Legal drugs? Drug Prohibition's unintended consequences

Prohibiting drugs has not worked. Not only has it not worked, but the unintended consequences have been deadly. Because of the prohibition a drugs arms race has developed. Newer (still legal for now) drugs are emerging and are being developed. Legal highs as they are known in the UK have been the subject of controversy. Examples of legal highs are GBL (a derivative of GHB), mephedrone (the miaow drug) synthetic cannabinoids, which are sprayed on herbal smoking products, and chemicals such as BZP (Benzylpiperazine), part of the piperazine family of stimulants that are an alternative to amphetamine. (from the Telegraph)

Governments wishing drugs away is not making the drugs go away. The prohibition of each drug drives the market for legal drugs to the next drug to be developed. This is insanity. The policy leads to people self experimenting with "still legal" drugs which are far more dangerous than the traditional illicit ones.

The new UK law dealing with legal highs has angered experts who argue that the legislation does not go far enough because it does not ban other party drugs such as mephedrone. The drug has already been outlawed in some countries, including Sweden, Israel and the US, where it has been linked with a string of deaths.

Only refining legal drugs could have more dire consequences. Scientists in Russia have reduced alcohol to a powder. Just add water and drink. (from the Times of India)

The Cure is worse than the Problem

The South African Police have shot a man accused of smoking cannabis while fleeing arrest. (from the DA)

The number of deaths attributable to the regular inhalation of cannabis is ZERO. South Africa does not keep statistics of cannabis deaths, so American statistics will have to do. If cannabis were legal Kgothatso Ndobe's (21) death would not have happened, so instantly the law prohibiting cannabis has taken more lives than cannabis itself. It's not the first time this year either. The cure is worse than the problem.

The 1996 National Drug Master Plan required the state investigate the decriminalisation of cannabis. In 2004 the South African Cannabis Position Paper was produced, but never released. The question of decriminalisation was dropped in the 2006 National Drug Master Plan. The 2006 National Drug Master Plan incredibly makes no mention of the 2004 Position Paper. The South Africa Cannabis position paper is available here.

The South Africa Cannabis Position Paper is a disgrace. When is something dangerous? When is something harmful? How many people has cannabis killed? The SA Position Paper is pseudo-scientific. It is better to ignore an inconvenient truth than do a proper investigation for the truth? The South Africa Police aerial eradication programme failed to get a mention in the paper, which is sad considering the environmental damage they wreak by spraying Roundup from their helicopters donated by the US DEA.

The South African Cannabis Position paper cherry picks facts and uses quotes out of context. The Canadian Senate Paper is heavily relied on through out the paper, however the SA Paper misrepresents their position which was to legalise and control cannabis like cigarettes.

The medical cannabis phenomenon whereby cannabis is prescribed for medical conditions in America is ignored, while the therapeutic effects and benefits of cannabis are down-played in the SA Paper.

Cannabis consumption entails a small chance of schizophrenia. How many? 1 in 5000.

South Africa is including cannabis cultivation in the agricultural portion of it's GDP calculation. How the crop and value are to be guessed at is not stated.

Poker-faced prohibition has left the Western Cape with a horrendous drug consumption result. 10% do tik, 10% smoke cannabis and the rest are drinking. It's not working and it's time for a change in direction.

"Alcohol remains the primary drug of abuse in South Africa." (2006 NDMP) From 1998 to 2006 average consumption doubled from 10 litres per annum to 20 litres. Less than 50% of people dying non-natural deaths in South Africa are dying sober and that rate is consistent year on year. The Western Cape government has shown some political will to deal with the alcohol industry. All alcohol comes from a handful of producers and ends up being sold illegally. The "control" of the alcohol industry has left a lot to be desired, as have the actions of the alcohol producers. FAS started climbing in the late 1990's and is over 10% in some areas. Interestingly the WAY "we" bringe drink in the Western Cape is particularly conducive to creating FAS children. What rights does a child have and does it include not being born retarded? Why is it not yet illegal to knowingly serve alcohol to a pregnant woman? There are no good answers when you consider these questions in the context locking adults up for smoking a safe cannabis joint.

