The last two selections also show how two jailed border patrol agents are polarizing law enforcement observers across the country. More members of congress, including those perceived as liberal, like U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein, are expressing support for the border patrol agents, who shot a suspect and then tried to cover up the incident, while some supporters of law and order still insist the law has to apply to everyone, including law enforcement officers. It's a shame jailed non-violent drug offenders don't garner so much attention and serious consideration. Without the drug war, particularly the war on cannabis, the border agents would not have found themselves in such an unfortunate situation.
]]>From the newspaper of Canada's capitol comes a reefer madness column. "...as many as one in four cannabis users is genetically at risk for developing schizophrenia or a related psychotic disorder" The actual risk, according to peer reviewed medical journal articles, is about 1 in 6,000 users. The studies also make clear that the psychotic disorders could be pre-existing - the users self-medicating with marijuana. B.C. Bud and skunk are 25 times stronger than resin sold a decade ago? Drug War Distortions http://www.drugwardistortions.org/distortion11.htm states "According to data from the Potency Monitoring Project, the THC content of commercial-grade marijuana increased from 1997 to 2000 for commercial-grade (4.25% to 4.92%) and for sinsemilla (11.62% to 13.20%)" Hmmm. If we multiply 11% by 25 times we have the best bud at an amazing 275% THC! Oh, the newspaper is the Independent on Sunday, which has a separate, independent, staff from the weekday Independent. Margret Kopala seems to have a hard time getting anything right.
On the other hand, the Health Editor for the Independent tells it as it is.
Your commentator and others from the DrugSense Weekly staff watched Virginia Resner receive the Robert C. Randall Award for Achievement in the Field of Citizen Action in 2001. She has passed on to a better place.
]]>Methamphetamines is increasingly linked with HIV, according to a study presented to the International AIDS Society (IAS) conference in Sydney last week. "The effect of methamphetamine on behaviour is disastrous for the gay population," said Professor David Cooper, director of the National Centre for HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research in Australia. "And I fear that young straight Australians experimenting are also more at risk."
Police in Ottawa, Canada said this week that "drug use" is their biggest problem, as arrests for cocaine soar. Recorded criminal offenses in Ottawa rose across the board last year, but "violent crime dropped seven per cent". Ottawa police had earlier claimed that "criminal activity" was increasing in Ottawa. Others noted that the price of cocaine has fallen, and "because it's so cheap, people who didn't used to use are using." Ottawa city council was criticized last month after voting to stop a sterile crack pipe distribution program which was praised for helping stop the spread of Hep C and HIV.
And we leave you with a remarkably lucid article from the New Statesman in the UK. "Prohibition Has Failed, Just As It Did With Alcohol." While there were but 10,000 "problematic drug users" in the UK in 1971, now there are 300,000, which makes the Misuse of Drugs Act of 1971 "one of the least effective pieces of legislation ever enacted." Summarizing a report by the Royal Society of Arts released last March, "The authors would deny it, but the logic of these reports is that cannabis, cocaine, Ecstasy, heroin and the rest should be legalised." Drug "prohibition has failed, just as prohibition of alcohol once failed in America... Many - perhaps most - users handle drugs without significant harm to themselves or others."
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