Legalise dagga – dr Ben Dlamini

MBABANE – The contentious issue of the legalisation of dagga faces its first real test as a case seeking it to be legalised and be traded has been taken to the High Court.

Former Director of the Swaziland Examinations Council Dr Ben Dlamini wants the High Court to help him get an order that will make government not only legalise cannabis but also allow him to operate a cannabis processing factory in the country.

He wants to set up a national cannabis processing and marketing company, with all growers in the country supplying his factory. He says his factory will then solicit orders from local and international pharmacies. He also states that he would involve international research institutions to conduct research on processed and raw cannabis. Dagga is also referred to as cannabis.

Dlamini has cited as respondents, the Attorney General (AG), Minister of Health, Commissioners of Police and that of Correctional Services, as well as the Director of Public Prosecutions. He has also requested that they add the Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry. The respondents are yet to file their responding papers.

Dlamini wants the AG to amend all laws that criminalise cannabis, but only render illegal the extracts of the plant that contains tetrahydrocarbinol, which is the active ingredient that makes a user high.

Dlamini, who holds a Doctorate in Education, Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Chemistry, argues that cannabis is not a drug and is not addictive. He also claims it is not intoxicating nor is it poisonous. He referred to a number of researches done in the United States of America and in Asia. "This necessitated experiments that were conducted with subjects who smoked cannabis for a given time under controlled conditions, A cannabis smoker will not be bothered, while a cigarette smoker will not allow that to happen," reads his affidavit.

He also claims that cannabis influences a person to sleep, but is never intoxicated and ‘unable to know what he is doing.’ He further argues that cannabis is safer than alcohol and tobacco. Dlamini alleges that the substance has been used in Africa and Asia since time immemorial. "It is smoked, it is eaten and it is used as an antidote for cases of poisoning. The question of the risk element attached to the use of cannabis will continue to be a matter for the experts, but irrespective of the answer, there exists no just reason to punish cannabis users or those who grow it," he states in his affidavit.

Dlamini is challenging Section 151 (1) of the Opium and Habit Forming Drugs Act of 1922. The section stipulates that, "In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, habit forming drug or drugs means and includes the following as herein defined – cannabis, dagga, instangu, Indian hemp, under whatever name it may be described, known, sold, supplied or otherwise referred to or dealt with, whether the whole or any portion of the plant and all extracts, tinctures or preparations or admixtures thereon."

He argues that the statement ‘all extracts, tinctures or preparations or admixtures,’ does not apply to what is happening in the country.

"This is what is done to cannabis in Asia and certainly when the law is amended, these extracts should be proscribed such concentrating THC to form Hashish," read his papers.

He has given the respondents until December 17, 2010 to file responding papers. The matter is still pending before the High Court.

...wants 10-year exclusive licence

MBABANE – Dr Ben Dlamini has called upon the Minister for Commerce, Industry and Trade to grant him a 10-year exclusive licence to grow dagga.

This is one of the orders he is seeking from the High Court, where he wants to be allowed to establish a factory processing and selling dagga. He argues that dagga has not only been wrongly defined as a drug and also wrongly proscribed so under legislation regulations.

‘No one has died of dagga in 5 000yrs’

MBABANE –Dr Ben Dlamini has alleged that in 5 000 years, no one has died of cannabis anywh-ere in the world.

He makes this allegation in a section of his court papers where he argues that cannabis is not a drug and neither is it an intoxicant.

"According to the Oxford pocket dictionary, to intoxicate is to make drunk, excite, elate, beyond self control. Unlike alcohol, cannabis users do not lose self control, massive amounts just send them to sleep. Intoxicants are potentially toxic, that is poisonous, with a certain overodse level often dependent on the individual. There has never been a single death directly linked to cannabis use in 5 000 years of history with hundreds of millions of users in the world. There is no toxi amount of cannabis. No animal has died of an overdose of cannabis," he alleges.

- Times of Swaziland

Cannabis To Control Alcohol Abuse

A new research effort has a provocative outcome as University of California-Berkeley researchers suggest substituting cannabis for treatment of heavy alcohol abuse.

Research published in BioMed Central’s open access Harm Reduction Journal features a poll of 350 cannabis users, finding that 40 percent used cannabis to control their alcohol cravings, 66 percent as a replacement for prescription drugs and 26 percent for other, more potent illegal drugs.

Amanda Reiman carried out the study at the UC-Berkeley Patient’s Group, a medical cannabis dispensary.

She said, “Substituting cannabis for alcohol has been described as a radical alcohol treatment protocol. This approach could be used to address heavy alcohol use in the British Isles – people might substitute cannabis, a potentially safer drug than alcohol with less negative side effects, if it were socially acceptable and available.”

Reiman found that 65 percent of people reported using cannabis as a substitute because it has fewer adverse side effects than alcohol, illicit or prescription drugs, 34 percent because it has less withdrawal potential and 57.4 percent because cannabis provides better symptom management.

Reiman believes this discovery brings up two important points.

“First, self-determination, the right of an individual to decide which treatment or substance is most effective and least harmful for them. Secondly, the recognition that substitution might be a viable alternative to abstinence for those who can’t or won’t completely stop using psychoactive substances.”

Speaking about legalization of cannabis, Reiman added, “The economic hardship of the Great Depression helped bring about the end of alcohol prohibition. Now, as we are again faced with economic struggles, the U.S. is looking to marijuana as a potential revenue generator.

“Public support is rising for the legalization of recreational use and remains high for the use of marijuana as a medicine. The hope is that this interest will translate into increased research support and the removal of current barriers to conducting such research, such as the Schedule I/Class B status of marijuana.”

- PsychCentral

Sea squirts and you

Alcohol 'more harmful than heroin or crack'

Alcohol is the most dangerous drug in the UK by a considerable margin, beating heroin and crack cocaine into second and third place, according to an authoritative study published today which will reopen calls for the drugs classification system to be scrapped and a concerted campaign launched against drink.

Led by the sacked government drugs adviser David Nutt with colleagues from the breakaway Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, the study says that if drugs were classified on the basis of the harm they do, alcohol would be class A, alongside heroin and crack cocaine.

