Mara Alejandra Villamizar has had a front row seat of Colombias civil conflict. Over a 25-year career, she has reported from rebel-held jungles to territories controlled by violent drug cartels. She also worked as an adviser to several presidents during successive attempts to make peace.

But she recently discovered that her work had put her in the crosshairs of the military.

An investigation by the local news weekly Semana found that the Colombian army gathered intelligence on Villamizar and more than 130 of her colleagues including at least three US reporters.

Soldiers had trawled through information on social media in order to build profiles on each target, with comprehensive lists of their contacts, families and friends. Their political leanings were deduced from their posts and connections, and logged in a database.

The scandal revealed that despite a peace deal which led to the demobilization of the countrys largest rebel group, Colombias US-backed military are still unable to shake habits from a dirty war in which the rules that usually bind a democracys armed forces are non-binding and journalists and opposition members are considered fair targets.

What this shows is that the army has never known how to fight a clean war, said Villamizar said. They dont know how to stand on the side of civilians, or even what their role is in Colombia.

In recent weeks, the countrys military has come under further pressure amid demonstrations against the police force (which is overseen by the defense ministry). Thirteen civilians have been killed amid protests against police brutality during which three reporters were assaulted by officers.

Journalists have long been targeted in Colombia, and accused of collaborating with the leftist rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc). That group signed a peace deal with the government in 2016, formally ending five decades of civil war that killed 260,000 people and forced over 7 million to flee their homes.

But violence still rages as dissident guerrilla factions and rightwing paramilitaries battle for territory once held by Farc. And as before, reporters in the most dangerous regions are still routinely surveilled and threatened by armed factions including the army.

As a journalist and a citizen its deeply upsetting to say, but we are a long way from being able to talk about post-conflict, Villamizar said.

Colombias army is no stranger to scandal. Between 2002 and 2008, soldiers abducted and murdered thousands of civilians, declaring them rebel combatants in order to boost kill statistics and justify US military aid.

Unauthorized surveillance scandals are a recurring theme. In 2011, the countrys entire national intelligence agency, the administrative department of security (DAS), was dismantled after it was found to have wiretapped reporters, opposition politicians and human rights defenders.

Some DAS units had received US aid, but Washington has long had much closer ties to Colombias military, a key partner in the war on drugs. Between 2000 and 2015, Bogot received $9.94bn in US aid, with 71% designated for security assistance. Since 2016, over $850m has been sent to support Colombias security forces money which in theory is conditional on good behaviour.

But US citizens were also caught up in the latest scandal: army analysts gathered intelligence on three US journalists, Nicholas Casey of the New York Times, Juan Forero of the Wall Street Journal, and John Otis of NPR.

Its clear that the army, after all these years, still sees the press as an enemy of the establishment said Jonathan Bock, deputy director of Colombias Press Freedom Foundation (or FLIP).

Jos Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, said he suspected Colombias army has been emboldened to target US citizens by the White Houses constant attacks against the press.

Every time Trump attacks journalists or calls for excessive use of force against protesters, abusive leaders and military officials in the Americas feel they have a green light to engage in serious violations of human rights, he said.

Colombias prosecutor general has said the spying cases would be included in an existing investigation into military wrongdoing. Senior commanders laid the blame on a few bad apples and fired 11 soldiers, including five colonels, three majors and a general. A second general offered his resignation.

But many analysts are skeptical that the investigations will pinpoint the officers or politicians who ordered the spying.

Nobody who knows anything about Colombia has any reason to be confident that the intellectual authors will be held accountable, said Adam Isacson, at the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank.

Gerald Bermdez, a photojournalist from Bogot, was unsurprised that he and his colleagues had been targeted. Colombia is not the democracy it pretends to be, Bermdez said. But no-one can stop me from reporting: its my job and my life.

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Colombia: spying on reporters shows army unable to shake habits of dirty war - The Guardian

This time of crisis has thrown a bright light on systemic injustice, especially the criminal justice systems disproportionate impact on Black, Indigenous and other people of color.

