Drugs

Making narcotics illegal created a major branch of the crime industry. The opportunities for police to take tax free bribes are huge. The CIA may well be the world's largest narcotics wholesaler and finances its own private wars that way. Legalization pushes prices down and quality up. Go for it. To argue contra the multi-government mandated The War on Drugs creates a bureaucracy, keeps thousands if not millions off the dole, provides excuses for attacking liberty, intruding on our private affairs. Fascists love it. It became a large scale industry with the advent of Opium as a commodity.
PS I don't and never did. Drug Prices in America might be accurate.

Opium Traders
Running opium into China was very profitable. Not all of the traders were Jews but the Sassoons were.

 

Opium And Merry England
QUOTE
In thinking of the lives of agricultural labourers in Norfolk, some of the difficulties faced are well known - low wages, high rents, high prices of food, harsh weather, disease. Another aspect, not so well publicised, was the taking of opium or laudanum. If you can find a copy, try browsing, 'Medicine in Wisbech and the Fens, 1700-1920 by Jane Arthur ISBN 0 94814700 8; a section of which deals with the eating of opium in fenland.

Children who were ill (or just to get them to sleep) were 'soothed' by Godfrey's Cordial - a mixture of alcohol, opium, treacle and water; and teething babies might be given chews laced with opium. Some parish registers refer to children dying in their sleep from the effects of Godfrey's cordial.
UNQUOTE
Rural poverty was bad, bad, bad.

 

Washington Is Awash With Drugs - Fred Explains All
QUOTE
I see that I may have to take over drug policy for the United States. Maybe not, though. I’ll hold off if I get a call from Michelle Leonhart, who runs the Drug Enforcement Administration, asking me how she ought to do her job, and what she ought to think about Mexico, and what is wrong with Washington’s whole approach to mind candy. (I’m expecting her call any day now.) I will answer as follows:

Now, look here, Ma'am. You need to re-think this drug thing. It’s not going well. It isn’t going to go well. The Bare Skirmish on Drugs (BSkOD) may have seemed a good idea when Reefer Madness came out, or even in the Sixties a half century ago. Now, no. Everyone with the brains of a microwave oven knows that DEA serves only to keep prices up so that the narcos in Mexico can afford classy military weaponry and gorgeous mansions...............

OK, half-century later. To my certain knowledge, today in suburban Washington, as for example at Washington and Lee High where my daughters did time, kids can buy all the aforementioned goodies, plus nitrous, Ecstasy, crystal and, within a five-minute drive, there may still be an open-air crack market in the parking lot of Green Valley pharmacy. Crack isn’t a kid drug, but it is easily available all over Washington.
UNQUOTE
Is Fred wrong? I seriously doubt it but the anti-drug people hate him for telling the truth. It is their livelihoods on the line.

 

The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs
Is an absolutely first rate starting point for studying the issue. They are perfectly respectable. They have been over the ground. They know what they are talking about. NB that they published this in 1973 and still vested interests are ignoring them. The CIA is the biggest drug trafficker in America. They want the tax free billions to fund crime; their [ CIA ] crime that is.

 

Schaffer Library On Drug Policy
Is a major and splendid source on the subject. It shows that it has all been said before and that it has been ignored before; there are too many snouts, too many troughs.

Law enforcement types need to justify their existence too. The previous link is a good starting point.

 

Cocaine
Coke is high power, highly dangerous and highly undesirable according to various special interests. The truth is rather different.

 

Deaths From Marijuana Versus 17 Government Approved Drugs
QUOTE

F. TOTALS of A-E

Primary Suspect

Secondary Suspect

Total Deaths Reported
1/1/97 - 6/30/05

  • TOTAL DEATHS FROM MARIJUANA

    •

0

279

279

  • TOTAL DEATHS FROM 17 FDA-APPROVED DRUGS

    •

10,008

1,679

11,687
UNQUOTE
10,000 to nil, zero, zilch makes a good case albeit marijuana may well have mental effects less severe than death.

 

Drug Legalization
They were outlawed by the self righteous. They created an industry. Reversing the process makes lots of sense. It gets prices down and quality up. People can try then walk away. It is what most do anyway.

