THE page-four report "Strategy on drugs slammed" (Cape Times, July 21) rightly draws attention to the negative consequences of drug prohibition on society in general and on public health in particular. But the "experts" who make a living trying to cure these ills must find a far more nuanced approach if real progress is to be made. The opening premise that "drug users... could benefit from a variety of support structures instead of strict punitive measures" fails to recognise the fact that many - probably most - "drug users" would, like most drinkers, simply like to be left alone to use their drug of choice, without interference from puritanical, interfering busybodies in the employ of a "Nanny State". [continues 200 words]
WHEN Dr Richard Oxtoby says that there are "no rational grounds" for making cannabis ("dagga") illegal, he hits the nail squarely on the head. I am charged with the crime of cultivation and possession of cannabis, so I recently approached the National Prosecuting Authority to discuss the possibility of a plea bargain based on restorative justice. Could I perhaps meet with, apologise to and somehow compensate the victims of my crime in return for a reduced sentence? Of course not, there are no victims; so as a simple stoner, I am denied an opportunity available to robbers and rapists. No rational grounds indeed. Stephen Pain Friends of the Earth, Riversdale [end]
Dear Editor and Quinton The article which appeared in Wednesday's newspaper: "Legalise it, says General Vearey" needs further attention. It is very much one-sided, and speaks of a very narrow mind on this topic. The only thing said of any meaning was a bigger focus on prevention. Yet, this needs much, much more emphasis. As a matter of fact, it needs massive national emphasis. An article in this week's Eike Stad newspaper, the local weekly publication in Stellenbosch, should also be read. Drugs are often the result of crime, and not the other way round. [continues 632 words]
I NOTE, (Cape Times, June 8) that General Vearey has called for a review of South Africa's war on drugs. There is no doubt these thugs and gangs are a law unto themselves and the police are simply not coping. How many more killings of innocent people, especially children caught in the crossfire, can the Government allow to continue? Helen Zille, a while back, and Patricia de Lille asked for the army to be brought into the Manenberg area. We use our army all over Africa to help countries on a war footing, but we have a war in our own backyard. [continues 163 words]
ONE of the Western Cape's top police officers has called for a review of South Africa's war on drugs. And the SA National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence (Sanca) and the Central Drug Authority (CDA) agreed with the province's deputy police commissioner, Jeremy Vearey, that a strict regime of law enforcement and demand reduction had been ineffective in fighting the use of illegal drugs. In a status update posted recently on Facebook, Vearey used the example of a Liverpool psychiatrist, John Marks, who while consulting for Britain's National Health Service in the early 1980s, gave crack cocaine and heroin to his drug-addicted patients to prevent them from "robbing and mugging to fund their habit". [continues 504 words]
THOUSANDS joined the call to legalise and regulate marijuana in a march through the city centre at the weekend. At the annual Cannabis March on Saturday, people walked from the corner of Tennant and Keizersgracht streets, through the heart of Cape Town up Long Street and down the Company's Garden. Johannes Berkhout of Bongalong, the company which organised the march, said there was growing interest in the legalisation of cannabis, citing its benefits. "People that were present at the event range from doctors to technicians. These are not people who get high when they go to work, but they support the legalisation and regulation of it," said Berkhout. Berkhout added that with public events like the march, the stigma around cannabis use was lessened. "We want government to give us feedback on this. They say people don't want dagga legalised, but the march showed the opposite." [end]
I HAVE yet to read the texts recommended by Clifford Schaffer in his letter "Drug laws not helping" on March 15, but otherwise I agree wholeheartedly with his views. Richard Nixon, under immense pressure following the US disaster in Vietnam and the looming Watergate affair, desperately needed a rallying cry to divert the public's attention and a "war on drugs" fitted the bill perfectly. It also put the blame for the thousands of returning heroin-addicted GIs wholly on the drug itself and not on their horrific wartime experiences. [continues 787 words]
THE question of what to do about drugs is not a new one. Over the last 100 years, there have been numerous major government commissions around the world that have studied the drug laws and made recommendations for changes. You can find the full text of all of them at http://druglibrary.org/schaffer under "Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy". They all reached remarkably similar conclusions, no matter who did them, or where, when, or why. They all agreed that the current laws were based on ignorance and nonsense, and that the current policy does more harm than good no matter what you assume about the dangers of drugs. You don't have to take my word for that. Read them yourself. [continues 179 words]
IT IS impossible to know how many people have been deterred from using cannabis out of deference to the law. Decades of prohibition have not prevented the drug from establishing itself as a part of the repertoire of psychoactive substances that British people use for leisure and, for a few, nonrecreational medication. Despite the theoretical threat of prosecution, cannabis use has become sufficiently uncontroversial for stories about David Cameron dabbling in his youth to have surfaced without measurable impact on his standing as prime minister. [continues 213 words]