One area where this inequity is especially dramatic is with the failed War On Drugs, which offers people suffering from addiction a criminal record instead of treatment, ruining lives and wasting money.

Black, Indigenous and LGBTQ people are disproportionately harmed, arrested and punished at much higher rates, despite no significant disparity in use, and have unequal access to drug addiction treatment and recovery services.

This November, Oregonians will have a chance to reduce these disparities by voting yes on Measure 110, which would establish a more humane, equitable and effective approach to helping people struggling with addiction, shifting from a system of criminalization to approaching addiction as the healthcare issue it is.

Thats why an extraordinary coalition of more than 110 organizations have come out in support of Measure 110, including more than 30 racial and social justice organizations, such as the Coalition of Communities of Color, NAACP Portland, the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde, Hacienda CDC, Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO), Causa, NAACP Eugene-Springfield, Centro Latino Americano, Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN), Latino Network, Rural Organizing Project, Basic Rights Oregon, Next Up, the Oregon Latino Health Coalition, and many more. Rarely have social justice organizations been so united behind a ballot measure.

In addition, Measure 110 has earned endorsements from medical and public safety organizations from all parts of the state, including the American College of Physicians, the Oregon Nurses Association, the Oregon School Psychologists Association, the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, the Partnership for Safety and Justice, the Crime Victims Rights Alliance, and the Academy of Family Physicians Oregon Chapter..

The reasons we support Measure 110 are many:

Of course, deep, structural moves towards justice always draw opposition from the forces of the status quo, who will use the tired tactics of trying to divide our communities and scare people into saying no to needed change. But the incredible and growing coalition supporting Measure 110 shows that the time has come to turn to a new and better chapter of the Oregon story.

We hope you will join us in winning a victory for justice, saving lives, saving families, and a more humane, equitable and effective approach to drug addiction in Oregon.

Rev. E.D. Mondain is the President of the Portland NAACP. Donell Morgan is the Executive Director of Elevate Oregon. Antionette Edwards is the retired Director of the Portland Youth Violence Prevention Task Force.

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The Extraordinary BIPOC Coalition Support Measure 110 - The Skanner

Analysis on 'drug war' deaths that PCOO rejected is from data that PCOO released Human Rights Watch

MANILA, Philippines Rights watchdog Human Rights Watch on Thursday night stressed that its figures on 'drug war' killings that the Palace has disputed are from government sources.

HRW Deputy Asia Director Phil Robertson issued the statement after Presidential Communications Secretary Martin Andanar dismissed the assertion that drug-related killings went up by 50% during the pandemic as having "weak methodological anchor and severely falsifies realities in the country."

Andanar said HRW should get better data.

But, Robertson pointed out on Thursday, "the analysis is based on the official government figures published by #RealNumbersPH, which is issued by the Presidential Communications Operations Office based on figures coming from different government agencies involved in the 'war on drugs,' mainly the Philippine National Police and the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency."

In a September 8 dispatch, HRW said that it had found that 155 people were killed in the past four months against 103 people killed from December 2019 to March 2020. The difference between 155 and 103 is 52, which is 50.49% of 103.

"It was not hard to find this information," Robertson said Thursday.

"The number of fatalities in these ostensible drug enforcement raids, in which the police routinely claimed that the victims fought back, jumped dramatically from the 26 deaths recorded by the PDEA in five months from July to November 2019," HRW also said in its September 8 dispatch.

"Instead of playing its usual silly 'shoot the messenger' game by attacking critics, and trying to introduce distracting arguments, we advise the PCOO and the PNP chief General Camilo Cascolan to look at their own numbers again. Human Rights Watch did not introduce any new figures in the dispatch. Everything in it was based on #RealNumbersPH," Robertson said, adding the 50-percent estimate is low.

He said that the average monthly deaths recorded by #RealNumberPH from April to July is at 38 people, lower than figures that he said Cascolan gave the congressional Commission on Appointments on September 10.

"Gen. Cascolan stated that in those eight months, 623 people died during police operations. That's an average of 77 deaths per month," he said.

