War on Drugs a Big Success

Article by Michael S. Rozeff

For the State, for politicians, for government bureaucracies, and for many others, the War on Drugs is a big success, a program for other government programs to emulate.

For all these reasons, it is not hard to understand why in 2005, the U.S. continues its War on Drugs, even though it inflicts ever-rising harm on many U.S. citizens with no countervailing good to the public at large.

For all these reasons, it’s not hard to understand that when the authorities totally fail at the futile aim of preventing individuals from using selected molecules, when they inflict enormous damage on citizens of the United States, they are succeeding in the War on Drugs. They are accomplishing their aims.

The War on Drugs exemplifies the State strangling the society it governs. It is government of the State’s minions, by the State’s minions, and for the State’s minions. For them, the War on Drugs is a winner.

Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS paper on Injection Drug Users

20051212UKIDU.pdf >News Release

“Governments that limit access to needle and syringe exchange, to opioid substitution therapies and related services do more as endangering the lives of injecting drug users, their sexual partners and children,” says Carmen Tarrades, development officer at ICW and former injecting drug user: “These governments are actively supporting the spread of HIV and AIDS. They make the HIV pandemic worse.”

Website

Human Rights and Prisoners who inject drugs

Article

"The authors argue that prisoners who inject drugs have a right to access harm reduction measures - those that reduce the harmful consequences of drug use without necessarily reducing drug consumption. ... Ultimately, this approach benefits not only prisoners but also prison staff and the public, and does not entail lessening of the safety and security of prisons."

Gaming fanatics show hallmarks of drug addiction

"... excessive computer game players showed classic signs of craving when they were presented with [game related imagery] from some of their favourite games – they desperately wanted to play, expected to feel better once they did, and fully intended to indulge again as soon as possible."

Would gamers stop if it gaming was outlawed?

Full article

Keeping the Door Open: Dialogues on Drug Use

I recently had the opportunity to attend an excellent conference in Vancouver entitled Beyond Drug Prohibition: A Public Health Approach

A significant paper was released during the conference by the Health Officers Council of British Columbia which outlined a rationale for a comprehensive system of drug regulation to replace the current criminalization "war on drugs" approach.

You can access the paper, A Public Health Approach to Drug Control in Canada, here

Absurdities & Atrocities

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities- Voltaire

Enjoyable Rant ... you've heard it all before, but it always bares repeating... read it like its poetry... it flows with a horrendous cadence.

The Strange and Seedy Case of Marc Emery, Canadian

Article

From the Los Angeles City Beat:
“The whole business proposition was to raise money to start a revolutionary botanical movement to destroy the U.S. drug war and to stop this vicious gulaging that goes on with our people,” he says, adding, “So I was very good at what I do, ’cause the DEA noticed.”
- Marc Emery

How the Free Market Killed New Orleans

How the Free Market Killed New Orleans by Michael Parenti

In New Orleans there would be none of the collectivistic regimented evacuation as occurred in Cuba. When an especially powerful hurricane hit that island in 2004, the Castro government, abetted by neighborhood citizen committees and local Communist party cadres, evacuated 1.5 million people, more than 10 percent of the country’s population. The Cubans lost 20,000 homes to that hurricane---but not a single life was lost, a heartening feat that went largely unmentioned in the U.S. press.

DOD Source ... as good as gold now.

PickItUp announces he's finished his bug fixing.

Official thread

The war on whatever

The war on whatever

Any ol' war will do, eh? Let's face it. Canada is a frontline state ... errrr, I mean a neighbouring state... and neighbours are supposed to do what the neighbourhood bully wants, or else?

We will never be allowed to go independent, not without a fight.

Juanes: Legalizing Drugs the Only Way Out for Colombia

Juanes is the biggest male pop star in Columbia, if not all of Latin America. He calls for legalization in an interview for a Spanish newspaper.

see interview and report in NarcoSphere

US reaction to Venezuela kicking out DEA

Here we go again. Uncle Sam says: We've only just begun!

US revokes Venezuelan military visas

"The measure came less than a week after left-winger Chavez ended anti-drug cooperation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration after accusing its agents of spying, in the latest blow to relations between Washington and Caracas...

Following Chavez's announcement on the DEA, U.S. officials said his decision would influence next month's ruling in Washington [certification] on whether Venezuela had cooperated in the fight against illicit drugs."

More concise reporting from NarcoNews :

On the one hand, the “de-certification” threat is a pathetic one, as it appeals to the old logic that a country had to bend over backwards to win approval from the U.S. in order to maintain international legitimacy. Chávez has been one of the principal people to break that trance, and such a move won’t faze him or his supporters. But read between the lines and there is the further threat of violence that Chávez has so often denounced and U.S. officials so indignantly dismiss. The United States has only ever denied counter-narcotics certification to two Latin American countries. One is Colombia. The other is Panama, and that certification denial was quickly followed by a bloody U.S. invasion.