Prohibition has clearly not worked in South Africa. Consumption is UP. Consumption amongst children is UP. Children are prohibitionists first port of call. "For the children!" they cry. That prohibition ends up handing all illicit drug manufacture and sales to a criminal underworld which sells to these same children does not enter the mind. Drug arrests are up year on year in the Western Cape. Is this actually "success"? Have the people who were arrested stopped taking those drugs? Thousands of citizens now have criminal records and now unemployable. Is this "success"? There are in excess of 600 000 illicit drug consumers in Cape Town (at least). Which prison is big enough to hold all these people?

As much as each drug is different the law regulating that drug needs to be different. Treating methamphetamines the same as magic mushrooms or lsd is stupid. The law needs to be rational. The law needs to be based on the harm that the various drugs do, rather than "because I say so". Adults are responsible for their actions and are doing drugs. The drugs are not ruining their lives. The law and the courts are. The time has come to regulate the drug industry and to set the police free to concentrate on violent crime. Abolishing criminal penalties for possession and consumption of drugs does not neccesarily mean higher rates of consumption. Portugal's 8 year experience teaches otherwise.

With drugs honesty comes FIRST.

Cannabis infinitely SAFER than alcohol... So why drive people to drink?

Cannabis is SAFER than alcohol.

Number of cannabis deaths in South Africa from the inhalation of cannabis = ZERO.

2005 NIMSS - National non-natural deaths
50.6% of those violently killed were drunk (with an average blood alcohol content of 0.15)
61% of drivers killed and tested were drunk (with a BAC of 0.17 - twice the legal limit!)
50% of pedestrians killed and tested were on average three times the legal limit (BAC 2.0)
Incredibly 22% of cyclists killed and tested were drunk too (BAC of 0.25!!!!! )
Only 52.38% of the deceased who were tested died sober.

2004 NIMSS - National
54% of those violently killed and tested had an average BAC of 0.17
52% of those killed in transport collisions were inebriated.
Almost exactly half the non-natural deaths were sober while the other half were inebriated

2004 NIMSS Cape Town - Cape Town is worse than the rest of the country.
58.5% of those violently killed and tested were drunk
65% of pedestrians killed and tested had an average BAC of 2.0
57.3% of people killed in transport accidents and tested were drunk - with an average BAC of 1.8.
Only 46.3% of deceased persons tested died sober.

Alcohol plays a role in over half the non-natural deaths in Cape Town, yet the government continues to drive people to drink.

Cannabis is SAFER than Alcohol. Choosing Cannabis ahead of Alcohol is what RATIONAL people do: they choose the less harmful, less dangerous alternative. Why is a rational debate not possible? Why does the state not allow access to safer alternatives to alcohol?

The Decriminalisation Cop Out - Better to Legalise and Control

Decriminalisation or Legalisation? Which is better?

Decriminalisation is a "policy" decision to not enforce certain laws and makes for bad law. Decriminalisation does not address the supply of the drugs or attempt to reduce demand through sin tax measures. Decriminalisation is an admission that prohibition (the current law) has failed and the costs associated with busting and jailing every drug user is too high. Decriminalisation replaces a failed policy with one of looking the other way. The law itself is not changed, so the opportunity for graft is enormous with police extracting "on the spot fines" to look the other way. As decriminalisation is a policy decision it is subject to immediate change by the policy setters of the day. Decriminalisation as a policy has worked - in Portugal for instance, but it is the poor cousin to legalisation.