 

Heroin, Russia And Denial
Heroin is a killer in excess. So are whiskey, gin and even beer. Opium was dangerous, in excess. Perhaps the right response to ask why people go to excess. One answer is stress and there are no easy fixes. Looking after people is my answer for decent government. It is alien to Her Majesty's Government and even more so to Her Allegedly Loyal Opposition. Pandering to bankers means pay offs later. Pandering to dole bludgers means votes now. But this is more to do with health in Russia.

 

The Function of the Drug War
It is ALL about special interests. Follow the money and see where it leads. Then know.

 

The Economist Explains All - Maybe
QUOTE
Some countries are pushing the boundaries of liberalization

UNDER a trio of conventions passed by the United Nations in 1961, 1971 and 1988, most countries have little discretion over how they manage drug-taking. Other than for medical or scientific purposes, those that have signed up to the conventions—more than 140 countries to date, including nearly all of the rich world—must maintain the prohibition on the selling and possession of narcotics. Some are enthusiastic in their upholding of the treaties. But others have grown frustrated, and are finding ways of bending the rules.

For the past century the standard-bearer of the prohibition movement has been America, which imprisons more people for drug offences than any other country. But in 13 states the police are instructed not to arrest people for cannabis possession. In Europe, the coffee shops of Amsterdam famously sell cannabis alongside croissants. And other European countries are lenient about stronger drugs. Personal possession of any drug is not a criminal offence in Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Czech Republic or the Baltic states. Some German states and Swiss cantons are similarly relaxed, as are a few Australian states.

Decriminalization means that possessors may be stopped by the police but do not earn a criminal conviction, and that punishments are light: a fine in Spain, for instance, or suspension of one’s driving licence in Italy. Drug-takers can escape even this unless aggravating circumstances apply, such as taking the drug in public or after repeated warnings.

The legal gymnastics that allow countries to soften their line in spite of the UN conventions are extraordinary. A country must ensure that drug possession is a criminal, not civil, offence—but only “subject to its constitutional principles and the basic concepts of its legal system”. This caveat has allowed countries to treat drug possession as a civil matter. Further wriggle-room is given in the UN’s official commentary on the convention, which states that the spirit of the rule is the “improvement of the efficacy of national criminal justice systems in the field of drug-trafficking”. On this basis, countries may tell their police to turn a blind eye in the name of policing efficacy.

It is an embarrassing mess for the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which prefers to highlight Sweden, a country that has implemented strict drug laws and can claim some success in its quest for a “drug-free society”. In Sweden possession of any banned drug, including cannabis, earns a criminal record and sometimes a jail sentence (albeit one with an emphasis on treatment). Many countries have such laws in theory, but Sweden carries them out: most of its prosecutions for drug offences are for mere possession, rather than dealing. A report from the UNODC in 2007 highlighted the country’s lowish levels of drug use compared with elsewhere in Europe, and praised recent falls in consumption. Sweden has a below-average number of “problem” drug users too, though there is less in it, suggesting that the main effect of harsh laws may be to deter casual pot-smokers rather than to prevent serious addiction. Should other countries follow Sweden’s example?

A different UN agency suggests not. A survey last year by the World Health Organization examined drug-taking in 17 countries and found no link between the strictness of prohibition and the amount of drug consumption. (The lenient Netherlands, interestingly, has one of the lowest rates of “problem” drug use in Europe.) “Countries with more stringent policies did not have lower levels of such drug use than countries with more liberal policies,” the researchers concluded. For every strict regime like Sweden, there is another such as Britain or America where a tough approach co-exists with widespread drug use. Drug-taking was more closely linked to being wealthy, single and male than anything else, the researchers found.

Changing drug policy over time also seems to have little impact. In Britain, drugs are classified A, B or C to indicate how harmful they are and to determine how severely offenders should be punished. But after cannabis was downgraded from class B to C in 2004, usage actually fell. All the same, the Home Office last year decided to bump it back to B again, and last month announced that it would ignore expert advice to downgrade ecstasy from A to B, fearing that to do so would “send a message” that the drug was now safe. Is anyone listening? 
UNQUOTE
The Economist's people have been over the ground. I would be surprised if they have not had a close acquaintance with the subject from time to time.

