Fuck Yeah Drug Policy

"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced." — Albert Einstein

[symphonyofthecosmos]

No drug causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs— we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed, and love of power.

PJ O’Rourke (via symphonyofthecosmos)

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals — Inside the Philippines Drug War | New York Times

In January 2017, the death toll of Filipinos killed as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s abusive “war on drugs” surpassed the 7,000 mark. It’s only been a little over 7 months since Duterte took office.

Last year, upon winning the election, the president urged citizens with guns to shoot and kill drug dealers who resist arrest and fight back. “Please feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have the gun, you have my support,” Duterte said in a televised speech. “Shoot him and I’ll give you a medal.”

In this photo essay, photojournalist Daniel Berehulak exposes the graphic violence on the front lines of the drug war. He documented 57 homicide victims over 35 days.

full article

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

The harms created through implementing punitive drug laws cannot be overstated when it comes to both their severity and scope. Thus, we need new approaches that uphold the principles of human dignity, the right to privacy and the rule of law, and recognize that people will always use drugs. In order to uphold these principles all penalties— both criminal and civil—must be abolished for the possession of drugs for personal use.

Advancing Drug Policy Reform: A New Approach to Decriminalization 

this 2016 report was issued by the global commission on drug policy—in it, former presidents of colombia, greece, portugal, poland and nigeria, kofi annan, richard branson, and other influential political and intellectual figures argue that “drug use is, and always has been, a reality in all of our societies,” and that we need a new approach to looking at drug use

(via fuckyeahdrugpolicy)

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

paintings by alex grey

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

I put together this image as part of a typography assignment about a year or two ago. It’s a reference to a mantra often repeated by most politicians–whether they are from the United States or Mexico–to justify the aggressive policies of the drug war: “We’re doing it for the children! We’ve got to protect the children!” For those who understand the consequences of drug prohibition, it’s clear that it’s done little to keep children safe. 

This excerpt is from pages 29-30 of Children of the Drug War: Perspectives on the Impact of Drug Policies on Young People

Children: The Forgotten Victims in Mexico’s Drug War

The “war on drugs,” in most places, is metaphorical. The term is rarely used by governments and was recently abandoned as a rhetorical device by the United States. In Mexico, however, the war on drugs has a very real dimension. It is “declared” government policy, it is militarized, and it is extremely bloody. Shortly after taking power, President Felipe Calderón ordered a military offensive against the country’s drug cartels that eventually involved tens of thousands of troops. Keeping drugs away from Mexico’s children has been a central justification.

While the consequent violence in Mexico has been well documented, the specific consequences for children are not so often brought to the fore. Despite President Calderón’s justification based on the welfare of children, his decision, combined with a zero-tolerance approach to drug use, has contributed to conditions in which children have been killed, orphaned, and neglected. Since the war on drugs began, there have been increased killings of children and parents with thousands dead and tens of thousands orphaned; increased attacks on drug rehabilitation centers, including massacres of young drug users; and increased attacks on schools resulting in a significant drop in school attendance for fear of violence.

It becomes clear that the harms of the drug war not only exist in the present but also will reverberate through many generations due to the specific harms inflicted on children. Next to them, the small gains against the cartels are rendered meaningless. After four years of poor results in frontally combating drug cartels and adopting zero-tolerance approaches to drugs, rethinking government strategies is now unavoidable. +

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

No one could foresee the massive devastation of individuals, families and communities swept up in a so-called War on Drugs. State and federal prisons benefited from the free labor from the lives of mostly black and brown people, many of whom were poor, first-time, non-violent offenders, and an entire cottage industry of widespread suffering came as a result of it. House Resolution 1055 seeks to remedy some of the wrongs by examining the role corporations played in the development of the prison industrial complex, investigating the impact of this policy on communities and developing recommendations of equitable remedy.

House Bill Examines Racist Drug War

congressman bobby rush introduced legislation that would study the impact of the “war on drugs” on african american communities; and whether the united states government should issue a formal apology and give reparations to victims of the drug war

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

this is awesome #blackhistorymonth

Drug War Reparations for Black Americans? House Bill Examines Racist War on Drugs | MassRoots

The war on drugs has harmed the lives of millions of Americans in communities across the country, but there's no question that its impact has been felt hardest by people of color.

A new bill introduced in Congress seeks to begin remedying that.

Sponsored by Congressman Bobby Rush, an Illinois Democrat, the legislation would create a commission to study the effects that mass incarceration and forced prison labor have had on African Americans and shed light on the extent to which governments and private corporations have supported and benefited from such policies.

