Worldwide News

An aide says Mike Antonovich is concerned about crime and the outlets' effect on residents and businesses. Last week, two L.A. pot store workers were killed.

Worried that unincorporated Los Angeles County could increasingly be favored by medical marijuana dispensaries excluded from other areas, Supervisor Mike Antonovich on Tuesday proposed a ban on the outlets, which would reverse a four-year-old county policy.

Aides to Antonovich noted that many cities in the county have banned dispensaries or imposed moratoriums and the city of Los Angeles is trying to shut down about 400. The supervisor's office has received at least a dozen inquiries from Los Angeles dispensaries looking to move to the county.

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Russia‟s RIA Novosti (6/29) reports, “The current political crisis in Kyrgyzstan was caused by a power struggle between domestic drug clans,” according to Viktor Ivanov, the head of Russia‟s Federal Drug Control Service. Ivanov said in a radio interview, “Existing evidence clearly indicates that the former Kyrgyz leadership had a tight control over drug-trafficking in the country, which angered other [domestic] drug barons who believed they were being deprived of their share in the profits [from the illicit drug trade].” Ivanov “said drug barons were interested in having politicians at the reigns of power who would help them „stuff their pockets with money.‟”

Russia‟s RIA Novosti (6/29) reports, “As many as 500 Afghan drug laboratories may be involved in the production of drugs being trafficked to Russia,” according to Viktor Ivanov, the head of Russia‟s Federal Drug Control Service. Ivanov said in a radio interview, “Last year we handed to the United States a list of drug „brands‟ that point to laboratories located in Afghanistan. These 175 brands, laboratories deliver drugs to Russian territory.” Ivanov “said Russia is probing 25 Afghan and Central Asian drug barons who are believed to be behind much of Afghan drug traffic to Russia.”

Source: ONDCP News Briefing

WBBM-TV Chicago (6/29) reports, “A new study finds that Chicago has the worst heroin problem in the country.” The Chicago Tribune (6/29, Keilman, 534K) reports that Roosevelt University researchers found “that the area has seen an increase in people admitted to emergency rooms for heroin-related problems.” The area “now has more than any other metropolitan area. Other trouble signs include soaring overdose deaths in the collar counties, a high percentage of inmates at the Cook County Jail testing positive for heroin and an increase in the number of people injecting the drug.” The study “offered no estimate of the percentage of area residents using the drug, but a national survey shows that only 0.2 percent of Americans have used it in the last year, compared with 10 percent who have used marijuana and two percent who have used cocaine.”

The Chicago Sun-Times (6/29, Thomas, 292K) reports that the study, “which is based on federal and state data on admissions to hospitals and drug treatment programs, as well as county death records,” found that “in 2008, there were nearly 24,000 heroin-related hospital admissions in the Chicago area, more than in any of the 12 other cities included in the federal government‟s Drug Abuse Warning Network. New York and Boston had the next-highest totals.” The Chicago Sun-Times notes, “While heroin users in Chicago tend to be middle-age and black, suburban users are more likely to be under 25 and white, researchers found. Young whites are also much more likely than blacks to inject heroin -- a factor fueling a significant increase in injection drug use in Illinois over the last 10 years,” said Kathleen Kane-Willis, one of the co-authors of the study. Kane-Willis said that “Chicago‟s status as a transportation hub and the increasing purity of heroin from South America and Mexico make it a cheaply available drug.”

The Chicago Daily Herald (6/29, Constable, 130K) reports, “Acknowledging that their research showing a rise in heroin use in Illinois is „scary,‟” Kane-Willis and co-author Stephanie Schmitz “point out that their research was limited to arrest records, coroner reports, government health programs and other public data. „The picture could actually be much worse,‟ Schmitz says, explaining that heroin victims treated in private facilities or in other states don‟t get counted in Illinois.” Kane-Willis said, “Especially among white, middle class or upper middle class, I think the numbers of heroin users is much larger.”

The Northwest Herald (6/29, Duchnowski) reports, “The Roosevelt University study suggested more sweeping public policy, such as providing comprehensive drug education, increasing treatment funding, and increasing the availability of syringe and syringe exchange programs.” It “also suggested increasing education and administration of heroin overdose antidotes such as Naloxone.”

On their websites, WGN-TV (6/28, Hayes) and WLS-TV Chicago (6/29) and NBC Chicago (6/29, Bartosik) and North Carolina‟s HULIQ (6/29, Lucey) also cover the story.

Source: ONDCP News Briefing

In Mexico the leading candidate for governor of the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, Rodolfo Torre Cantu, was gunned down Monday in one of the highest profile assassinations since a presidential candidate was murdered in 1994.

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After a previous rally ended in 14 arrests, a notice from Tel Aviv Municipality official Ruby Zelof reading, "I hereby inform you that your request to hold a rally for the legalization of cannabis has been rejected”, was sent to the organisers of the rally.