Pain and Chemical Dependency: Addiction & Pain

Pain and Chemical Dependency: Addiction & Pain

This societal decision to regulate medical practice and criminalize the administration of opioid drugs in some contexts led to secondary phenomena, with effects of their own. Prescribers became increasingly concerned about the potential for investigation and sanction or prosecution. To some degree, this concern has contributed to the underuse of opioid drugs. Equally important, the criminalization of opioid addiction fostered an illicit drug trade that, in turn, brought new problems, including the involvement of organized crime and violent gangs in drug trafficking. Over time, all these problems--the undertreatment of pain, the occurrence of opioid abuse and addiction, and the criminal activities surrounding opioid trafficking--have increasingly undermined the public health. Clearly, pursuant to pain management and opioid analgesia, there is a pressing need for rational and consistant policies, initial and continuing education of healthcare professionals, and application of sound principles of assessment, prescribing, and management.

Bottom line...

Rigorous Intuition

If you don't find something that catches your attention at Rigorous Intuition then what the hell are you doing reading here?

Step in right direction... get drug offenders out of jails and prisons

Historic Drug Treatment Bill Waits for Gov's Signature in Maryland

Everyone has a stake in ending the war on drugs. Whether you’re a parent concerned about protecting children from drug-related harm, a social justice advocate worried about racially disproportionate incarceration rates, an environmentalist seeking to protect the Amazon rainforest or a fiscally conservative taxpayer you have a stake in ending the drug war. U.S. federal, state and local governments have spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to make America “drug-free.” Yet heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and other illicit drugs are cheaper, purer and easier to get than ever before. Nearly half a million people are behind bars on drug charges - more than all of western Europe (with a bigger population) incarcerates for all offenses. The war on drugs has become a war on families, a war on public health and a war on our constitutional rights.

Many of the problems the drug war purports to resolve are in fact caused by the drug war itself. So-called “drug-related” crime is a direct result of drug prohibition's distortion of immutable laws of supply and demand. Public health problems like HIV and Hepatitis C are all exacerbated by zero tolerance laws that restrict access to clean needles. The drug war is not the promoter of family values that some would have us believe. Children of inmates are at risk of educational failure, joblessness, addiction and delinquency. Drug abuse is bad, but the drug war is worse.

Safety First: reality-based approach to drug education

It's been said before, "the truth will set you free". That is the orientation behind honest drug education programs such as Safety First

As opposed to the same old shit that leaves the kids up the creek without a paddle of preventative education:
Just Say No Again: the old failures of new and improved anti-drug education

Army Massively Multiplayer Project Interview ...

HomeLan Fed : Exclusives : Army Massively Multiplayer Project Interview : with Robert Gehorsam
As I noted, we are not designing a game so much as a large-scale, flexible and powerful environment that can be used for training and mission-rehearsal across a range of objectives. So unfortunately, it's probably a bit early to talk in detail about the gameplay. But simply put, the project will enable a commander of a unit to say, "Hey, my unit needs to train for its upcoming peacekeeping duties in Kumar." He works with a trainer to develop a specific environment and scenario (or better yet, modify an existing one out of a repository), figures out who is going to play the bad guys, the civilians and the "others" -- like the Red Cross, the UN, etc. -- and then prep his unit for the exercise. These exercises could last anywhere from a couple of days to months for all we're concerned, that's the beauty of an MMP, of course. And so at a certain time, the participants would start to show up. Bad guys would be given their assignments, good guys theirs, etc. and off they'd go. People play themselves, on the ground, interacting with their team, other units, civilians, the enemy, etc. It's not all combat by any means, there will be a lot of intelligence, patrolling, planning, collaboration, negotiation with civilians, etc. In many ways, MMPs do all of these things today, but each MMP today is highly specified for its particular entertainment and social goals. That's absolutely the right thing to do for a commercial product, but because There was always conceived of as a virtual world platform, it enables us to be more adaptive and general purpose. I expect there will be several dozen different styles of gameplay when this is up and running.

Gamers truth serum...

Amytal - A Total Information Awareness Project

Videogame Theory - it's an academic question

Ludology.org - Videogame Theory
According to the Entertainment Software Association, 50 percent of Americans over the age of six play computer games, and the industry had $11.4 billion in sales in 2003, more than the film industry. Last year, 63 percent of U.S. parents said they planned to buy a video game.

So why shouldn't it merit serious academic attention?

Academics turn to video games