Opposition: Feds need to act before legalizing pot OTTAWA - Opposition parties are asking why the federal government did not consider sooner how to deal with three United Nations drug treaties after they learned Thursday the issue is expected to go before the cabinet this fall. Officials in Global Affairs Canada have been reviewing options available to cabinet on how to deal with the treaties - the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances and the 1988 Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances - given the government's plan to legalize marijuana by July 2018. [continues 327 words]
It is obvious that Duterte's reforms are being blocked by his enemies. Their objective is to blacken his image and make his campaign against drug lords difficult and frustrate government reform. They are not bothered that if the drug lords and their backers (politicians mostly) are not stopped the drugs will proliferate and the problem will be impossible to solve. It is a war between criminals and their victims. Before that happens Filipinos must stop them or it will go out of hand. I am reprinting here the post of BayanKo's adviser Jose Alejandrino which is now viralling in social media. We should not waste time with so-called congressional investigations from the very senators accused of protecting drug lords. Instead we should mobilize as we did in Duterte's Luneta rally to spare our country, the poor and especially the young, from the evil that confronts us. [continues 945 words]
Although President Duterte's police methods have drawn concern in various parts of the world, even those who deplore his methods at home are praying that his 'war on drugs' would somehow succeed. However, international experts who have done extensive studies on the global drug wars are deeply pessimistic; they describe the "war on drugs" as a failed strategy, and are calling for a major policy "rethink." These experts have not condemned the extrajudicial killings, the shoot-on-sight and "surrender or else" orders in the present drug war, as some UN officials, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and certain international publications have. Their studies precede DU30's war by at least a couple of years. [continues 1824 words]
FOR THE first time in 20 years, the UN has convened a special session on "the world drug problem" amid fierce international debate about whether drug users should primarily be punished or rehabilitated. The UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs, which started yesterday and is scheduled to run until tomorrow, was called after Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala appealed to the body to revise the global approach to illegal drugs. After two decades - and a trillion or so dollars later - the "war-on-drugs" approach of criminalising drug users has dismally failed to prevent the distribution and use of illegal drugs. [continues 824 words]
NEW YORK - Afghanistan has called for more international support for its efforts in fighting the drug problem as the anti-narcotics war is "beyond the limits of any single government". Slamat Azimi, the minister of counter narcotics of Afghanistan, made the statement at the Special Session of the UN General Assembly on the World Drug Problem here. "It is obvious that fighting drugs and narcotics is beyond the limits of any single government; therefore, there is a need for extensive help from the international community. [continues 174 words]
Many at the UN General Assembly this week, not least the Latin American countries, tired of the problems borne of criminalising users, will make the case for harm-reduction programmes, writes Kerry Cullinan. FOR THE first time in 20 years, the UN has convened a special session on "the world drug problem" amid fierce international debate about whether drug users should primarily be punished or rehabilitated. The UN General Assembly special session on drugs, which started yesterday and runs until tomorrow, was called after Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala appealed to the body to revise the global approach to illegal drugs. [continues 830 words]
Many members of the UN General Assembly are tired of the problems borne of criminalising drug users, and will be making the case instead for harm-reduction programmes, writes Kerry Cullinan For the first time in 20 years, the UN has convened a special session on "the world drug problem" amid fierce international debate about whether drug users should primarily be punished or rehabilitated. The UN General Assembly Special Session on drugs, which started yesterday and runs until tomorrow, was called after Mexico, Colombia and Guatemala appealed to the body to revise the global approach to illegal drugs. [continues 852 words]
In 1998, a special session of the United Nations General Assembly agreed to set a 10-year deadline to make the world "drug free". After an embarrassing failure to achieve this goal, the deadline was extended a further 10 years, setting the world up for another inevitable failure in 2019. In the years since the use, availability and variety of illicit drugs have escalated exponentially. It is estimated by the UK charity Transform Foundation that 300 million people worldwide used illegal drugs in 2012, contributing to a global market worth $US330 billion a year. [continues 626 words]
