N.T: War on drugs must be won – NT News – November 27, 2017

Commission Illicit Drug Data Report clearly demonstrates the scourge of drugs in the Territory is not going away anytime soon.

And the message of their dangers is not being absorbed.

Our law enforcement officers are doing the job required of them, with arrests for using and selling drugs skyrocketing over the term of the 2015-16 report.

And while Territorians are also being busted with illegal steroids and hallucinogens in growing numbers, authorities are finding fewer drug laboratories.

In many respects, the latter is a positive because the drug traffickers instead have to run the gauntlet of importation — domestic or international — and the risks which come with that, to get the goods on to Territory streets.

What is majorly disappointing is that the messages associated with drug use and where it can lead are not getting through, despite the one good fact the use or sale of heroin and other illicit opioids remains almost non-existent in the Territory.

Instead, we saw arrests over amphetamines, including ice, were up 57 per cent — second only behind Victoria.

These are soul destroying, society destroying drugs. They tear the fabric of families apart. Three-quarters of drug arrests and seizures in the NT during 2015-16 were for cannabis — the largest proportion of any state or territory. For more http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/opinion/war-on-drugs-must-be-won/news-story/75b8d5ac5d4e74ce4743b7bf26b89dd5

Liz Braun Published: November 22, 2017  Toronto SUN

Should a billboard claiming that marijuana legalization isn’t harmful be hanging over a kids’ music school in North York?

That’s the question being posed by Prevent, Don’t Promote, an organization opposed to the legalization of marijuana in Canada.

Prevent, Don’t Promote is particularly sensitive to anything that looks like advertising or marketing to children.

Marijuana billboard atop a child’s music business on Chesswood Drive in Downsview on Wednesday November 22, 2017. (Michael Peake/Toronto Sun)

The billboard in question hangs over Little Jammerz, a music school that caters to children from Kindergarten to grade six, according to their website.

And the billboard claims that legalizing marijuana in Colorado and Washington states did not increase its use. This is patently false, according to Rabbi David Cooper, a teacher and member of Prevent, Don’t Promote who has worked with drug users in the past.

“The word, ‘marijuana’ is on the sign, and kids can read that,” says Cooper – something he finds unconscionable to begin with.

“Legalization is the worst thing that could happen to Canada’

For more http://torontosun.com/news/local-news/group-wants-pot-billboard-within-stones-throw-from-kids-music-school-taken-down

Comment: All the stats from Colorado show that legalization has made things unequivocally worse, dreadful or lamentable. This is all amply documented in the Rocky Mountain High Drug Trafficking Area serial reports as well as numerous other published sources including the Surgeon General\’s report and JAMA Psychiatry 2017 (Hasin D.). So bad that many locals, often led by the Professionals who are on the pointy end of the clean-up-the-mess operations, are organizing to roll back their home-grown disaster. A dismally failed experiment that the rest of the world – including Canadians led by their intrepid Prime Minister – have to follow as a matter of urgency!!! Because George Soros said so???  Sorry – this charade stopped making logical sense years ago…

Police should enforce the law, not change it

By Mail on Sunday Comment for the Daily Mail 19 November 2017

Chief Constables are not hired to change the law. They are hired to enforce it. Mike Barton, the Durham Police chief, needs to be sharply reminded of this.

Mr Barton has made something of a name for himself by saying he will no longer pursue drug users, even though they are breaking the law.

Now he plans to stop arresting so-called ‘low-level’ drug dealers. There is a sort of logic in this if you see drug offenders through the eyes of a social worker. But Mr Barton is not Chief Social Worker of Durham. He is Chief Constable.

We have laws against certain drugs because of the grave harm they do to those who use them and to their families. That harm radiates outwards into society, often in the form of thefts and burglaries.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-5096871/Police-enforce-law-not-change-it.html#ixzz4zDgCLuC0

And then we wonder why this is happening???

 

There have long been scare stories about drugs so we need to be careful when interpreting new drug use data. But recent reports suggest that crack cocaine use is on the rise again.

Crack emerged in the Americas in the late 1970s as a relatively cheap and transportable form of cocaine that could be more easily distributed than the powdered variety and soon led to what was widely described as an “epidemic”, especially in the US.

Supporters of drug reform in the US have long highlighted the uneven application of the law concerning crack and powder cocaine. Referred to as the “100-1 Rule”, until the passing of the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act, possession of one gram of crack in America was treated as the equivalent of 100g of powder cocaine. As crack use was associated with the black, urban poor and powder cocaine with the more affluent white middle classes, this policy became symbolic of the racism of the “war on drugs” and the over-representation of black men in the US prison system .

By the late 1980s, crack was also being used in the UK, and in 2002 the British government was concerned enough to produce a national crack strategy. And now, after a relative reduction in use, the drug is making a worrying comeback. For more go to CRACK IS BACK

Ireland:  Good sense kills the not-so-safe injecting centre

15/11/17 By  Professor Neil McKeganey

Last week Scotland’s leading law officer, the Lord Advocate, brought a shuddering halt to a proposal from Glasgow City Council to develop a safe injecting centre in the city. Such a centre would have required a change in UK drug laws to enable individuals in possession of illegal drugs to use those drugs within the centre without fear of prosecution. Supporters of this initiative will be disappointed by the outcome, but they need to recognise that the provision of some level of legal protection covering the possession of illegal drugs within the injecting centre would also, by implication, need to be extended to all of those who might claim, legitimately or otherwise, that their drug possession should be green-lighted because they were en route to the injecting centre. In effect, such an initiative would deliver what many of its supporters actually desire — the legalisation of illegal drugs within at least some part of the UK.

