• Drug War Chronicle, Issue 1140 - Table of Contents plus Lead story with

    From Bobbie Sellers@21:1/5 to All on Tue Sep 28 21:48:25 2021
    XPost: alt.drugs.psychedelics, alt.drugs.pot, alt.hemp.politics

    Drug War Chronicle, Issue #1140 -- 9/24/21
    Phillip S. Smith, Editor, psmith@drcnet.org https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/1140

    Sorry this is a bit late but the subject was mislabeled
    and it took me a while to find the time to figure it out.

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

    Table of Contents:

    1. THE TALIBAN SAYS IT WILL STOP THE OPIUM TRADE, BUT IS THAT LIKELY?
    [FEATURE]
    Afghanistan has been by far the world's leading supplier of opium for
    the past 20 years, but now the Taliban say they are going to stop it.
    Will they? Can they? https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/sep/15/taliban_says_it_will_stop_opium

    2. CHRONICLE BOOK REVIEW: "THIS IS YOUR MIND ON PLANTS" BY MICHAEL POLLAN Renowned foodie and plant author Michael Pollan is back with another
    book about some psychoactive plants. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/aug/19/chronicle_book_review_your_mind

    3. CHRONICLE BOOK REVIEW: "UNDOING DRUGS" BY MAIA SZALAVITZ
    The first comprehensive history of harm reduction is here. It belongs on
    your bookshelf. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/sep/10/chronicle_book_review_undoing

    4. THIS WEEK'S CORRUPT COPS STORIES
    It's all Sunshine State rogue cops this week, with a DEA supervisory
    agent nailed for helping a major drug dealer and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/sep/15/weeks_corrupt_cops_stories

    5. ICC WILL INVESTIGATE PHILIPPINE DRUG WAR KILLINGS, KY SUPREME COURT
    NARROWS GOOD SAMARITAN LAW, MORE... (9/15/21)
    Detroiters will vote on psychedelic decriminalization in November, the International Criminal Court takes a key step in the investigation of
    the Philippine drug war killings, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/sep/15/icc_will_investigate_philippine

    6. WHITE HOUSE RELEASES ANNUAL LIST OF DRUG PRODUCING & TRANSIT
    COUNTRIES, WA DRUG DECRIM INITIATIVE ORGANIZING, MORE... (9/16/21)
    Granite State lawmakers are looking at a voter-approved constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana, Washington activists are laying the
    groundwork for a 2022 drug decriminalization initiative, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/sep/16/white_house_releases_annual_list

    7. CA PSILOCYBIN LEGALIZATION INIT CLEARED FOR SIGNATURE GATHERING, DE
    SUPREME COURT ON POT ODOR, MORE... (9/17/21)
    Supporters of a proposed Philadelphia safe injection site have asked the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court decision blocking it, the
    Delaware Supreme Cout rules the mere odor of marijuana is not sufficient
    cause for a warrantless arrest, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/sep/17/ca_psilocybin_legalization_init

    8. VANCOUVER CLINIC OFFERS TAKE-HOME PRESCRIPTION HEROIN, NEPAL
    MARIJUANA PROTEST, MORE... (9/20/21)
    Violence linked to cartel infighting continues to rock Mexico's state of Michoacan, a Vancouver clinic is now offering take-home prescription
    heroin to a small number of patients, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/sep/20/vancouver_clinic_offers_takehome

    9. HOUSTON NARC & SUSPECT KILLED IN DRUG RAID, FL MARIJUANA INIT CAN
    GATHER SIGNATURES, MORE... (9/21/21)
    A Houston drug raid proved deadly Monday, mass killings are on the rise
    in one of Colombia's cocaine conflict zones, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/sep/21/houston_narc_suspect_killed_drug

    10. CONGRESS TO TEMPORARILY EXTEND FENTANYL ANALOGUE BAN, HOUSE TO VOTE
    ON MARIJUANA BANKING, MORE... (9/22/21)
    Protections for banks dealing with state-legal marijuana businesses will
    get a House floor vote as part of a defense spending bill, the Congress
    is poised to temporarily extend the ban on fentanyl analogues, and more. https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/sep/22/congress_temporarily_extend

    11. METH DEATHS WERE ON RISE BEFORE PANDEMIC, SCOTLAND MOVES TOWARD "DE
    FACTO" DRUG DECRIM, MORE... (9/23/21)
    Violence continues in Colombia's coca-producing regions, marijuana
    researchers appeal a US 9th Circuit Court dismissal of their
    rescheduling petition, and more.


    https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/sep/23/meth_deaths_were_rise_pandemic

    (Not subscribed? Visit https://stopthedrugwar.org to sign up today!)