Legalisation means a change in the law regulating and controlling the various drugs. Each drug is different and as such requires a different control regime. Trying to control cannabis like alcohol or tik is unrealistic. Legalisation of certain drugs does not mean that those drugs should or will be freely available. The point of legalisation is to control the industry from production, to distribution, to tax, to consumption. Legalisation controls the age from which a person may purchase and consume a drug, while decriminalisation does not. Legalisation will always be harder to do. It requires new and innovative thinking. It requires an understanding of each of the drugs and how different they are from production through to the effect the person feels. The allure of tik to disenfranchised persons sitting in a shack.... which when you smoke it makes you feel invincible and like Superman... is massive. The health consequences are also massive and tik will change that person's personality. They NEED medical help, but they will not get it while they are on the "outside". Each drug has it's time and place: tik's place is in a trench in the middle of a war staying awake after 36 hours of fighting or flying a kamikaze plane into an aircraft carrier's deck. Since we're not at war or intentionally flying jets into the ground tik should be locked in the Pharmacist's safe!

Drugs - Why?

Imagine your mind to be a mansion. You haven't been everywhere in it. Apparently we only regularly use a small portion of our brains. We are used to the kitchen, the living room, the bedroom, the toilet.... There is another wing of the mansion. It is upstairs. Yes you have to get high to go there. Now the rooms upstairs are wildly different to the ones downstairs. Upstairs there is A BAR, the wild nightclub room with music and flashing lights, a gym, a meditation room, a library, a jacuzzi, a medical clinic, a psychologist's practice, a sushi bar, a prison cell and a teleporter. Sure you can live life sober every moment of every day, but that means you never get to see any of the other places in the mansion. Once you accept alcohol is just another room upstairs you will realise that there is a time and a place for each and every drug. Only the lies told and government propaganda stops us from seeing this. Drugs are not good or bad - they just are. I am guessing that you will hear a lot of emotive language used against the use of drugs. Repeat those phrases and ask - Why should emotive language be such a ready substitute for clear thinking and facts? (PS the teleporter is DMT)

Alcohol NOT all powerful. Addicts can successfully cut down consumption

Top addiction experts now say that many drinkers can evaluate their habits and -- using new knowledge about genetic and behavioral risks of addiction -- change those habits if necessary. Even some people who have what are now termed alcohol-use disorders, they add, can cut back on consumption before it disrupts education, ruins careers and damages health. (from the LA Times)

In short, say some of the nation's leading scientists studying substance abuse, humans travel a long road before they become powerless over alcohol -- and most never reach that point.

"From what we know from scientific studies, there are some very clear things that can be done," Dr. Mark Willenbring, director of treatment and recovery research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism says. "But people don't ordinarily think of looking to science for how to improve drinking problems."

Alcohol leads to violence. Drunk driver assaults police.

A motorist has been arrested with two of his passengers after two traffic officers were assaulted while trying to arrest the man for suspected drink driving. (from IOL)

It is expected they will appear in the Somerset West Magistrate's Court tomorrow.

The two officers pulled the car over on the R102 near Macassar because it was overloaded. Three men and two women were in the car.

A woman traffic officer talked to the driver and suspected he was drunk, said provincial traffic department spokesman Xenophone Wentzel.

The officer tested the man and found he was over the legal limit. When she tried to arrest him, he swore at her and she called another officer to help her. When the male officer came to the car, the driver slapped the woman officer and then hit the male officer in the face.

The woman officer was unhurt, but the other officer was taken to hospital for stitches to a cut beneath his eye.

Children drunk cycling - best defence ever.

The members Steenberg Police Station have been involved in two serious reckless and negligent cases this year. (from the People's Post)

In February, an officer and two children on a bicycle collided in Peter Charles Street, Cafda. Van Dyk says the investigation was handled by Steenberg's detective branch.

"The public prosecutor did not find enough evidence to prosecute," says Van Dyk. "The investigation revealed that the driver of the bicycle was under the influence of alcohol."

All criminal charges have been withdrawn against the police officer.

Murder most foul.... Mother unrepentant.....

Vanetia Orgill from Mitchell's Plain took the stand to talk about her son, Troy (27), who had been a drug addict for over ten years. (from the People's Post)

Troy committed suicide at a friend's home at the start of the year. He had apparently stopped taking drugs for two years before his death, but had developed schizophrenia as a result of his drug abuse.

Orgill told the court that her son had on numerous occasions tried to kill her in his drug rages, and that on one occasion, in his drugged state, he had asked her and his sister for sex. Troy was forced to live outside the family home in a car as he could not be trusted in the house.