In response to HRW's September 8 dispatch, Andanar stressed that killings are not state policy and that "internal accountability mechanisms within our law enforcement agencies, such as the Philippine National Police, are in place to ensure that wrongful actions by law enforcers are addressed."

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Analysis on 'drug war' deaths that PCOO rejected is from data that PCOO released Human Rights Watch - Philippine Star

A global pandemic. Apocalyptic wildfires.

Where to escape from it all? For me, Ive been traveling to the 80s during the strangest year of my life.

Life there just makes more sense. Which is weird because, if you really think about it, not a whole lot made sense in the 80s.

In Footloose, for instance, how is it that in a town where public dancing is illegal, all the seniors at Bomont High are secretly professional-caliber dancers who somehow break into precise choreography the first time theyre allowed to have a senior prom?

Equally confusing: Does anyone really believe that a small high school in a farming town like Bomont, Oklahoma, would have a mens gymnastics team? Not to mention the fact that when Ren McCormack gets kicked off the team for having drugs planted on him, hes ridiculed for it. Id think, in a place like Bomont, being on the gymnastics team would be grounds for getting your ass kicked. (That, and having a haircut like Kevin Bacons.)

I could go on for days with this stuff. In The Karate Kid, are we really supposed to believe that Elisabeth Shue would go for Ralph Macchio? Or in the Rocky franchise, that Sylvester Stallone, all of 5-foot-9 (sorry, Sly, you aint 5-10) and 185 pounds couldve beaten Carl Weathers (6-2, 220), Mr. T (5-10, 231) or freakin Dolph Lundren (6-5, 243)? Or that he wouldve even been a heavyweight? How did Michael Keaton get picked to play Batman? Does anyone know what the hell is going on in Purple Rain? And did people really think that we could win the War on Drugs with Just Say No.

You see what I mean. Ton Loc rapped This is the 80s and Im down the ladies.

Me, I was down with G.I. Joe, Garbage Pail Kids, neon Converse Chuck Taylors, Def Leppard, Guns N Roses, and John Elway and his Three Amigos wide receivers considering I was only 9 by the time the decade ended.

I often confused Ronald McDonald for Ronald Reagan and didnt have the faintest clue about the Iran-Contra Scandal, Voodoo Economics or Gary Harts Monkey Business.

My life revolved around AYSO soccer, building tree forts in the Black Forest that backed up to our yard in Monument, weekend sleepovers and a BMX movie called RAD in all caps.

Ive found comfort these past few months going back to some of those touchstones of my youth while the world around me felt like it was descending into chaos. There was safety in the well-worn and the nostalgic. I needed endings where I already knew the outcome.

I especially needed RAD, a movie from 1986 that youve most likely never seen that was finally released in a new restored 4K version this summer after never actually being released on DVD. Diehard fans had previously been left to watch grainy YouTube clips or dig around for their old VHS tapes.

How beloved is this wacky bike movie? According to aGuardianinvestigation into 10,000 movies in the Rotten Tomatoes database, RAD yes, all caps was the film with the greatest discrepancy between critical reception and fan adulation.

There were kids like me and my older brother, all across America, who literally sought this movie out anytime they hit the local video store. RAD was always the first pick for a Friday night sleepover over The Goonies, Adventures in Babysitting, Top Gun, Karate Kid, Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure, you name it.

Kids like us literally watched those VHS tapes until they broke.

I still dont quite understand why, but its probably because RAD was peak 80s. Its like the director, Hal Needham, who was Burt Reynolds old stuntman and who Brad Pitts character in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was based on, took all the best parts of classic 80s movies, threw them in a blender, and soundtracked all the action to soaring, goofy power ballads performed by John Farnham.

You know John Farnham, right? Probably not unless youre Australian.

Ray Walton, better known as Mr. Hand, is in RAD. So is Jack Weston, who played the creepy resort owner in Dirty Dancing. So are Talia Shire (Yo, Adrian!) and a young Lori Loughlin (pre-Aunt Becky fame and college admission scandal infamy), along with Olympic gymnast Bart Conner who, to this day, says hes more recognized for playing cocky BMX star Bart Taylor than he is for winning gold medals.