World leaders have an opportunity to act on the global drug problem that causes untold human suffering and costs billions a year. The discussions will have an immediate flow-on effect to changes in drug policy being contemplated in Australia and around the world. In 1998, a special session of the United Nations General Assembly agreed to set a 10-year deadline to make the world "drug free". After an embarrassing failure to achieve this goal, the deadline was extended a further 10 years, setting the world up for another inevitable failure in 2019. [continues 781 words]
The year 2008 was momentous. Lehman Brothers collapsed, Radovan Karad i was arrested, Russian troops massed on the Georgian border, and Barack Obama beat John McCain to the White House. But 2008 was also significant for something that didn't happen. It was the year that the world didn't eliminate the illicit drugs problem. This quixotic goal had been set a decade earlier at a United Nations general assembly special session when, under the vainglorious slogan "We can do it", the supranational body pledged that, by 2008, the world would be "drug free". [continues 2177 words]
Re: Focus On Harm Reduction, Katrina Pacey and Donald MacPherson; Canada Causes Stir At UN Drug Conference, both, March 17. I applaud the assistant deputy minister of health, Hillary Geller, on her public support for harm reduction, including supervised injection services, at the UN Narcotic Drug conference in Vienna. We need supervised injections services exactly because narcotics like heroin and fentanyl are dangerous. Providing medical supervision during consumption save lives, increase uptake into treatment, reduces crime and prevents related diseases. These facts are proved by numerous studies, looking at outcomes at Insite in Vancouver and more than 60 sites worldwide. [continues 122 words]
Re. "Canadian causes stir at UN with drug speech," March 17 I applaud the assistant deputy minister of health, Hillary Geller, on her public support for harm reduction, including supervised injection services, at the United Nation narcotic drug conference in Vienna. I was disappointed with the negative spin of your article, which is not based on the available scientific evidence. We need supervised injections services exactly because narcotics like heroin and fentanyl are dangerous. Providing medical supervision during consumption saves lives, increases uptake into treatment, reduces crime and prevents related diseases. [continues 132 words]
Not only are the legislative hurdles to safe injection sites unnecessary and unjustifiable, but also in some places, they will be nearly impossible to overcome Supervised injection sites have the potential "to save countless lives." This is what Federal Health Minister Jane Philpott told the CBC last week, echoing what she said this year when she visited Insite, a supervised injection site in Vancouver. This clear support is a welcome change at the federal level, and was reflected in Canada's unprecedented statement last week at the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna. [continues 534 words]
Progressive Plan Earns Eruption of Applause The Liberal government used its first foray into the global anti-narcotics arena this week to signal a clear shift from the war on drugs philosophy, promising more safe-injection sites, promoting "harm reduction" and touting its plan to legalize marijuana. The speech by Hilary Geller, an assistant deputy minister of health, caused a stir at the generally staid Commission on Narcotic Drugs conference in Vienna, observers said. The audience of government and non-governmental organization officials from around the world "erupted in applause" midway through the address and gave a prolonged ovation at the end, said Jason Nickerson, an Ottawa-based researcher who is attending the meeting. [continues 551 words]
Singapore's uncompromising stance against drugs is the reason it has stayed relatively drug-free, with arrested drug abusers comprising less than 0.1 per cent of the country's population. Senior Minister of State for Home Affairs Desmond Lee said this on Monday at a meeting of international delegates, at the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) in Vienna, Austria. The event is a preparatory meeting for the upcoming UN General Assembly Special Session on the world's drug problem next month, when members will set goals for global drug control in the next decade. [continues 550 words]
Nick Clegg and Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka Set Out Their Vision Before a Forthcoming UN Summit Standing on the podium at the United Nations in New York in June 1998, Kofi Annan declared: "It is time for all nations to say 'yes' to the challenge of working towards a drug-free world!" The leaders assembled at that meeting agreed: illegal drugs were to be eradicated from the face of the planet. They even set a deadline: 10 years to rid the globe of this scourge. A drug-free world by 2008. [continues 979 words]
The UN wants its members to decriminalise drugs, and Sir Richard Branson thinks that is just great. Well, it is not quite like that; as so often, the story is more nuanced than the headline. The paper Sir Richard leaked, which urges "decriminalising drug use and possession for personal consumption", was drawn up for a conference in Kuala Lumpur on harm reduction by Dr Monica Beg, an official at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna. It has since been withdrawn and, as you can gather from the outcry, it is certainly a "third-rail issue" you touch it at your peril. [continues 907 words]