Today's paper, published by the respected Lancet medical journal, will be seen as a challenge to the government to take on the fraught issue of the relative harms of legal and illegal drugs, which proved politically damaging to Labour.

Nutt was sacked last year by the home secretary at the time, Alan Johnson, for challenging ministers' refusal to take the advice of the official Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which he chaired. The committee wanted cannabis to remain a class C drug and for ecstasy to be downgraded from class A, arguing that these were less harmful than other drugs. Nutt claimed scientific evidence was overruled for political reasons.

The new paper updates a study carried out by Nutt and others in 2007, which was also published by the Lancet and triggered debate for suggesting that legally available alcohol and tobacco were more dangerous than cannabis and LSD.

Alcohol, in that paper, ranked fifth most dangerous overall. The 2007 paper also called for an overhaul of the drug classification system, but critics disputed the criteria used to rank the drugs and the absence of differential weighting.

Today's study offers a more complex analysis that seeks to address the 2007 criticisms. It examines nine categories of harm that drugs can do to the individual "from death to damage to mental functioning and loss of relationships" and seven types of harm to others. The maximum possible harm score was 100 and the minimum zero.

Overall, alcohol scored 72 – against 55 for heroin and 54 for crack. The most dangerous drugs to their individual users were ranked as heroin, crack and then crystal meth. The most harmful to others were alcohol, heroin and crack in that order.

Nutt told the Guardian the drug classification system needed radical change. "The Misuse of Drugs Act is past its sell-by date and needs to be redone," he said. "We need to rethink how we deal with drugs in the light of these new findings."

For overall harm, the other drugs examined ranked as follows: crystal meth (33), cocaine (27), tobacco (26), amphetamine/speed (23), cannabis (20), GHB (18), benzodiazepines (15), ketamine (15), methadone (13), butane (10), qat (9), ecstasy (9), anabolic steroids (9), LSD (7), buprenorphine (6) and magic mushrooms (5).

The authors write: "Our findings lend support to previous work in the UK and the Netherlands, confirming that the present drug classification systems have little relation to the evidence of harm. They also accord with the conclusions of previous expert reports that aggressively targeting alcohol harm is a valid and necessary public health strategy."

Nutt told the Lancet a new classification system "would depend on what set of harms 'to self or others' you are trying to reduce". He added: "But if you take overall harm, then alcohol, heroin and crack are clearly more harmful than all others, so perhaps drugs with a score of 40 or more could be class A; 39 to 20 class B; 19-10 class C and 10 or under class D." This would result in tobacco being labelled a class B drug alongside cocaine. Cannabis would also just make class B, rather than class C. Ecstasy and LSD would end up in the lowest drug category, D.

He was not suggesting classification was unnecessary: "We do need a classification system – we do need to regulate the ones that are very harmful to individuals like heroin and crack cocaine." But he thought the UK could learn from the Portuguese and Dutch: "They have innovative policies which could reduce criminalisation." Representatives of both countries will be at a summit in London today, called drug science and drug policy: building a consensus, where the study will be presented.

UK reformers will be hoping the coalition government will take a more evidence-based approach to classification and tackling drugs than Labour did. The Liberal Democrats supported Nutt over his sacking, while Conservative leader David Cameron, who got into trouble at Eton, aged 15, for smoking cannabis, acknowledged the Misuse of Drugs Act was not working during his time as an MP on the Home Affairs select committee.

Nutt called for far more effort to be put into reducing harm caused by alcohol, pointing out that its economic costs, as well as the costs to society of addiction and broken families, are very high. Taxation on alcohol is "completely inappropriate", he said – with strong cider, for instance, taxed at a fifth of the rate of wine – and action should particularly target the low cost and promotion of alcohol such as Bacardi breezers to young people.

Don Shenker, the chief executive of Alcohol Concern, said : "What this study and new classification shows is that successive governments have mistakenly focused attention on illicit drugs, whereas the pervading harms from alcohol should have given a far higher priority. Drug misusers are still ten times more likely to receive support for their addiction than alcohol misusers, costing the taxpayer billions in repeat hospital admissions and alcohol related crime. Alcohol misuse has been exacerbated in recent years as government failed to accept the link between cheap prices, higher consumption and resultant harms to individuals and society."

"[The] government should now urgently ensure alcohol is made less affordable and invest in prevention and treatment services to deal with the rise in alcohol dependency that has occurred."

The Home Office said last night: "We have not read the report. This government has just completed an alcohol consultation and will publish a drugs strategy in the coming months."

A Department of Health spokesperson said: "In England, most people drink once a week or less. If you're a women and stick to two to three units a day or a man and drink up to three or four units, you are unlikely to damage your health. The government is determined to prevent alcohol abuse without disadvantaging those who drink sensibly."Two experts from the Amsterdam National Institute for Public Health and the Environment and the Amsterdam Institute for Addiction Research point out in a Lancet commentary the study does not look at multiple drug use, which can make some drugs much more dangerous – such as cocaine or cannabis together with alcohol – but they acknowledge the topic was outside its scope.

They add that because the pattern of recreational drug use changes, the study should be repeated every five or 10 years.

- guardian

Innocent drivers test positive for drugs

Nearly four per cent of people who test positive for drug driving in Victoria and have their licences temporarily suspended are innocent, it emerged today.

Victoria Police today admitted that wrong results were part of the testing process but said it would not change its procedures.

Under the current system, drivers' saliva is tested for cannabis, ecstasy or amphetamines at the roadside and banned for up to 12 hours if they return a positive result.

But penalties or permanent bans are not issued until the sample is tested at a drug laboratory, which police say is 100 per cent accurate.

The new statistics emerged after it was revealed today that Geelong man Rory Lalor recently recorded a false positive test and was banned from the behind the wheel for four hours.

Mr Lalor paid $115 for an independent test that showed his system was free from illegal drugs, but Victoria Police said yesterday he would never have been fined or banned from driving permanently because his saliva swab was found negative by its laboratory.

Inspector Martin Boorman said today that false positives could be returned if equipment was faulty, if a test was not conducted correctly or if the sample itself was problematic but did not elaborate on the last point.

