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War On Drugs

How The ‘War On Drugs’ Tears Families Apart

June 9, 2024 Princess Harmony, Workers' World. , , , ,
Medication Assisted Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder (also known as opioid addiction) is a valid pathway to recovery. In fact, it can be recovery itself, even if a patient requires staying on it for a set period of time or indefinitely. The viewpoint that MAT for chaotic opioid use is a form of recovery is one that people are slowly coming to accept, even if it comes into conflict with other, abstinence-based viewpoints of recovery. Unfortunately, there is a stigma associated with MAT, as expressed in the Narcotics Anonymous World Services Board of Trustees Bulletin #29, “Regarding Methadone and Other Drug Replacement Programs”: “We make a distinction between drugs used by drug replacement programs and other prescribed drugs because such drugs are prescribed specifically as addiction treatment.

Trial Of Honduran Ex-President Reveals Washington’s Protection Of ‘Narco-State’

September 24, 2023 Alexander Rubenstein and Anya Parampil, The Grayzone. , , , , , ,
“Juan Orlando effectively operated Honduras as a narco-state, acquiring political power through narcotics-fueled bribes and maintaining it by allowing the free flow of drugs through Honduras,” US government prosecutors alleged in a May 1 motion filed in the Southern District of New York. Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment targeting Hernández on April 21, 2022, the same day that Honduras extradited him to the US. He currently faces three drug and weapons smuggling charges in the Southern District of New York, including one count of conspiracy to import cocaine to the United States. His trial begins this week, on September 18.

Drug Decriminalization Saves Lives

March 20, 2023 Editors, In These Times. , , ,
The criminalization of drugs hasn’t kept them from becoming a public health hazard — and we can’t just pretend they don’t exist. More than 106,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2021 in the United States, a number that has doubled since 2015. Three-quarters of the overdose deaths in 2021 were from opioid use, and nearly 3 million Americans struggle with opioid use disorder today. To help affected people, many are arguing for a policy of ​“harm reduction” to make drug use less risky. Sites provide clean syringes and alcohol wipes to prevent the spread of infectious diseases for IV drug users, for example and are prepared with oxygen masks and the anti-overdose drug naloxone to help manage bad reactions.

From Wounded Latin America, Demand To Put An End To The War On Drugs

September 30, 2022 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. , , ,
Each year, in the last weeks of September, the world’s leaders gather in New York City to speak at the podium of the United Nations General Assembly. The speeches can usually be forecasted well in advance, either tired articulations of values that do not get acted upon or belligerent voices that threaten war in an institution built to prevent war. However, every once in a while, a speech shines through, a voice emanates from the chamber and echoes around the world for its clarity and sincerity. This year, that voice belongs to Colombia’s recently inaugurated president, Gustavo Petro, whose brief remarks distilled with poetic precision the problems in our world and the cascading crises of social distress, the addiction to money and power, the climate catastrophe and environmental destruction.

At United Nations, Colombia Condemns ‘Addiction To Money And Oil’

September 26, 2022 Ben Norton, Multipolarista. , , , ,
Colombia’s first ever left-wing President Gustavo Petro delivered a historic speech at the United Nations declaring, “The war on drugs has failed.” Petro emphasized that drug addiction is a social problem, and cannot be solved with violence and militarization. Rather, he argued, it is a mere symptom of a much deeper problem: the capitalist system itself, with its “addiction to money and oil.” The Colombian leader warned that the infinite greed of capitalism is destroying the planet, threatening life on Earth. “The cause of the climate disaster is capital – the logic of dedicating ourselves to consume more and more, to produce more and more, and so that a small few can earn more and more [money],” Petro proclaimed. The “logic of increasing accumulation of capital” is ravaging the environment, he warned. “The increasing accumulation of capital is the increasing accumulation of death.”

America’s Drug Wars

July 13, 2021 Alfred McCoy, Tom Dispatch. , ,
Fifty years ago, on June 17, 1971, President Richard Nixon stood before the White House press corps, staffers at his side, to announce “a new, all-out offensive” against drug abuse, which he denounced as “America’s public enemy number one.” He called on Congress to contribute $350 million for a worldwide attack on “the sources of supply.” The first battle in this new drug war would be fought in South Vietnam where, Nixon said, “a number of young Americans have become addicts as they serve abroad.” While the president was declaring his war on drugs, I was stepping off a trans-Pacific flight into the searing tropical heat of Saigon, the South Vietnamese capital, to report on the sources of supply for the drug abuse that was indeed sweeping through the ranks of American soldiers fighting this country’s war in Vietnam.

Let’s Reject The Violent Vs. Nonviolent Crime Dichotomy

January 14, 2021 Kassandra Frederique and Danielle Sered, Truthout. , , ,
November’s election saw criminal legal system and drug policy reform win big at the polls. Oregon became the first state to decriminalize all drugs, and voters overwhelmingly passed other reforms to drug laws, even in deeply red states like South Dakota. Policing took center stage in the national dialogue. And both the vice president and president-elect in their first addresses to the nation promised to “root out systemic racism” in the criminal legal system. The people have spoken, and we are on the precipice of a new moment for justice reform. But how we understand the scope of this collective call for change — and the challenge to which Biden and Harris will have to rise — stands to shape what our new world may look like for decades to come.

As The Global War On Drugs Fades Away, The Only People Who Benefited Were Drug Traffickers

March 19, 2020 Phillip Smith, Drug Reporter, a project of the Independent Media Institute
America shows signs of emerging from the century-long shadow of drug prohibition, with marijuana leading the way and a psychedelic decriminalization movement rapidly gaining steam. It also seems as if the mass incarceration fever driven by the war on drugs has finally broken, although tens if not hundreds of thousands remain behind bars on drug charges.