 

Prohibition
Was America's effort to ban alcohol at the behest of the self righteous. It failed although it lasted 13 years. The War on Drugs is far worse and still with us.

 

Narcotics Time Line - the wonderful people at The Guardian know lots about drugs. It was close up and personal.
QUOTE
100 years of altered states 1902 Caffeine replaces cocaine in the composition of Coca-Cola.
1910 Dr Hamilton Wright, instigator of US anti-narcotics laws, reports that American contractors give cocaine to their black employees to improve their work rate.
1910 The British dismantle the India-China opium trade.
1912 MDMA first synthesized by German company Merck Pharmaceuticals.
1914 Forced March tablets containing cocaine are given to troops by the British Army.
1918 The death in London of Billie Carleton, a rising star of stage musicals, is one in a series of high profile cocaine-related scandals.
1920 Cocaine is banned in the UK under the Dangerous Drugs Act, following stories of 'crazed soldiers' in WWI.
1928 Cannabis added to the list of proscribed substances in the Dangerous Drugs Act.
1932 In America, amphetamine is marketed as Benzedrine in an over-the-counter inhaler to treat nasal congestion.
1936 Reefer Madness, an American anti-marijuana film, describes how a bunch of beatniks get hooked on the 'devil's weed', and sink into outlaw behaviour.
1937 American researchers find that amphetamine has a positive effect on children with attention deficit disorder.
1938 Albert Hofmann synthesises LSD-25 for the first time in Basel, Switzerland, while looking for a blood stimulant.
1940 The Japanese government starts distributing amphetamine pills to soldiers, pilots and arms factory workers to improve their alertness during warfare.
1942 Hitler receives daily methamphetamine injections from his doctor.
1944 Opium smoking is prohibited in Hong Kong.
1947 The CIA begins its study of LSD as a potential weapon for use by American intelligence. Human subjects (both civilian and military) are used with and without their knowledge.
1953 The US army studies MDMA toxicity by giving the drug to guinea pigs, rats, mice, monkeys and dogs.
1965 American chemist Alexander Shulgin experiments with ecstasy on himself and is the first person to describe the drug's effect on humans.
1966 LSD is banned in the UK following intense recreational experimentation. (Its use in therapy struggled on until the early Seventies but was then finally outlawed.)
June 1967 Rolling Stones Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are sentenced to prison for smoking cannabis. Their convictions are later quashed on appeal.
July 1967 A 'Legalize Pot' rally is held in London's Hyde Park; an advertisement in The Times, sponsored by SOMA, a drug research organisation, states: 'The law against marijuana is immoral in principle and unworkable in practice.' Signatories include the Beatles, RD Laing and Graham Greene.
1968 Six to seven per cent of all prescriptions written under the British NHS are for barbiturates; it is estimated that there are about 500,000 regular users in Britain.
January 1969 The Wooton committee concludes that 'the long-term consumption of cannabis in moderation has no harmful effects'.
July 1969 An organisation called the Bong Bong Parade makes a stand at a free Rolling Stones concert in Hyde Park, attempting to pass a foot-long joint around the crowd.
1971 The Misuse of Drugs Act consolidates different bits of legislation to become the key instrument by which the British state prosecutes the possession, supply or manufacture of 'controlled' substances.
1972 US therapists experiment with MDMA in dealing with marital problems.
1977 The Misuse of Drugs Act (1971) is amended to include MDMA (ecstasy) as a class A drug.
1977 In a remote farmhouse in Wales, a police operation codenamed 'Operation Julie', unearths 1.5kg of LSD - still the biggest ever LSD drugs bust in Britain - enough for 20-30 million doses at today's levels.
1980 Paul McCartney spends 10 days in a Japanese jail for possession of cannabis.
1981 Smokey Bear, a direct action group calling for the legalization of marijuana, sends cannabis plants to 60 MPs.
1983 Crack cocaine use, a problem in many American cities, begins to grow in London.
1986 Throughout the 80s cocaine use soars in the US, especially among the professional classes. So much so that a 1986 survey estimates that 1 in 11 Americans has used the drug.
1987 Ecstasy use becomes integral to British rave culture after being popularized by clubbers at dance parties in Ibiza.
March 1992 President Clinton admits to having smoked cannabis in his youth - but 'never inhaled'.
September 1992 The Shamen's 'Ebeneezer Goode' is a number one hit, with its chorus of 'Eezer Goode, Eezer Goode, He's Ebeneezer Goode'.
1993 In terms of illegal imports into the UK, cocaine overtakes heroin.
1994 Footballer Paul Merson is admitted to the Priory for his cocaine addiction. This is the first of many stories which establish the London clinic as a sanctuary for troubled celebrities.
1995 Leah Betts dies at her 18th birthday party in Essex after taking an ecstasy tablet. It was believed to be the first time she had taken the drug.
1996 Transform, the campaign to liberalize drug policy and legislation, launches.
1996 Trainspotting, a film about a group of Scottish heroin users, is criticized for glamorizing the culture.
1997 William Straw, son of Home Secretary Jack Straw [ Stalinist Jew], is arrested for dealing cannabis after being set up by a Daily Mirror journalist. He is cautioned by police.
1998 Keith Hellawell, a former chief constable, is appointed National Anti-Drugs Co-ordinator, or drugs 'tsar' and put in charge of the government's 10-year drugs' strategy.
2000 A Police Foundation report suggests certain drugs be reclassified and penalties reduced. The Government rejects the recommendations.
June 2001 Home Secretary David Blunkett scraps the post of drugs 'tsar'.
September The UK's first Dutch-style cannabis café opens in Stockport, Greater Manchester).
January 2002 It is revealed that Prince Harry has smoked cannabis on several occasions the previous summer.
March 2002 The picture of Rachel Whitear, a 21-year-old heroin addict dead from an overdose, is used across the British press, igniting the public debate over shock campaigns in drug prevention.