Among other things, the commission would be tasked with answering whether the federal government should "offer a formal apology on behalf of the people of the United States to the African-American victims of the 'War on Drugs' and their descendants" and whether "any form of compensation to the victims of the 'War on Drugs' and their descendants is warranted."

Numerous studies have found that despite virtually identical use rates across races, people of color are much more likely to be arrested, convicted and incarcerated for marijuana and other drug crimes.

full article

[image via popular resistance]

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

“I’m particularly concerned about how the war on drugs has destroyed the fabric of the black community in America. I grew up in a lower middle-class neighborhood in Queens that was destroyed by drugs. It was the heroin capital of Queens. Everybody shot dope. My friend in the eighth grade was shooting dope. I’ve seen the suffering first-hand and I’ve been involved in the suffering too. I used every drug there is, back in the day, but it didn’t make me a bad person: it just made me a sad person, a diseased person. It didn’t make me a criminal.

What would have made me a criminal is if I’d been arrested and sent to jail for 20 years, which could have happened easily. A great number of kids in my neighbourhood did go to jail, and they didn’t come out so well. They were educated in criminal behaviour, came home violent criminals, and became repeat offenders.”

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

– Russell Simmons: the war on drugs made victims of the black community | The Guardian

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

Magic mushrooms’ psychedelic ingredient could help treat people with severe depression | The Guardian

Research by Professor David Nutt [professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London] has found that psilocybin switches off part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex. It was known that this area is overactive in individuals suffering from depression. In his tests on healthy individuals, it was found that psilocybin had a profound effect on making these volunteers feel happier weeks after they had taken the drug, said Nutt – who was sacked as the chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs in 2009 after repeatedly clashing with government ministers about the dangers and classification of illicit drugs.

Nutt’s team also discovered that another section of the brain known as the default mode network was also influenced by psilocybin. “People with depression have overactive default mode networks and so ruminate on themselves, on their inadequacies, on their badness, that they are worthless, that they have failed – to an extent that is sometimes delusional. Again psilo-cybin appears to block that activity and stops this obsessive rumination.”

full article

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

Drugs Win Drug War | The Onion (January 1998)

After nearly 30 years of combat, the US has lost the drug war.

Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey delivered the US’s unconditional surrender in a brief statement Friday. “Drugs, after a long, hard battle, you have defeated us,” he said. “Despite all our efforts, the United States has proven no match for the awesome power of the illegal high.”

“In retrospect,” McCaffrey added, “this was not a winnable war.”

McCaffrey then handed over power to High Times magazine editor Steven Hager, who will head the new US Office of Drug Policy, replacing the now-defunct DEA.

“We must all get behind drugs now,” outgoing DEA Chief Thomas Constantine said. “I recommend we all get really, really baked.”

With the defeat, drugs will begin a full-scale occupation of the vanquished US. Massive quantities of crack, heroin, PCP, LSD, marijuana and other drugs will flood the nation legally, saving America’s estimated 75 million drug users billions of dollars on their yearly drug budgets.

Street gangs, working in conjunction with Colombian coke lords, will assume leadership of America’s inner cities, and federally backed marijuana farms are expected to begin appearing throughout the rural Midwest and Northern California by the end of the year.

Drug kingpin Amado Fuentes said it was “inevitable” that the US would surrender. “We knew we would eventually win this war,” Fuentes told reporters from his impenetrable Mexico City palace. “America’s relentless campaign of anti-drug slogans, TV public-service announcements and elite elementary-school D.A.R.E. forces were a formidable enemy in this war. But in the end, my well-armed and well-financed army was victorious.”

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

Top Adviser to Richard Nixon: Drug War Was a Tool to Go After Anti-War Protestors and Black Americans | Drug Policy Alliance (March 2016)

A decades old quote from President Nixon's administration is making front page news and being shared widely around the web. The quote from John Ehrlichman, who served as President Richard Nixon’s domestic policy chief gained new notoriety after appearing in a cover story in Harper’s Magazine by author Dan Baum.

“You want to know what this was really all about,” Ehrlichman, who died in 1999, said, referring to Nixon’s declaration of war on drugs. “The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying. We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

full article

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

June 17, 1971 — US President Richard Nixon declares a war on drugs 

“America's public enemy number one in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.

I have asked the Congress to provide the legislative authority and the funds to fuel this kind of an offensive. This will be a worldwide offensive dealing with the problems of sources of supply, as well as Americans who may be stationed abroad, wherever they are in the world. It will be government wide, pulling together the nine different fragmented areas within the government in which this problem is now being handled, and it will be nationwide in terms of a new educational program that we trust will result from the discussions that we have had.

