Drug Policy 'Environmentalism' From The 'Asses

Eco-chic Columbia Govt jesuitical front group ignores effects of prohibition

'Crusader' for the status quo
Ana Maria Caballero

http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2008/07/18/new-target-in-colombia%e2%80%99s-drug-war-ecofriendly-us-users/

The woman above reportedly heads an organization from the government of Colombia called "Shared Responsibility." This organization has a campaign to guilt-out environmentally conscious users of cocaine over the consequences of its illicit production, including that of its parent substance, the plant Coca.

"Shared Responsibility" acts as if this happens in a vacuum: that this is intrinsic to the drug and to the plant, without regard to the prohibition laws that push growers further into less-cut areas (to evade detection from criminal law enforcement), and of the refinement of the drug (encouraged by laws equating whole coca with refined cocaine).

Those that read this article see this:

Comments

1. ubetchaiam | 07.18.08

Ms.Cabellero ought to put her efforts into the insane ‘war on drugs’; when ‘drugs’ are illegal’ it only ads to the so called allure. One only has to look at Denmark and the usage of hash and marijuana. Though such is legal in certain areas, the majority of the population are not users or enthralled with ‘getting away with something’.

Best to legalize in a controlled, regulated manner those substances mankind seeks out to alter their experience of ‘reality’.

2. onlein | 07.18.08

I agree with the comment about legalizing or decriminalizing drugs; the war on drugs is insane. But I’ve long thought that the increased awareness approach should also be used. It seems, though, that many well-educated, knowledgeable Americans use cocaine while covering their ears in an I-can’t-hear-you manner when it comes to the increased awareness message. Come on. Be adults, be menschen. Using this illegal drug supports terrorists as well as destroys the environment. If you can’t stop, get help. Then someday, if drugs are legal and produced in an environmentally friendly way, you can go back to using.

3. Charles Duwel | 07.18.08

The drug warriors must be getting desperate. If you look at it rationally - not required for drug warriors - it’s the drug WAR that is the problem. It only took folks about 10 years to figure out that the alcohol war was a disaster, with the drug war it’s 60-70 years and counting. Their failures keep causing mounting problems all over the world and they still refuse to actually think about what they are doing. It’s is fun to watch such monumental stupidity but it’s getting a little old. Time to stop. After all, what is the goal of the drug war? To make sure that people only get high and [possibly] ruin their lives with alcohol? This makes no sense to me.
Also consider that the constitution requires equal treatment by the law - if anyone cares. I happen to know the Supreme Court does not.
But then they’ve always had a problem with equal treatment by the law.

4. Pete Guither | 07.18.08

Initiatives like this one, are pretty obviously PR moves to cover up the failure of the drug war. If someone stops using cocaine to save the environment, it’s unlikely to have any impact — the likelihood of influencing enough users to make a dent in the black market profits is miniscule. The smart environmentalist cocaine user knows this. However, the environmental damage could be stopped in an instant by regulating and controlling cocaine, taking almost all the black market profits out of it, and eliminating the incentive for going into the rain forests to grow coca leaves. It’s time for the Colombian and U.S. governments to have a serious discussion about alternatives to the destruction of prohibition.

5. Kirk Muse | 07.18.08

Growers of legal products don’t grow their crops in
clandestine locations. Do tobacco growers grow the crops
in national forests or on somebody else’s land? No.

Criminalize tobacco and the situation would soon change.

6. LM | 07.19.08

It would seem that the “war on drugs” is just another facet of our nation’s preoccupation with control and its ludicrous attempt at changing habits by altering the supply side of the equation, rather than the demand aspects. It’s not just coca, by the way; I work in an academic research institution in Afghanistan, and am witnessing how US (and for that matter, UK) policy is hurting people here. I recently returned from a quick field visit to Balkh in the north, where an enforced ban on poppy cultivation during this severe drought year has brought the rural economy to its knees, prompted a large exodus of enviro-economic refugees to Iran and Pakistan, and initiated a plea from local people to Turkmenistan to allow Afghan livestock to relocate there temporarily so that the flocks can perhaps survive. Poppy is not just opium here - it provides edible oil from the crushed seeds, which are also eaten (as poppyseeds are in the US), and the presscake left over from oil extraction becomes a high-protein feed for livestock during the long, harsh Central Asian winter. So the only question remaining, really, is if next year will see poppy resurgence or anti-government insurgence. If it’s insurgence, we no doubt will label it as “Taleban,” which goes to show how little we understand about the rural economy here. Poppy is a low-risk crop in a high-risk milieu, one that - unlike illicit coca - is environmentally less onerous than alternative crops; poppy uses just 1/6 of the water that wheat needs, for example, and also absorbs much more local labor. The irony is that according to the Senlis Council, there’s a global shortage of morphine, and legalizing poppy cultivation - even if in small pilot projects for the time being - would therefore be a win-win situation.

7. FatSean | 07.19.08

Make it legal for adults to use, and let the free market drive fair-trade and sustainable cocaine production.

This woman is high! When supply is so restricted, but demand never stops, does she really think this is going to do a damn thing?

I agree with the other posters, work on getting the legality fixed and everything else will fall into place.

8. thehim | 07.19.08

I’m sorry, but the blame here goes on the governments who insist on trying to eradicate this market despite the fact that doing so has been clearly demonstrated to be both impossible and unnecessary. If cocaine was decriminalized and tightly regulated, criminals who have no concern for the environment would not be in charge of its production and you could easily protect the environment. Stop deflecting the blame onto people who have no control over the real problem.

9. erik | 07.19.08

Author, you time would be better spent speaking of the evils of the drug war. You do realize that farmers are required to go out in the middle of no where to farm this drug, correct?
If the US government didn’t “force” the Columbian government to spray obvious locationed-crops with poison, this would not be an issue.

10. Ted | 07.19.08

I found this article to be uninformed in the basics of the economic and social policy regarding coca.

There are tens of thousands of square kilometers of arable land in that region to grow this high-demand (globally) primary crop. An informed reporter would ask what is driving the crops into these ecologically-sensitive areas. That is simple- it is the multi-billion dollar policy to destroy production, forcing production of this cash crop out of perfectly good farming areas.

Also, if the production abruptly ceased, the foothold that the US military holds in South America would lose its purpose. By having an ongoing drug war, the US has a “valid” reason to keep military asset near to Venezuela.

The US government has no intent on actually ending this “conflict”, and is the primary reason these crops are that deep in the jungle.

If the coke-snorting elite in America cared about the jungle, they would pressure their government to stop spraying Round-up on the arable lands.

11. name | 07.19.08

43 sq feet per gram? what kind of BS statistic is that

12. Brandon Bowers | 07.20.08

Weak. Completely ignores the fact that if cocaine were legal, farmers could purchase land on which to grow coca, just like tobacco farmers currently do.

13. dave | 07.20.08

Great points, guys — especially from Ted and name.

I’d just like to add that this article would be weak as an editorial but is pathetic and unethical as the news article it is supposed to be.

The Christian Science Monitor needs to retract this piece. If not, it deserves to lose all credibility.

The article’s reporter, apparently a high school intern for the White House, has completely bought into whatever press release she got from the office of the U.S. or Columbian drug czar.

Just because something is a green issue — which this is not — doesn’t mean a reporter shouldn’t have to do some fact checking and basic reporting.

The #1 source in this story, which is challenged in no way by the reporter and called a “Crusader” in the photo caption, works for an arm of the Columbian federal government.

Suspicious assertions are presented as fact, including:
“And slash-and-burn clearing for coca farms is one of the country’s largest sources of air pollution. The clearing also accelerates global climate change, which is shrinking Colombia’s mountaintop glaciers.”

And, as name pointed out:
“43 square feet of forest are cleared to produce one gram of cocaine”

Are you serious?

Well, if the reporter got it in a press release, I guess it has to be right.

The "'Christian' Scientists' Monitor" is neither christian or science.

"Shared Responsibility" is just another jesuitical front group that belongs on the ash heap of history.

Read more ►

Opuim For The Masses

Read more ►

Anti-Christ Opium Prohibition

- Everyone seems to be bent upon making opiates more dangerous

- This is done ostensibly because it is physically addictive though less so then "legal" Tobacco/cigarettes

- Note the prevalence of supposedly "moral" "Christians, as the inhabitants of the US Congress and Senate amongst this pharmacratic inquisition's enablers, and with the Opium using societies that the pharmaceutical inquisition turned into those injecting heroin

The Pharmacratic Inquisition- Subverting Public Health
Pharmacratic Mentality- Favoring Toxicity
The Pharmacratic Inquisition- Deceiving the Masses
Promoting Drug Abuse By Ignoring Pharmacokinetics

Read more ►

Anti-Christ Cocaine Prohibition

Vin Mariani - Mariani's Coca Wine - and Pope Leo XIII

http://continuingcounterreformation.blogspot.com/2008/07/roman-catholic-church-cocaine.html






It contained extract of Coca leaves, with 6 milligrams of the alkaloid cocaine per fluid ounce.

It was found to be an effective and safe product, endorsed by prestigious medical doctors for a variety of uses, starting as a vocal aid for opera performers. Its uses included that as a treatment for addictions to Opium, alcohol and even Tobacco. In Paris, Mesureur, the French Ex-Minister of Commerce, and the current (in 1910) Director of Hygiene and Public Health, who approved and signed the French government's radical poster campaign against alcoholism, would state that:

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/coca-to-combat-opiate-alcohol-and.html

“The dangers of alcoholism would be avoided if no other stimulant were taken for mental or physical trials than that offered by the generous."

“I have also employed it in cases, happily rare in our army, of chronic alcoholism resulting from the abuse of brandy, absinthe or strong liquors. The produced all the excitement sought by drinkers, but had at the same time a sedative influence on their nervous systems. I have frequently seen hardened drinkers renounce their fatal habit and return to a healthy condition." "I have also used to save smokers of exaggerated habits, from nicotinism. A few glasses of taken in small doses, either pure or mixed with water, acted as a substitute for pipes and cigars, because the smokers found in it the cerebral excitement which they sought in tobacco, wholly preserving their intellectual faculties."

The amount of cocaine was absorbed slowly, resulting in a relatively long lasting effect that ebbed away gently without depressive rebound or craving- as seen with cocaine in concentrated doses- hence it did not produce addictive toxic-mania behavior. Furthermore, because cocaine is a powerful anesthetic, its consumption in this oral dilute form discouraged excessive consumption as this anesthetic action would numb one’s stomach, reducing one’s appetite for more.

The negative effects of concentrated cocaine were observed shortly after its commercial introduction about 1884, particularly with its administration via subcutaneous injection.

http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/drug-warriors-ignore-pharmacokinetics.html
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008/03/crystalline-gleam-in-eyes-of-fathers-of.html

After three and half decades of Vin Mariani sale and use, its creator Angelo Mariani was summoned to the Vatican- ultimately twice. In January 1898, Pope Leo XIII issued Mariani a gold papal medal awarding him as a benefactor of humanity. In January 1904, Leo XIII’s successor Pope Pius X issued Mariani another such medal. It is not publicly known what exactly transpired between Mariani and the Vatican.

Yet within a few months, the political scene turned against Mariani and Coca with an apparent vengeance. In 1904, members of Roman Catholic orders as the Knights of Columbus Harvey Washington Wiley, an important figure in the American Medical Association, the American Pharmaceutical Association, the Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry at the USDA, and Knights of Malta member, publisher William Randolph Hearst began a crusade against cocaine in any form regardless of the concentration factor.

This crusade included denouncing Vin Mariani and Coca (and unpatentable herbs in general) as ineffective through the AMA, and in various newspaper articles published via Hearst via collaboration between Wiley, Hearst and a newspaper/magazine writer Samuel Adams Hopkins. It included an AMA/APhA campaign for “model” legislation through the various State legislatures to ban Coca products, and via Federal legislation as the so called Pure Food and Drugs Act of June 30, 1906 which did not necessarily ban Coca products, and provided a seemingly innocuous labeling requirement for cocaine and opiates, but which gave the USDA dictatorial powers to declare a substance “deleterious” and hence its inclusion in food products as “adulteration.”

With cocaine being so defined as deleterious – without regard to the amount or concentration – and with other such stimulants not included in the labeling requirement, placed Coca at a serious market disadvantage to Coffee and Tobacco- the latter which was excluded from such regulation by the 1906 Act’s definition of USDA authority over substances included in the US Pharmacopeia, from which Tobacco had been conveniently dropped during the preceding year- 1905! Though Coca/cocaine was still permitted in products marketed as drugs, the prescription requirement and the propaganda against it only further discouraged its commerce- all perhaps to the greatest benefit of the growing industry in Tobacco cigarettes.

Indeed, USDA documents throughout the following years would stress the concern of Coca’s use as a Tobacco habit cure, which zero mention of the relative health effects- e.g. Coca being non physically addictive and non carcinogenic, while Tobacco was more physically addictive then heroin and carcinogenic.

Notably the USDA had experimented with the commercial feasibility of growing Coca within the US cir 1904, and though I have not been able to locate any report, only a newspaper article, they would have found that it would require hothouses as Coca is a perennial shrub that can’t survive frost, while Tobacco is such a major US agricultural; commodity dating back to the 1600s, that its likeness with that of Corn adorns the tops of the columns of the US Capitol building in Washington, D.C.

The powerful interests that run the US government would lobby successfully to have Coca outright banned via a prescription requirement making it into today’s “controlled substance” by 1914 with the Harrison “Narcotic” Tax Act.

Although of dubious constitutionality – note that the US government had to pass a constitutional amendment to ban the manufacturer, transport and sale of alcoholic beverages – the Harrison Act’s prohibition via taxation was upheld by a compliant US Supreme Court , and acquiesced by a compliant population fed a William Randolph Hearst media campaign of double standards and lies- with its perversion of the market to concentrated cocaine the natural result of a prohibition banning herbal Coca and pure cocaine without regard to potency/concentration- promoting drug abuse and crime used to continually further the problem.

Such laws would be pushed worldwide via various US pushed “Opium” conferences/conventions, eventually repealing the various nation’s allowances for dilute Coca preparations through the 1920s, and later through the U.N.

The health results of this have been a disaster, particularly when we include the market protection for Tobacco/cigarettes, yet the Roman Catholic Church or any of the so-called “Protestant” churches apparently never lifted a finger to stop any of this madness.




The Drug War Promotes Drug Abuse
How The Narcs Created Crack
It Was Criminal Mercantilism To Protect Tobacco Cigarettes
Freedom of Medicine and Diet- Coca Forgotten Medicine

Read more ►

Matt Jones Arrest Underscores Arkansas Sociopathic Legislative Crime

- Athlete Kidnapped [arrested] and extorted for "felony" possession of 6 grams of cocaine HCI;
- Anti-cocaine laws NOT about the public health for banning drug in all forms regardless of concentration factor- primarily market protection for adulterated Tobacco cigarettes;
- Just another case for restitution and arrest/prosecution of legislative-police criminals

http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-newswire11-2008jul11,0,1519913.story

Jacksonville Jaguars wide receiver Matt Jones faces a felony drug charge in Fayetteville, Ark., after police say he was inside a car cutting up cocaine with a credit card.

Jones, 25, and two other men were arrested early Thursday. A police report said officers approached the car and an officer drew his handgun after Jones did not immediately show his hands.

Police said they searched the vehicle and found a plastic bag filled with a white substance that tested positive for cocaine and a jar with possible marijuana residue.

Jared Hicks and Benjamin Cook were also arrested on misdemeanor drug charges.

Jones was released from the Washington County jail on $2,500 bond. His arraignment on a charge of felony possession of a controlled substance was set for Aug. 11, two days after Jacksonville's exhibition opener against Atlanta.

Police said six grams of cocaine was found. The threshold for potential charges of possession with intent to deliver is one gram. However, prosecutor John Threet said there was no evidence that Jones intended to deal the drug.

Read more ►

Ecuador Leaves New York Behind

The nation of Ecuador has just pardoned persons imprisoned for carrying contraband drugs.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/542/ecuador_pardons_drug_mules

Yet New York State Governor Patterson, who is said to oppose New York State's criminal Rockefeller Drug Laws has apparently given no consideration to using his pardoning powers to rectify the unjust prison sentences of thousands of such drug war victims within his state.

What might be holding him back?


"ex" Jesuit 2nd In Command to New N.Y. State Governor David Patterson
New NY Governor David Patterson A Freemason

Read more ►

Missing the Point: Heroin as a "Controlled Substance"

From a July 10, 2008 article in the NY area newspaper Newsday about an 18 year old girl's --Natalie Ciappa -- tragic fatal heroin overdose: a quote from her mother Doreen:

My daughter can't buy cigarettes because she's 18 and she's not 21. She can't go into a store and buy alcohol, because she's 18 and she's not 21. But my daughter can say, "I don't need rehab," even though she overdoses. So two weeks later my daughter dies."

As with so many mainstream newspapers, this misses the point. If one is to ask about the relative ease or difficulty of purchasing a substance, or safety, then ask:

My daughter can't buy cigarettes or alcohol because she is not yet 21, and those products are legal for adults and available through retailers who must be licensed; that the cigarettes and alcohol products that are there for sale in a regulated commerce with at least a guarantee of consistency- e.g. they will not vary significantly enough to surprise the user with a fatal overdose.

My daughter can buy heroin because it is sold in an essentially unregulated black market with far higher potency due to the iron law of prohibition which bans opiates from herbal opium to fentanyl, and which as an essentially unregulated market has hghly variable potency significant to surprise the user with a fatal overdose.

Imagine such policies applied to Tobacco and alcohol, with the prohibition of the 1920s and its rotgut bath tub concoctions some of which made people blind, or cigarettes replaced with highly concentrated nicotine of variable potency taken intranaseally or injected.

What would we think of an analysis that overlooked all of that in favor of a cry for involuntary "treatment."

Natalie Ciappa's Mom Speaks About Natalie, Heroin

Read more ►