• Opinion | Injection rooms save lives

    Michael Lodborg Olsen argues that the mobile injection room will keep addicts safe – and off the streets
    The Copenhagen Post (Denmark)
    Thursday, October 13, 2011

    On Monday September 12 Denmark’s first mobile injection room made its maiden voyage, driving from Victoriagade to Reventlowsgade behind Central Station. The room is actually an outdated German ambulance that has room for three intravenous drug addicts, and a doctor and a nurse who can give first aid or other medical assistance. The introduction of the mobile injection rooms draws to a close 35 years of pointless drugs policies in Vesterbro.

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  • De-emphasising the Single Convention

    The Lessons of Drug Control History
    John Collins
    Global Policy Journal Blog
    Tuesday, October 11, 2011

    There is a tendency within the civil society groups and academic writings that look at international drug control to focus heavily on the UN Single Convention of 1961. In many ways this is understandable and correct. It is the legal keystone for the international system and the basis for subsequent treaties. However, an over emphasis on the Single Convention may also serve to blur the deep historical forces at work within the system, as well as the actual nature of the 1961 Convention itself.

  • Dutch fear threat to liberalism in "soft drugs" curbs

    Sara Webb
    Reuters
    Monday, October 10, 2011

    The Netherlands is embarking on a crusade against its multi-billion-euro marijuana industry, with significant implications both for its economy and its famously liberal approach to life. A measure expected to be passed in parliament by the end of this year will have coffee shops operate as members-only clubs, meaning that only local residents will be eligible to register for "weed passes," effectively barring foreigners from buying soft drugs.

  • The long shadow line: History and the war on drugs

    What can the tobacco trade of the 17th century tell us about the modern war on drugs?
    The Independent (UK)
    Monday, October 10, 2011

    tobacco-historyTobacco rose and fell and rose and fell in a 400-year smoking spree that established a pattern for the trade in all addictive substances. Beginning with tobacco, governments have sought to ban drugs as soon as they arrive, invariably invoking their destructive effects on family and nation. Governments waffle between turning blind eyes to the criminals and fighting them bloodily. The ultimate ends of this process – legalisation, social stigma, and, most direly, unfashionability – suggest what will happen to the global market for marijuana and heroin.

  • Federal crackdown on medical pot sales reflects a shift in policy

    California's U.S. attorneys say they are going after for-profit marijuana sellers. Advocates of the sales say they are concerned about buyers with health needs
    Los Angeles Times (US)
    Friday, October 7, 2011

    The Obama administration's crackdown on California's highly profitable medical marijuana industry represents a dramatic departure from the low-key approach it has long pursued. California's four U.S. attorneys said that they are taking aim at large-scale growers and dispensary owners who are raking in millions of dollars while falsely claiming that their medical marijuana operations comply with state law, which does not allow for-profit sales.

  • Feds escalate efforts to close California pot shops

    The moves come as a surprise to owners of medical marijuana dispensaries
    Los Angeles Times (US)
    Friday, October 7, 2011

    Federal prosecutors are threatening to shut down medical marijuana dispensaries throughout California, sending letters that warn landlords to stop sales of the drug within 45 days or face the possibility that their property will be seized and they will be charged with a crime. 'It's a complete about-face' of Obama's promise not to target users of medical pot in states that allow it, one group's attorney says.

  • Netherlands to classify high-potency cannabis as hard drug

    Sceptics say move to group cannabis containing more than 15% THC with cocaine and ecstasy will be hard to enforce
    The Guardian (UK)
    Friday, October 7, 2011

    The Dutch government has said it will move to classify high-potency cannabis alongside hard drugs such as cocaine and ecstasy, the latest step in the country's ongoing reversal of its liberal policies. The decision means most of the cannabis now sold in Dutch coffee shops would have to be replaced by milder variants. But sceptics said the move would be difficult to enforce, and that it could simply lead many users to smoke more of the less potent weed.

  • Dutch drug tourism takes hit in border town

    Cafe owners impose voluntary restrictions on cannabis sales to prove a government ban would not curb crime
    Al Jazeera
    Saturday, October 1, 2011

    Foreign visitors will no longer be welcome to purchase cannabis in the coffee shops of Dutch border city Maastricht, unless they can prove that they are from the Netherlands, Belgium or Germany. All other clients have to return to the illegal circuit in their own country, which will create problems in those countries, according Marc Josemans, chairman of the association of Maastricht coffee shops. "It's also partly the governments' fault in these countries. Never did the Belgian, French, German or Italian, for example, governments take their responsibilities by creating a system like we did in Holland - a safe system where people can buy their cannabis products without being approached for hard drugs and without being contacted by criminals."

  • Dutch city's coffee shops close doors to most cannabis tourists

    CNN
    Saturday, October 1, 2011

    Coffee shops in the Dutch city of Maastricht have banned foreign tourists, except those from Germany and Belgium, from entering their premises. "A number of people will leave disappointed, and we are not very proud of refusing entry to visitors who have come to our shops for the last 28 years and never caused a problem," said Marc Josemans, president of the Society of United Coffeeshops and owner of the Easy Going coffee shop. "The question now will be if they instead buy from the illegal drug runners here or if they buy illegally in their own countries."

  • U.S. wanted Vancouver's supervised injection site closed

    The Vancouver Sun (Canada)
    Friday, September 30, 2011

    A diplomatic cable shows U.S. officials opposed the Insite supervised injection site in Vancouver and wanted the federal and municipal governments to shut it down. The reference to Vancouver-based Insite is found in a U.S. Embassy assessment of Canadian drug policy dated Nov. 2, 2009 and released through Wikileaks.

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