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

    1. THE TALIBAN SAYS IT WILL STOP THE OPIUM TRADE, BUT IS THAT LIKELY?
    [FEATURE] https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2021/sep/15/taliban_says_it_will_stop_opium

    One of the first announcements the Taliban made as it seized power in Afghanistan last month was that they were going to end illicit drug
    production. But, as with other promises of change from the Taliban --
    like women's rights or press freedoms -- there is a whole lot of
    skepticism about the claim.

    At its first press conference in Kabul after entering the city and
    solidifying their control over the country, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid vowed that their new government would not let Afghanistan become
    a full-fledged narco-state: "We are assuring our countrymen and women
    and the international community that we will not have any narcotics produced,"Mujahid said (https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/taliban-vow-to-ban-heroin-but-can-they-survive-without-it-407214).
    "From now on, nobody's going to get involved (in the heroin trade),
    nobody can be involved in drug smuggling."

    But in addition to the general skepticism about the Taliban's plans for
    the country, the notion of them imposing a ban on opium production runs
    afoul of economic and political realities on the ground. The challenge
    is that the opium crop is a key component of the Afghan economy,
    accounting for somewhere between seven and 11 percent the country's
    Gross Domestic Product (https://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/20210217_report_with_cover_for_web_small.pdf),
    and bringing in as much as $2 billion in 2019, more than Afghanistan's
    entire licit agricultural sector.

    It is also a job creator in a country where opportunities are scarce.
    The opium harvest employs the equivalent of 119,000 full-time jobs (https://www.unodc.org/documents/crop-monitoring/Afghanistan/20210217_report_with_cover_for_web_small.pdf),
    not counting the farmers themselves and their family members. The
    broader opium economy also supports untold thousands in the domestic
    trade (opium traders, heroin producers, domestic dealers) and as service providers for that trade (packers, transporters), as well as
    internationally connected individuals working in the international
    trade. The opium economy is especially strong in areas of key Taliban
    support, such as Helmand and Kandahar provinces in the south.

    Afghanistan has accounted for between 80 percent and 90 percent (https://www.imf.org/-/media/Files/Conferences/2019/7th-statistics-forum/session-iv-zeiler.ashx)
    of global opium production throughout this century, a pattern that
    began, ironically enough, in the 1980s, when the CIA waged a secret war (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/09/how-the-heroin-trade-explains-the-us-uk-failure-in-afghanistan)
    against the Soviet occupation of the country and enlisted both Islamic
    radicals and the opium trade in the battle. Opium "is an ideal crop in a war-torn country since it requires little capital investment, is fast
    growing and is easily transported and traded,"the State Department
    reported (https://news.sky.com/story/afghanistan-money-and-power-drive-afghanistans-opium-production-but-how-will-the-taliban-wean-themselves-off-the-profitable-trade-12385423)
    in 1986.

    As noted by global drug historian Alfred W. McCoy, author of the
    groundbreaking "The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global
    Drug Trade (https://history.wisc.edu/publications/the-politics-of-heroin-cia-complicity-in-the-global-drug-trade/),"in
    a 2018 article (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jan/09/how-the-heroin-trade-explains-the-us-uk-failure-in-afghanistan):

    "As relentless warfare between CIA and Soviet surrogates took its toll,
    Afghan farmers began to turn to opium 'in desperation', since it
    produced 'high profits' that could cover rising food prices. At the same
    time, the state department reported that resistance elements took up
    opium production and trafficking 'to provide staples for [the]
    population under their control and to fund weapons purchases'."

    "As the mujahideen guerrillas gained ground against the Soviet
    occupation and began to create liberated zones inside Afghanistan in the
    early 1980s, the resistance helped fund its operations by collecting
    taxes from peasants who grew the lucrative opium poppies, particularly
    in the fertile Helmand valley. Caravans carrying CIA arms into that
    region for the resistance often returned to Pakistan loaded down with
    opium -- sometimes, reported the New York Times, 'with the assent of
    Pakistani or American intelligence officers who supported the resistance.'"

