North Dakota Farmers Appeal to Grow Hemp
Courtesy of USA Today. From the "I'm with the Government and I'm here to help" files. Would someone refresh my memory as to why marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug?
Quote:
Canadian farmers 20 miles north of his Osnabrock farm do a brisk business selling their hemp to Detroit carmakers who use it inside door panels and for insulation in seats, he says. Monson says the hemp has no value as a drug because it has a low concentration of THC, the ingredient in marijuana that causes a high.
Hemp fibers, oil and seed can be imported from Canada, Europe and Asia and used to manufacture products in the USA, but growing hemp in the USA is illegal, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says. "The level of THC in the plant doesn't matter. If there's any THC in the plant, it's illegal," DEA spokesman Garrison Courtney says. "To get those pieces of stalk that are legal, you have to grow a marijuana plant."
Global war on drugs 'has failed' say former leaders
A panel of experts and ex-dignitaries have issued a report:
Quote:
The Global Commission on Drug Policy report calls for the legalisation of some drugs and an end to the criminalisation of drug users.
"Political leaders and public figures should have the courage to articulate publicly what many of them acknowledge privately: that the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that repressive strategies will not solve the drug problem, and that the war on drugs has not, and cannot, be won"....
...Instead of punishing users who the report says "do no harm to others," the commission argues that governments should end criminalisation of drug use, experiment with legal models that would undermine organised crime syndicates and offer health and treatment services for drug-users.
It calls for drug policies based on methods empirically proven to reduce crime and promote economic and social development.
Link to BBC report:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13624303
Curiously the BBC story has a photo of a field of poppies in Afghanistan and in the background a right-hand drive military vehicle, which looks like a Land Rover and UK military aboard. Why curious? It is the first time I've seen that image on BBC News; normally it is an issue preferably out of sight.
The nonsense of a 'War on Drugs': The Wire's writers get it...
I admit not to watching the series, but the article's title did get my attention, in full: 'The nonsense of a 'War on Drugs': The Wire's writers get it, governments consistently don't'.
Within the article are some promising links on reputable studies into the issues and the script writers remarked:
Quote:
[The US government's war on drugs is] nothing more or less than a war on our underclass, succeeding only in transforming our democracy into the jailingest nation on the planet.
Link:http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/to...istently-dont/
Time for a fundamental rethink of this policy?
Last week IISS published a new Adelphi book on , co-authored by Nigel Inkster and Virginia Comolli:http://www.iiss.org/publications/ade...f-prohibition/
From the link a summary:
Quote:
The world’s wealthiest nations have expended vast blood and treasure in tracking and capturing traffickers, dealers and consumers of narcotics, as well as destroying crops and confiscating shipments. Yet the global trade in illicit drugs is thriving, with no apparent change in the level of consumption despite decades of prohibition. This Adelphi argues that the present enforcement regime is not only failing to win the ‘War on Drugs’; it is also igniting and prolonging that conflict on the streets of producer and transit countries, where the supply chain has become interwoven with state institutions and cartels have become embroiled in violence against their rivals and with security forces.
What can be done to secure the worst affected regions and states, such as Latin America and Afghanistan? By examining the destabilising effects of prohibition, as well as alternative approaches such as that adopted by the authorities in Portugal, this book shows how progress may be made by treating consumption as a healthcare issue rather than a criminal matter, thereby freeing states to tackle the cartels and traffickers who hold their communities to ransom.
I have yet to finish reading the book, so may remark upon it later.
Nigel's views being an ex-SIS deputy head aroused some publicity, much of it in Latin America and some UK press coverage. He wrote a piece in one of our more populist papers, The Sun:http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...ise-drugs.html and summarised here:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/poli...-on-drugs.html