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Press release from National Drug Prevention Alliance, United Kingdom

Yesterday, 26^th June was International Anti-Narcotics Day – always a provocation to the pro-drug fraternity. We in the United Kingdom have managed to ignore the siren calls for so-called ‘medical marijuana’ – that is allowing people to smoke raw marijuana ( cannabis) on the unproven assertion that it would help their illnesses. No serious doctor or scientist would ever recommend smoking as a way to ingest any substance – legal or illegal – because of damage to the lungs. And they would certainly not suggest sustained use of a damaging and addictive substance.

This spurious proposing of cannabis as a medicine has long been a ploy by the disciples of dope. As long ago as February 1979 Keith Stroup, Exec Director of pot campaigners NORML, told an audience at Emory University in the USA: “we will use medical marijuana as a red herring to give pot a good name”

It is clear that the legalisers in the USA have been very successful in applying this tactic, as the data from Montana quoted below shows. Rogue doctors sign cards that say the owner suffers from illnesses such as headaches or back pain, and they can then purchase marijuana legally. The use of marijuana has escalated – even amongst minors. But now the electorate in many States are beginning to realise that they have been duped, and moves are afoot to change the legislation – witness the California data shown here.

In Britain a reputable pharmaceutical company, G. W. Pharmaceuticals has spent 11 years researching and extracting substances from crude marijuana which have proved to be effective for MS patients. The advantage of the GWP medicine is that you don’t smoke it, it doesn’t get you high, and it is not addictive – in other words the pro-pot crowd will not be interested in it, except as something they will wish to attack as ‘missing the point’. Moreover, the licence just granted to GWP ensures that only some doctors will be able to prescribe for particular patients. The UK will not go down the path of the USA in using so-called medical marijuana as a stepping stone to legalising the abuse of this substance.

Footnote 1:

Nearly One in 10 Montana Parolees Has Medical Marijuana Card

Medical-marijuana cards are carried by 1.25 percent of the general population in Montana but about 9 percent of parolees in the state.

The data from the Montana Department of Corrections led deputy Missoula County attorney Andrew W. Paul and others to say that the medical-marijuana program is being abused.

"It's a ridiculously large amount," said Paul. "I'm all for the cancer patient who is wasting away who needs it. That was how this initiative was sold. To call it medicine for 80 percent of the people with cards is just a farce."

Just 176 medical-marijuana cards were issued in the first year after Montana's 2004 law went into effect. The number of cardholders didn't hit 1,000 until June 2008, but now there are more than 15,000. (Source: Join Together June 16^th 2010)

Footnote 2:

California dreamin’

In California, proponents of Prop 215 and legalization of marijuana often try to use arrest statistics to show lower usage of pot. This, however, is misleading because the local laws have changed so much, police are reluctant and in some cases prevented from making arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana.

Around the same time that Prop 215 passed to legalize marijuana as a so-called medicine, the state also changed their Education Code to restrict being able to obtain data from young people without parental consent.  Since drug surveys in California now require parental consent, one can reasonably assume that the students who come from drug using parents are more likely to be users themselves, and one can also assume that parents who are drug users themselves, or who suspect their children of using, will not most likely give their consent for their children to be surveyed.  Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that the data coming out of California pertaining to youth drug use are skewed, in that a significant portion of the drug-using students are not participating in the surveys. Similar laws for drug use surveys in schools also exist in New Jersey.

However, one relatively solid indicator of drug use, including use of marijuana, is the hospital emergency department admissions. Most, probably more than half of all Government agency DAWN (Drug Abuse Warning Network) admissions, involve more than one drug and a third involve alcohol and some other psychoactive substance. Thus, it is not possible to say with accuracy whether any single drug mentioned in connection with a specific DAWN episode actually “caused” the emergency. Nonetheless, hospital admissions for acute drug-related emergencies can tell us what drugs are most frequently used by persons who experience emergency health crises. As you can see from the table   below,  taken from  the actual DAWN data sheets ,  the incidence of marijuana showing up in DAWN hospital emergency episodes in two cities in CA where DAWN collects clinical records, is quite significant over a five-year period, from 2004 to 2008. Inasmuch as these data do not rely on police arrests or any other law enforcement database, they probably tell a more accurate story about marijuana use in California than what those who want to legalise drugs in the State via Proposition 215 would like you to know. Also, as a federal public health surveillance study, the DAWN data collectors are not constrained by California’s Education Code for drug surveys requiring parental consent.

Press release from NCADD (National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc.)

