• Drug War Chronicle, Issue #1085 -- 12/12/19 - Table of Contents with Li

    From Bobbie Sellers@21:1/5 to All on Thu Dec 12 10:35:50 2019
    XPost: alt.drugs.pot, alt.hemp.politics

    Drug War Chronicle, Issue #1085 -- 12/12/19
    Phillip S. Smith, Editor, psmith@drcnet.org https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/1085

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

    Table of Contents:

    1. AMERICA'S AFGHANISTAN ANTI-DRUG BOONDOGGLE NEARS THE $9 BILLION MARK [FEATURE]
    How many billions will go down the drain before we figure out we can't
    spend our way into making certain drugs disappear? https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/nov/20/americas_afghanistan_antidrug

    2. ATTENTION, AMPHIBIAN SUBSTANCE FANS, THERE'S A NEW TOAD IN TOWN [FEATURE] Sapo isn't a psychedelic, but the Amazonian toad venom has some powerful
    and cathartic effects. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/nov/03/attention_amphibian_substance

    3. MEDICAL MARIJUANA UPDATE
    The Senate approves a bill protecting medical marijuana states from
    federal intervention, Alabama and Kansas move toward filing medical
    marijuana legislation, a South Dakota medical marijuana initiative hands
    in signatures, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/nov/14/medical_marijuana_update

    4. THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
    A West Virginia narc goes down for stealing heroin from the evidence
    room and giving it to his snitches, a New Jersey federal prison guard
    gets caught in a years-long smuggling scheme, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/nov/20/weeks_corrupt_cops_stories

    5. CHRONICLE AM: NEW ZEALAND MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION REFERENDUM COMING,
    SD HEMP FIGHT, MORE... (12/3/19)
    South Dakota lawmakers are moving toward trying again to legalize
    industrial hemp, New Zealand provides information on a coming marijuana legalization referendum, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/dec/03/chronicle_am_new_zealand

    6. CHRONICLE AM: NH SENATE PANELS KILL LEGAL POT, MMJ EXPANSION BILLS;
    FED AGENCY EASES HIRING RULES, MORE... (12/4/19)
    The US Virgin Islands could be moving toward marijuana legalization, but
    New Hampshire isn't--at least for now. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/dec/04/chronicle_am_nh_senate_panels

    7. CHRONICLE AM: YANG ON SAFE INJECTION SITES, BLOOMBERG ON MARIJUANA,
    MORE... (12/5/19)
    Michigan pot shops see high demand on opening day, Democratic contenders
    stake out drug policy positions, Maine finally has all pot business applications ready, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/dec/05/chronicle_am_yang_safe_injection

    8. CHRONICLE AM: OR DRUG DECRIMINALIZATION INITIATIVE, ND MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION INITIATIVE, MORE... (12/6/19)
    A second North Dakota pot legalization initiative has submitted language
    to state officials, the Beckley Foundation publishes a report on getting
    to legal Ecstasy, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/dec/06/chronicle_am_or_drug

    9. CHRONICLE AM: HOUSE RESOLUTION CONDEMNS RACIST DRUG WAR, PRISON
    RACIAL DISPARITIES SHRINK, MORE.... (12/10/19)
    Michigan legal pot sales are off to a hot start, a House resolution
    demands Congress apologize for racist drug war, a new report finds
    declining racial disparities in incarceration, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/dec/10/chronicle_am_house_resolution

    10. CHRONICLE AM: US AFGHAN OPIUM FIASCO, NEW ZEALAND LSD MICRODOSING
    TRIALS, MORE... (12/11/19)
    Expungements for past minor pot offenses are beginning in Chicago,
    clinical trials on LSD microdosing are about to get underway in New
    Zealand, Kentucky's new Democratic governor moves to restore voting
    rights for ex-felons, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/dec/11/chronicle_am_us_afghan_opium

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    ================

    1. AMERICA'S AFGHANISTAN ANTI-DRUG BOONDOGGLE NEARS THE $9 BILLION MARK [FEATURE] https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2019/nov/20/americas_afghanistan_antidrug

    The amount of money the US government has spent trying to wipe out
    Afghan opium since it invaded the country in 2002 has now reached $8.94 billion, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction
    (SIGAR) noted in his latest quarterly report to Congress (https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2019-10-30qr.pdf) on October 30.

    Afghanistan is far and away the world's largest opium producer (https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/press/releases/2017/November/afghan-opium-production-jumps-to-record-level--up-87-per-cent_-survey.html)
    and has been for the entire period since the US invaded and occupied the country in late 2001. According to United Nations Office on Drugs and
    Crime's (UNODC) 2018 Afghan Opium Survey (https://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/Afghanistan_opium_survey_2018_socioeconomic_report.pdf),
    Afghan farmers were cultivating about 150,000 acres of opium poppies in
    the late 1990s, but around 300,000 acres a year in the mid-2000s.