    And nearly four decades later, Afghanistan remains the world's number
    one supplier of opium and its derivative, heroin, with the latter going
    into the veins of habitues from Lahore to London. And now, with the
    withdrawal of the West and all its billions of dollars of economic
    assistance and with the key role opium plays in the economy, the Taliban
    is going to ban it?

    It would be a risky move for the Taliban, said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a
    senior fellow for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution.

    "The Taliban can risk a ban, but it would be politically costly in ways
    that are more complex than in 2000 [when they also banned it] and it
    could lead to tremendous destabilization,"she told the Chronicle in a
    phone interview. "This is a country where 90 percent of the population
    lives in poverty. It's also a situation where many mid-level Taliban
    commanders are dependent on opium for their income and livelihoods for
    their fighters. To impose a ban would require the Taliban to maintain a
    high level of aggression, which would create political fissures and
    fractures and would play into the hands of other actors. One reason
    local warlords didn't fight the Taliban this summer was that the Taliban
    was promising them access to the local economy, and in many places, that
    means opium."

    Even in the best of circumstances, replacing a lucrative illicit economy
    with legal alternatives is a long-term project, and these are not the
    best of circumstances, to say the least.

    "The Afghan economy is more or less tanking,"Felbab-Brown said. "A
    massive influx of foreign aid has been an inescapable component of the
    economic life of the country, and now, the Taliban does not have any way
    of dealing with stopping opium by delivering alternative livelihoods.
    Even if they had a well-designed program, you are looking at decades to suppress it,"she said.

    Still, the Taliban has done it before.

    "When it comes to banning opium, we are looking at a possible replay of
    the 1990s,"said Felbab-Brown. "What the Taliban want is international recognition. In the 1990s, they kept promising they would ban poppies in
    return for international recognition, but then said they could not do it because they could not starve their people, until in 2000, they did it.
    Will they risk that again? My expectation is that we are going to see
    the same bargaining with the international community, but as I said, if
    the Taliban does try to do a ban, they will struggle to enforce it."

    The Taliban also face a possible loss of the opioid market share if they
    enact a ban and then change their mind because of adverse circumstances, Felbab-Brown said.

    "The difference now is the synthetic opioids,"she said, alluding to the production of fentanyl and its derivatives coming from Chinese and
    Indian chemical factories. "If the Taliban move to ban and then decide
    it is too difficult to sustain politically or financially, it might not
    find it easy to just return to the same markets; the European markets,
    for instance, could be snatched away by synthetic opioids."

    As for how the much vaunted "international community"should approach
    Afghan opium production, that's a complicated question.

    "There is no unity in the international community on how to deal with Afghanistan,"Felbab-Brown said. "The Chinese and Iranians are warming up
    to the Taliban, and the Russians will be urging the Taliban to go for a
    ban. I suspect the ban talk is mainly to satisfy the Russians. But we
    should not be pushing the ban; that would be catastrophic in terms of humanitarian consequences."

    Afghan government and Western efforts to suppress the opium trade proved
    futile throughout the Western occupation, and now the likelihood of any
    sort of robust international campaign to suppress Afghan poppies appears
    next to nil. Outside of legalization of the trade, which does not appear
    even remotely likely, the only alternative for suppressing opium
    production is to cajole farmers to grow other crops in a bid to wean
    them off the poppy, but even those sorts of programs are now in question.

    "Should the international community be working with the Taliban to try
    to implement alternatives livelihoods?"asked Felbab-Brown. "It's a
    difficult question and can't be considered in isolation. It will be part
    of the bargaining over a whole set of policies, including women's rights
    and human rights."

    Uncertainty abounds over what the Taliban's opium policy will actually
    look like. In the meantime, the farmers are planting the seeds for next
    year's crop right now.



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

    It's time to correct the mistake:
    Truth:the Anti-drugwar
    <http://www.briancbennett.com>

    Cops say legalize drugs--find out why:
    <http://www.leap.cc>
    Stoners are people too:
    <http://www.cannabisconsumers.org>
    ___________________

    bliss -- Cacao Powered... (-SF4ever at DSLExtreme dot com)

    --
    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.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)