OTTAWA - When Robert was 18, he was arrested by Montreal's police for possession of a small amount of hashish, an event that would upend his young life.

The charge brought him 30 days in jail, and the conviction ended his part-time job as a translator.

"Back then, you smoke a joint, you would get arrested," said Robert, who asked that only his first name be used because of the continuing stigma of his criminal record. "Then the cops would put you in a car, then pull over and give you a couple of shots in the head. You get slapped around just because of smoking."

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In a referendum in November, Oregon became the first state to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and LSD. The move was inspired by a 2001 law in Portugal that removed incarceration as a penalty for drug possession. To judge by "Drug Use for Grown-Ups," Carl Hart welcomed this news, which came too late for him to mention in his provocative and enlightening book. He opens with the announcement: "I am an unapologetic drug user."

Mr. Hart, a professor of psychology and a neuroscientist at Columbia University, asserts that "recreational drugs can be used safely to enhance many vital human activities." He bases his claim on decades of research on the behavioral and physiological effects of drugs in humans, coupled with his personal use. Thanks to drugs, he says, "I am a happier and better person." He asks that we think about drugs in a more nuanced way, even at a time when opioid abuse is still headline news. Thus his book represents a calculated risk-namely, that by portraying drug use as so potentially rewarding for responsible users, it may inadvertently seduce non-grown-ups into hazardous use.

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CULIACAN, Mexico - Like a lot of businesses, the Sinaloa Cartel was knocked back on its heels as the coronavirus swept the globe and travel ground to a near halt.

Government measures to contain the virus had fouled up its operations, interrupting the supply of chemicals for manufacturing synthetic drugs like fentanyl and methamphetamine and cutting off trafficking routes across international borders.

But the cartel is not just any business. It established itself as one of the world's most powerful drug trafficking groups with a trademark mix of business acumen, ingenuity and lawlessness.

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The House endorsed a landmark retreat in the nation's decades-long war on drugs Friday, voting to remove marijuana from the federal schedule of controlled substances and provide for the regulation and taxation of legal cannabis sales.

The vote was 228 to 164 and was the first time either chamber of Congress has voted on the issue of federally decriminalizing cannabis.

The measure is not expected to pass into law, and, because of political skittishness, it was voted on only after the November election and more than a year after it emerged from committee. But the House took a stand at a moment of increasing momentum, with voters last month opting to liberalize marijuana laws in five states - including three that President Trump won handily.

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It's disingenuous of Seamus R. Fallon ("Oregon Drug Law Change Can Help Families," Letters, Nov. 24) to insist that two grams of cocaine is one-third the amount a drug dealer would typically carry. What is the source for such a statement? Based on my experience as a high-school teacher, few of the drug users in their teen years are "drug dealers." They are constant consumers, many on a daily basis, of stimulants of any kind. Two grams of cocaine is easily quartered for four classmates to afford a half-gram each, plenty to get amped up, behind some brewskis, especially for diminutive teen girls. None of the group is "a dealer" in the sense Mr. Fallon proffers his straw man; they are end-users for the dealers.

Oregon's abandonment of its youth to the drug subculture, in looming years of turmoil and despair, will show in time that: "As the twig is bent, so is the tree is inclined." Can Oregon not see the forest for the trees?

J. Charles Sykes

[end]

Mr. Fallon's letter highlights one of the unappreciated strengths of our federal republic when compared with most other countries:

Individual states can run innovative political experiments without central government interference. When the success or failure of the experiment is evaluated, other states can follow (or avoid) the example as they wish. The trial by Oregon should be monitored and compared with similar results with a placebo (e.g., Washington state). Hard facts, not soft opinions, should guide the country as we deal with drug and overdose problems.

Clyde Stauffer

Cincinnati

[end]

MEXICO CITY - Tiger cubs and semiautomatic weapons. Piles of cash and armored cars. Fields of poppies watered to the sound of ballads glorifying Mexican drug cartel culture.

This is the world of Cartel TikTok, a genre of videos depicting drug trafficking groups and their activities that is racking up hundreds of thousands of views on the popular social media platform.

But behind the narco bling and dancing gang members lies an ominous reality: With Mexico set to again shatter murder records this year, experts on organized crime say Cartel TikTok is just the latest propaganda campaign designed to mask the blood bath and use the promise of infinite wealth to attract expendable young recruits.

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In 2013, Joy Hollingsworth moved with her family from Seattle out to the country with a plan to build a cannabis business.

Washington State had recently legalized recreational marijuana, and Barack Obama had just been re-elected. For Ms. Hollingsworth, a former basketball player, and her brother, Raft Hollingsworth III, a former University of Washington student who had been growing medical marijuana, it seemed like as good a time as any to buy a farm and turn a profit.

So began the Hollingsworth Cannabis Company, a Black-owned family business in what has become a very white and increasingly corporate-dominated industry.

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In approaching Errol Morris's "My Psychedelic Love Story," it doesn't hurt to have some familiarity with "Wormwood," the 2017 Netflix docudrama miniseries. In it, the fabled documentarian told the story of Frank Olson, a CIA employee who mysteriously fell to his death in 1953 nine days after being slipped LSD as part of an agency experiment. Was he pushed or did he jump? Was hippie socialite Joanna Harcourt-Smith being used as a CIA tool when her boyfriend, Timothy Leary, became a government informant in the mid-'70s? And what in the world is the connection?