Drugs Uncovered: Observer special
Drugs Uncovered

News and comment
Revealed: Britain's drug habit
Leader: Time to be adult about drugs

Exclusive Drugs Uncovered poll
21.04.2002: The poll: What you take ... and what you think

Introduction
21.04.2002: Mark Kohn: Boom or bust?

The knowledge
21.04.2002: The lowdown, drug by drug
21.04.2002: 100 years of altered states
21.04.2002: How much do children know?
21.04.2002: Tales of experience

Street market
21.04.2002: Drugstore Britain
In the lab: What's in the drugs?
21.04.2002: My drugs
21.04.2002: Sylvia Patterson: Cocaine nation

Staying clean
21.04.2002: Martin Bright: can you kick addiction?

Class A capitalists
21.04.2002: Faisal Islam: who reaps the profits?
21.04.2002: Tony Thompson: Deadly cargo

The future?
21.04.2002: Andrew Smith: Can drugs make you smarter?
21.04.2002: The next Big High?

Drugs policy debate
Rowena Young: What do we do when the drugs war stops?
Blair 'must scrap failed drug tactics'
03.03.2002: Mary Riddell: The private hell of a very public death
Cristina Odone: Don't legalise drugs
25.11.2001: Arnold Kemp: Prohibition should be banned
Henry McDonald: Legalise drugs, but tax them too
22.07.2001: The drugs debate: where next?
Viv Evans: Why Eton's drug policy is wrong
Toby Young: Fed up with media cant about cocaine
Euan Ferguson: But there's only one problem. I hate dope
Andrew Rawnsley: New Labour is for U-turning

Britain's hard drugs epidemic: Observer investigation
David Rose: Our society is hooked - here's how to fix it
David Rose: Opium of the people

New epidemic fear
Epidemic fear as 'hillbilly heroin' hits the streets
Oxycodone explained

The drugs debate: Observer investigation
The Dutch lesson: No drugs war, but pragmatism works
Brixton experiment: "The dealers think they're untouchable now..."