Some 34 years on, I still get amped every time I hear the opening keys to Thunder In Your Heart as local hometown kid Cru Jones (Bill Allen) races off the start line to take on the best in the world for a shot to race HELLTRACK.

My 5-year-old son watched the movie with me and hes been singing the song to himself ever since. You can probably guess the ending. Cru wins the big race, gets the girl and lives on forever in 80s glory.

Theres no big surpise ending. Which, in a year full of surprises and uncertainty, is pretty gnarly if you ask me.

Nate Peterson is the editor of the Vail Daily. Email him at npeterson@vaildaily.com

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Peterson: To HELLTRACK and back | VailDaily.com - Vail Daily News

Greenville, S.C. -- On Monday, the Libertarian Party received confirmation that the campaign of Dr. Jo Jorgensen for president and Jeremy "Spike" Cohen for vice president has met all states' ballot-access requirements, according to party chair Joseph Bishop-Henchman. Because of this qualification, the Libertarian ticket will officially be on all 50 states' ballots, plus the ballot of the District of Columbia.

This is the fifth time that the Libertarian Party has succeeded in placing its presidential ticket on the ballot in every state, having done so in 1980, 1992, 1996, and 2016. No other alternative party has achieved universal ballot access in over 20 years.

The Libertarian Party had already earned ballot status in 35 states plus Washington, D.C. for this election based on the party's size and performance in past elections. In the remaining states, Libertarian candidates collected petition signatures from registered voters to be placed on ballots. Provisions vary between states, but only alternative parties such as the Libertarian and Green parties are required to petition for ballot access.

The challenge of collecting a sufficient amount of signatures increased as governors issued stay-at-home orders to try and mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

Dr. Jorgensen and Cohen campaigned in Pennsylvania and other key states to aid in collecting signatures. Speaking to supporters outside the State Board of Elections in Annapolis, Maryland, where Libertarians submitted their final signatures, Dr. Jorgensen remarked on the importance of ballot access:

Weve got two big-government candidates, and they both want to increase spending, they both want to take away your decision-making power, and neither one wants to bring the troops home. The only way to give every American another choice is for Libertarians to be on the ballot in all fifty states.

The Libertarian Party platform advocates for free-market healthcare, a foreign policy of non-intervention, and an end to the War on Drugs.

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Libertarian Party ticket to be included on ballots across all states - NorthcentralPa.com

Certainly. The reality of the rise of crime, beginning in the late 60s and continuing through the 70s and 80s, is something that we emphasize against a typical reluctance in leftist and liberal work on this phenomena to acknowledge crime. I mean, the standard story about the War on Drugs is really about an invention of crime. According to this story, new laws are criminalizing activities that wouldnt otherwise lead to a prison sentence. Thus, all we need to do is change these laws, and we can get rid of the problem: we can address mass incarceration simply by releasing all these people who clearly shouldnt be in prison anyway.

Of course, in our view, most people shouldnt be in prison. Were not supporters of incarceration as a strategy for addressing crime. But what we do want to say is that the real rise in crime reflected a broader social crisis that America was facing in the 70s and 80s. Denying that context by emphasizing the drug war as this state-manufactured intervention is, in our view, to miss the fundamental story. Between 1960 and 1980, homicide rates doubled in America, property crime rates increased about threefold, and violent crime increased about fivefold. That major crime wave, which we think is unmistakable in the historical evidence, is played down by many liberal and progressive commentators, in part, I think, because they assume that acknowledging the reality of crime is to somehow play the blame game, to blame individuals rather than the system.

We want to push back strongly against this assumption. For us, crime is an index of oppression. To deny the reality of crime is tantamount to denying the reality of the causes of crime, which are, in our view, poverty, inequality, social vulnerability, and exploitation. The Left should not be in a position of denying such things.

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How Mass Incarceration Was Built in the United States And How We Can Undo It - Jacobin magazine

The investigation into the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput has revealed evidence of usage of marijuana by him and his girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty, who has been arrested for the same. Cannabis or marijuana is a native Indian plant that finds place in Indian culture. Tracing the history of war on drugs, VRINDA SINGH OBEROIwrites on the legal dichotomy between criminalisation of marijuana and legalisation of bhaang by the Indian state.

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THE drug angle in Rhea Chakraborty- Sushant Singh Rajput case has generated enough conversation in the country on the use, consumption and possession of our native plant Cannabis Sativa.

All over the world, cannabis is being talked about for its benefits in alleviating pain and suffering from cancer patients to depression patients alike. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime says 3.2% of India uses cannabis.

In 2018, the Central Council For Research in Ayurvedic Sciences (CCRAS), a research body under the Ministry of AYUSH, announced that it had found use of cannabis as a restorative drug for cancer patients. A 2019 study conducted by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences reported that 7.2 million Indians have consumed cannabis within the last two years.

India has seen its fair share of calls for legalisation of cannabis.

Starting in 2015, we have seen proposals and all from politicians putting forth proposals to cultivate, process and consume legalised marijuana in India.

In March 2015, Lok Sabha MP Tathagat Satpathy started a Reddit Ask Me Anything platform and first criticized the ban on cannabis as elitist and as an Indian overreaction to the scare created in the world by the United States of America.

We as a nation are imprisoning our intellectuals, activists and youth. We are losing our collective consciousness and ourselves; something bhaang purportedly helps with.

In 2016, Lok Sabha MP Dharmvir Gandhi tabled a Private Members Bill for legalised supply of opium, marijuana that sought to amend the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS Act).

Again in 2016, Romesh Bhattacharji, former Commissioner of Central Bureau of Narcotics- the same agency that is behind Rhea Chakarvortys arrest- said, This needs to be debated in the face of such stiff ignorance which often takes root in the moral high grounds people take after being influenced by the UN conventions. This law [NDPS Act] has been victimizing people since 1985.

(Credit: Soumyadeep Paul, Source: Creative Common)

The Cannabis plant is indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. Like Homo Sapiens were to Africa, Marijuana is to India. Its first uses have been found to date back to 2000 BCE. The ancient plant finds mention in the Rigveda (c. 17001100 BCE), Atharvaveda (c. 15001000 BC), and is used in many medical preparations in Sushruta Samhita (c. 600 BCE). India traded it with Central Asia, from where it moved to Europe and finally made its way to the Americas.

The British made multiple attempts- in 1838, 1871, and 1877- to criminalize and tax cannabis in British India. The prime reason for this was the commercial aspect linked to taxation of cotton as cannabis-hemp can be processed to make a more durable fabric.

Back in 1961, the International Treaty Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs classed cannabis with hard drugs. Proud of its culture and history, the Indian delegation opposed it on the basis of intolerance to the social and religious customs of India. As a compromise, the Indian Government promised to limit the export of Indian hemp.

The final draft of the treaty defined cannabis as the flowering or fruiting tops of the cannabis plant (excluding the seeds and leaves when not accompanied by the tops) from which the resin has not been extracted, by whatever name they may be designated.

This kept Bhaang out of the legal definition of Cannabis and paved the way for its sale, often at government shops, and consumption in many states across India. We won a battle of semantics since there is no chemical distinction between bhaang, marijuana, weed, ganja, or charas.

The cannabis plant has two chemicals that are often time discussed. They are Cannabidiol (CBD) and Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).

So the government banned the recreational use of weed but allowed its use for customary and religious practices. Therefore, as long as we call it bhaang, and not weed, hash, charas, or ganja, we are on the safe side of the law.

Both CBD and THC have the exact same molecular structure: 21 carbon atoms, 30 hydrogen atoms, and 2 oxygen atoms. However, despite their similar chemical structures, CBD and THC dont have the same psychoactive effects. CBD is psychoactive, just not in the same manner as THC. In fact, CBD has been shown to help with anxiety, depression, and seizures.

Bhaang has both THC and CBD as active components.

