Sunday, March 18, 2007

Open Thread The Drug War Roundup this week focuses on building a wall. Tons of good stuff. I've been wondering for some time just what this "skunk" is that the British media seem to be smokin' and why is it that they seem to be the only ones? Record numbers of teenagers are requiring drug treatment as a result of smoking skunk, the highly potent cannabis strain that is 25 times stronger than resin sold a decade ago. More than 22,000 people were treated last year for cannabis addiction - - and almost half of those affected were under 18. With doctors and drugs experts warning that skunk can be as damaging as cocaine and heroin, leading to mental health problems and psychosis for thousands of teenagers, The Independent on Sunday has today reversed its landmark campaign for cannabis use to be decriminalised. [...] "Once it has hit the frontal lobes of the developing adolescent, you just don't know whether they'll recover or not." Well, thehim's been wondering the same thing, and he may have an explanation. Also via thehim, check out this Open Letter to Bill Richardson by the strangely named xxdr zombiexx. Interesting concept: If the police attack you illegally in your home, you have the right to resist. 11:37:22 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

Firefighting This editorial in the Sacramento Bee got my attention: Why Finance More Drug War Failures? Two days after President Bush promised $3.7 billion more in aid to fight cocaine trafficking in Colombia, Sacramento police and federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents announced the largest crack cocaine bust in the city's history. Police seized seven pounds of crack and two pounds of pure cocaine Tuesday. The drugs' estimated street value was a modest $375,000. The juxtaposition of the two events, the president's promise of yet more aid for drug fighting in Colombia and the record cocaine seizure in Sacramento, is instructive. Over the last seven years, U.S. taxpayers have spent $4.7 billion to finance Plan Colombia, under which the Colombian government sprayed millions of acres with herbicides to eradicate coca fields and launched military offensives against guerrillas. It has had minimal impact on the availability or price of cocaine in the United States. [...] Critics within Colombia point out that U.S.-financed eradication efforts have produced thousands of refugees and that the spraying kills not just coca but legal crops such as cassava, plantains and sugar cane, leaving small farmers with nothing. Money promised for economic development for alternatives to the lucrative drug trade never materialized. Meanwhile, coca growing has moved to new areas within Colombia, including the country's fragile national parks, and other countries in the region, destabilizing them in the process. Exactly. We've been throwing money away on eradication and just causing more problems. Excellent editorial. Until... U.S. efforts should be focused in our own communities, on, in his words, "an obligation to reduce the demand." Don't waste billions more in Colombia. Fight drug traffickers on the U.S. streets. Use the money for local police and prosecutors, for drug treatment and education, for economic development, housing, job training and after-school programs. [emphasis added] And it ends up talking about how these are the best ways to "win a war on drugs." Sigh. If they'd just left out the parts I bolded, it would be a good editorial, but instead it's just more of that muddle-headed thinking that surely some kind of fighting is necessary since we're in a "war." So while everybody seems to see that the war isn't working, you've got some people saying "The problem is, we've got to kill more Colombians," and someone else saying "No, no, you're wrong -- that doesn't work. We've got to kill more Americans." Some days it feels like I'm watching a house on fire. And one idiot wants to put it out with a machine gun. The other one wants to use grenades. And I'm standing there with a bucket of water and they look at me like I'm crazy. 11:40:49 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

The Real Thing It's a fun little story: Bolivia wants drink giant to drop 'coca' from Coca-Cola Mostly a publicity stunt as part of Bolivia's efforts to improve the image of their exceptionally useful coca plant, and work toward making it once again an important part of their legal economy. But it may have struck a nerve Coca-Cola released a statement on Thursday saying their trademark is "the most valuable and recognized brand in the world" and was protected under Bolivian law. The statement repeated the company's past denials that Coca-Cola has ever used cocaine as an ingredient -- but was silent on whether the natural coca leaf was used to flavor their flagship soda. Bolivian coca growers say that only a few years ago the company used to purchase tons of their leaves annually. They express frustration that Coca-Cola can use their beloved coca leaf -- yet not defend it to a suspicious world. "Instead of satanizing the leaf, they need to understand our situation," said David Herrera, a state government supervisor for the coca-rich Chapare region. "They exported coca as a raw material for Coca-Cola, and we can't even freely sell it in Bolivia." This got me thinking about the Coca Cola™ trademark. If Bolivia and some of the other countries end up successfully navigating the international obstacles to allow the use of coca leaves in a variety of commercial products (toothpastes, analgesics, food products, etc.), soft drinks would be a natural. And if somebody made a cola using coca leaves, it would be, by definition, a coca cola. Theoretically they could use those words on their product and advertisements (not as their brand name, but as a descriptor). So you could have Pepsi's coca cola, for example. I don't know very much about trademark law, but it seems to me that a lot of lawyers could get very rich over this. And I also wonder what the Coca Cola™ company is willing to do to avoid this situation even coming up... [Thanks Allan] 10:35:48 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []