US waves white flag in disastrous ‘war on drugs’

After 40 years, Washington is quietly giving up on a futile battle that has spread corruption and destroyed thousands of lives Read the full story

SEATTLE—A push to legalize marijuana on the West Coast is picking up steam as Washington lawmakers and pot proponents in California and Oregon propose separate measures.

The Washington state legislature will hold a preliminary vote Wednesday on whether to sell pot in state liquor stores, though even its authors say the bill is unlikely to pass. The same day in California, backers of a well-funded ballot measure to legalize marijuana are expected to file more than enough signatures to put the initiative before state voters in November. Read the full story

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A bill seeking to legalize marijuana in California won initial approval from a legislative committee Tuesday in what may be a purely symbolic vote because a second committee likely won’t take it up in time.

The state Assembly’s public safety committee voted 4-3 on the measure that would tax and regulate marijuana in the same way alcohol is controlled.

But the health committee also must approve the measure by Friday before the full Assembly can consider it, an unlikely scenario. Read the full story

LOS ANGELES — The romantic comedy “It’s Complicated” arrived at the multiplex on Friday complete with an R rating, ranking it in the same category as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Basic Instinct” in the eyes of the Motion Picture Association of America.

But there is no violence in “It’s Complicated,” and the bedroom scenes are decidedly tame by contemporary standards. Instead, the R rating — which experts say could limit the box-office potential of the Universal Pictures film — comes largely from a sequence in which Steve Martin and Meryl Streep smoke marijuana. Read the full story

About 80 percent of Americans approve of medical marijuana laws, but some conservatives are incensed that state legislatures keep passing them. In a recent column, George F. Will, the Washington Post’s bow-tied curmudgeon, decried the reefer madness he sees taking over California, sweeping across Colorado and perhaps even coming to a normal state near you. Read the full story

Cash from organized crime ‘rescued’ banks during crisis: UN official

The vast majority of an estimated $352 billion in proceeds of organized crime, mostly from the drug trade, was funneled through the global banking system during the financial crisis of the past two years, and in some cases, the money rescued banks from collapse, says the head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

Antonio Maria Costa told the UK Observer that intelligence agencies and prosecutors alerted him 18 months ago to evidence that drug money was being “absorbed into the financial system.”

“In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital,” Costa said. “In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.”

The Observer reports:

Some of the evidence put before his office indicated that gang money was used to save some banks from collapse when lending seized up, [Costa] said.

“Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities… There were signs that some banks were rescued that way.” Costa declined to identify countries or banks that may have received any drugs money, saying that would be inappropriate because his office is supposed to address the problem, not apportion blame. But he said the money is now a part of the official system and had been effectively laundered.

Gangs are now believed to make most of their profits from the drugs trade and are estimated to be worth £352bn, the UN says. They have traditionally kept proceeds in cash or moved it offshore to hide it from the authorities. It is understood that evidence that drug money has flowed into banks came from officials in Britain, Switzerland, Italy and the US.

Read the complete Observer article here.

Costa has been head of the UN’s drug and crime office since 2002, and is known for his tough stance on illicit drugs, including marijuana. He recently warned that Africa is becoming a major drug hub, following an investigation into the crash of a Boeing 727 in Mali that had flown in from Venezuela carrying 10 tons of cocaine.

ARTICLE FROM The Observer:

Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor

Drugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by financial institutions

Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations‘ drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.

Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.

This will raise questions about crime’s influence on the economic system at times of crisis. It will also prompt further examination of the banking sector as world leaders, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, call for new International Monetary Fund regulations. Speaking from his office in Vienna, Costa said evidence that illegal money was being absorbed into the financial system was first drawn to his attention by intelligence agencies and prosecutors around 18 months ago. “In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor,” he said.

Some of the evidence put before his office indicated that gang money was used to save some banks from collapse when lending seized up, he said.

“Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities… There were signs that some banks were rescued that way.” Costa declined to identify countries or banks that may have received any drugs money, saying that would be inappropriate because his office is supposed to address the problem, not apportion blame. But he said the money is now a part of the official system and had been effectively laundered.

“That was the moment [last year] when the system was basically paralysed because of the unwillingness of banks to lend money to one another. The progressive liquidisation to the system and the progressive improvement by some banks of their share values [has meant that] the problem [of illegal money] has become much less serious than it was,” he said.

The IMF estimated that large US and European banks lost more than $1tn on toxic assets and from bad loans from January 2007 to September 2009 and more than 200 mortgage lenders went bankrupt. Many major institutions either failed, were acquired under duress, or were subject to government takeover.

Gangs are now believed to make most of their profits from the drugs trade and are estimated to be worth £352bn, the UN says. They have traditionally kept proceeds in cash or moved it offshore to hide it from the authorities. It is understood that evidence that drug money has flowed into banks came from officials in Britain, Switzerland, Italy and the US.