So the government banned the recreational use of weed but allowed its use for customary and religious practices. Therefore, as long as we call it bhaang, and not weed, hash, charas, or ganja, we are on the safe side of the law.

Thereby, the law, in theory, agrees with the implicit benefits of having an altered state of consciousness, but while pacifying its now internalized Victorian morality that has unquestionably become a part of the sub-continental identity.

The War on Drugs began in June 1971, when U.S. Pres. Richard Nixon declared drug abuse as public enemy number one. He increased federal funding for drug-control agencies and drug-treatment efforts. Then came President Ronald Regan, who kicked into high gear a campaign for a worldwide law against drugs.

Notably, the war on drugs has now become synonymous with a war on African Americans and other marginalized communities.

The Act keeps Bhaang out of the purview of the law. The NDPS Act does not outlaw cannabis but allows the cultivation of cannabis for industrial purposes and for horticultural uses.

In 1985, Rajiv Gandhi succumbed to the US pressure and enacted the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act as we know it today. The Times of India had criticized the act as ill-conceived and poorly thought-out since the law provided the same punishment for all drugs. The paper also argued that the Act had actually created a drugs problem where there was none.

The Act keeps Bhaang out of the purview of the law. The NDPS Act does not outlaw cannabis but allows the cultivation of cannabis for industrial purposes and for horticultural uses. The act recognizes cannabis as a source for biomass, fiber, and high-value oil. The government even encourages the research and cultivation of cannabis with low THC.

( Credit: Tom Maisey, Source: Common Creative)

The NDPS Act is central legislation while policing is a state subject. A classic slip between the cup and the lip, some states have allowed for bhang to be sold in government-licensed thekas. States like Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan have many thekas that are very popular with tourists. Then there are states like Uttrakhand where the cultivation of marijuana is legal.

On 21 February 2017, Gujarat legalized bhang by removing it from the list of intoxicating drugs covered by Section 23 of the Gujarat Prohibition Act. Gujarats Minister of State for Home and Prohibition Pradipsinh Jadeja , explained, Bhang is consumed only as prasad of Lord Shiva. The state government has received complaints of misuse of prohibition act against those found drinking bhang. Hence, keeping in view the sentiments of the public at large, the government has decided to exempt bhang from the ambit of Gujarat Prohibition Amendment Act. Bhang is less intoxicating as compared to ganja.

This distinction may make the government feel better but is, in fact, factually incorrect. There are no grounds for the intelligible differentia that is attempted to be established.

Instead of talking about the science and history of this plant it has become a tool for national shaming and moralizing.

In Maharashtra the law is very clear, Section 66(1)(b) of the Bombay Prohibition (BP) Act, 1949, bans manufacture, possession and consumption of bhang and bhang-containing substances without a license.

Instead of talking about the science and history of this plant it has become a tool for national shaming and moralizing.

Rhea Chakrabortys arrest has shocked the people of the nation, of what we might be becoming, and pleased the powers, for how easy they find it to avert our attention from important matters.

Today our central agencies are using the very same colonial laws to colonise its very own people. Laws that were made for colonial enrichment, racial discrimination and only for oppression to discriminate are now being used against our very own.

We as a nation are imprisoning our intellectuals, activists and youth. We are losing our collective consciousness and ourselves; something bhaang purportedly helps with.

(Vrinda singh Oberoi is an ex- corporate lawyer turned chef and works in food policy. Views are personal.)

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Why are we persecuting Rhea Chakraborty when Demands for Legalisation of Cannabis are Growing? - The Leaflet

Sakharov laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)

The European Parliament is greatly concerned by the grave danger currently facing Sakharov and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege and condemns the recent threats to his life, as well as those made against his family and staff members at the Panzi hospital where he works. Since July this year, Dr. Mukwege has received increasingly serious and sustained threats in response to his repeated calls to bring an end to impunity for perpetrators of sexual crimes and massacres in Kipupu, Sange and the Ituri province in the country.

