National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has said drug trafficking is becoming more sophisticated on daily basis with the cultivation of Indian hemp gradually spreading to the northern part of the country.

Head, Public Affairs of the agency Ofoyeju Mitchell stated this while speaking at a media roundtable in Abuja organised by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

Ofoyeju said cannabis which is cultivated more in the South is gradually spreading to other parts of the country just as the agency has discovered the abuse of unconventional drugs particularly in the northern part of the country. He also said the growing concern over how organised crime undermine stability and prosperity in Africa and the way it is facilitated by a wide range of people places a demand on the reporter to be accurate, analytical and fearless noting there is need to carry out research on how drug cartels and organised criminal groups work.

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THE Lusaka High Court has struck out a matter in which Green Party president Peter Sinkamba was sued by a non-governmental organisation for advocating the legalisation of marijuana in Zambia on the basis that it was illegal and criminal.

And the case in which Road Transport and Safety Agency chief executive officer, Zindaba Soko and his brother Samuel are jointly charged with assault yesterday failed to take-off because the former did not show up.

Lusaka High Court judge, Chalwe Mchenga, struck out the matter due to non- appearance of parties involved when it came up for hearing.

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For decades Zambia has staked its economic fortunes on copper mining, but when voters go to the polls in January to elect a new president at least one candidate will be looking to send that tradition up in smoke.

Today Peter Sinkamba is due to announce his candidacy on the Green party ticket to replace the late President Michael Sata, who died on 29 October from an undisclosed illness. Sinkamba, regarded as Zambia's leading environmentalist for his battles against the country's big copper mines, is running on an unlikely platform in this socially conservative nation: legalising marijuana.

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KETTAMA, Morocco (AP) - Abdelkhalek Benabdallah strode among towering marijuana plants and checked the buds for the telltale spots of white, indicating they are ready for harvest.

By September much of the crop has been picked and left to dry on the roofs of the stone-and-wood huts that dot the Rif Valley, the heart Morocco's pot-growing region. Benabdallah openly grows the crop, despite the risk: "We are regularly subject to blackmail by the gendarmes," he said as he scythed through stalks and wrapped them into a bundle.

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DAGGA can be as addictive as heroin or alcohol, causes mental health problems and can lead to hard drug use, according to a new study.

The research, conducted over 20 years by Professor Wayne Hall, an adviser to the World Health Organisation, links the use of dagga to a wide range of harmful side effects, from mental illness to lower academic attainment to impaired driving ability.

Hall, a leading expert in addiction at King's College, London, also found that:

One in six teenagers who regularly smoke dagga become dependent on it, as are one in 10 regular adult users;

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The Medical Innovation Bill pursued through Parliament is not to legalise cannabis but rather to provide alternatives for cancer patients

RECENTLY a debate has been revived on the Medical Innovation Bill introduced in Parliament by the late Dr Mario Oriani-Ambrosini, an IFP MP and a close friend of mine.

Dr Oriani-Ambrosini fought a long and courageous battle with terminal lung cancer, during which he ploughed all his energies into researching cancer and how it might be stopped.

He rejected the conventional cancer treatments of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, for they offered no cure and would only prolong his life for a few months, while robbing him entirely of quality of life.

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THE late IFP MP Mario Ambrosini's private member's bill calling for the legalisation of dagga has been revived by Parliament, following his death last month.

Ambrosini decided to end his life after battling stage-four lung cancer for more than a year, his family said soon after his death.

Picking up where Ambrosini left off, the ANC moved a motion in the National Assembly yesterday to note the Medical Innovation Bill, which calls for the legalisation of dagga for medicinal purposes.

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MOGADISHU, Somalia - "The president has arrived, the president has arrived," chant youths in Mogadishu's Beerta Khaatka market, as armed men in trucks mounted with machine guns escort lorries with horns blaring through the throng.

The joking salutation is not for Somalia's president, but hails a national institution nonetheless: white sacks brimming with leafy sprouts of khat, the narcotic shrub chewed across the Horn of Africa and Yemen in a tradition dating back centuries.

The ubiquitous sight of young men with rifles slung over their shoulders and green stalks of khat dangling from their mouths is emblematic of the Somalia of recent decades, where marauding Islamist rebels and warlords bent on carving out personal fiefdoms have fomented a culture of guns and violence.

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IN MOGADISHU - "The president has arrived, the president has arrived," chant youths in Mogadishu's Beerta Khaatka market, as armed men in trucks mounted with machine guns escort lorries with horns blaring through the throng.

The joking salutation is not for Somalia's president, but hails white sacks brimming with leafy sprouts of khat, the narcotic shrub chewed across the Horn of Africa and Yemen in a tradition dating back centuries, which has recently been banned in the UK.

