XPost: alt.drugs.psychedelics, alt.drugs.pot, alt.hemp.politics

Drug War Chronicle, Issue #1057 -- 3/1/19
Phillip S. Smith, Editor, psmith@drcnet.org https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/1057

A Publication of StoptheDrugWar.org
David Borden, Executive Director, borden@drcnet.org
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition"

Table of Contents:

1. FACED WITH FENTANYL, IS IT TIME FOR HEROIN BUYERS' CLUBS? [FEATURE]
The BC Center for Substance Abuse is ready to go there. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/feb/24/faced_fentanyl_it_time_heroin

2. ANTI-MARIJUANA CONGRESSMAN PRESSES FELONY CHARGES FOR LIVE STREAM OF
STAFF MEETING [FEATURE]
It's a low move, even for Harris. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/feb/22/antimarijuana_congressman

3. FEBRUARY 24 -- AN IMPORTANT DAY
Please join "Stand with Human Rights and Democracy: Global Campaign for
the Philippines" -- protest in DC, and social media to use from anywhere! https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/feb/22/february_24_important_day

4. MEDICAL MARIJUANA UPDATE
It's busy, busy in state legislatures, the Michigan Court of Appeals
rules against workers' rights, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/feb/27/medical_marijuana_update

5. THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
A West Virginia deputy sheriff gets caught up in an FBI drug dealing investigation, a Georgia prison guard gets nailed for taking bribes to
smuggle pot into the joint, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/feb/20/weeks_corrupt_cops_stories

6. CHRONICLE AM: FL BILL WOULD END MANDATORY MINIMUMS, BC PLAN FOR
HEROIN BUYERS CLUBS, MORE... (2/22/19)
The Philippines president vows even harsher drug war, the Mexican Senate approves a new national guard to fight drug crime, a Florida bill would
end mandatory minimum drug sentences, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/feb/22/chronicle_am_fl_bill_would_end

7. CHRONICLE AM: NM LEGAL POT BILLS ADVANCE, MEXICO TAKES ANOTHER BIG
STEP TOWARD LEGAL WEED, MORE... (2/25/19)
In New Mexico, a pair of competing marijuana legalization bills are
advancing; meanwhile, in Old Mexico, the Supreme Court takes the country another step down the path to legalization, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/feb/25/chronicle_am_nm_legal_pot_bills

8. CHRONICLE AM: CND DELAYS VOTE ON POT RESCHEDULING, RI DRUG
DEFELONIZATION PUSH, MORE...(2/26/19)
San Francisco moves to expunge more than 9,000 pot convictions, Rhode
Island's attorney general wants to defelonize drug possession, Peruvian
farmers are leaving the coffee fields for the coca fields, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/feb/26/chronicle_am_cnd_delays_vote_pot

9. CHRONICLE AM: WV OD REPORTING BILL ADVANCES, NH HOUSE APPROVES LEGAL MARIJUANA BILL, MORE... (2/27/19)
The Granite State gets one step closer to marijuana legalization,
Vermont gets one step closer to allowing taxed and regulated legal
marijuana sales, West Virginia gets one step closer to speeding up
overdose reporting requirements, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/feb/27/chronicle_am_wv_od_reporting

10. CHRONICLE AM: FEDERAL MARIJUANA JUSTICE ACT REFILED, GOOD NM
PREGNANCY BILL, MORE... (2/28/19)
A bill to end federal marijuana prohibition has been filed in the House
and Senate, a Hawaii decriminalization bill advances, a New Mexico bill
would attempt to aid drug-using pregnant women--not punish them--and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/feb/28/chronicle_am_federal_marijuana

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1. FACED WITH FENTANYL, IS IT TIME FOR HEROIN BUYERS' CLUBS? [FEATURE] https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/feb/24/faced_fentanyl_it_time_heroin

In the past few years, the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl and its derivatives have been the primary driver of the drug overdose death
epidemic. A wave of addiction that began with prescription opioids two
decades ago and morphed into one driven by heroin after the crackdown on
pain pills one decade ago has now clearly entered a third phase: the era
of fentanyl.

Beginning in about 2014, fentanyl-related overdose death rates
skyrocketed (https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics/overdose-death-rates)
as Chinese chemical manufacturers and Mexican drug distribution gangs
began flooding the country with the cheap, easily concealable
narcotic--and not through unwalled borders but through points of entry
and package delivery services, including the U.S. Postal Service. By
2017, fentanyl was implicated in some 28,000 overdose deaths (https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/data/fentanyl.html), more than either
heroin or prescription opioids, and involved in nearly half of all
overdose deaths.

The responses have ranged from the repressive to the pragmatic. Some
state and federal legislation seeks a harsher criminal justice system
response, whether it's increasing penalties for fentanyl trafficking or charging hapless drug sharers with murder if the person they shared with
dies. In other cases, the opioid epidemic has emboldened harm
reduction-based policies, such as the calls for safe injection sites in
cities such as Denver, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle.

