A number of individual nations are moving faster than the United Nations; and in turn, many regional and local jurisdictions are outpacing nations. People on the ground—grassroots activists and civil society—are providing the real leadership … “Civil society is more present, more powerful, and more well -funded than in decades past,” she said. “It has…
Over the last two years, Oregon’s legal cannabis industry has run into an unforeseen green rush snafu. No, the state’s teens aren’t all addicted to the devil’s lettuce, and local workers aren’t running heavy machinery into walls like prohibitionists might have predicted. Senate voted [in April 2019] to advance the temporary licensing freeze by a…
The president of Mexico called the ongoing prohibition of drugs “unsustainable” and proposed a broad decriminalization policy as part of his administration’s “National Development Plan” that was released in April 2019. “The only real possibility of reducing the levels of drug consumption resides in lifting the prohibition of [those] that are currently illegal,” the document…
Even more concerning is the fact that people who use drugs often remain a ‘population under attack’.Worldwide, one in five people is incarcerated for a drug offence, the overwhelming majority for simple possession. Hundreds of thousands of people who use drugs are held in compulsory detention centres where they are denied healthcare and are victims…
She brought the house down when she stated, simply: “People do notlose their human rights because they use drugs.” Whether or not Portugal continues to advance rapidly, it remains an outlier in world terms. “There are still lots of places where users are living the same war that they were living in the ‘80s and the…
Activists in Oakland, California say they’ve secured a City Council sponsor for a resolution that would block the police department and other officials from participating “in the enforcement of laws imposing criminal penalties for the personal use and personal possession… The measure would also instruct the city’s state and federal lobbyists to “work in support…
He points out that policing incentivizes the recruitment of children into drugs gangs to act as a buffer between police and adult dealers, reducing dealers’ risks. Very few communities anywhere in the world are untouched by the ravages of the drug war—and the millions of casualties include drug users whose health is threatened by unregulated…
Proposals that couldn’t get a vote are essentially doomed for this session, although there are some legislative loopholes lawmakers can still use if they wanted to revive the bill later. Democratic House Speaker Tina Kotek said most of the dead bills still needed more work before they could receive a vote. She added that there…
Currently, one tropical plant is being decimated to produce the illicit drug MDMA. It is estimated that 100-125 metric tons of MDMA are consumed each year. This is the equivalent of over 1 billion doses … [and it’s production] is threatening a rare Cambodian tree and the wildlife refuge in which it is found ……
Following multiple days of lengthy debate and consideration of several amendments, the House Financial Services Committee voted 45 to 15 to advance the legislation to the full body. Under the approved bill, federal banking regulators would not be able to punish financial institutions just because they work with marijuana businesses that are legal under state…