Medical marijuana is bad medicine and bad policy

The anecdotal reports of benefits of “medical” marijuana cannot be regarded as scientific evidence because the claimed benefits were not independently verified and quantified.  The anecdotal reports do not reflect double-blind controls and hence are not free of potential confounders such as expectancy, placebo effect, and deliberate exaggeration for ideological reasons.  Smoking marijuana makes you feel good but that does not mean that it is a medicine that is making you well.  There are other safer medicines available for these conditions.  Although the purpose of the bill is compassionate, this bill will have many unintended consequences that will hurt more people than it will help.

Smoking marijuana causes cancer and other health problems.  How does that help sick people?  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which opposes the use of smoked marijuana, is the federal agency that certifies what drugs are safe and those that have a medicinal benefit.  In 2006, the FDA declared that marijuana has a high potential for abuse and that there is a lack of accepted safety for its use, even under medical supervision.

There is no reason why medications derived from the cannabis plant should be exempted from the FDA process.  Proliferation of "medical marijuana" state laws creates an unregulated system that allows untested and potentially contaminated materials to be distributed to vulnerable patients.  The very idea of ingesting a "medicine" by smoking it is counter-intuitive.

This legislation is reckless public policy.  We empathize with the stories described by the bill's supporters of the relief that smoking marijuana gives those with debilitating diseases, but fear that New York would be making a mistake bearing unforeseen and unintended consequences if we think we can systematically control who will have lawful access to a controlled and dangerous substance.  The pitfalls associated with this policy are many and the opportunity for misuse and abuse are plentiful.

We are sensitive to the pain that individuals endure from disease, but that does not make it appropriate to sanction the medical use of marijuana.  The ends do not justify the means.  The implications of this legislation are far-reaching, with an increased opportunity for abuse.  In addition, we are not convinced that a secure system can be put into place that ensures the responsible production, delivery and monitoring of medical marijuana.

While we strive to be a compassionate society, there must be a balance between alleviating or managing pain and creating a system that potentially does more harm than good.  The road that “medical” marijuana legislation is traveling is laden with potholes.  There are too many unanswered questions regarding this serious public policy issue to justify its becoming law.  And once the box is opened, it will be difficult to return its contents and close the lid if things do not work out.

In October 2009, the Delegate Assembly of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc. (NCADD), pursuant to a recommendation of its Medical/Scientific Committee, adopted the position that “if marijuana is for legal medical use, it should be in the same context of how other dangerous drugs are prescribed including warnings, labeling, appropriate forms of dispensing, scheduled and monitored in the same way as other drugs under FDA oversight.”  “Medical” marijuana is “Bad medicine and bad policy,” according to Robert J. Lindsey, MEd, CEAP, President/CEO of NCADD.

Organizations opposed to “Medical” Marijuana:

Abstract

Rationale Cannabis is the most commonly used illicit drug among pregnant women. Since the endocannabinoid system plays a crucial role in brain development, maternal exposure to cannabis derivatives might result in longlasting neurobehavioral abnormalities in the exposed offspring. It is difficult to detect these effects, and their underlying neurobiological mechanisms, in clinical cohorts, because of their intrinsic methodological and interpretative issues.

Objectives

The present paper reviews relevant rodent studies examining the long-term behavioral consequences of exposure to cannabinoid compounds during pregnancy and/or lactation.

Results

Maternal exposure to even low doses of cannabinoid compounds results in atypical locomotor activity, cognitive impairments, altered emotional behavior, and enhanced sensitivity to drugs of abuse in the adult rodent offspring. Some of the observed behavioral abnormalities might be related to alterations in stress hormone levels induced by maternal cannabis exposure.

Conclusions

There is increasing evidence from animal studies showing that cannabinoid drugs are neuroteratogens which induce enduring neurobehavioral abnormalities in the exposed offspring. Several preclinical findings reviewed in this paper are in line with clinical studies reporting hyperactivity, cognitive impairments and altered emotionality in humans exposed in utero to cannabis. Conversely, genetic, environmental and social factors could also influence the neurobiological effects of early cannabis exposure in humans.

Today UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) launched the World Drug Report 2010.

The report shows that drug use is shifting towards new drugs and new markets. Drug crop cultivation is declining in Afghanistan (for opium) and the Andean countries (coca), and drug use has stabilized in the developed world.

However, there are signs of an increase in drug use in developing countries and growing abuse of amphetamine-type stimulants and prescription drugs around the world.

The report shows that the world's supply of the two main problem drugs - opiates and cocaine - keeps declining.

The global area under opium cultivation has dropped by almost a quarter (23 per cent) in the past two years, and opium production looks set to fall steeply in 2010 due to a blight that could wipe out a quarter of Afghanistan's opium poppy crop. Coca cultivation, down by 28 per cent in the past decade, has kept declining in 2009. World cocaine production has declined by 12-18 per cent over the period 2007-2009.