'Decriminalise the Possession and Use of All Substances' United Nations officials have called for the possession and use of all drugs to be decriminalised by governments, in a private report hailed as a "turning-point in drug policy reform". But the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) immediately distanced itself from the controversial conclusions, which were leaked by the Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson, and insisted they did not represent the UN's official position. The briefing paper argues that criminalising drug use increases death rates among addicts and has led to the jailing of millions of people for non-violent offences. [continues 899 words]
Ketamine is a vital anesthetic in the Third World. But now China wants it banned for everyone because of its own recreational drug users At the same time America was repealing its disastrous experiment with alcohol prohibition, U.S. states were passing laws restricting the growth and sale of marijuana. It's little wonder that many of the problems experienced during prohibition - the growth of organized crime, mass flouting of the law, the incarceration of otherwise-law-abiding, non-violent offenders, higher-potency substances, etc. - are now associated with the War on Drugs. [continues 1027 words]
The anesthetic, a popular club drug, is widely used in surgeries in poor countries In a dispute that pits the war on drugs against global health needs - and one UN agency against another - a pair of Canadian researchers is spearheading a last-ditch bid to keep a widely used anesthetic from being declared an illicit narcotic. The Chinese-led proposal to put ketamine on the international schedule of "psychotropic" substances - alongside the likes of LSD and mescaline - stems from its use as a club drug said to deliver hallucinogenic "cheap thrills." [continues 672 words]
UN vote could list anesthetic as illicit narcotic In a dispute that pits the war on drugs against global health needs - and one UN agency against another - a pair of Canadian researchers is spearheading a last-ditch bid to keep a widely used anesthetic from being declared an illicit narcotic. The Chinese-led proposal to put ketamine on the international schedule of "psychotropic" substances - alongside the likes of LSD and mescaline - stems from its use as a club drug said to deliver hallucinogenic "cheap thrills." [continues 361 words]
In a dispute that pits the war on drugs against global health needs - and one UN agency against another - a pair of Canadian researchers is spearheading a last ditch bid to keep a widely used anesthetic from being declared an illicit narcotic. The Chinese-led proposal to put ketamine on the international schedule of "psychotropic" substances - alongside the likes of LSD and mescaline - stems from its use as a club drug said to deliver hallucinogenic "cheap thrills." But "scheduling" the medicine would also likely deprive most of the developing world of an inexpensive anesthetic employed in countless surgeries, say opponents ranging from the Red Cross to Human Rights Watch and the World Health Organization. [continues 540 words]
Public Health Advocates Resist Proposed Ban on Anesthetic In a dispute that pits the war on drugs against global health needs - and one UN agency against another - a pair of Canadian researchers is spearheading a last-ditch bid to keep a widely used anesthetic from being declared an illicit narcotic. The Chinese-led proposal to put ketamine on the international schedule of "psychotropic" substances - alongside the likes of LSD and mescaline - stems from its use as a club drug said to deliver hallucinogenic "cheap thrills." [continues 680 words]
Canadians Say Drug Is Vital As an Anesthetic In a dispute that pits the war on drugs against global health needs - and one UN agency against another - a pair of Canadian researchers is spearheading a last-ditch bid to keep a widely used anesthetic from being declared an illicit narcotic. The Chinese-led proposal to put ketamine on the international schedule of psychotropic substances - alongside LSD and mescaline - stems from its use as a club drug said to deliver hallucinogenic "cheap thrills." But "scheduling" the medicine would also likely deprive most of the developing world of an inexpensive anesthetic employed in countless surgeries, say opponents ranging from the Red Cross to Human Rights Watch and the World Health Organization. [continues 635 words]
U.N. drug warriors falsely claim that treaties compel U.S. states to ban pot. Raymond Yans is president of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), the U.N. agency charged with monitoring the implementation of anti-drug treaties. It is therefore not surprising that Yans takes a dim view of marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington, which he says poses "a grave danger to public health and well-being." But according to the INCB, legalization is not just dangerous; legalization is illegal. Even Americans who support marijuana prohibition should be troubled by the implications of that argument, which suggests that international treaties trump the Constitution. [continues 581 words]
RAYMOND Yans is president of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), the UN agency charged with monitoring the implementation of antidrug treaties. It is therefore not surprising that Yans takes a dim view of marijuana legalization in Colorado and Washington, which he says poses "a grave danger to public health and well-being." But according to the INCB, legalization isn't just dangerous; legalization is illegal. Even Americans who support marijuana prohibition should be troubled by the implications of that argument, which suggests that international treaties trump the Constitution. [continues 509 words]