MEPs commend Dr. Mukwege for his courage and his life-long commitment to fighting the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict. They also welcome the UN decision to reinstate security protection for him. The DRC Government must not delay in carrying out a comprehensive investigation into the threats, as promised by DRC President Flix Tshisekedi, says the text.

The full resolution, which also addresses the general human rights situation in the DRC, past and current violence, the exploration of natural resources in the country and other issues, was adopted by 654 votes in favour, 5 against and 26 abstentions. It will be available in full here. (17.09.2020)

The humanitarian situation in Mozambique

MEPs are very worried about the deteriorating security situation in northern Mozambique, in particular in the Cabo Delgado province, and express their condolences to the victims of the ongoing violence. Since October 2017, the so-called Al-Shabaab terrorist group, allegedly affiliated with the armed group calling itself Islamic State of Central Africa Province, has launched over 500 violent attacks in the area, terrorising the local population, claiming over 1 500 lives and leading to the displacement of over 250 000 people.

The resolution underlines that the current security problems further aggravate an already extremely fragile humanitarian situation deriving from high levels of underdevelopment, climate shocks and conflicts. It calls on Mozambiques authorities to take decisive action in countering the Islamist insurgence, while also reminding them of their responsibility to bring all those suspected of terrorist activity to justice through fair trials.

MEPs underline that if not stopped, the insurgency will potentially grow and spill over into neighbouring countries, threatening regional stability as seen in the Sahel and Horn of Africa.

For all the details, the full resolution, adopted by 616 votes in favour, 13 against and 57 abstentions, will be available here. (17.09.2020)

The Philippines

Parliament expresses its deepest concern at the rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte and calls on the countrys government to implement all the recommendations outlined by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to address a range of serious issues, such as the widespread and systematic killings related to the authorities anti-drug campaign.

MEPs strongly denounce the thousands of extrajudicial killings and other serious human rights violations related to the so-called war on drugs. They also condemn all threats, harassment, intimidation, rape and violence against those who seek to expose allegations of extrajudicial killings and other human rights violations in the country, including human rights and environmental activists, trade unionists and journalists.

Parliament is further alarmed about the deteriorating level of press freedom in the Philippines, and condemns all threats, harassment, intimidation, unfair prosecutions, and violence against journalists, including in the case of Maria Ressa. All politically motivated charges against her and her colleagues should be dropped, says the resolution.

The text was adopted by 626 vote in favour, 7 against and 52 abstentions, and will be available in full here. (18.09.2020)

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Human rights breaches in the DRC, Mozambique and the Philippines | News - EU News

GUANGXI, South China Nong Feijun cannot remember the exact year he started using and misusing the white powder. He only recalls his friends had persuaded him to try, and he agreed to snort heroin for the first time.

Once was all it took.

Soon, the 40-year-old from Longzhou County in the southwestern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region needed a fix every day. His friends had told him the illegal drug was cheerful and not addictive at all, but Nong only remembers feeling dizzy all day long.

Over the ensuing drug-addled years, Nong couldnt find daily-wage jobs and ended up squandering his familys meager savings on the habit, pushing them deeper into penury. In 2013, his wife left him, taking with her their 2-year-old son, and his father also died. My mother told me to stop touching that thing, but I could not quit at the time, says Nong.

For Nong alone, 1 gram of heroin cost between 200-300 yuan ($30-$45). It also meant spending 10,000 yuan every month on his addiction in a region where the average annual per capita rural income in 2019 was only 11,846 yuan.

Then, in 2017, the law caught up. Nong was among thousands of people addicted to drugs rounded up in the area and forced into compulsory rehab by police as part of a major crackdown on substance abuse. Local authorities believed dangerous drug use only exacerbated the regions already prevalent poverty, and carted those addicted to drugs to mandatory rehabilitation centers.

Now, Nong has completed rehab and has renewed purpose: find a decent job and help his aging mother. But it hasnt been easy. During the two-year rehab, he worked on a production line of transformers without wages, which meant his mother had to rely on poverty allowance totalling just 4,000 yuan a year, including subsistence allowances and a pension.