Orgill said her son had constantly been in and out of jail for theft.

Orgill said her son would often throw rocks at the house, breaking all the windows.

At one stage, said Orgill, she came close to breaking down, and forced a gun into her son's mouth. It was a family friend, apparently, who convinced her not to pull the trigger that night.

She said that "close to the end", she started wishing that her child would die. She told Von Leeve that she had given Troy a rope to hang himself with.

"People can call me hard and cold because I told my son: 'You pig, why don't you just hang yourself?'." And Troy did end up hanging himself.

Von Leeve asked Orgill what she thought when she first heard about Ellen's murder trial. "I thought, 'I hope she gets away with it,'" she replied.

Drug busts leads to gang warfare in Cape Town

At least 16 people have been killed and 39 wounded in two months in a drug and turf war which is fuelling gang violence across the province. (from IOL)

In a desperate effort to put an end to the attacks, police are tightening their grip on drug dealers and users.

In seven months just three police stations in the province have recorded 4 525 drug-related arrests.

Police Commissioner Mzwandile Petros said police were tackling gang violence from every angle except focusing on the drug trade, which seemed to be at its root.

In Bishop Lavis, where 967 drug arrests were made since April, three people were killed and three others wounded in attacks. One resident was killed and six others wounded in Atlantis in a gang fight over drug turf.

Accept the facts – and end this futile 'war on drugs'

The proponents of the "war on drugs" are well-intentioned people who believe they are saving people from the nightmare of drug addiction and making the world safer. But this self-image has turned into a faith – and like all faiths, it can only be maintained by cultivating a deliberate blindness to the evidence. (from the Independent)

Fact One The drug war hands one of our biggest industries to armed criminal gangs, who unleash terrible violence across the country.

Fact Two Under prohibition, drug use becomes more hardcore.

Fact Three The drug war doesn't reduce drug use – but the alternatives can.

AMA asks for Cannabis to be moved from Schedule 1

Complete with freudian slip..

Mom chooses booze over child

A Khayelitsha, Cape Town, woman was arrested for child neglect after she allegedly left her baby with her elderly father while she went out drinking, Western Cape police said on Wednesday. (from IOL)

"Police found the one-year-old child playing outside in the cold weather. She was in a bad state of neglect and when brought to the station. Victim support volunteers found that she was extremely hungry," Constable Mthokozisi Gama said.

"After bathing her and seeing to her needs, police commenced with the search for her mother."

They found the 20-year-old woman in a local shebeen. She was arrested on charges of child neglect and child abuse.

Cannabis less dangerous than Asprin

A look at the evidence.... (From the Atlantic)

Lies about Cannabis drives people to more dangerous Alcohol

Professor David Nutt didn’t play the game. As the chief drug policy advisor in the British Government, an unspoken part of his job description was to help maintain a public fiction about cannabis. Specifically, he was expected to further the misperception of cannabis as a substance worthy of being classified and prohibited in a manner similar to more dangerous drugs like heroin and cocaine. (from Alternet)

Whether intentional or not, the government’s greatest achievement when it comes to keeping cannabis illegal has been its ability to convince a majority of the public that cannabis is as harmful as, if not more harmful than, alcohol. By doing so, it has secured alcohol’s place as the recreational substance of choice for the vast majority of the public.

Influenced by the government’s anti-cannabis propaganda, a large segment of our population is comfortable with a system that bans the use of cannabis but allows – and even celebrates – the use of alcohol, despite the fact that alcohol is objectively far more harmful.

Let’s consider just a few facts about the two substances. For starters, alcohol is far more toxic than cannabis. Just ten times the effective dose of alcohol can be fatal. Yet there has never been a recorded cannabis overdose death in history. The highly toxic nature of alcohol is also what leads to the all-too-frequent occurrences of nausea and vomiting from over-indulgence.

The Dutch have the lowest cannabis use in Europe...