Latin American Nations Call for a Treatment Strategy, Not Prison Terms Major international divisions over the global "war on drugs" have been revealed in a leaked draft of a UN document setting out the organisation's long-term strategy for combating illicit narcotics. The draft, written in September and seen by the Observer, shows there are serious and entrenched divisions over the longstanding US-led policy promoting prohibition as an exclusive solution to the problem. Instead a number of countries are pushing for the "war on drugs" to be seen in a different light, which places greater emphasis on treating drug consumption as a public health problem, rather than a criminal justice matter. [continues 587 words]
The UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs is meeting in Vienna this week to recommend measures to combat the world drug problem. But in Vancouver, the war against illegal drugs appears to have been won already by those who favour "harm reduction," with its publicly funded crackpipe kits, safe-injection rooms and "free" heroin and methadone fixes. This does little more than apply a Band-Aid - as opposed to abstinence-based treatment, which actually gets people off drugs but is frowned upon by the politically correct powers-that-be. [continues 446 words]
This week, representatives from many nations are gathering at the annual meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna to determine the appropriate course of the international response to illicit drugs. Delegates will debate multiple resolutions while ignoring a truth that goes to the core of current drug policy: human rights abuses in the war on drugs are widespread and systematic. Consider these numbers: Hundreds of thousands of people locked in detention centres and subject to violent punishments. Millions imprisoned. Hundreds hanged, shot or beheaded. Tens of thousands killed by government forces and non-state actors. Thousands beaten and abused to extract information, and abused in government or private "treatment" centres. Millions denied life-saving medicines. These are alarming figures, but campaigns to address them have been slow and drug control has received little attention from the mainstream human rights movement. [continues 525 words]
Orland Township Youth and Family Counseling sponsored a recent drug abuse symposium at Sandburg High School in reaction to a sharp rise in heroin-related use, arrests and deaths among youths in the Orland-Palos area. Concerned parents and students gathered in the gymnasium to hear lengthy presentations from mainstream speakers who included a recovered drug addict now in the treatment business, an Orland Park police commander and a spokesperson for a drug treatment consortium. All three speakers were supporters of the drug war, and all three make their living off the unintended consequences of the war on drugs - namely more crime, more drugs and more kids needing treatment. None of the speakers gave any hint of appreciation of the fact that they're on the side of the likes of Al Capone and today's drug cartels and street gangs in favoring the United Nations/U.S. costly and ineffective drug prohibition policy. [continues 493 words]
The War on Drugs was lost a long time ago. The fact that most people don't see the relationship between the war on drugs and alcohol prohibition is one of the greatest marketing feats of the 20th century. Prohibition doesn't work. Millions of taxpayer dollars are wasted every year arresting and imprisoning drug users. One of the results is this shameful statistic: The United States has less than 5 percent of the world's population, but it has almost a quarter of the world's prisoners, according the New York Times. [continues 699 words]
As Violence Soars, So Do Voices of Dissent Against Drug Prohibition MEXICO CITY - LATIN AMERICA is rich in sought-after commodities, including narcotics. The coca leaf, from which cocaine is refined, is grown only in the foothills of the Andes. Mexico produces more heroin than anywhere but Afghanistan, as well as much cannabis. Latin American traffickers are even diversifying into synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine. The illegality of this successful export business means that its multi-billion-dollar profits go to criminal gangs. [continues 1017 words]
Summary The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 1961 aimed to eliminate the illicit production and non-medical use of cannabis, cocaine, and opioids, an aim later extended to many pharmaceutical drugs. Over the past 50 years international drug treaties have neither prevented the globalisation of the illicit production and non-medical use of these drugs, nor, outside of developed countries, made these drugs adequately available for medical use. The system has also arguably worsened the human health and wellbeing of drug users by increasing the number of drug users imprisoned, discouraging effective countermeasures to the spread of HIV by injecting drug users, and creating an environment conducive to the violation of drug users' human rights. The international system has belatedly accepted measures to reduce the harm from injecting drug use, but national attempts to reduce penalties for drug use while complying with the treaties have often increased the number of drug users involved with the criminal justice system. [continues 7294 words]