More from Guardian Unlimited
Special report: drugs in Britain

The changing drugs debate
Focus: How smears brought top gay cop to brink of ruin
Drug video's shock tactics 'won't work'
Drug laws revolution set for UK
Crack 'epidemic' fuels rise in violent crime
Dutch model for UK drug laws
Police urge major rethink on heroin
The police and hard drugs: the Cleveland report
Focus: ecstasy after-effects that could last a lifetime
UNQUOTE
Opium has its dangers. So does alcohol. Life is dangerous and invariably fatal.

 

Narcotics Are Legal In Portugal. Problems Are Solved Thereby [ 19 March 2009 ]
QUOTE
The success of drug decriminalization in Portugal
In 2001, Portugal became the only EU-member state to decriminalize drugs,.. (which applies to all substances, including cocaine and heroin)........ Evaluating the policy strictly from an empirical perspective, decriminalization has been an unquestionable success, leading to improvements in virtually every relevant category and enabling Portugal to manage drug-related problems (and drug usage rates) far better than most Western nations that continue to treat adult drug consumption as a criminal offence..........

There is clearly a growing recognition around the world and even in the U.S. that, strictly on empirical grounds, criminalization approaches to drug usage and, especially, the "War on Drugs," are abject failures, because they worsen the exact problems they are ostensibly intended to address......... Beyond one's ideological beliefs regarding the legitimacy of criminalization, drug policy should be determined by objective, empirical assessments of what works and what does not work.  
UNQUOTE
I am not sure this is true. It does make sense though.

 

America's Leading Growth Industry Is Cannabis [ 28 March 2011 ]
QUOTE
It has been called a lot of things over the years: grass, Mary Jane, wacky weed. Now, researchers are suggesting a new moniker for marijuana: alternative investment.

A report out this week on the U.S. medical marijuana market estimates the unconventional business already generates $1.7 billion in economic activity a year. But that market could grow fivefold in short order, researchers say, as the list of states that legalize pot for treating a variety of illnesses grows and as more patients try it -- and switch. The study, conducted by See Change Strategy for the American Cannabis Research Institute and Deal Flow Media, a financial research firm specializing in unusual assets, says that of the nearly 25 million Americans who are potentially eligible to use medical marijuana based on their diagnoses, fewer than 800,000 currently do.

That makes the nascent market a potentially attractive one for investors looking for an alternative to the more traditional investment alternatives like art, antiques, wine or coins, one with an upside potential that makes China's current growth rate look anemic....................

There's also the very real potential for conflict with the criminal gangs that control the much larger $18 billion a year illegal U.S. marijuana market. These conflicts with criminal gangs tend to get settled outside the judicial system. Still, the study says the U.S. medical pot market could be nearly half the size of the illegal market -- about $8.9 billion -- in just five years.
UNQUOTE
Prohibition was a failure. The War on Drugs is worse. It is an excuse for abusing human rights. It keeps many thousands uselessly employed. But apart from that....... some people like it.

 

Portugal's Drug Laws Show Benefits Ten Years On [ 6 July 2011 ]   
QUOTE
Health experts in Portugal said Friday that Portugal's decision 10 years ago to decriminalize drug use and treat addicts rather than punishing them is an experiment that has worked...........

The number of addicts considered "problematic" -- those who repeatedly use "hard" drugs and intravenous users -- had fallen by half since the early 1990s, when the figure was estimated at around 100,000 people, Goulao said....

Drug use statistics in Portugal are generally "below the European average and much lower than its only European neighbour, Spain,".
UNQUOTE
This makes sense which is why it will not happen elsewhere. Too many people make a living out of the game. Suppliers need police to drive the price up. Police want the wages. Otherwise they would be on the dole. The CIA, the world's biggest narcotics trader wants the money to pay for its criminal operations.

 

Cannabis Is Being Used Less In England As Enforcement Slacks Off [ 1 April 2012 ]
QUOTE
Quietly, cannabis has in effect been decriminalised in Britain
CANNABOOST plant food is one of the best selling products at the Hydroexpress hydroponics store in Stirchley, a working-class part of Birmingham. The small shop, its windows filled with graffiti-style posters, also sells fertilisers with names like “Nirvana” and “Bud Candy”, alongside strong lights and giant rolls of tin foil to line greenhouses. In one corner, a couple of juicy-looking tomato plants grow in a demonstration set-up. But the youth behind the counter guesses that his customers are “not all growing tomatoes”.

