Pubdate: Sat, 11 May 2013
Source: Daily Review (Towanda, PA)
Copyright: 2013 The Miami Herald
Contact:  http://www.thedailyreview.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1015
Author: Jim Wyss, The Miami Herald

USING MARIJUANA TO CURE HARD DRUG HABITS

(MCT) BOGOTA, Colombia - Marijuana has long been accused of being a 
gateway to deadlier vices. But could cannabis be a swinging door that 
might also lead people away from hard drugs? That's what this capital 
city is trying to find out.

In coming weeks, Bogota is embarking on a controversial public health 
project where it will begin supplying marijuana to 300 addicts of 
bazuco - a cheap cocaine derivative that generates cracklike highs 
and is as addictive as heroin.

Bogota has 7,500 bazuco users among its 9,500 homeless population, 
said Ruben Dario Ramirez, director of the Center for the Study and 
Analysis of Coexistence and Security, which is spearheading the project.

Addicts are often driven to panhandling and crime to support their 
habit, turning pockets of this thriving city into bazuco wastelands 
where junkies huddle to smoke the drug. In the last three years, 277 
homeless people have been murdered, he said.

For the most desperate users, the cannabis cure may be the only way out.

"People accuse us of turning bazuco addicts into marijuana addicts 
but that's an urban myth," he said. "This program is about reducing 
personal harm and the risks to society."

Authorities believe that by supplying addicts with quality-controlled 
medical marijuana with a high THC content (the mind-altering 
component of marijuana) and that is specifically selected to relieve 
the anxiety that comes with kicking bazuco, they might be able to 
rescue some of them.

The idea is controversial. Critics have accused Ramirez and his 
colleagues of smoking their own medicine and say the project risks 
making city government an enabler.

"This plan is completely absurd," said Augusto Perez, the director of 
Nuevos Rumbos, a Colombian think tank that researches drugs and 
addiction. "It's as if they didn't know that everyone that smokes 
bazuco already smokes marijuana. By giving them marijuana, all they 
will be doing is saving the (addicts) money so they can buy more bazuco."

Bazuco is made from the residue left over after processing cocaine 
and it's often mixed with kerosene and sulfuric acid. Smoked, it 
provides a powerful high that's whiplash brief. Perez said the only 
thing harder to kick might be heroin. And abandoning the vice usually 
requires interning the addict in a treatment facility and providing 
intensive therapy.

"I give this program zero probabilities of working," he said.

But advocates say the traditional medical community is stuck in its thinking.

Julian Andres Quintero, the head of Accion Tecnica Social, a 
nonprofit that is working with the district on the initiative, said 
most medical professionals think of drug cessation as the only answer.

"This project is not aimed at getting people to quit using," he said. 
"This is about reducing risks and mitigating the damage. We want 
people to quit a substance that is very, very damaging and transition 
to something less dangerous and which will allow them to function in society."

Marijuana has already been used as a hard-drug alternative in Canada, 
Brazil and Jamaica, he said. A 2002 ethnographic study of Jamaican 
crack users by the dean of the Iowa College of Nursing, for example, 
found that of 14 women who gave up the drug, 13 attributed their 
success to using marijuana.

And while marijuana has been getting most of the attention in 
Bogota's drug initiative, it's just part of the equation. Addicts 
will also be receiving counseling, job training, emergency shelter 
and other services that are already part of the city's social safety net.

Colombia isn't known for having liberal views on drugs. The world's 
top cocaine producer, the nation has, with U.S. backing, been engaged 
in one of the most aggressive, bloody and expensive drug wars in the 
hemisphere.

But domestically, its laws can seem a bit more like Amsterdam. While 
smoking and selling weed are illegal, Colombians are allowed to carry 
small amounts of cocaine and marijuana - or what's called a "personal 
dose" - and are also allowed to grow up to 20 marijuana plants for 
personal consumption.
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