He said they were an unfortunate part of the procedure and that 62 of 1618 drug-driving tests sent to the laboratory, or 3.8 per cent, between 2004 and 2009 had been found to be false.

But he said Victoria Police would not be changing its methods.

"I apologise for the inconvenience of these people, but I make no apologies for what we're doing," he said.

Inspector Boorman said police had detected 1556 drug drivers that were potentially a danger to themselves and others on the road.

- The Age

I get money through selling dagga – local grower

MBABANE- A local man, who grows cannabis (dagga) is wondering why other countries, where the plant is legal, are assisting Swaziland to eradicate it.

The man, who will not be named, says the fact that the United States aids the Swazi police force in their eradication of local crops is ludicrous.

"Why is it that they can come here and destroy peoples’ livelihoods when you can buy marijuana from a vending machine in California?" he asked.

"In fact, in the US State of California, the legalisation of possession and the sale of marijuana have qualified for the November ballot. If accepted, this law will make it legal to posses 28.5 grams of marijuana and to grow limited amounts of it for personal use. In Canada, the British Columbia Marijuana party’s platform calls for the law on marijuana prohibition to be repealed, and in Amsterdam, it is legal to purchase marijuana from a coffee shop," he explained.

"People in Swaziland do not realise how much money can be made," said the grower, who acknowledged that high quality dagga could be sold for over E2000 a kilogramme.

"Europe and the US grow it, why not here? I do not really care if they legalise it because my money comes in regardless, but what are they afraid of?" he wondered.

"It is illegal to grow dagga in Swaziland, yet a lot of people are doing it," said Sigwe Member of Parliament, Sivumelwano Nxumalo.

"Some people have talked about legalising it, but it has never been seriously taken up. I think we need to have a real discussion on its benefits and side effects."

According to another government official, who did not want to be identified, the legalisation of dagga should be seriously considered, as its taxation could provide an alternative source of revenue for the government.

"Right now, government revenue is seriously declining," he said. "And we all know that marijuana is being grown here, so why not tax it to create an alternative source of revenue? It was discussed at a meeting last year, though it was initially laughed at. It just won’t happen under the current leadership."

According to Superintendent Albert N. Mkhatshwa, international liaison in charge of drugs, there is no possibility of dagga being legalised in the near future. "It is not possible, especially since we are fighting this crime with other African countries where it is illegal," he said. "I do not think it should be debated, it would really complicate our jobs, as dagga leads people to commit many crimes."

Swaziland’s dagga is world renowned for its quality, yet the possibility of its legalisation has yet to be explored in the Kingdom.

Known locally as ‘dagga’, marijuana is a widely grown cash crop in Swaziland. Its product is consumed locally and exported to countries such as South Africa as well as Europe, which makes the Kingdom one of the largest marijuana-growing areas in the Southern African region. This year, the Royal Swaziland Police eradicated between 80 and 165 hectares of dagga per month.

"But we can benefit from these natural seeds," says an individual who has grown dagga for years, who refuses to be named due to the nature of his business. "Governments around the world allow the growing of marijuana, yet Swaziland continues to destroy the crops of rural people who are only trying to send their children to school."

- Times of Swaziland

The promise of legalisation

Anti-drug policies in the U.S. have failed, and the marijuana trade is largely in the hands of organized crime. It's time for a saner policy of legalisation and regulation.

People on both sides of the marijuana legalisation debate have strong feelings about Proposition 19, the California ballot initiative that promises to regulate, control and tax cannabis. But science and empirical research have been given short shrift in the discussion. That's unfortunate, because the U.S. government has actually funded excellent research on the subject, and it suggests that several widely held assumptions about cannabis legalisation actually may be inaccurate. When the total body of knowledge is considered, it's hard to conclude that we should stick with the current system.

One important question is whether laws criminalizing marijuana have effectively reduced supply and use. It would appear from available data that they have not. Despite billions spent on anti-cannabis law enforcement and a 30% increase in the number of arrests in California since 2005, marijuana remains the most frequently used illegal drug. Nationally, an estimated $10 billion is spent each year enforcing marijuana laws, yet an ongoing study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse has concluded that over the last 30 years, the drug has remained "almost universally available to American 12th-graders," with 80% to 90% saying the drug is "very easy" or "fairly easy" to obtain.

On the health side of the equation, scientific consensus is that while cannabis may pose some health risks, they are less serious than those posed by alcohol and tobacco. The approach taken to regulating these other harmful substances, however, hasn't been to criminalize them but to regulate their distribution, to impose taxes on their purchase and to educate the public about their risks. These measures have been shown to be effective, as in the case of cigarette consumption, which has dropped dramatically.

On the other hand, cannabis prohibition has not achieved its stated objectives. As detailed in a report published last week by my organization, the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy, research funded by the U.S. government clearly demonstrates that even as federal funding for anti-drug efforts has increased by more than an inflation-adjusted 600% over the last several decades, marijuana's potency has increased by 145% since 1990, and its price has declined 58%.

In this context, supporting Proposition 19 seems like a reasonable position, and recent polls have suggested that almost half of decided voters support the ballot initiative. However, there has emerged a strong assumption in the debate that, though legalisation will save police time and raise tax revenue, this will come at the cost of increasing rates of cannabis use.

This notion is based on a widely cited Rand Corp. report, which used a theoretical model to conclude that rates of cannabis use will increase if cannabis is legalized. Though the authors of this report cautioned readers that there were "many limitations to our estimate's precision and completeness" and that "uncertainties are so large that altering just a few key assumptions or parameter values can dramatically change the results," few seem to have read past the headline that legalisation is likely to increase cannabis use.

This may be the case, but it's not a certainty. In the Netherlands, where marijuana has been sold in licensed "coffee shops" since the 1970s, about 20% of the adult population has used the drug at some time in their lives. In the United States, where it is largely illegal, 42% of the adult population has used marijuana.