Mexico: One Failed Drug War Does Not Justify Another

November 10, 2019 By Thomas L. Knapp, The Garrison Center ,
Donald Trump called upon “Mexico, with the help of the United States, to wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth.  We merely await a call from your great new president!” Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador just as promptly rejected Trump’s proposal.  That’s not surprising. He ran for president on a platform that includes ending, not escalating, Mexico’s status as a battlefield in the decades-long US “war on drugs,” a war that created, and continues to empower, the cartels.

Legal Weed Is Great, But Black And Brown Communities Can’t Be Left Behind

January 15, 2019 By Katelyn Johnson, Inthesetimes.com , , ,
In March 2017, Illinois State Rep. Kelly Cassidy and Sen. Heather Steans began co-drafting the Tax & Regulate Cannabis like Alcohol bill. In the nearly two years since, Chicago NORML, a local chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, has encouraged Illinois legislators to prioritize social equity and criminal justice in the final version of the bill.  In a January 2018 speech to industry stakeholders, then-candidate and now Illinois governor-elect JB Pritzker promised to “intentionally include black and brown entrepreneurs” in managing legal marijuana businesses in the state in order to address “historically systemic racism.”

Recovering From The War On Drugs: National Expungement Week October 20-27, 2018

October 26, 2018 Amani Sawari, Sawarimi.org , ,
For decades the Black community has been heavily targeted by the war on drugs which resulted in the disenfranchisement of many families of color and the destruction of Black communities nationwide. Now the same drugs are making white business owners billions of dollars for engaging in the same practices that black ‘entrepreneurs’ were incarcerated for at astronomical rates. Thousands of individuals still wait behind bars while others who have been released still suffer from the effects of their incarceration with records that bar them from the ability to vote, obtain public assistance, find work, fund an education or acquire housing.

Don’t Blame Addicts For America’s Opioid Crisis. Here Are The Real Culprits

September 4, 2017 Chris McGreal, www.theguardian.com , ,
By Chris McGreal for The Guardian - America’s opioid crisis was caused by rapacious pharma companies, politicians who colluded with them and regulators who approved one opioid pill after another. Of all the people Donald Trump could blame for the opioid epidemic, he chose the victims. After his own commission on the opioid crisis issued an interim report this week, Trump said young people should be told drugs are “No good, really bad for you in every way.” The president’s exhortation to follow Nancy Reagan’s miserably inadequate advice and Just Say No to drugs is far from useful. The then first lady made not a jot of difference to the crack epidemic in the 1980s. But Trump’s characterisation of the source of the opioid crisis was more disturbing. “The best way to prevent drug addiction and overdose is to prevent people from abusing drugs in the first place,” he said. That is straight out of the opioid manufacturers’ playbook. Facing a raft of lawsuits and a threat to their profits, pharmaceutical companies are pushing the line that the epidemic stems not from the wholesale prescribing of powerful painkillers - essentially heroin in pill form - but their misuse by some of those who then become addicted.

Thousands Demand End To Killings In Duterte’s Drug War

August 23, 2017 Staff, www.aljazeera.com ,
By Staff of Al Jazeera - Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets of the Philippine capital of Manila to denounce President Rodrigo Duterte's war on drugs, as they marked the death anniversary of one of the country's pro-democracy heroes. Human rights advocates, youth groups, and religious communities on Monday defied a tropical storm that brought steady rain to gather at the memorial of the 1986 people power revolution to call for an end to the killings in Duterte's war on drugs. Amid public pressure, Duterte said on Monday there could have been abuses in his anti-drug war policy. "There is a possibility that in some of police incidents there could be abuses. I admit that," Duterte told reporters in Manila. "These abusive police officers are destroying the credibility of the government." Al Jazeera's Jamela Alindogan, reporting from Manila, said at least 4,000 people joined in the rally, adding that a separate protest was also held in another part of the city. Protesters are demanding an independent investigation into the summary executions and police operations that left thousands of people dead. They said the president should be held accountable for the deaths. Demonstrators waved Philippine flags and carried banners that read: "Resist the Fascist!", "Stop the Killings!", and "We will fight" among others.

The Context Of Trump’s ‘Vile Aggression’ Against Venezuela

February 26, 2017 Staff, www.telesurtv.net , , , ,
By Staff for Telesur. On Monday, the U.S. launched its latest diplomatic attack on Venezuela by officially putting Vice President Tareck El Aissami on a sanctions list reserved for “drug kingpins” without offering any evidence or issuing any criminal charges. Venezuela was quick to respond, with the Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez calling the move “lamentable and highly dangerous,” adding that her government “will not tolerate any aggression on our soil against our ability to be free.” For his part, El Aissami — who has vigorously and categorically denied the accusation — said the “miserable and vile aggression” was simply “an acknowledgment of (his) status as an anti-imperialist revolutionary.” As Venezuela contemplates its official response to the move, it’s important to review the background to this latest sanction.

Trump Plans To Double-Down On Mistake Of The War On Drugs

February 17, 2017 y Phillip Smith, www.alternet.org ,
By y Phillip Smith for AlterNet - In a sharp break with the Obama administration, which distanced itself from harsh anti-drug rhetoric and emphasized treatment for drug users over punishment, President Trump this week reverted to tough drug war oratory and backed it up with a series of executive orders he said are "designed to restore safety in America." "We're going to stop the drugs from pouring in," Trump told law enforcement professionals of the Major Cities Chiefs Association on Wednesday. "We're going to stop those drugs from poisoning our youth, from poisoning our people. We're going to be ruthless in that fight. We have no choice. And we're going to take that fight to the drug cartels and work to liberate our communities from their terrible grip of violence." Trump also lambasted the Obama administration for one its signature achievements in criminal justice reform, opening the prison doors for more than 1,700 drug war prisoners...
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