The Dutch are among the lowest users of Marijuana or cannabis in Europe despite the Netherlands' well-known tolerance of the drug, according to a regional study published Thursday. Among adults in the Netherlands, 5.4% used cannabis, compared with the European average of 6.8%, according to an annual report by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction, using latest available figures. (National Post)

FBI Director on cannabis....

Cannabis dispensaries spreading like... well... weeds....

The medical marijuana dispensary in Sebastopol, California wine country town is in a former auto dealership and has more registered patients than the town has residents. Los Angeles has more pot shops than Starbucks or schools. (from the Portland Press Herald)

In Los Angeles – the marijuana dispensary capital of the country – about 800 dispensaries are estimated to have opened despite a 2007 order halting new pot operations.

Cocaine and Alcohol combination health warning

Combining alcohol and cocaine leads to the creation of a third chemical – cocaethylene which builds up in the liver over a number of years among those who mix the two drugs. Major health consequences are now becoming apparent. (from the Guardian)

Britain the designer drug capital of the world

Britain has become the online "designer drugs" capital of Europe with more than a third of all internet retailers that sell "legal highs" based in the UK, according to a report from the European Union's drug agency. (from the Guardian)

This new generation of online "head shops" is at the centre of a rapidly growing market in highly potent synthetic drugs, such as Spice, that mimic the effects of illegal substances such as cannabis and ecstasy.

European drug agency officials are also alarmed by the way the online retailers are reacting to moves to ban individual "legal highs" by rapidly marketing alternatives. Officials say it is like trying to hit a moving target.

Britain is poised to ban Spice, a cannabis substitute that can be more potent than skunk, which is sold as a "herbal smoking mixture" , but already the online head shops are selling 27 alternative "herbal smoking blends" based on the active ingredient in cannabis synthesised by chemists in Asia.

Drug war breaks out in "racist" Mother City.

Violence - an unintended consequence of drug busts

While the UK Drug Policy Commission accepts limiting supply is important, its report claims that in the UK's entrenched drugs markets, arrests can lead to damaging unintended consequences.

Arresting one king-pin drug dealer also raises the possibility of creating a power vacuum, with the resulting turf war and spike in violence, says the report. (from BBC)

South African drug laws lack rational basis

South Africa has three drug regimes. Prohibition, Control and Exemption. Which regime applies to a drug has no rational foundation. All drugs are prohibited, but for tobacco which is controlled and alcohol which gets an exemption. Alcohol is specifically exempted from the definition of "drug" in the National Drug Master Plan of 2006. Placing alcohol under the control of the Department of Trade and Industry to develop the industry without concern for the harm done

Logic dictates that the most dangerous drugs would be prohibited while less dangerous drugs are controlled. The Academy of Medical Science drug policy group in England conducted a survey of the harms of all drugs - licit and illicit. The inconsistency in the law is apparent as alchol appears at number 5 on the list.... far ahead of cannabis! (from the BBC)


David Bayever the deputy head of the Central Drug Authority when asked about cannabis legalisation had this to say: "We have 9.2 percent of our population - twice that in other parts of the world - who use cannabis. It will be a grave mistake to legalise cannabis as elsewhere in the world. We legalised alcohol and never mind the money made from it - alcohol is our biggest problem. The cost to society is horrific. We cannot make the same mistake twice."

What did David Bayever do about his first mistake? NOTHING! What evidence that the cost to society of legalising cannabis Bayever's solution is to lock them all up! 9% of the population? Add to that the cost of his alcohol exemption and the 10% of children being born retarded and dear David belongs in prison. No one else in the country has had the opportunity to deal with the problem.

UK government chief science advisor backs Prof Nutt

The UK government's chief science adviser, Professor John Beddington, has told BBC News that he supports the former chief drugs adviser's scientific view on cannabis. (from the BBC)

Professor David Nutt was chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.

He was fired after using a lecture to say cannabis was less harmful than alcohol and tobacco.

Asked whether he agreed with Professor Nutt's view that cannabis was less harmful than cigarettes and alcohol, Professor Beddington replied: "I think the scientific evidence is absolutely clear cut. I would agree with it."