Just a couple of hours up the road from Seattle, Vancouver, British
Columbia, has been grappling with the same wave of opioid addiction and
now, the arrival of fentanyl. And it has arrived with a real wallop:
According to the British Columbia Coroner's Service (https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/birth-adoption-death-marriage-and-divorce/deaths/coroners-service/statistical/fentanyl-detected-overdose.pdf),
fentanyl was implicated in 85 percent of overdose deaths in the province
last year, up from only four percent just six years earlier. And with
the arrival of fentanyl and, in 2016, its cousin, carfentanil, overdose
deaths in B.C. jumped more than four-fold in that same period, from 333
in 2012 to 1,489 in 2018.

But while American cities are just now moving toward opening safe
injection sites, Vancouver has had them for years, part of the city's
embrace of the progressive Four Pillars (https://vancouver.ca/people-programs/four-pillars-drug-strategy.aspx) strategy--prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and enforcement--of
dealing with problems around drug misuse and addiction. In fact, more
than a dozen safe injection sites are now operating in the city, as well
as a couple of programs that involve providing pharmaceutical grade
heroin or other opioids to hard-core addicts who have proven unamenable
to traditional forms of treatment.

Such harm reduction programs have not prevented all overdose deaths, but
they have radically reduced the toll. B.C. Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe
has estimated that without those programs, B.C. would have seen triple
the number (https://www.cbc.ca/news/thenational/the-national-today-fentanly-trump-teresa-may-wilbur-ross-1.4394612)
of fatal overdoses.

Vancouver has been on the cutting edge of progressive drug policy
reforms for the past 20 years, and now, faced with the fentanyl crisis,
some researchers are proposing a radical next step: heroin buyers' clubs.

In a report (http://www.bccsu.ca/news-release/expert-report-recommends-legally-regulated-heroin-sales-in-bc/)
published last week, the B.C. Center on Substance Use, which has strong
ties to the provincial government, called for the clubs as part of a
broader plan for "legally regulated heroin sales in B.C." to protect
users from fentanyl-adulterated heroin and cut the profits of organized
crime.

The proposal "is inspired by cannabis compassion clubs and buyers'
clubs, both of which emerged in the 1980s and 1990s in response to the
AIDS epidemic," the authors note.

"The compassion or buyers' club would function as a cooperative (or
'co-op'), as an autonomous and democratic enterprise owned and operated
by its members," the report explains. "A member-driven purchasing
cooperative is an arrangement among businesses or individuals whereby
members agree to aggregate their demand in order to purchase a certain
product at a lower price from a supplier," it continues. "By aggregating
their purchase orders and relevant resources, members are able to take advantage of volume discounts, price protection, shared storage and distribution facilities and costs, and other economies of scale to
reduce their overall purchasing costs."

It wouldn't exactly be the Dallas Buyers Club, the 2013 film that
portrayed unorthodox methods of obtaining AIDS medications in the 1980s.
There would be some structure: To be accepted into the club, people
addicted to opioids would have to undergo a medical evaluation, and once admitted to the club, they would still have to buy their own heroin, but
with many advantages over buying black market dope. The main advantage
would be that they would be receiving pure, pharmaceutical grade heroin
(known as diacetylmorphine in countries where it is part of the pharmacopeia)--not an unknown substance that is likely to contain fentanyl.

Club members could inject the drug at a designated location--the report suggests that existing safe injection sites could be used--or take small amounts of the drug with them for consumption at home. The report also
calls for each club to include related services, such as overdose
response training, access to the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone,
and options for members to access social services such as detox, rehab,
and other treatment options.

Not only could buyers' clubs create a safer, cheaper heroin-using
experience for members, the report argues, but they could also erode the
black market and its tendency to produce more potent drugs--the
so-called Iron Law of Prohibition.

"Fentanyl adulteration in the illicit drug supply is a predictable
unintended consequence of drug prohibition," the report concludes. "The
same forces that pushed the market away from relatively bulky opium
towards heroin, a more concentrated opioid that was easier to transport clandestinely, have continued to push the opioid market to increasingly
potent synthetic opioids, including a range of fentanyl analogs. A
cooperative could undermine the illegal market wherever it is set up."

Such a plan faces legal and political challenges in Canada, but those
can be overcome if the provincial and federal governments get on board. Obstacles to such a plan being rolled out in the United States are even greater, especially given an administration hostile toward harm
reduction in general
(https://www.apnews.com/17e6b082e9834c0aad8d4c9d9dd3b77d) that would
most likely view legal heroin sales as anathema.

But here in the U.S., we're a decade or so behind Vancouver when it
comes to progressive drug policies, so it's time to get the conversation started. After all, these sorts of approaches to the problem are likely
to be more effective than throwing addicts in jail or building
boondoggle border walls.

This article was produced by Drug Reporter (https://independentmediainstitute.org/drug-reporter/), a project of the Independent Media Institute.



================ ...
___________________

It's time to correct the mistake:
Truth:the Anti-drugwar
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Cops say legalize drugs--find out why:
<http://www.leap.cc>
Stoners are people too:
<http://www.cannabisconsumers.org>
___________________

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--
bobbie sellers - a retired nurse in San Francisco

"It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of cacao that the thoughts acquire speed,
the thighs acquire girth, the girth become a warning.
It is by theobromine alone I set my mind in motion."
--from Someone else's Dune spoof ripped to my taste.

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