The sight of young men with rifles slung over their shoulders and green stalks of khat dangling from their mouths is emblematic of the Somalia of recent decades, where Islamist rebels and warlords have fomented a culture of guns and violence.

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WEST Africa must openly confront its political and governance weaknesses to curb the growing drug trade in the region, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said on Wednesday.

"West Africa is no longer only a transit zone of drugs but an attractive destination where pushers take advantage of the weak political system to perpetuate their trade," Obasanjo, who chairs the West Africa Commission on Drugs (WACD), said while presenting his report to Ghana's President John Mahama.

"We believe that we should confront openly the political and governance weaknesses which the traffickers exploit," Obasanjo said.

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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.

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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.

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PRO medical dagga activist Sheldon Cramer (aka Bobby Hashgreen) from Richards Bay is calling for a review of the laws prohibiting the use of dagga.

This comes after Cramer was arrested for smoking dagga in public during the Global Cannabis March in Durban last month.

He was charged with possession of dagga and appeared at the Durban Magistrate's Court last week.

During his arrest, Cramer commented that if it was not for people standing up for what they believe in, South Africa would still be in the apartheid era.

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IN A bid to clamp down on criminal activities in schools, a joint operation between the SAPS, Neighbourhood Safety Watch, K9 Unit and metro police was carried out at a Mitchells Plain High School last week.

The school was raided on Friday after the principal requested help from authorities.

A number of dangerous weapons including knives and a sword were seized while dagga, cigarettes and liquor where also found in pupils' possession.

"More and more school principals are requesting our assistance in carrying out searches at schools to ensure the safety of students.

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AS THE disinformational efforts to legalise marijuana for recreational usage light up ("Scientists support legalising marijuana", Cape Argus, June 6) one can expect sound logic and common sense to be the first casualties of the pro-pot war.

A case in point is the quote in Friday's article by JP van Niekerk of the SA Medical Journal, who claims: "There is good evidence that decriminalisation of the use of drugs reduces the harm of drugs=C2=85 generates revenue for the government. A good case can be made for its legalisation." Next, I expect Van Niekerk to break out in a rendition of Timothy Leary's old motto - "turn on, tune in, and drop out".

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It will generate income and reduce drug ills, say boffins

MP Mario Oriani-Ambrosini's impassioned plea in Parliament to have dagga legalised for medical use has received support from scientists, with one Cape Town researcher suggesting decriminalising it could reduce drug ills and generate income for the government.

JP van Niekerk, consulting editor of the SA Medical Journal, wrote in this month's issue that dagga was much less harmful than two legalised drugs: alcohol and tobacco.

He described Oriani-Ambrosini's plea as a wake-up call, but said it was probably wiser to go beyond legalising marijuana for medical purposes.

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CAPE TOWN - Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) politician Mario OrianiAmbrosini has credited the use of alternative treatments, including the administration of cannabis oils as a suppository, for clearing his lung cancer.

"The cannabis has cleared the lung cancer. It is gone. But the cancer in mesothelioma (cancer of the pleura) is still there," he said yesterday, after being sworn in as an MP.

Mr Oriani-Ambrosini has become a standard-bearer for cancer treatment since he made an impassioned plea in the National Assembly two months ago for regulation of what are regarded as alternative methods to combat the disease.

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MAYBE the man who was busted with R1-million worth of dagga wanted to use it for medical reasons.

The 48-year-old from Hamburg, Roodepoort, in the West Rand, transformed his garage into a greenhouse (a glass building where plants are protected from the cold) fully-equipped with lights, electric fans and and all other necessary objects to grow his stash.

"JMPD officers responded to a tip-off, and discovered the dagga which had a street value of approximately R1-million," Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Wayne Minnaar said.

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I'VE never taken any leisure drugs. I never will - well, maybe to end some unbearable terminal disease, but otherwise, no. But there are many people who do take drugs for pleasure, and there always will be. I don't support the use of drugs, but the current laws and their enforcement haven't fixed the problem, in fact, they may have made things worse.

The war on drugs has actually been a failure many ways with many unintended consequences and lots of collateral damage.

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(AP) - Tunisia's prime minister has backed a reform of the country's harsh penalties for cannabis possession, calling it "out of sync" with current times.

In a press conference late Wednesday, Mehdi Jomaa promised to "amend the law to adapt it to the new reality" in society. The current law gives prison sentences of up to five years for possession of cannabis.

Jomaa was responding to a question over the situation of prominent blogger Aziz Hamami, arrested Monday for cannabis use.

Hamami's outspoken blog gained widespread attention during the 2011 revolution against Tunisia's former dictator. Activists accuse the police of using harsh drug laws to target those they disagree with. Supporters for Hamami demonstrated for his release on Tuesday.

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