cannabis is seized, officials are required to return it to patients. The guidelines also provide recommendations for operating medical cannabis dispensaries in accordance with state law.
Attorney General Jerry Brown
"Today we stand beside the Attorney General of California in his effort to fully implement the state's medical marijuana law," said ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford. "We welcome this leadership and expect that compliance with these guidelines will result in fewer unnecessary arrests, citations and seizures of medicine from qualified patients and their primary caregivers."
Americans for Safe Access and other advocates have been urging Attorney General Jerry Brown and other state officials to take action on implementing the medical cannabis program. The guidelines on return of patient cannabis are in keeping with recent court decisions won by Americans for Safe Access.
The most significant aspect of the guidelines may prove to be the recommendations for operating storefront medical marijuana dispensaries in accordance with state law. Lack of state guidance has meant that the issue of how to regulate the operation of such dispensaries -- which some estimates say more than half the state's cannabis patients rely on for access -- has been left to city councils, county supervisors and local zoning boards.
The guidelines note that "a properly organized and operated collective or cooperative that dispenses medical marijuana through a storefront may be lawful under California law." The key question is what constitutes proper organization and operation. The attorney general's guidelines claim that medical cannabis dispensaries must operate on a not-for-profit basis.
This stems from language in the Medical Marijuana Program Act (SB 420), passed by the state legislature in 2003. But the voter-approved Compassionate Use Act (Prop. 215) makes no mention of profit or non-profit in its call for the establishing of a state distribution system.
The guidelines also make clear that state and local law enforcement are not to use federal law as an excuse for arresting state-qualified patients or seizing their cannabis. In so doing, the attorney general affirmed several court decisions that find California's medical marijuana law is not preempted by federal law.
The differences between state and federal laws have led to escalating interference by federal officials. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Department of Justice have targeted California with a campaign of investigations, raids, seizures, prosecutions, and imprisonment of medical marijuana patients and providers.
In response, several California mayors, including San Francisco's Gavin Newsom and Oakland's Ron Dellums, have asked House Judiciary Chair John Conyers (D-MI) for oversight hearings. Rep. Conyers has publicly questioned federal tactics and demanded answers from the DEA.
"It is now up to Congress and the new President to align federal policy with California and other medical cannabis states," said ASA spokesperson Kris Hermes. "It is time to resolve the federal-state conflict that serves only to undermine California and other states' sovereignty and inflict harm on seriously ill patients and their care providers."
The new guidelines can be seen at: www.AmericansForSafeAccess.org/downloads/AG_Guidelines.pdf.
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Jurors Fight Back Against the War on Medical Marijuana
Further proof that railroading medical marijuana defendants in federal court has consequences:
Jurors Craig Will of Twain Hart and Larry Silva of Tollhouse say they wouldn't have found the men guilty had they known the penalty was 20 years to life in prison.
They said a story in the San Francisco Chronicle about medical marijuana led them to believe the crimes weren't that serious.
Ricardo Ruiz Montes and Luke Scarmazzo are scheduled for sentencing Sept. 15 in U.S. District Court in Fresno. Their attorneys also will argue a motion for a new trial. [San Francisco Chronicle]
It is just an inescapable reality that these medical marijuana show trials infuriate jurors and provoke bad press. After suffering multiple humiliations in their years-long crusade against Ed Rosenthal, youâd think federal prosecutors would have cut this charade out already:
5 years after his arrest, Rosenthal was given a 1-day sentence, time served. Thatâs what happens when federal prosecutors turn the law into a political weapon, perverting justice to the point that they themselves become the enemy in the eyes of the jury. First Rosenthalâs jurors lobbied for leniency, until one eventually confessed to misconduct and provoked a retrial.
Thatâs what you get when the drug war divorces itself from public morality. The American people donât believe in criminalizing medical marijuana providers and they cannot be counted upon to cooperate cheerfully with political prosecutions. If anyoneâs been wondering why the DEA doesnât go ahead and try to take down every dispensary in California, well, now you know.
Jurors Craig Will of Twain Hart and Larry Silva of Tollhouse say they wouldn't have found the men guilty had they known the penalty was 20 years to life in prison.
They said a story in the San Francisco Chronicle about medical marijuana led them to believe the crimes weren't that serious.
Ricardo Ruiz Montes and Luke Scarmazzo are scheduled for sentencing Sept. 15 in U.S. District Court in Fresno. Their attorneys also will argue a motion for a new trial. [San Francisco Chronicle]
It is just an inescapable reality that these medical marijuana show trials infuriate jurors and provoke bad press. After suffering multiple humiliations in their years-long crusade against Ed Rosenthal, youâd think federal prosecutors would have cut this charade out already:
Rosenthal was convicted of violating federal drug laws, but seven of the 12 jurors said afterward that their verdict would have been different if they had been allowed to consider evidence about the medical use of the marijuana and Rosenthal's status as an agent in the Oakland program. They requested leniency for Rosenthal.
â¦
Last April [2006], the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said in a 3-0 ruling that Rosenthal was entitled to a new trial because one of the jurors improperly sought outside advice about the case. [San Francisco Chronicle]
5 years after his arrest, Rosenthal was given a 1-day sentence, time served. Thatâs what happens when federal prosecutors turn the law into a political weapon, perverting justice to the point that they themselves become the enemy in the eyes of the jury. First Rosenthalâs jurors lobbied for leniency, until one eventually confessed to misconduct and provoked a retrial.
Thatâs what you get when the drug war divorces itself from public morality. The American people donât believe in criminalizing medical marijuana providers and they cannot be counted upon to cooperate cheerfully with political prosecutions. If anyoneâs been wondering why the DEA doesnât go ahead and try to take down every dispensary in California, well, now you know.