Global potential heroin production fell by 13 per cent to 657 tons in 2009, reflecting lower opium production in both Afghanistan and Myanmar. The actual amount of heroin reaching the market is much lower (around 430 tons) since significant amounts of opium are being stockpiled. UNODC estimates that more than 12,000 tons of Afghan opium (around 2.5 years' worth of global illicit opiate demand) are being stockpiled.

The World Drug Report 2010 shows that in the past few years cocaine consumption has fallen significantly in the United States, where the retail value of cocaine declined by about two thirds in the 1990s and by about one quarter in the past decade. To an extent, the problem has moved across the Atlantic: in the last decade, the number of cocaine users in Europe has doubled, from 2 million in 1998 to 4.1 million in 2008. By 2008, the European market ($34 billion) was almost as valuable as the North American market ($37 billion). The shift in demand has led to a shift in trafficking routes, with an increasing amount of cocaine flowing to Europe from the Andean countries via West Africa, causing regional instability.

Globally, the number of people using amphetamine-type stimulants - estimated at around 30-40 million - is soon likely to exceed the number of opiate and cocaine users combined. There is also evidence of increasing abuse of prescription drugs.

The market for amphetamine-type stimulants is harder to track because of short trafficking routes (manufacturing usually takes place close to the main consumer markets) and the fact that many of the raw materials are both legal and readily available. Manufacturers are quick to market new products (like ketamine, piperazines, mephedrone and Spice) and exploit new markets. These new drugs cause a double problem. First, they are being developed at a much faster rate than regulatory norms and law enforcement can keep up. Second, their marketing is cunningly clever, as they are custom-manufactured so as to meet the specific preference in each situation, said Mr. Costa.

The number of clandestine laboratories involved in the manufacture of amphetamine-type stimulants is reported to have increased by 20 per cent in 2008, including in countries where such labs had never been detected before.

Manufacture of "ecstasy" has increased in North America (notably in Canada) and in several parts of Asia, and use seems to be increasing in Asia. In another demonstration of the fluidity of drug markets, "ecstasy" use in Europe has plummeted since 2006.

Cannabis remains the world's most widely produced and used illicit substance: it is grown in almost all countries of the world and is smoked by 130-190 million people at least once a year - though these parameters are not very telling in terms of addiction. The fact that cannabis use is declining in some of its highest value markets, namely North America and parts of Europe, is another indication of shifting patterns of drug abuse.

UNODC found evidence of indoor cultivation of cannabis for commercial purposes in 29 countries, particularly in Europe, Australia and North America. Indoor cultivation is a lucrative business and is increasingly a source of profit for criminal groups. Based on evidence gathered in 2009, Afghanistan is now the world's leading producer of cannabis resin (as well as of opium).

The World Drug Report 2010 exposes a serious lack of drug treatment facilities around the world. While rich people in rich countries can afford treatment, poor people and/or poor countries are facing the greatest health consequences", warned the head of UNODC. The Report estimates that, in 2008, only around one fifth of problem drug users worldwide had received treatment in the previous year, which means that around 20 million drug dependent people did not receive treatment. "It is time for universal access to drug treatment, said Mr. Costa.

He called for health to be the centrepiece of drug control. Drug addiction is a treatable health condition, not a life sentence. Drug addicts should be sent to treatment, not to jail. And drug treatment should be part of mainstream health care. He also called for greater respect for human rights.

Mr. Costa highlighted the dangers of drug use in the developing world. Poor countries are not in a position to absorb the consequences of increased drug use. The developing world faces a looming crisis that would enslave millions to the misery of drug dependence. He cited the boom in heroin consumption in East Africa, the rise of cocaine use in West Africa and South America, and the surge in the production and abuse of synthetic drugs in the Middle East and South-East Asia. We will not solve the world drug problem by shifting consumption from the developed to the developing world, said Mr. Costa.

The World Drug Report 2010 contains a chapter on the destabilizing influence of drug trafficking on transit countries, focusing in particular on the case of cocaine. It shows how underdevelopment and weak governance attract crime, while crime deepens instability. It shows how the wealth, violence and power of drug trafficking can undermine the security, even the sovereignty, of States. The threat to security posed by drug trafficking has been on the agenda of the Security Council several times during the past year.

While drug-related violence in Mexico receives considerable attention, the northern triangle of Central America, consisting of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, is even more seriously affected, with murder rates much higher than in Mexico. The Report says that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has emerged as a major departure point for cocaine trafficked to Europe: between 2006 and 2008, over half of all detected maritime shipments of cocaine to Europe came from that country.

The report highlights the unstable situation in West Africa, which has become a hub for cocaine trafficking. It notes that traffickers have been able to co-opt top figures in some authoritarian societies, citing the recent case of Guinea-Bissau.

Mr. Costa called for more development to reduce vulnerability to crime and increased law enforcement cooperation to deal with drug trafficking.

Executive summary

Full report

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