Neither Rand's theoretical model nor other commentaries have considered the potential benefits of the broad range of regulatory tools that could be utilized if the marijuana market were legal. The state could then license vendors, impose purchasing and sales restrictions and require warning labels. Although these methods have been scientifically proven effective in reducing tobacco and alcohol use internationally, it is noteworthy that successful government lobbying by the tobacco and alcohol industries has slowly eroded many of these regulatory mechanisms in the United States.

A bill has been introduced in the California Legislature to create a uniform statewide regulatory system under the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control if Proposition 19 passes. Such a system would allow, finally, for an evidence-based discussion of how to optimize cannabis regulatory regimes so that the benefits of regulation (including such things as tax revenue and reduced drug market violence) can be maximized while rates of cannabis use and related harms can be minimized.

Up to now, the fact that cannabis is illegal has meant that the unregulated market has been largely controlled by organized-crime groups, and the trade has sparked considerable violence, both in the United States and in Mexico. Given the widespread availability and use of cannabis despite aggressive criminal justice measures, there is no doubt that a saner system can be created if marijuana is strictly regulated rather than left in the hands of organized crime.

Evan Wood, a physician and professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia, is the founder of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy.

- LAtimes

Cannabis should be sold in shops alongside beer and cigarettes, doctors' journal says

An editorial in the British Medical Journal suggested that the sale of cannabis should be licensed like cigarettes because banning it had not worked. Photo: PA

An editorial in the British Medical Journal suggested that the sale of cannabis should be licensed like alcohol because banning it had not worked.

Banning cannabis had increased drug-related violence because enforcement made “the illicit market a richer prize for criminal groups to fight over”.

An 18-fold increase in the anti-drugs budget in the US to $18billion between 1981 and 2002 had failed to stem the market for the drug.

In fact cannabis related drugs arrests in the US increased from 350,000 in 1990 to more than 800,000 a year by 2006, with seizures quintupling to 1.1million kilogrammes.

The editorial, written by Professor Robin Room of Melbourne University, said: “In some places, state controlled instruments - such as licensing regimes, inspectors, and sales outlets run by the Government - are still in place for alcohol and these could be extended to cover cannabis.”

Prof Room suggested that state-run off licences from Canada and some Nordic countries could provide “workable and well controlled retail outlets for cannabis”.

Prof Room suggested the current ban on cannabis could come to alcohol prohibition, which was adopted by 11 countries between 1914 and 1920.

Eventually it was replaced with “restrictive regulatory regimes, which restrained alcohol consumption and problems related to alcohol until these constraints were eroded by the neo-liberal free market ideologies of recent decades”.

The editorial concluded: “The challenge for researchers and policy analysts now is to flesh out the details of effective regulatory regimes, as was done at the brink of repeal of US alcohol prohibition.”

Campaigners criticised the editorial. Mary Brett, a retired biology teacher, said: “The whole truth about the damaging effects of cannabis, especially to our children with their still-developing brains, has never been properly publicised.

“The message received by children were it to be legalised would be, ‘It can't be too bad or the Government wouldn't have done this’.

“I know - I taught biology to teenage boys for 30 years. So usage will inevitably go up - it always does when laws are relaxed.

“Why add to the misery caused by our existing two legal drugs, alcohol and tobacco?”

Earlier this year, Fiona Godlee, an editor of the Journal, which is run by the British Medical Association, endorsed an article by Steve Rolles, head of research at Transform, the drugs foundation, which called for an end to the war on drugs and its replacement by a legal system of regulation.

Dr Godlee said: “Rolles calls on us to envisage an alternative to the hopelessly failed war on drugs. He says, and I agree, that we must regulate drug use, not criminalise it.”

- Telegraph

The Vienna Declaration

The Vienna Declaration

The criminalisation of illicit drug users is fuelling the HIV epidemic and has resulted in
overwhelmingly negative health and social consequences. A full policy reorientation is needed.

In response to the health and social harms of illegal drugs, a large international drug prohibition regime has been developed under the umbrella of the United Nations.¹ Decades of research provide a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of the global “War on Drugs” and, in the wake of the XVIII International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria, the international scientific community calls for an acknowledgement of the limits and harms of drug prohibition, and for drug policy reform to remove barriers to effective HIV prevention, treatment and care.

The evidence that law enforcement has failed to prevent the availability of illegal drugs, in communities where there is demand, is now unambiguous.^{2, 3}Over the last several decades, national and international drug surveillance systems have demonstrated a general pattern of falling drug prices and increasing drug purity—despite massive investments in drug law enforcement.^3,4

Furthermore, there is no evidence that increasing the ferocity of law enforcement meaningfully reduces the prevalence of drug use.⁵ The data also clearly demonstrate that the number of countries in which people inject illegal drugs is growing, with women and children becoming increasingly affected.⁶ Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, injection drug use accounts for approximately one in three new cases of HIV.^{7, 8} In some areas where HIV is spreading most rapidly, such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, HIV prevalence can be as high as 70% among people who inject drugs, and in some areas more than 80% of all HIV cases are among this group.⁸

In the context of overwhelming evidence that drug law enforcement has failed to achieve its stated objectives, it is important that its harmful consequences be acknowledged and addressed. These consequences include but are not limited to:

• HIV epidemics fuelled by the criminalisation of people who use illicit drugs and by prohibitions on the provision of sterile needles and opioid substitution treatment.^{9, 10}
• HIV outbreaks among incarcerated and institutionalised drug users as a result of punitive laws and policies and a lack of HIV prevention services in these settings.^11-13
• The undermining of public health systems when law enforcement drives drug users away from prevention and care services and into environments where the risk of infectious disease transmission (e.g., HIV, hepatitis C & B, and tuberculosis) and other harms is increased.^14-16
• A crisis in criminal justice systems as a result of record incarceration rates in a number of nations.^{17, 18} This has negatively affected the social functioning of entire communities. While racial disparities in incarceration rates for drug offences are evident in countries all over the world, the impact has been particularly severe in the US, where approximately one in nine African-American males in the age group 20 to 34 is incarcerated on any given day, primarily as a result of drug law enforcement.¹⁹
• Stigma towards people who use illicit drugs, which reinforces the political popularity of criminalising drug users and undermines HIV prevention and other health promotion efforts.^{20, 21}
• Severe human rights violations, including torture, forced labour, inhuman and degrading treatment, and execution of drug offenders in a number of countries.^{22, 23}
• A massive illicit market worth an estimated annual value of US$320 billion.⁴ These profits remain entirely outside the control of government. They fuel crime, violence and corruption in countless urban communities and have destabilised entire countries, such as Colombia, Mexico and Afghanistan.⁴
• Billions of tax dollars wasted on a “War on Drugs” approach to drug control that does not achieve its stated objectives and, instead, directly or indirectly contributes to the above harms.²⁴