Birmingham now has 58 hydroponics shops, up from 42 just a year ago. Whether aided by the latest plant-growing technology or not, cannabis production is soaring. According to the Association of Chief Police Officers, the number of cannabis factories detected each year increased from around 800 in 2004 to 7,000 in 2010. Birmingham is one of the most fertile areas; West Midlands Police, which set up a Cannabis Disposal Unit in 2010 to tackle the problem, dismantled more than 500 factories last year.

Your correspondent visited one recently closed by police; the gardener was a cocaine-addicted woman growing a few plants in a spare room in the hope of earning a cut. Other set-ups have been found in tents in the bedrooms of high-rise council flats and in the lofts of terraced family houses. Many growers are simply feeding their own habits. As one officer on the West Midlands Police drugs team says, “It’s becoming the most popular cottage industry in the country.”

Small growers are squeezing out both importers and the well-connected, often Vietnamese, gangs that once dominated domestic production. [ This is good news of course - Editor ] The big cannabis factories set up by the latter, with their telltale heat hazes, are fairly easy to spot. Smaller operations are often uncovered only when the electric lights start fires, or when local teenagers mount a burglary......

Strangely, this lackadaisical approach is not encouraging people to take up the reefer habit. According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, the proportion of people who admit to having used cannabis in Britain has fallen more quickly than in any other European country over the past few years. Just 6.8% of adults told another survey that they used cannabis in 2010, down from 10.9% eight years earlier. The herb is now ubiquitous and effectively tolerated—and, perhaps as a result, not all that alluring.
UNQUOTE
Interesting but worrying for drug profiteers such as police who get promoted. See the next one.

 

Drug Industry Profits Go To The Police As Well  [ 1 April 2012 ]
QUOTE
(NaturalNews) The federal government's illegal war on drugs is big business for lobbyists who profit on making sure you never have access to marijuana, whether for recreational or medicinal purposes. And one such lobbyist, John Lovell, reportedly raked in nearly $400,000 from the California Police Chiefs Association (CPCA) for helping to defeat California's Proposition 19, a 2010 ballot measure that would have legalized marijuana in the Golden State and generated billions of dollars in new state tax revenues.

The Republic Report's Lee Fang writes that, based on a comprehensive review of the lobbying contracts anti-marijuana groups had during the Prop. 19 battle, Lovell's name showed up as a major recipient of lobbying funds for his help in making sure the proposal never got passed. And with his services, CPCA was able to continue receiving millions of dollars in federal funding for drug war programs that are a significant source of police force revenue.........

However, if Prop. 19 had passed, this federal funding stream would have quickly dried up, which means police agencies across California would have had to seek out alternate sources of funding. The "Northern California Marijuana Eradication Team," for instance, composed of police departments in Shasta, Siskiyou, and Tehama Counties, would not have received its $550,000 federal grant had Prop. 13 been passed.

So once again job security and greed have overtaken the will of the people. CPCA's concerns about losing millions of dollars in federal funding for carrying out drug war initiatives are apparently more important than spurring the ailing California economy by legalizing a natural substance that is leaps and bounds safer than alcohol.

"[T]he passage of Prop. 19 would have given thousands of 'hempreneurs' behind the state's $1.3 billion medical marijuana industry a stimulus stronger than a vaporized bowl of Hindu Kush," writes Fang, artfully, concerning the marijuana legalization issue in California. "The likely side effects -- a decline in budget-busting law-enforcement costs and millions of dollars in tax revenue for the state of California -- don't seem all that bad compared to what we got stuck with: A war on drugs that makes people like John Lovell even richer."
Sources for this article include:
http://www.republicreport.org
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2012/03/pot-legalization-foe-war-drugs
http://ballotpedia.org
UNQUOTE
John Lovell is a lawyer as well as political lobbyist, one who is trading quite openly. That does not mean to say that he is not an unprincipled rogue. He says on his web site Fundamentally, effective legislative advocacy comes down to winning in the legislative, regulatory and public policy areas.  Winning is the only thing that matters.  Lovell's winning record is unmatched. Sincere? Yes. Predatory? Sounds like it. Cheap? Doubtful. Cost effective for special interests? Very much so. Making law pays better than breaking law.