FACT: Medical marijuana is a drug. Fact: Nearly all drug prescriptions are filled at pharmacies but not medical marijuana. Should that change? The news that one of the country's largest drug stores is quietly looking into teaming up with a medical-grade cannabis grower will feed reflection on what Canada's rules for selling both medical and recreational marijuana should one day look like. There's a good argument to be made for selling a psychoactive substance in a secure environment where people have advanced degrees in such matters. [continues 211 words]
AN APPLICATION to legalise dagga was postponed in the Western Cape High Court yesterday to allow medical and legal experts to testify about the pros and cons of the issue. Judge Dennis Davis said the social consequences of legalising dagga needed to be argued in court. The matter could be settled after expert opinions had been gathered. In the run-up to the next appearance, Judge Davis said he would "meet various institutions for expert opinions for admissible evidence. There is medicinal use and drug culture to consider here". [continues 357 words]
IN ONE of several multimillion-rand drug busts in the country last week, a mandrax laboratory in the Ekurhuleni town of Nigel illustrates the magnitude of the drug problem we face. Police, responding to an arson complaint at a disused church building on a smallholding, found the chemicals used to manufacture the drug. Three suspects were arrested and chemicals worth up to R30 million were confiscated. It is a fact that drugs are a major driver of our soaring crime rate, particularly among the poor and unemployed. [continues 276 words]
A YEAR into Colorado's "great social experiment", legal marijuana is part of the state's mainstream. But Colorado's drug laws are still at odds with its neighbours, and most of the US. Denver's pedestrian mall is the city's busiest shopping district, an all-American high street where crowds bustle between glass-fronted rows of popular retailers. Stores here offer shoppers a high-end array of merchandise, from children's toys to cowboy boots and, since April, legal marijuana, displayed like so many strains of exotic tea in a mood-lit shopfront across from the Sheraton hotel. [continues 746 words]
THE DAYS when politicians can get away with confusing the drug war's tremendous collateral damage with a comparatively harmless plant are coming to an end. If the goal of cannabis prohibition is to subsidise violent drug cartels, prohibition is a success. The drug war distorts supply and demand so that big money grows on little trees. If the goal is deterrence, cannabis prohibition is a clear failure. Consider the experience of the former land of the free and current record-holder in citizens incarcerated. [continues 90 words]
THE WAR on drugs has been a losing fight for 40 years. The response to unending failure has always been to demand more law enforcement and more prison cells. It is unclear why the mood should be changing just now. It isn't that consumers have suddenly got too numerous to ignore: rates of cannabis use, which had, throughout the late 20th century, seemed to be on an interminable upward trajectory, are now stable or even declining. But then the long century of criminalisation never had any more to do with evidence than America's disastrous interwar experiment with prohibiting the undoubtedly-dangerous demon drink. Then, as now, the practicalities of harm-reduction and the principle of not persecuting citizens who harm no one but themselves, point to legalisation. [continues 227 words]
Britain has become the latest nation to formally outlaw the herbal stimulant khat, the bushy leaf chewed by many Somalis, Yemenis, Kenyans and Ethiopians. Under a new law that came into effect yesterday, khat is now a "class C drug", making possession punishable by up to two years in jail and supply and production punishable by up to 14 years. Khat is the leaves and shoots of the shrub Catha edulis, which are chewed to obtain a mild stimulant effect. [end]
SAN FRANCISCO: Former Mexican President Vicente Fox took his crusade to legalise marijuana to San Francisco on Monday, joining pot advocates to urge the US and his own country to decriminalise the sale and recreational use of cannabis. Legalisation, Fox told reporters after the meeting, was the only way to end the violence of Mexican drug cartels, which he blamed on the US war on drugs. "The cost of the war is becoming unbearable," Fox said. Every day, he said, 40 young people are killed in drug-related violence. Fox's position on legalising drugs has evolved since the days when he co-operated with US efforts to clamp down on production in Mexico during his 2000-2006 presidency. [end]
THE execution yesterday in China of a South African for drug smuggling brings the horror of the death penalty close to home. Janice Linden of Durban was put to death after being convicted of smuggling 3kg of methamphetamine into the country in 2008. China is not alone in the world in imposing the death sentence, but it is by far the most enthusiastic proponent of state-sanctioned executions. China does not publish statistics on the number of people executed annually, but Amnesty International estimates it to be in the thousands, though earlier this year the number of crimes carrying the death penalty in China was reduced by 13 to 55. The number of executions every year is widely believed to dwarf those in all other countries combined. [continues 233 words]
More than 1,000 South Africans are "languishing in appalling conditions" behind bars in foreign countries - 65 percent of them for drug-related offences. Of the 1,062 South Africans serving sentences abroad, 177 are in Brazil and 109 in the United Kingdom. Most of those in Brazil are on drug-related offences. In Botswana and Peru there are 66 South Africans in jail and in Pakistan 42. Most of them jailed for drug offences. And those are the known cases where citizens have exercised their right to request consular assistance. [continues 570 words]
A drug den erected outside a council-owned property has been demolished - but by its former occupants, who beat officials to the punch and knocked the structure down before it could be broken down by Metro Police. Mayor Helen Zille and the Metro Police's drug unit went to Langa early on Wednesday morning to demolish the structure, but discovered that their work had been done for them. Earlier this month the City of Cape Town evicted people from the council-owned residential property because drugs were being sold there. [continues 108 words]