With regard to this offensive, it is necessary first to have a new organization, and the new organization will be within the White House. Dr. Jaffe, who will be one of the briefers here today, will be the man directly responsible. He will report directly to me, and he will have the responsibility to take all of the Government agencies, nine, that deal with the problems of rehabilitation, in which his primary responsibilities will be research and education, and see that they work not at cross-purposes, but work together in dealing with the problem.

If we are going to have a successful offensive, we need more money. Consequently, I am asking the Congress for $155 million in new funds, which will bring the total amount this year in the budget for drug abuse, both in enforcement and treatment, to over $350 million.

As far as the new money is concerned, incidentally, I have made it clear to the leaders that if this is not enough, if more can be used, if Dr. Jaffe, after studying this problem, finds that we can use more, more will be provided. In order to defeat this enemy which is causing such great concern, and correctly so, to so many American families, money will be provided to the extent that it is necessary and to the extent that it will be useful.

Finally, in order for this program to be effective, it is necessary that it be conducted on a basis in which the American people all join in it. That is why the meeting was bipartisan; bipartisan because we needed the support of the Congress, but bipartisan because we needed the leadership of the Members of the Congress in this field.

Fundamentally, it is essential for the American people to be alerted to this danger, to recognize that it is a danger that will not pass with the passing of the war in Vietnam which has brought to our attention the fact that a number of young Americans have become addicts as they serve abroad, whether in Vietnam, or Europe, or other places. Because the problem existed before we became involved in Vietnam; it will continue to exist afterwards. That is why this offensive deals with the problem there, in Europe, but will then go on to deal with the problem throughout America.

One final word with regard to Presidential responsibility in this respect. I very much hesitate always to bring some new responsibility into the White House, because there are so many here, and I believe in delegating those responsibilities to the departments. But I consider this problem so urgent--I also found that it was scattered so much throughout the Government, with so much conflict, without coordination--that it had to be brought into the White House.

Consequently, I have brought Dr. Jaffe into the White House, directly reporting to me, so that we have not only the responsibility but the authority to see that we wage this offensive effectively and in a coordinated way.

The briefing team will now be ready to answer any questions on the technical details of the program.”

transcript via The American Presidency Project 

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

“I was personally involved in taking down the planet’s most notorious drug trafficker, Pablo Escobar, in 1993. While we managed to make Colombia a bit safer, it came at a tremendous price.” —César Gaviria, former president of Colombia

former president césar gaviria wrote a new york times op-ed decrying the violent anti-drug campaign in the philippines led by president rodrigo duterte

President Duterte Is Repeating My Mistakes | New York Times

Illegal drugs are a matter of national security, but the war against them cannot be won by armed forces and law enforcement agencies alone. Throwing more soldiers and police at the drug users is not just a waste of money but also can actually make the problem worse. Locking up nonviolent offenders and drug users almost always backfires, instead strengthening organized crime.

That is the message I would like to send to the world and, especially, to President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. Trust me, I learned the hard way.

We Colombians know a thing or two about fighting drugs. Our country has long been one of the world’s primary suppliers of cocaine. With support from North American and Western European governments, we have poured billions of dollars into a relentless campaign to eradicate drugs and destroy cartels.

full article

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals — Inside the Philippines Drug War | New York Times

In January 2017, the death toll of Filipinos killed as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s abusive “war on drugs” surpassed the 7,000 mark. It’s only been a little over 7 months since Duterte took office.

Last year, upon winning the election, the president urged citizens with guns to shoot and kill drug dealers who resist arrest and fight back. “Please feel free to call us, the police, or do it yourself if you have the gun, you have my support,” Duterte said in a televised speech. “Shoot him and I’ll give you a medal.”

In this photo essay, photojournalist Daniel Berehulak exposes the graphic violence on the front lines of the drug war. He documented 57 homicide victims over 35 days.

full article

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

paintings by alex grey

[fuckyeahdrugpolicy]

Researchers Study Marijuana’s Effect on Veterans with Chronic PTSD | MAPS

How does smoking marijuana affect military veterans with chronic PTSD? That’s the big question behind a clinical trial that just enrolled its first participant this month. 

The trial is being conducted at two locations—Scottsdale Research Institute in Phoenix, Arizona, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. It will evaluate the safety and efficacy of four different potencies of marijuana to manage symptoms of PTSD in 76 U.S. veterans.

Both study locations in Phoenix and Baltimore are currently recruiting adult military veterans who experienced trauma during military service. Study volunteers will complete 17 outpatient study visits to the respective clinics over 12 weeks and a six-month follow-up visit. Study visits occur at Scottsdale Research Institute and Johns Hopkins University. 

For more information on the clinical trial, email [email protected] (SRI-Phoenix) or call 410-550-0050 (JHU-Baltimore).

full article 

[image via]