Professor Beddington is the man ultimately responsible for scientific advice in government

Cape Town targets drunk drivers and vandals

Vandals, drunk drivers and destructive protesters will soon be forced to cough up for damage to council property, as the city pushes for the introduction of a zero-tolerance policy to recoup repair and replacement costs from those responsible. (from IOL)

"For decades the city has not attempted to go back to the person who caused the damage and collect (from them)," mayco member for finance Ian Neilson said yesterday.

There were no exact figures, but "clearly a great deal of money" was spent on repairing damaged council property.

"We are now pursuing (a policy) so people can start taking responsibility and not rely on other people to pay," he said.

Patch to kick Cannabis habit being researched

The American federal government has awarded a Kentucky pharmaceutical company more than $2 million in stimulus dollars to develop a patch that will ease the withdrawal symptoms of cannabis. (from the Courier Journal)

AllTranz Inc. of Lexington will use the grant to create a patch that combats marijuana addiction and withdrawal — part of a larger body of research that has included $1.7 million in money from Kentucky investors, said Clint Dederick, the company’s President and CEO.

David Nutt's sacking provokes mass revolt against UK Home Secretary

The home secretary faces mass resignations from the government's drug advisory body over his decision to force out its chairman, who accused ministers of distorting scientific evidence on cannabis. (from the Guardian)

Two members of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs resigned today in protest at Alan Johnson's treatment of Professor David Nutt. Another member told the Guardian that the experts were "planning collective action" against Johnson, adding: "Everybody is devastated. We're all considering our positions."

Nutt said today that there was "no future" for the council in its present form and it is thought the group's members may use a meeting next Monday to announce a mass resignation.

The sacking follows the publication of a paper by the Centre for Crime and Justice at King's College London, based on a lecture Nutt delivered in July.

He repeated his familiar view that illicit drugs should be classified according to the actual evidence of the harm they cause and pointed out that alcohol and tobacco caused more harm than LSD, ecstasy and cannabis. Alcohol should come fifth behind cocaine, heroin, barbiturates and methadone. Tobacco should rank ninth, ahead of cannabis, LSD and ecstasy, he said. He also argued that smoking cannabis created only a "relatively small risk" of psychotic illness.

Big talk, song and DANCE in Mitchell's Plain

Mitchell's Plain can count on the government's "full support" in its fight against gangs and drugs, President Jacob Zuma said on Saturday. (from News24)

"Mitchell's Plain already has a good track record in the fight against crime," Zuma told a crowd of several hundred, who had gathered at a festival marking the township's 35th birthday.

"We know that the communities of Mitchell's Plain and Khayelitsha have taken a strong stance against drugs and gangsterism and you have government's full support."

Police recently launched a 30-day lockdown of Mitchell's Plain after the death of two street committee members, Mervyn Jacobs and Vincent Naidoo, who had been campaigning against drug sellers in the area.

Zuma paid tribute to Jacobs and Naidoo, saying they had "paid the ultimate price".

"In their memory, let us continue to battle to keep our communities safer by working with law enforcement agencies to fight crime," said Zuma, who was greeted with loud cheers. (couldn't protect them while they were alive, but let me use them for some political leverage)

Zuma also appealed to coloured and African communities to make their "divisions" a thing of a past.

"We are one people and no one should make us despise one another," he said. (SIMUNYE?)

Zuma was greeted with silence as he sang his trademark song, but received loud applause as he danced on stage.

"Daai man kan dans" a woman in the crowd was heard saying (Hy kan ook kak praat hoor!)

California considers legalising cannabis

Less quietly California is actively considering legalising cannabis (from Cannabisnews)

On the quiet the US is legalising cannabis

You know things are shifting in America when Fortune magazine, the bible for business journalism, runs a cover story titled “Is pot already legal?”. You also know it when Barack Obama’s Department of Justice publishes a long-expected memo signalling that the federal government will no longer raid medical marijuana dispensaries if they are legal under state law. That happened formally this month. (from the Times)