• Cannabis farms fuel human trafficking, report says

    Police chiefs’ study draws link between drug cultivation, modern slavery and people living illegally in UK
    The Guardian (UK)
    Tuesday, December 1, 2015

    There is a continued link between the commercial cultivation of cannabis, modern slavery and people living without legal permission to remain in the UK, according to a new report by the National Police Chiefs’ Council. The report, based on three years of data from police forces across the country, also shows that commercial cultivation is being used as a means to fund other criminal activity, including distribution of class A drugs and money laundering.

  • Ruth Dreifuss: «L’Etat doit se substituer aux dealers»

    Pouvoir acheter des drogues de manière légale et ne pas être amené à alimenter des mafias représente un progrès
    Le Temps (Suisse)
    Mardi, 1 décembre 2015

    "Je préfère mettre l’accent sur le fait que l’on place ces substances sous le contrôle de l’Etat, en fonction de leur dangerosité. Il existe un spectre énorme de régulation possible. Le principe étant que l’Etat contrôle le produit et non des mafias. Ce qui n’empêche pas qu’il puisse y avoir un marché illégal à la marge. Mais c’est différent que de laisser l’entier des stupéfiants aux mains de criminels. Je ne suis pas pour la libéralisation de la drogue, mais la libération des consommateurs: qu’ils ne soient pas livrés au marché noir." (Google translation)

  • Local councils call for regulated marijuana growing to keep out criminal gangs

    Officials say they are very concerned about attempts by organised crime to influence local government
    Dutch News (Netherlands)
    Monday, November 30, 2015

    The Dutch local authorities' platform VNG called on the government to allow regulated cannabis production by introducing licences for growers to take cannabis out of the hands of organised crime and smugglers. The VNG's new report favours licensing small-scale and localised production. Sales points should be more focused on health issues than the "big, commercial operations that many coffee shops have now become". (See also: Dutch cities: Legalize pot plantations to reduce crime | Right-wing, Christian and populists oppose marijuana regulation)

  • Safe-injection sites are cost-effective to health system: study

    One facility in Toronto would incur $33.1 million in direct operating expenses over 20 years, but save $42.7 million in health-care costs because of an anticipated reduction in HIV and hepatitis C infections
    The Montreal Gazette (Canada)

    A new Canadian study about safe-injection sites for intravenous drug users concludes that they are cost-effective to the health-care system — an argument that is likely to be advanced as Montreal takes steps to open four such facilities in the city. Researchers at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto carried out an analysis that compared the projected costs of maintaining supervised injection sites over a period of 20 years with the potential savings to the health system in averted HIV and hepatitis C infections. The researchers’ estimates were conservative, as they did not include other infections associated with intravenous drug use and the costs involved in treating and hospitalizing patients suffering from overdoses.

  • Heroin, survivor of War on Drugs, returns with new face

    President Richard M. Nixon announced his war on drugs in 1971, and threw a good deal of federal money into it
    The New York Times (US)
    Sunday, November 22, 2015

    nixonUnited States military operations in Afghanistan, now in their 15th year, are routinely described as America’s longest war. For overseas combat, that is true. But nothing tops the domestic "war on drugs" that an American president declared more than four decades ago. The casualty rate has been exceedingly high. Nearly 44,000 Americans a year — 120 a day — now die of drug overdoses. Neither traffic accidents nor gun violence, each claiming 30,000-plus lives a year, causes so much ruination. The annual drug toll is six times the total of American deaths in all wars since Vietnam.

  • Two months after Oregon legalization, pot saturation sends profits up in smoke

    After the state’s legalization of recreational cannabis, over-saturation and shaky business plans mean that for some dispensaries business is not booming
    The Guardian (UK)
    Saturday, November 21, 2015

    oregon-dispensaryAlong North-east Sandy Boulevard in Portland, Oregon, there’s a stretch known as the “Green Mile”. Here, medical marijuana dispensaries are budding. Almost two years ago, when Matt Walstaller opened Pure Green in the area, there was only one competitor. Today there’s close to 10. In the beginning business was booming, recalled Walstaller. But last autumn, Pure Green’s traffic started to slow. Since 1 October, when the sale of recreational marijuana was legalized, struggling businesses have found firm footing again.

  • Govt urged to secure share of international ganja market

    Jamaica is in the process of establishing a legal cannabis industry comprising two product streams namely: industrial hemp amd medical marijuana
    Jamaica Observer (Jamaica)
    Monday, November 16, 2015

    President of the Westmoreland Hemp and Ganja Farmers Association Ras Iyah is urging the Government of Jamaica to "align" with other countries to secure a slice of the international marijuana market. "I think the Government of Jamaica has a duty and responsibility to align themselves with other countries, because I know there are other countries, here in the Caribbean, in Latin America... that are against this big stick that America has over our heads that says 'you can do what I say but not what I do'," he argued.

  • Latin America’s crackdown on drugs defies its progressive rhetoric

    It is beyond time for Latin American governments to step up and match their discourse with action
    Catalina Pérez Correa & Coletta A. Youngers
    Thursday, November 12, 2015

    women-prisoners-elsalvador“We were having dinner—my daughter, grandchild, and me,” says Ramona, a 67-year-old Mexican woman who is serving a sentence of four-and-a-half years in one of Mexico’s most dangerous prisons. “I was lying on the couch watching a soap opera … when I realized that there were several men inside the house yelling at me to hand over the drugs.”

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  • Colombia to legalize commercial sale of medical marijuana

    Officials went to great lengths to explain that they are not looking to further liberalize recreational use of marijuana
    Associated Press (US)
    Thursday, November 12, 2015

    marihuana-medicinal2Colombia's government plans to legalize the cultivation and sale of marijuana for medicinal and scientific purposes, officials said in a surprise shift by the longtime U.S. ally in the war on drugs. The change is coming in an executive decree that President Juan Manuel Santos will soon sign into law. It will regulate regulating everything from licensing for growers to the eventual export of products made from marijuana, Justice Minister Yesid Reyes said.

  • Surge in imprisonment for drug offenses raises questions over decriminalization law

    The number of people imprisoned for drug offenses in Colombia grew an alarming rise of 269 percent outstripping the total rise in prison population
    Talking Drugs (UK)
    Wednesday, November 11, 2015

    A report by the Research Consortium on Drugs and the Law (Colectivo de Estudios Drogas y Derecho - CEDD), reveals that the number of people imprisoned for drug offenses in Colombia skyrocketed over 250 percent in the last 14 years, despite the country’s decriminalization law and professed commitment to drug policy reform. The revelations demonstrate the implementation gap between legislative reform and cultural practice and indicates that much work remains to reframe drug use not as a criminal justice issue, but as a public health priority.

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