    As the US occupation dragged on, opium cultivation generally climbed
    throughout the 2010s, peaking at more than 800,000 acres in 2017. That
    equates to about nine tons of raw opium produced that year, with the
    heroin produced from it going into the veins of addicts and others from
    Lahore to London.

    The SIGAR report also noted that although drought had caused poppy
    cultivation to drop by 20% last year, "it remained at the second-highest
    level since the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) began monitoring it in 1994."

    So, despite spending nearly $9 billion, the US war on Afghan opium has
    not only not succeeded but has seen the poppy foe steadily gain ground.
    And even though drought struck the crop in 2018, opium still exceeded
    the value of all of Afghanistan's licit exports combined and accounted
    for between 6 and 11 percent of its Gross Domestic Product.

    For Sanho Tree, director of the Drug Policy Project at the Institute for
    Policy Studies and a long-time observer of US policies aimed at drug
    producing countries -- not just Afghanistan -- the SIGAR report spoke
    volumes.

    "Over a similar period in Colombia, the US wasted $10 billion," he said.
    "I guess we can conclude the drug war failed more efficiently in
    Afghanistan."

    To be fair, the US effort against opium has faced huge hurdles. Because
    of its crucial role in the national economy, providing hundreds of
    thousands of jobs to farm workers and incomes to farmers, moves to
    suppress the crop meet entrenched resistance -- and that's where the
    national government is in control.

    But the Taliban controls roughly half the country, and in those areas,
    it doesn't try to repress the opium trade, but instead taxes it.
    According to a BBC report (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-46554097), the Taliban generates somewhere between $100 million and $400 million from
    taxes on opium farmers, producers, and traders. That's not the bulk of
    Taliban revenues, but it is a significant boost for the insurgency.

    When it comes to suppressing illicit drug crops, there are three main approaches: eradication, interdiction, and alternative development.
    According to the new SIGAR report, all three have proven ineffectual in Afghanistan.

    Interdiction -- the effort to suppress the trade by arresting
    traffickers and seizing drugs -- has been the bailiwick of Afghan
    security forces funded by the US. But the SIGAR report notes that
    despite their "strong performance" and their "improved capabilities over
    the years," activities have had "minimal impact on the country's opium cultivation and production." It notes that all opium seizures since 2002
    only add up to about 8 percent of the production of the single year of 2018.

    Eradication isn't going very well, either. With the Afghan government announcing early this year that is was abolishing the Ministry of
    Counter Narcotics and moving its functions to other government entities, essentially no eradication took place this year, the SIGAR report round.
    Only about one thousand acres were eradicated last year and two thousand
    the year before. And Helmand province, the biggest poppy producer, saw
    no eradication at all between 2016 and 2018.

    "Eradication efforts have had minimal impact on curbing opium-poppy cultivation," the SIGAR report concluded. "The Afghan government has
    struggled to perform eradication due to the security challenges in poppy-growing areas. Since 2008, on average, annual eradication efforts resulted in eradicating only 2% of the total yearly opium-poppy
    cultivation."

    That may not be a bad thing, said Tree.

    "Forced eradication usually forces peasant farmers into food
    insecurity," he explained. "Panic sets in. How will they feed their
    families next week, next month, or next year? What's the one crop they
    know how to grow, for which there ready and willing buyers, and doesn't
    require transportation infrastructure like bulky fruits and vegetables?
    Of course, farmers replant! But this time, they've had to borrow money
    from traffickers to survive and they become even more ensnared in the
    drug economy."

    The third leg of the anti-drug effort is alternative development. But of
    the nearly $9 billion the US has invested in the Afghan drug war, less
    than 5 percent has gone to such programs. The USAID Regional
    Agricultural Development Plan has received $221 million since 2002,
    while another $173 million has been spent on alternative development
    programs. The Defense Department, meanwhile, spent $4.57 billion on counternarcotics during the same period.

    But alternative development efforts seem to be waning. An important
    program, the Good Performers Initiative, which sought to encourage
    provincial level anti-drug efforts ended this year with the transfer of
    its last two programs to the Afghan government. But even here, the SIGAR
    report found, "the program was deemed ineffectual at curbing opium cultivation."

    It appears that no matter how many billions the US spends to wipe out
    Afghan opium, its money flushed down the drain. Maybe it's time to try something different.

    ================

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

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    <http://www.cannabisconsumers.org>
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