 

Drug Use Is Down A Bit [ 29 September 2012 ]  
QUOTE
Drugs are 'going out of fashion' as figures show dramatic fall in usage since 1996
Annual crime survey shows decline in use of so-called legal highs Herion [ sic ] usage has stabilised at a low level with 0.1 per cent of the population thought to be taking it. Cannabis is still the most popular drug, with about 2.3million people using it last year

The graph illustrates that the number of people using any drug remains below ten per cent while those taking class A drugs is still at well below 5 per cent However the number of people using methadone, which is prescribed by doctors as an alternative to heroin, has gone up from 0.1 per cent to 0.2 per cent over the last two years.

 Overall an estimated 3million people, one out of every ten people aged 16 to 59, have taken an illicit drug in the past year, signalling that usage has remained at the low it reached in the previous year. Cannabis, classified as a Class B drug, is still the most popular drug, with about 2.3million people using it in the past year....... He also attacked politicians who claimed that drug use is getting out of control for their own political benefits.
UNQUOTE
The Daily Mail's reporter has not quite learned to spell so perhaps we should not take him, her or it too seriously. The number, less than 10% sounds plausible. Politicians are not happy because Drug users are the excuse for a multigigabuck prevention industry using people with mortgages, life styles and votes, especially the Votes. They don't call it Bribery but that is the reality of make work jobs. There are millions of them.

 

Cannabis Industry Worth £6 Billion [ 12 May 2013 ]
QUOTE
Britain's marijuana mafia - Two million users, £6bn worth of trade and 30,000 deaths
A total of 750,000 cannabis plants were recovered by the police in 2009-10
Independent Drug Monitoring Unit says UK consumes 1,000 tons each YEAR
Three joints a day causes similar damage to 20 cigarettes in the same period

Cyril is a hash ‘financier’, called upon to help fund major gangland deals. ‘My role is to cough up £50k on a Monday and by Friday get £120k back, no questions asked,’ he says. ‘That’s a sweet deal.’...............

The illicit trade in cannabis stretches from some of the poorest countries on Earth to middle-class homes in the UK. It is now believed to be the biggest source of income for organised crime around the world.

Attracted by staggering profits, an underworld network of gangsters, drug barons, crooked police and even terrorists have made cannabis their contraband of choice. And they have no qualms about using sex, intimidation, bribery and murder to achieve their aims.

Cocaine, heroin, LSD and amphetamines all bring devastating consequences but it is no exaggeration to say that cannabis, and in particular hash, its concentrated resin, is the most deadly of them all. It brings a level of violence, illness and addiction that to most people would seem barely credible [ It doesn't but then it isn't - Editor ]. The cannabis industry dwarfs the trade in heroin and cocaine. According to the Serious Organised Crime Agency, around 270 tons of cannabis are consumed every year in Britain, of which 80 per cent is grown here. In comparison, Soca calculates that 23 tons of heroin and 30 tons of cocaine are imported annually, with street values of £2 billion and £3 billion respectively...........

‘The police and other authorities rely on informants, but it’s getting harder and harder to infiltrate these criminal gangs. Informers are few and far between and gangs from eastern Europe are so ruthless, other criminals dare not cross them.’
UNQUOTE
The cannabis industry is for Free Traders, one that enjoys significant Tax advantages. Given that one can buy the seed, along with everything needed to grow the stuff legally there is no need to deal with foreigners. Some of this article is right but the allegation of 30 thousand deaths fails to convince.
PS The author does not mention that the CIA is the world's biggest narcotics trader.