Unfortunately, evidence of the failure of drug prohibition to achieve its stated goals, as well as the severe negative consequences of these policies, is often denied by those with vested interests in maintaining the status quo.²⁵This has created confusion among the public and has cost countless lives. Governments and international organisations have ethical and legal obligations to respond to this crisis and must seek to enact alternative evidence-based strategies that can effectively reduce the harms of drugs without creating harms of their own. We, the undersigned, call on governments and international organisations, including the United Nations, to:

• Undertake a transparent review of the effectiveness of current drug policies.
• Implement and evaluate a science-based public health approach to address the individual and community harms stemming from illicit drug use.
• Decriminalise drug users, scale up evidence-based drug dependence treatment options and abolish ineffective compulsory drug treatment centres that violate the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.²⁶
• Unequivocally endorse and scale up funding for the implementation of the comprehensive package of HIV interventions spelled out in the WHO, UNODC and UNAIDS Target Setting Guide.²⁷
• Meaningfully involve members of the affected community in developing, monitoring and implementing services and policies that affect their lives.

Basing drug policies on scientific evidence will not eliminate drug use or the problems stemming from drug injecting. However, reorienting drug policies towards evidence-based approaches that respect, protect and fulfil human rights has the potential to reduce harms deriving from current policies and would allow for the redirection of the vast financial resources towards where they are needed most: implementing and evaluating evidence-based prevention, regulatory, treatment and harm reduction interventions.

Black Cops Say Legalize Marijuana

Experts turn against war on drugs

Advocates of drug law reform had reason to celebrate today after public statements by senior figures in the medical and legal community suggested the argument was turning in their favour.

The chair of the Bar Council argued in his most recent report that decriminalising drug use would have substantial public benefits, while the editor of the British Medical Journal (BMJ), the UK's most well-respected medical publication, came out publicly in support of drug law reform.

The twin developments come at an exciting time for those calling for a more liberal drug policy. Both deputy prime minister Nick Clegg and prime minister David Cameron are on record questioning the effectiveness of Britain's drug laws. Activists hope reform might be in the pipeline.

In his most recent report the chair of the Bar Council, Nicholas Green QC, argued that decriminalising drugs did not lead to greater use and would have the effect of cutting crime.

"A growing body of comparative evidence suggests that decriminalising personal use can have positive consequences; it can free up huge amounts of police resources, reduce crime and recidivism and improve public health," he said.

"All this can be achieved without any overall increase in drug usage. If this is so, then it would be rational to follow suit. And this will save money and mean that there is less pressure on the justice system.

"A rational approach is not usually the response of large parts of the media when it comes to issues relating to criminal justice," he continued.

"This is something the Bar Council can address. We are apolitical; we act for the prosecution and the defence and most of the judiciary are former members. We can speak out in favour of an approach which urges policies which work and not those which simply play to the gallery."

The comments came at the same time as a special edition of the BMJ in which the editor, Fiona Godlee, endorses an article by Steve Rolles of Transform, a group which lobbies for reform of the UK's drugs laws.



"In a beautifully argued essay Stephen Rolles calls on us to envisage an alternative to the hopelessly failed war on drugs," she writes.

"He says, and I agree, that we must regulate drug use, not criminalise it."

Danny Kushlick, head of external affairs at Transform, said: "The war on drugs is in deep crisis. These comments show that support for drug policy reform is becoming more and more mainstream, and fundamental change is now inevitable.

"With a prime minster and deputy prime minister both longstanding supporters of alternatives to the war on drugs, at the very least the government must initiate an impact assessment comparing prohibition with decriminalisation and strict legal regulation."

In 2007, Mr Clegg - then Lib Dem home affairs spokesman - said the "so-called war on drugs is failing" following a critical RSA report into drug prohibition.

David Cameron voted in favour of recommendation 24 in the home affairs committee's inquiry into drug misuse in 2002, which read: "We recommend that the government initiates a discussion within the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of alternative ways-including the possibility of legalisation and regulation-to tackle the global drugs dilemma."

Activists may be disappointed if they expect a sea-change in policy on the back of the coalition government's legislative agenda, however.

While Mr Clegg and Mr Cameron have previously expressed a sympathetic view of the arguments calling for drug law reform, neither will be keen to trigger the media attack which would result from a move to liberalise drug laws.

Recent comments from home secretary Theresa May to the home affairs committee suggest the government is moving in precisely the opposite direction, and is ready to pass legislation allowing for temporary bans to be imposed on legal highs while the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) establishes their legal status.

- politics.co.uk

Ganja growers: If you can't beat 'em, tax 'em

Local governments in California and other Western states have tried to clamp down on medical marijuana, but Oakland has taken a different approach.

If you can't beat 'em, tax 'em.

After becoming the first US city to impose a special tax on medical marijuana dispensaries, Oakland soon could become the first to sanction and tax commercial pot growing operations. Selling and growing marijuana remain illegal under federal law.

Two City Council members are preparing legislation, expected to be introduced next month, that would allow at least three industrial-scale growing operations.

One of the authors, Councilman Larry Reid, said the proposal is more of an effort to bring in money than an endorsement of legalising marijuana use - although the council has unanimously supported that, too.

The city is facing a $42-million (about R321.6-million) budget shortfall. The tax voters approved last summer on the four medical marijuana clubs allowed under Oakland law is expected to contribute $1-million to its coffers in the first year, Reid said. A tax on growers' sales to the clubs could bring in substantially more, he said.

"Looking at the economic analysis, we will generate a considerable amount of additional revenues, and that will certainly help us weather the hard economic times that all urban areas are having to deal with," Reid said.

How much money is at stake isn't clear because the tax rate and the number of facilities the law would allow haven't been decided. A report prepared for AgraMed Incorporated, one of the companies planning to seek a grower's license, said its proposed 100 000-square-foot (9 290-square-meter) project near the Oakland Coliseum would produce more than $2-million in city taxes each year.

Given their likely locations in empty warehouses in industrial neighbourhoods, the marijuana nurseries under consideration would have more in common with factories than rural pot farms.

Dhar Mann, the founder of an Oakland hydroponics equipment store called iGrow, and Derek Peterson, a former stock broker who now sells luxury trailers outfitted for growing pot as a co-founder of GrowOp Enterprises, have hired an architect to draft plans for two warehouses where marijuana would be grown and processed year-round.

Their vision includes using lights, trays and other equipment manufactured by iGrow and creating an online system that would allow medical marijuana dispensaries to see what pot strains are in stock, place orders and track deliveries.

"We are emulating the wine industry, but instead of 'from grape to bottle,' it's 'from plant to pipe,"' Mann said.

"Or seed to sack," offered Peterson.

The pair say they intend to operate the pot-growing business they have dubbed GROPECH - Grass Roots of Oakland Philanthropic and Economic Coalition for Humanity - as a not-for-profit. They anticipate gross sales reaching $70-million a year. After paying their expenses, they'd funnel the money to local charities and non-profits through a competitive grant process.

The discussion in Oakland comes amid a statewide campaign to make California the first state to legalise the recreational use of marijuana and to authorise cities to sell and tax sales to adults. Another Oakland pot entrepreneur, Richard Lee, is sponsoring a ballot measure voters will consider in November.

Lee, who owns two of Oakland's four dispensaries as well as Oaksterdam University, a trade school for the medical marijuana industry, hopes to secure one of the cultivation permits, but he thinks the city should opt for having more, smaller sites instead of a handful of large ones.

"We need to legalise and tax and regulate the production side as well as the retail side," Lee said. "It's a natural step."

Other supporters say licensed growers would create hundreds of well-paying jobs. The local branch of the United Food and Commercial Workers union already has signed up about 100 medical marijuana workers, and the growers are expected to have union shops as well, said Dan Rush, special operations director of UFCW Local 5.

"I think Oakland's intention is to make Oakland the leader and the trendsetter in how this industry can be effective in all of California," Rush said.

Allowing medical marijuana to be grown openly also could give patients a better idea of where their pot is coming from. Now, many growers hide their identities to avoid federal prosecution.

Oakland has already developed a reputation as one of the nation's most pot-friendly cities. Legislation on the city's books includes a declaration of a public health emergency after federal crackdowns on marijuana clubs and a ballot measure instructing police to make marijuana their lowest enforcement priority.

Self-described "guru of ganja" Ed Rosenthal, a popular writer of pot-growing how-to books, lived in Oakland for 25 years before moving recently to a more affluent borough nearby. He credits the city's positive attitude toward marijuana to a critical mass of activists who have flocked there since the 1970s.

"The whole population of Oakland is just very progressive," Rosenthal said. "It's the radicals who couldn't afford Berkeley or San Francisco who all moved to Oakland."

- Sapa-AP

Moms enlisted to help legalise dope

Denver - Moms got tougher drunk-driving laws on the books and were directly responsible for passing and then repealing alcohol Prohibition.

Now marijuana activists are trying to enlist the nation's mothers in legalisation efforts with a sales pitch that pot is safer than booze.

The nation's largest marijuana legalisation lobby recently started a women's group. The Moms4Marijuana website draws thousands. And just in time for Mother's Day, a pot legalisation group in Denver has created a pink-carnation web card asking moms to support legalisation.

These marijuana moms argue that pot is no worse than alcohol, that teens shouldn't face jail time for experimenting with it and that marijuana can even help new mothers treat postpartum depression.

"I know so many mothers who support this but aren't willing to come out and say it," said Sabrina Fendrick, head of the Women's Alliance at the Washington-based National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML.

Marijuana activists say they need more moms to publicly back pot use if they are to succeed with public officials.

"The mother is the first teacher, who you turn to for direction in life," said Serra Frank, a 27-year-old mother of two, who founded Moms4Marijuana in 2005. It has no formal membership, but Frank says its website has had more than 12 000 visitors.

Pot activists say both genders sometimes find it easier to attend protests or lobby lawmakers about pot than to tell their mothers they smoke weed. So legalisation groups hope that if moms, arguably the nation's most powerful lobby, get on board with making pot legal, laws will change in a hurry.

"All the things moms get behind, people listen," said Diane Irwin, 48, a medical marijuana grower who also is a mother of two.

There's still a marijuana gender gap. According to an Associated Press-CNBC poll released last month, women opposed legalisation in greater numbers than men. Just under half - 48 percent - of male poll respondents opposed legalisation to 63 percent of women.

"We have enough problems with alcohol. I feel if we legalised it, it would make people say it's okay," said 37-year-old mother Amanda Leonard, one of the poll respondents

Trying to soften moms up a bit, Denver-based Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation, or SAFER, is asking members to "come out" about their pot use this Mother's Day and argue that pot is safer than booze. The group says it has about 20 000 members nationwide.

SAFER's online Mother's Day card has a typical start - "Thank you for raising me to be thoughtful and compassionate" - then transitions to: "I want to share some news that might surprise you, but should not upset you: I believe marijuana should be legal."

For $10 (about 70), card senders can add a book for their moms titled "Marijuana is Safer." The book, published last year, argues that marijuana is healthier than booze. SAFER says several thousand copies have been sold, and group members handed out free copies as Mother's Day gifts to Colorado's 37 female lawmakers last week.

There's no good national count of how many mothers use pot, but anecdotal evidence suggests plenty do. Moms from Florida to Washington are facing criminal charges for using marijuana or supplying it to their children.

In February, 51-year-old Alaska mom Jane C. Cain was arrested along with her 29-year-old son for allegedly growing pot in the house. Cain says she initially feared reprisals from neighbours and didn't answer the door.