Sometime during her high school years, Louisa Degenhardt decided she "wanted to be a psychologist" , even though, she admits, "I didn't really know what that entailed" . But while her career path was to become research oriented"she is currently an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Senior Research Fellow based at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales""her wide-ranging work on drug addiction has been influenced by a foundation in psychology. [continues 838 words]
Canada Flounders As Global Leader at 18th International AIDS Conference When HIV/AIDS first crept onto medical radar in the early 1980s, it was a mystery. Doctors from the U.S., France, Zaire, and Haiti noticed that patients, their immune systems overwhelmed, were dying from infections an otherwise healthy body would be able to fight off. By 1983, French medical researchers had isolated the virus HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), which attacks the immune system and leaves the body vulnerable to infections and cancers. HIV was later connected to the development of AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome - when the body is no longer able to protect itself from infection.) [continues 495 words]
The West's Refusal to Countenance Drug Legalisation Has Fuelled Anarchy, Profiteering and Misery It is wrecking the government of Mexico. It is financing the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is throwing 11,000 Britons into jail. It is corrupting democracy throughout Latin America. It is devastating the ghettoes of America and propagating Aids in urban Europe. Its turnover is some UKP200bn a year, on which it pays not a penny of tax. Thousands round the world die of it and millions are impoverished. It is the biggest man-made blight on the face of the earth. [continues 1127 words]
Prohibition has failed -- again. Drug prohibition has proven remarkably ineffective, costly and counter-productive. 500,000 people are behind bars today for violating a drug law - and hundreds of thousands more are incarcerated for other prohibition-related violations. There is a smarter approach usually called harm reduction. Reducing the number of people who use drugs is not nearly as important as reducing the death, disease, crime, and suffering associated with both drug misuse and failed policies of prohibition. Ethan Nadelmann is the founder and executive director of the DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE, the leading organizations in the United States promoting alternatives to the war on drugs, grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights. He received his BA, JD, and PhD from Harvard, and a Master's degree in international relations from the London School of Economics. He authored COPS ACROSS BORDERS and co-authored POLICING THE GLOBE: Criminalization and Crime Control in International Relations. [continues 5301 words]
"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition Law. Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws that cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this." Albert Einstein's words, written in 'My First Impressions of the USA' in 1921, are still in play. In fact, the clear connection between prohibition laws, the increase in crime and their impact on the health and safety of society were a driving force at last month's International AIDS 2010 Convention held in Vienna where 19,300 health care workers, researchers, scientists, government and NGO officials and many others representing 197 countries gathered. [continues 505 words]
It's safe to assume most people have never heard of the "Vienna Declaration." And that simple fact helps explain why public policies that fail -- policies that do vastly more harm than good -- can live on despite overwhelming evidence of their failure. The Vienna Declaration, published in the medical journal The Lancet, is an official statement of the 18th International AIDS Conference, which wraps up today in Vienna. Drafted by an international team of public health experts, including Evan Wood of the University of British Columbia, the Vienna Declaration seeks to "improve community health and safety" by, in the words of the committee, "calling for the incorporation of scientific evidence into illicit drug policies." [continues 911 words]
Scientists under attack for denouncing the ineffective global war on drugs are fighting back, says a University of B.C. associate professor on the front lines of the battle. Despite mountains of scientific evidence proving the prohibition on drugs such as heroin is a failure, governments in Canada, the U.S. and around the world continue to ignore the health and social harms cased by their antiquated policies, Dr. Evan Wood told The Province on Wednesday. Wood, director of the urban health research initiative at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, is co-author of the Vienna Declaration, which calls on the world's politicians to let scientific evidence guide their policies on illicit drugs. [continues 730 words]
Under Review Justice Minister Robert Nicholson said yesterday the government's medical marijuana regulations are under review after the UN's drugs watchdog warned Canada needs to tighten up the system. The Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board said Canada is operating outside international treaty rules aimed at minimizing the risk criminals will get hold of cannabis grown under the program. "The whole question of medical marijuana is being looked at by the Minister of Health with respect to the options that she has," said Mr. Nicholson, whose ministry serves as the umbrella agency for the government's anti-drug efforts. [continues 282 words]