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To induce dread in a paranoiac, one need only invoke two acronyms: C.I.A. and LSD Along with a third and a fourth - U.F.O. and J.F.K. - these were key ingredients in the alphabet soup of conspiracy theory for more than half a century.

But. You don't have to be a paranoiac, because sometimes dread-inducing combinations and schemes do yield horrific results. The 2017 Errol Morris-directed mini-series, "Wormwood," to which "My Psychedelic Love Story" is a sequel of sorts, went into detail about the C.I.A. and LSD. It showed that the cloak-and-dagger organization and the hallucinogenic drug met up earlier than most might have guessed.

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Now that Oregon voters have agreed to end nearly all criminal penalties for drug possession, state officials have just over two months to set up a new recovery-focused system, a task that is particularly complicated due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Measure 110, which goes into effect Feb. 1, allows a maximum fine of $100 for possession of drugs including heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines along with a mandatory health assessment. The first statewide law of its kind in the nation passed with support of 58% of voters this month. It also mandates new recovery centers, paid for by marijuana taxes and savings from less incarceration.

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Naomi Schaefer Riley and John Walters state that Oregon decriminalized "small amounts of harder drugs, including cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine" ("Legal Drugs Are Fashionable-and Treacherous for Children," op-ed, Nov. 19) and that the passage of Measure 110 in Oregon "lower[s] the risk and cost of doing business for drug dealers." It's an erroneous claim. Measure 110 says that possession of less than one gram of heroin, various low amounts of amphetamines and less than two grams of cocaine is decriminalized. No drug dealer would carry anything less than three times the amounts in the measure.

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MEXICO CITY - On June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon stood in front of the White House press corps and made his historic declaration of a new type of war. "Public Enemy No. 1 in the United States is drug abuse," he said. "In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it's necessary to wage a new all-out offensive."

It would be a government-wide effort, and rally the United States's power abroad to stem the supply of drugs. Among the countries targeted was Mexico, which was home to abundant marijuana production and had been resistant to aerial crop spraying.

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Next year will mark 50 years since President Richard Nixon declared drugs "public enemy number one," launching a new war on drugs that has pumped hundreds of billions of dollars into law enforcement, led to the incarceration of millions of people - disproportionately Black - and has done nothing to prevent drug overdoses. In spite of the widespread, growing opposition to this failed war, made clear yet again on Election Day, punitive policies and responses to drug use and possession persist. As President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris prepare to take office, it is abundantly clear that they have a mandate from the electorate to tackle this issue.

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The U.S. election didn't produce a blue wave or a red wave, but some are celebrating a green wave as voters in Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota approved the legalization of recreational marijuana. Meanwhile, Oregonians decriminalized the possession of small amounts of harder drugs, including cocaine, heroin and methamphetamines. "Drugs, once thought to be the scourge of a healthy society, are getting public recognition as a part of American life," the New York Times gushed.

In reality, drugs are very much a scourge, particularly in the lives of young children. In 2019 parental substance abuse was listed as a cause for a child's removal to foster care 38% of the time, a share that has risen steadily in the past decade. Experts suggest this is an underestimate and the real number may be up to 80%.

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All eyes were on Philadelphia this month, as the outcome of the election rested in poll workers' hands. It's not surprising that the citizens of Philly were ready for change - they've faced a disproportionately heavy toll as a result of the current administration's ineffective coronavirus policies. And that toll has tragically included an increased rate of deadly opioid overdoses.

But Philly isn't alone - overdoses tragically have increased in communities across the nation, from San Francisco to Burlington, Vt.

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The drug war needs to end. If the AJC investigated, it would likely find most of the violence is drug war-related. The police are doing the job they were given. You may not like the way they do it, but do not blame them for doing their highly dangerous job. Either make drugs legal, or let the government compete with the drug lords by taking confiscated drugs and giving them free to drug addicts in a special recovery program. If drugs are free or legal, there is no reason for drug lords to exist. They cannot compete with free. This is the way to end most of the violence and social injustice. Not all of it, I am sorry to say, but it would be a start.

L.O. COX, CONYERS

[end]

OAKLAND, Calif. - In the weeks leading up to November, Iashia Kilian felt her anxiety deepen.

She knew her vote in the swing state of Michigan could help decide who the next president would be. She had done everything she could to help campaign for her candidate of choice. Now, all she could do was sit back, wait and make sure she had her favorite marijuana edibles at hand.

"The panic, the anxious feelings, it has all been too much. I knew I was only going to get through it with some help," said Ms. Kilian, 43, who lives in Center Line. "I used to be the kind of person who would judge someone, especially a mother like me, taking edibles. But you know what? Everything happening here in this country is just too much. The people need some help."

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One of America's greatest mistakes over the last century was the war on drugs, so it's thrilling to see voters in red and blue states alike moving to unwind it.

The most important step is coming in Oregon, where voters easily passed a referendum that will decriminalize possession of even hard drugs like cocaine and heroin, while helping users get treatment for addiction. The idea is to address drug use as a public health crisis more than as a criminal justice issue.

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Americans were still waiting for clarity on the presidential race Wednesday morning. Perhaps lost in the frantic haze of election night was the legalization of recreational marijuana in four states.

Arizona, New Jersey, South Dakota and Montana all passed legislation Tuesday permitting the possession of weed by adults, which means 15 states have legalized recreational weed or voted to legalize it.

South Dakota and Mississippi passed initiatives to allow medical marijuana, which means 36 states permit the legal distribution of medical weed, according to a tally by NORML, a nonprofit marijuana public advocacy group.

[end]