"But it turned out people were just coming by to bring homemade food, casseroles and cakes and such," Cain said with a laugh. Her case is still pending, but Cain says that even conservative neighbours say she's not wrong to use marijuana for her frequent migraines, though medical marijuana isn't legal in Alaska.

"Now I go wherever I want and hold my head up high," Cain said. "Five or 10 years from now, people who oppose marijuana will be considered old-fashioned. It's a benign substance, so why shouldn't we have it?"

Irwin, the Colorado medical pot grower, said mothers who use marijuana face a stigma men don't. Irwin says she secretly used marijuana while pregnant to fight morning sickness and after giving birth to battle postpartum depression. Since she started growing pot, Irwin said she's run into many moms who admit to using the drug. She argues that even children could benefit from marijuana use, though Irwin never gave either of her kids pot nor smoked it in front of them.

In fact, she remembers flushing her son's pot down the toilet when he was a teen. But last year, after her now-grown son started a Denver marijuana dispensary, Irwin sold her hair salon, bought a greenhouse and started raising pot for him.

"I look at the kids now who are so medicated, on Ritalin and all the rest, and I'm wondering why we don't explore what's natural, and that's marijuana," said Irwin, who is moving to Denver to work full-time at her older son's dispensary.

- Sapa-AP

Swazi dagga a threat to 2010 World Cup

MBABANE –Swaziland has been cited as one of two countries that grow dagga for the Southern African market.

The other country linked to the dagga growing is ironically another kingdom, Lesotho. The shocking revelation was made by the South African Ceantral Drug Authority National Co-ordinator Johan Kruger.

Speaking to South African media, Kruger said; “Swaziland and Lesotho are the countries that grow cannabis for South Africa. The region has actually been dubbed a net exporter of cannabis to other countries and there is also a danger that the 2010 World Cup will worsen drug trafficking”, said Kruger

Police PRO Vusi Masuku confirmed that they cannot rule out that possibility.
“We have had instances where the army has captured people smuggling dagga out of the country to neighboring South Africa,” said Masuku.

“Locals and other nationals have also been arrested for trying to smuggle large quantities of dagga. The anti-drug unit has been engaged in a vigorous campaign that is aimed at eradicating dagga. The unit has conducted raids often in a number of forests across the regions and found dagga plants which they subsequently destroyed,” added Masuku.
South African Deputy Chairman of the Central Drug Authority David Bayever said, “Cannabis use was three times the global average in South Africa. Drugs and substance abuse problems were the underlying causes of ills such as HIV/AIDS, violence and crime. Our youth are going to be on holiday and they are going to be targeted. During the tournament law enforcement and customs officials will be under pressure due to massive tourist inflows. We need to handle substance abuse”.

In the past couple of months, local police have confirmed to have destroyed large hectares of dagga worth millions of Emalangeni in street value.

“The latest dagga destroyed was worth a street value of E7.2million which was found in Ndzingeni, Mabhindzi and Mgungundlovu. In previous years we have worked hand-in-hand with our South African counterparts in destroying various large fields of dagga using helicopters and spraying chemicals,” said Masuku.

With South Africa hosting the biggest sporting event globally in three months time, the country is on high alert where drug trafficking and any other criminal offences that are bound to paint a negative image are concerned.

- Times of Swaziland

New Study Confirms Cannabis as an Effective Painkiller

A new California state-sponsored study has found that medical cannabis can reduce pain for patients suffering from HIV/Aids, multiple sclerosis, and cancer.

“This study confirms all of the anecdotal evidence that those of us who have been in the midst of this epidemic for many decades now," San Francisco Democratic State Senator Mark Leno told Capital Public Radio, "how lives have been saved and pain has been eased as a result of medical marijuana.”

Researchers at The Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at UC-San Diego say the experiments, which involved two-hundred people participating in five different test groups, show that cannabis was just as good or better than traditional pain medications.

A news release from The Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research says the group "was created in 2000 (through the passage of SB847) to conduct clinical and pre-clinical trials of cannabinoids, including smoked marijuana, to provide evidence, one way or the other, to answer the question 'Does marijuana have therapeutic value?'"

“We focused on illnesses where current medical treatment does not provide adequate relief or coverage of symptoms,” said Dr. Igor Grant, CMCR director and Executive Vice-Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the UCSD School of Medicine. “These findings provide a strong, science-based context in which policy makers and the public can begin discussing the place of cannabis in medical care.”

“These scientists created an unparalleled program of systematic research, focused on science-based answers rather than political or social beliefs,” Senator John Vasconcellos said in the release. Vasconcellos was the original author of The Medical Marijuana Research Act of 1999 (SB847), which led to the creation of the CMCR.

The study (PDF) was presented to the California legislature and public on February 17, 2010.

Scare mongor Bayever at it again

South Africa is in danger of becoming a major hub for drug trafficking, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said on Thursday.

West African syndicates had recently become major drug traffickers after Central American cartels began using them due to difficulty with their traditional routes, the office's Jonathan Lucas said at the release of the International Narcotics Control Board's annual report.

"Increased surveillance on traditional routes had made them become unprofitable."
He said if these new routes through West Africa were successfully dealt with by authorities, Central American cartels would again look for other alternatives.

"When they are diverted, will they come to South Africa? Maybe."
There was also a danger the 2010 World Cup would worsen drug trafficking.
During the tournament law enforcement and customs officials would be under pressure due to massive tourist inflows.

"We are aware it is going to be a big problem for us," said Central Drug Authority deputy chairman David Bayever.

He described trafficking cartels as "well-researched guys that know where the loopholes are".
Despite these threats SA's drug problem remained primarily a domestic one, with alcohol and dagga use being well above global averages.

"Cannabis use was three times the global average in South Africa and its alcohol consumption put it in the top 10 of countries."

{it's alcohol consumption put it in the top 10 countries... ehm SA's alcohol
consupmtion has INCREASED 10 FOLD since Bayever has been head of the CDA,
likewise our "above the global average" cannabis consumption: IE what you - YES
YOU DAVID BAYEVER are doing IS NOT WORKING!!!!!!}

Bayever said drugs and substance abuse problems were the underlying causes of such ills as HIV and Aids, violence and crime.