In his judgement, the Lord Advocate has not ruled against setting up a centre where doctors can prescribe opiate drugs to addicts. Rather he has simply pointed out that he is not prepared to offer legal protection to a centre where illegal drugs are being used. The Glasgow proposal sought unwisely to tie the proposal for a doctor-led heroin prescribing clinic, which would be legal, with a setting where individuals are allowed to use illegal drugs which would break UK drug laws. There will be many who rightly question the wisdom (and the cost to the public purse) of linking those two proposals.

For more: https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/neil-mckeganey-good-sense-kills-not-safe-injecting-centre/

Big rise in crack users seeking treatment

This article actually gets close (but NO cigar) to a serious Anthropological investigation (not a one-dimensional Sociological one) into the Demand Drivers behind \’First World\’ self-medication and/or hedonistic nihilism?

This piece goes to the edge of the issue, then falls back to the same old \’chestnuts\’ of hard times drive demand. However, whilst undoubtedly a driver, why in the so advanced, longevity rich, prosperous, livable First World, have we become so utterly IRRESILIENT????

The real interrogation of this failed utopian dream of prosperity, consumption, wealth, pleasure, fun and \’freedom\’ is not forthcoming unless of course, it\’s yet another shallow diatribe against Capitalism and the lauding of the clearly and utterly failed cultural \’experiment\’ of socialism. We as a culture have got to go beyond the hamster wheel of one-dimensional socio-political musings, but will we? Well as long as the very small, but cashed up demographic of  \’social elites\’  control this narrative, we will not be permitted to break this \’glass ceiling\’ of dysfunction!

To the people dying from the opioid epidemic, drugs aren\’t the problem — they\’re the solution

To those using them, drugs aren’t a problem — drugs are a solution to their problems. Drugs help people deal with fear, anger, shame, isolation, depression, and other real and deep problems many of us experience on a daily basis.

We all occasionally attempt to resolve, or at least escape, these core dilemmas through inappropriate or ineffective means. Illicit drug use is a particularly destructive and dangerous choice, but it is still an attempt to fix a problem.

For the many people who are unable or unwilling to do the time-consuming work of resolving painful, life-controlling issues, drugs offer some form of immediate relief. There’s a reason a drug dose is called a “fix.”

So how did Americans get so bad at choosing healthy solutions to life’s problems? And, how did our government get so bad at choosing solutions to the problem of drug abuse in our communities?

Though drug dependence is an extreme solution, it’s an outgrowth of an attitude common to all of us. For most issues we face, we expect to find a quick and easy patch. That’s the key message we get from ads for all sorts of products.

For more http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/11/12/to-people-dying-from-opioid-epidemic-drugs-arent-problem-theyre-solution.html

Carfentanil

Similar to other fentanils, the most serious acute health risk from using carfentanil is likely to be rapid and severe respiratory depression, which in overdose could lead to apnoea, respiratory arrest, and death (Dahan et al., 2010; EMCDDA, 2017; Lindsay et al., 2016; Pattinson, 2008; Wax et al., 2003; White and Irvine, 1999). Factors that may exacerbate this risk include: the difficulty in diluting the substance, which can lead to a toxic dose being inadvertently used; the use of routes of administration that have high bioavailability (such as injecting, insufflation, and inhalation); a lack of experience with its effects and dosing; the use of other central nervous system depressants at the same time (such as other opioids, benzodiazepines, gabapentanoids, and alcohol); no or limited tolerance to opioids; and, using the substance alone (such as at home) which would make it more difficult for users to call for help in the case of poisoning. In addition, as discussed below, as carfentanil is being sold as or in heroin and other illicit opioids, many users will not be aware that they are using carfentanil.

Complete report see attached Carfentanil (EMCDDA)2017

People warned that small weed or cocaine habits are fuelling violent crime

Violence

Jennings noted that research published in 2016 for the CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaignshowed that drug debt intimidation involves more than threats – with 76% of people surveyed reporting verbal intimidation, while 46% said they were subjected to physical violence and 32% reported damage to their property or home.

He added that over two-thirds of people experiencing drug debt intimidation said they have mental health problems as a result, while almost four in 10 people surveyed said they have experienced a physical injury.

The National Family Support Network and the Garda National Drugs Unit have established a programme to assist those experiencing drug debt intimidation.

Generating money for organised crime

Jennings said there is “a clear need to raise awareness among recreational drug users — not just in Blanchardstown but right across the country — of the fact that their small bit of hash or cocaine is driving the intimidation of drug users and their families”.

Speaking about the campaign, Inspector Tony Twomey said many recreational drug users don’t realise the role they play in ongoing drugs feuds.

“Often people who engage with recreational drug use do not see the link with organised crime and intimidation and its contribution to what’s happening on the bigger scene at the moment with the major feuds,” Twomey said. For complete story ‘Social Justice of JUST US!’