 

Uruguay Leads The World By Making Cannabis Legal [ 11 December 2013 ]
"The world's most far-reaching cannabis law has been passed by the Uruguayan parliament, opening the way for the state to regulate the production, distribution, sale and consumption of the planet's favourite illegal drug." Prohibition is a proven failure. Criminalizing Narcotics is a splendid excuse for petty tyrants to meddle in people's lives, one that has created two major industries, which are Free Trading and industrial sabotage. Big Brother is a big fan. The CIA is a big supplier. It finances their criminal operations.

 

A Libertarian View of Cannabis and Drugs [ 26 September, 2016 ]
It's your body to do with what you will. Making narcotics illegal causes problems, not drugs per se.

 

Cannabis Should Be Legal Say MPs [ 22 November 2016 ]
The Narcotics problem, as far as it is a problem at all is medical not criminal. Using the law to obstruct usage has made drugs far more prevalent while driving prices up and quality down. It has been a Godsend for the Crime industry, for the wonderful people, the Free Traders who stepped in at personal risk to supply the victims of government sabotage.

 

Drug Smugglers Keep National Guard Out  [ 22 May 2018 ]
QUOTE
The Tohono O’odham Nation Indian reservation, located along one of the most heavily-used invasion routes into America from Mexico, has banned US National Guard troops from entering the region, telling officers that they “don’t want white men on their land”—blatantly abusing their fake “First Nation” rights to protect their lucrative drug-running operations................

According to the report, this is not the first time that the Tohono O’odham reservation, which is in the south-central Arizona Sonoran Desert, has banned law enforcement personnel from its land which shares about 75 miles of border with Mexico.

The reservation is about 2.8 million acres or roughly the size of Connecticut and has about 30,000 members. For years it has appeared on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) list because it’s a significant center of illegal drug production, manufacturing, importation and distribution.
UNQUOTE
The Indians make money out of smuggling so why not let America get flooded with Narcotics? People want them. The crime industry helps them - at a price. It is  Free Trade in action.

 

Purdue Pharma ex Wikipedia [ 27 March 2019 ] 
QUOTE
OxyContin  [ aka Oxcontin ] became a blockbuster drug. Purdue had increased its earnings from a few billion in 2007[19] to US$31 billion by 2016.[20] That had increased to US$35 billion by 2017.[21] According to a 2017 article in The New Yorker, Purdue Pharma is "owned by one of America's richest families, with a collective net worth of thirteen billion dollars".
UNQUOTE 
During the Korean war, Sackler  was an army psychiatrist in Denver, Colorado, before joining his brother. The Sackler Family are Jews on the make; that's how they like it.

 

Black Drug Dealer Murdered In Harlem   [ 2 November 2021 ]
QUOTE
A notorious New York City drug kingpin, immortalized in film and in songs by the likes of Jay Z and 50 Cent after going into witness protection for snitching on his partners, was executed in a drive-by shooting Sunday morning.

Alberto 'Alpo' Martinez, 55, was found dead in his 2017 Dodge Ram on the corner of Frederick Douglass Boulevard and West 147 Street in Harlem, police said. 

Martinez, who has lived under witness protection for testifying against drug dealers, was identified under the name he used in witness protection - Abraham Rodriguez. Authorities said he had been living in Lewiston, Maine.. He was found at 3:24 am with multiple gunshot wounds to his torso, authorities told DailyMail.com. Photos of his truck showed at least five bullet holes in the window. EMS took him to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead................

A police source, who told the New York Post Martinez's license plates were from Texas, said Martinez was asking for trouble the second he returned to his old Harlem Haunts.  'You were in the witness protection program because you testified against other drug dealers,' he said. 'You'd make a lot of enemies who have a score to settle. When you return to the same area, word will get out very fast. He's back in the zone.'......

After his 1991 arrest, he would eventually confess to 14 murders before becoming a government witness. 
UNQUOTE
Grassing your little mates is not the way to make friends. Living in Maine with boring neighbours, not many blacks, not much drug dealing would have been a problem. The killer did well; he is a good shot. Most of them aren't.

 

Opioids And Jews       
Opioids are narcotics, just like opium. They are addictive, drugs of despair. This is why they became popular in America after manufacturing was exported overseas. Millions of men lost their jobs, became poorer. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer.

 

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Updated on 05/01/2024 20:19