Government Should Be Sole Provider of Cannabis, Narcotics Control Board Says Justice Minister Robert Nicholson said Wednesday the government's medical marijuana regulations are under review after the UN's drugs watchdog warned Canada needs to tighten up the system. The Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board said Canada is operating outside international treaty rules aimed at minimizing the risk criminals will get hold of cannabis grown under the program. "The whole question of medical marijuana is being looked at by the minister of health with respect to the options that she has," said Nicholson, whose ministry serves as the umbrella agency for the government's anti-drug efforts. [continues 348 words]
Justice Minister Puts Marijuana Regulations Under Review Justice Minister Robert Nicholson said Wednesday the government's medical marijuana regulations are under review after the UN's drugs watchdog warned Canada needs to tighten up the system. The Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board said Canada is operating outside international treaty rules aimed at minimizing the risk criminals will get hold of cannabis grown under the program. "The whole question of medical marijuana is being looked at by the minister of health with respect to the options that she has," said Nicholson, whose ministry serves as the umbrella agency for the government's antidrug efforts. [continues 475 words]
Justice Minister Robert Nicholson said yesterday the government's medical marijuana regulations are under review after the United Nation's drugs watchdog warned Canada needs to tighten up the system. The Vienna-based International Narcotics Control Board said Canada is operating outside international treaty rules aimed at minimizing the risk that criminals will get hold of cannabis grown under the program. "The whole question of medical marijuana is being looked at by the minister of health with respect to the options that she has," said Nicholson, whose ministry serves as the umbrella agency for the government's anti-drug efforts. [continues 116 words]
What kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis? Billions of dollars of drugs money, says the United Nations' drugs and crime tsar. Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, says he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were "the only liquid investment capital" available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He says a majority of the US$352 billion ($489 billion) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result. [continues 369 words]
One hundred years ago, the US convened the International Opium Conference. This meeting of 13 nations in Shanghai was the beginning of global drug prohibition. Prohibition slowly became one of the most universally applied policies in the world. But a century on, international support for this blanket drug policy is slowly but inexorably unravelling. In January, Barack Obama became the third US president in a row to admit to consumption of cannabis. Bill Clinton had admitted using cannabis but denied ever inhaling it. George Bush was taped saying in private he would never admit in public to having used cannabis. When Obama was asked whether he had inhaled cannabis, he said: "Of course. That was the whole point." [continues 579 words]
Gangs Drive Increase in Meth, Ecstasy Production Asian and "traditional" biker gangs have dramatically stepped up production of illegal party drugs in Canada, turning the country into a significant exporter, the United Nations said Wednesday. In a global survey of illegal drug production and trafficking, Canada is identified as a "primary" world source of ecstasy, and likely the biggest supplier of methamphetamine "uppers" to Australia and Japan. "Canada has become a major trafficking hub for meth and ecstasy," according to the World Drug Report 2009, by the Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crime. [continues 278 words]
Asian and "traditional" biker gangs have dramatically stepped up production of illegal "party" drugs in Canada, turning the country into a significant exporter, the United Nations said Wednesday. In a global survey of illegal drug production and trafficking, Canada is identified as a "primary" world source of ecstasy, and likely the biggest supplier of methamphetamine "uppers" to Australia and Japan. "Canada has become a major trafficking hub for meth and ecstasy," says World Drug Report 2009 by Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crime. [continues 393 words]
Worldwide Export of Illegal Amphetamines Also Growing A United Nations report on the world drug trade reiterates what B.C. police forces have been saying for a couple of years now: Canada has become a global producer of "party" drugs, especially ecstasy. And if past police reports hold true, the production of those drugs is concentrated in B.C. The report, entitled the World Drug Report 2009, produced by the UN's Vienna-based Office on Drugs and Crime, claims the drug trade here, which concentrates on exporting to the U.S., has now gone global. [continues 540 words]
Report Cites Nation As Major Producer Of Meth And Ecstasy Canada has become a major producer of illegal "party" drugs, a United Nations report released Wednesday says. Asian and "traditional" outlaw motorcycle gangs stepped up their production of methamphetamine -- a very addictive stimulant drug that affects the central nervous system -- from 2003 to 2006, says the 306-page survey. Asian organized crime groups primarily on the West Coast also focused on ecstasy, a psychoactive drug that is chemically similar to the stimulant methamphetamine and the hallucinogen mescaline. [continues 200 words]