"It is not the result of these problems, but the cause of them. In order to deal with these problems we need to handle substance abuse."

Most of South Africa's cannabis was grown in Lesotho, Swaziland and South Africa, said the office's national co-ordinator Johan Kruger. The region was actually a net exporter of cannabis to other countries.

Bayever said an additional problem would be the extension of school holidays during the World Cup. In addition to being at risk for substance abuse, children may also be lured into prostitution.

"Our youth are going to be on holiday and they are going to be targeted to become prostitutes," said Bayever. - Sapa

BREAKING NEWS–CA Supreme Court Strikes Down Medical Marijuana Limits

Unanimously the California Supreme Court struck down a law that looked to impose limits on the amount of weed a medical patient can legally possess! As a result of the voter-approved Proposition 215, passed in 1996, patients with a doctor’s recommendation were allowed to possess an unspecified amount of marijuana.

In 2003, there was this Legislation created to give law enforcement a guideline on when to make marijuana possession busts. The Legislature decided that patients could have up to 8 ounces of dried marijuana and grow as many as six mature or 12 immature plants. The law did allow, however, a patient to have more if a doctor stated that amount was insufficient and individual cities had the power to allow patients to grow and possess more marijuana, but not less.

This morning the California Supreme Court ruled that state lawmakers were wrong to change provisions of the voter-approved Proposition 215. The high court says only voters can change amendments that they’ve added to California’s constitution through the initiative process.

“The California Supreme Court did the right thing by abolishing limits on medical marijuana possession and cultivation,” said Joe Elford, the top lawyer for the marijuana advocacy group Americans for Safe Access. “At the same time, the Court may have left too much discretion to law enforcement in deciding what are reasonable amounts of medicine for patients to possess and cultivate.”

The Supreme Court’s decision this morning was the result of Patrick Kelly’s bust. Kelly, from So Cal, was a qualified medical marijuana patient who was arrested back in October of 2005 for 12 ounces of weed and seven plants when a “confidential informant” snitched on him. CA’s Second Appellate District Court overturned Kelly’s conviction saying that legislatively-imposed limits for possession and cultivation of medical herb are an unconstitutional restriction to a voter approved initiative. Today’s decision upholds that ruling agreeing with Kelly’s attorney and the State Attorney General that medical marijuana limits should be abolished as unconstitutional.

Congratulations medical marijuana patients of the Great State of California…you can now possess and grow as much weed as you need!

- ohhburn

Live blowjobs (just kidding)

JOHANNESBURG - The attack on e.tv for screening an interview with two supposed criminals, apparently intent on making a small fortune from tourists around for the football world cup later this year, is an event of bizarre beauty. The South African police have subpoenaed two staffers from e.tv; the apparent link man between e.tv and the supposed criminals has been found dead in Soweto, after an overdose, so the story goes, of heavy duty rat poison. Swallow that; grubby story to follow soon.

Ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, ANC politicians and their sidekicks have descended into a freebooting hysteria, and gushed out hot gobbledegook in industrial quantities. Police minister Nathi Mthethwa accused e.tv of sensationalism and "harbouring" criminals. ANC spokesperson Jackson Mthembu has been quoted saying that should e.tv not adhere to the ANC's requests, "they [e.tv] cannot be different from these criminals themselves" and would be "hid[ing] behind journalistic ethics and media freedoms".

This is desperate stuff, all right. But the significant degree of public "free speech" debate around this e.tv issue has been half-cocked, and dripping sick with surly and confused emotion. There has been some sense; about the most useful comment has come from Professor Anton Harber, who put it so: "Journalists should examine, expose and explain criminality and highlight threats, such as those made by these criminals. Sometimes this is awkward and embarrassing for the police".

According to Lindiwe Mazibuko, an MP and a member of the official opposition, "there have been the suggestions from some politicians that journalists in the run-up to the World Cup should engage in ‘patriotic' reporting". The really big issue for e.tv is whether or not the supposed criminals are in fact criminals, a subject that has apparently not arisen for public debate.

The bigger picture is huge; let's focus on just one criminal area, illicit drugs. Not being in the mood for some grubby subpoena, let's refer to information in the public domain. According to the most recent United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime report, South Africa is one of the world's major growers - and, more to the point, exporters - of cannabis ("dagga", "boom", "grass", etc). Cannabis is the world's biggest drug, by weight, and is characterized by a high degree of local and intra regional production and distribution.

Countries producing for export remain limited, and are largely excluded to South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Morocco, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kazakhstan. Cool countries, these. While the availability of cheap and freely-available cannabis will no doubt delight certain attendees of world cup matches, the average South African appears to know as much about the country's leading status as a cannabis exporter as he or she does about what planet mars is made of.

Then there is the status of organised crime. Leaving aside those who review the latest motor vehicle, and newest tourist hotspot, perhaps the most wretched part of working in and around what is loosely known as journalism in South Africa is the near-daily ordeal of dealing with certain people that are all of, or a mixture of, cheap, tasteless, gaudy, gimcrack, bent and twisted. Some of these people are crooks, or, technically, criminals.

Take a smoking gun on one or more of these individuals to the police, or any number of regulatory authorities, and take a bet that the chance of anything materialising runs at about 0.01%. Again, to avoid the goons, just one sample that's in the public domain. Late in 1996, your humble reporter called the Johannesburg bourse, known as the JSE, and complained about securities fraud connected to Randgold & Exploration (R&E), a listed entity, in respect of its acquisition of gold assets in Mali. The JSE laughed it off.

The main character involved was Brett Kebble, later murdered in September 2005. According to summarised forensic reports since published by R&E in the public domain, R&E alone was looted by Kebble and his cronies of R1.9bn in cash, by way of shares stolen from R&E, laundered mainly through JCI (another listed entity), and then sold on the open markets for cash. According to R&E, it was effectively looted of a further R1bn in other ways. To date, not a single direct prosecution has been made. So put that cheap cannabis in your pipe, smoke it, and watch the law enforcement jackboots through the haze, as they rave on with their World Cup spin.

- MoneyWeb