British bankers would want to see any evidence that Costa has to back his claims. A British Bankers’ Association spokesman said: “We have not been party to any regulatory dialogue that would support a theory of this kind. There was clearly a lack of liquidity in the system and to a large degree this was filled by the intervention of central banks.”

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday delayed a vote on a much-anticipated medical marijuana ordinance, asking planning officials to return next week with information on how many dispensaries could be closed because they are near homes, schools and public gathering sites.

Council members indicated a vote could come in January on the draft ordinance, which would provide guidelines to greatly reduce the number of marijuana storefronts and push them out of neighborhoods and into industrial areas. The City Council agreed Tuesday to limit the number of dispensaries to 70. Read the full story

2009 will go down as the beginning of the end of the United States drug war. I have worked at the Drug Policy Alliance promoting alternatives to the war on drugs for 10 years, and I can say without a doubt that there was more debate and movement toward sensible drug policies this year than in the last 9 years combined! Here are 10 stories that contributed to the unprecedented momentum to end America’s longest running war.

1) Three Former Latin American Presidents Call Drug War a Failure (February) Read the full story

In September, ladymag Marieclaire ruffled some feathers when it published a piece about women who smoke weed. But its most interesting effect was not the “marijuana moms” chatter it unleashed, and instead the fact that it brought to the mainstream media a more open discussion of the fact that women can be avid tokers, too.

Public acceptance of pot is at an all-time high, and the fact that women have drastically changed their attitudes may be what is most fascinating about the sea change in public opinion — and policy — regarding marijuana. In 2005, only 32 percent of polled women told Gallup they approved legalizing pot, but this year 44 percent of them were for it, compared to 45 percent of men. In effect, women have narrowed what had been a 12-point gender gap. Read the full story

PALMVIEW, Texas (CBS/AP) President Barack Obama’s approval rating may be hovering in the 50 percent range, but that doesn’t mean America’s Commander-in-Chief isn’t catching on with new constituents.

There is now a line of Ecstasy pills made in the image of the 44th president of the United States, according to Texas police who have snatched a batch off the streets. Read the full story

NEW YORK — A home movie purporting to show Marilyn Monroe smoking a marijuana joint has surfaced some five decades after being shot at a gathering with friends in New Jersey.

Collector Keya Morgan uncovered the color footage while researching an documentary which he says will prove Monroe was murdered in August 1962.

The reel-to-reel film, which has no sound, shows Monroe relaxing with female friends in a house and smoking. Read the full story

Marijuana’s addiction potential may be no big deal, but it’s certainly big business.

According to a widely publicized 1999 Institute of Medicine report, fewer than 10 percent of those who try cannabis ever meet the clinical criteria for a diagnosis of “drug dependence” (based on DSM-III-R criteria). By contrast, 32 percent of tobacco users and 15 percent of alcohol users meet the criteria for “drug dependence.”

Nevertheless, it is pot — not booze or cigarettes — that has the federal government seeing red and clinical investigators seeing green. As I reported for AlterNet last year, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), which overseas more than 85 percent of the world’s research on controlled substances, recently appropriated some $4 million in taxpayers’ dollars to establish the nation’s first-ever Center for Cannabis Addiction. Its mission: to “develop novel approaches to the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of marijuana addiction.” Read the full story

Hey, hyperactive kids, in California you can get stoned — legally. California doctors are now recommending marijuana to children diagnosed with attention hyperactivity disorder, Sphere reports.

Since 2004, California has given out more than 36,000 medical marijuana cards.  The number of these cards going to children - it appears that all of the known cases are teenagers – is not known, as doctors are not required to report medical marijuana cases. Read the full story

What thoughts, comments or suggestions do our local readers have on this topic?

Texans Trying To Legalize Pot Read the full story

By Dan Cook

PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) – The United States’ first marijuana cafe opened on Friday, posing an early test of the Obama administration’s move to relax policing of medical use of the drug.

The Cannabis Cafe in Portland, Oregon, is the first to give certified medical marijuana users a place to get hold of the drug and smoke it — as long as they are out of public view — despite a federal ban.

“This club represents personal freedom, finally, for our members,” said Madeline Martinez, Oregon’s executive director of NORML, a group pushing for marijuana legalization. Read the full story

The American Medical Assn. changes its policy to promote clinical research and development of cannabis-based medicines and alternative delivery methods.

The American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research.

The nation’s largest physicians organization, with about 250,000 member doctors, the AMA has maintained since 1997 that marijuana should remain a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive category, which also includes heroin and LSD.

In changing its policy, the group said its goal was to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug.

“Despite more than 30 years of clinical research, only a small number of randomized, controlled trials have been conducted on smoked cannabis,” said Dr. Edward Langston, an AMA board member, noting that the limited number of studies was “insufficient to satisfy the current standards for a prescription drug product.” Read the full story

The Video Journalism Movement reports on medical marijuana in Israel.