He left home in 2019 for the southern Guangdong province in search of work. There are no jobs in my hometowns factories, and the salary there is low, he says, adding that he first landed a job at a paper mill in Guangdongs Zhuhai City. He later switched to a pipeline manufacturing factory in the city of Foshan this year, earning 3,000-5,000 yuan a month based on the workload.

But its still a struggle, particularly since the COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted his home province of Guangxis already fragile economy. He hopes to find a better job and earn at least 6,000 yuan a month so he can send more money home. I feel sorry for my mother. She is so old. But the rehab at least made me quit, he says.

Nong Feijuns mother is pictured at her home in Longzhou County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Aug. 24, 2020. Li You/Sixth Tone

While the government-mandated rehabilitation drive has had the intended effect of reducing the number of people addicted to drugs, there are many like Nong whose problems go beyond addiction the biggest being the lack of opportunities in Longzhou County. And without decent job prospects, its easy for locals to fall back into a vicious cycle of drug addiction and incarceration.

Such is the case with Lu, a Longzhou resident who asked to be identified only by his surname. Despite spending a year in mandatory rehab in 2017, Lu was soon back on heroin. He says his friends, who introduced him to the drug years ago, lured him in again. I was depressed at the time and trying to have some fun, he says. I could not stop thinking about the thing all day.

Last year, Lu ended up in jail for six months after he was found in possession of heroin. According to official statistics, Guangxis Longzhou County alone has 1,922 drug users on record, which means at least one out of every 140 residents is addicted to drugs.

Anti-drug police officer Xie Peijun called Longzhou a place rife with drugs. And with its proximity to the Golden Triangle the dreaded global narcotics hub spread across the trijunction of Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar Guangxi is among the main drug smuggling routes into China, second only to Yunnan province bordering Myanmar.

A view of Minjian Village in Longzhou County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Aug. 24, 2020. Li You/Sixth Tone

The street price of such drugs increases along the chain from production hubs to consumption areas: 350 grams of heroin with 70% purity sells for between 70,000 yuan and 80,000 yuan in Longzhou. According to Xie, this rate at least doubles though purity falls to 20%-30% in the provincial capital of Nanning, roughly 200 kilometers away, which also serves as a transfer hub.

Apart from the international drug rings, Longzhou also has to deal with small-time dealers selling drugs to rural residents. At the end of the chain, most people addicted to drugs eventually fall into poverty and turn into dealers themselves to fund their drug usage.

Longzhou is a county in Guangxi bordering Vietnam and known for a Communist uprising in 1930 and for being a frontier during the Sino-Vietnam conflicts in 1979. While long-running clashes had already disrupted the regions economic development, a devastating flood in 1986 pushed Longzhou to the top of the first batch of 331 state-designated impoverished counties across China.

Since Deng Xiaopings leadership, poverty alleviation has been a top priority for China and continues to remain a central tenet in President Xi Jinpings administration. Xi vowed to eradicate poverty by 2020 to achieve the first centenary goal of the Chinese Communist Party, founded in 1921. The official poverty line, set in 2011, is at a per capita annual income of 2,300 yuan at 2010 rates. In 2020, this is estimated to be around 4,000 yuan.

A farmer works his fields in Longzhou County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Aug. 24, 2020. Li You/Sixth Tone

In 2017, the National Narcotics Control Commission and State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development declared the war on drugs part of Chinas poverty alleviation scheme, calling drug abuse the twin of poverty.

Longzhous economy, however, offers limited opportunities for locals. Located in Chinas karst regions, the county relies mainly on sugar cane agriculture and sugar production. The COVID-19, meanwhile, has only further hampered cross-border trade in the region.

Its why most who have recovered from drug addiction choose migrant work. Often, they move to the neighboring Guangdong province, an economic powerhouse, for jobs and better opportunities. Tang Yongzhong, head of the anti-drug office in Longzhou, says, One person working as a migrant can lift their whole family out of poverty.

But for those addicted to drugs, a fresh start first requires at least three years of community rehabilitation, a program introduced across China in 2007 as a part of the countrys de-addiction drive.

Longzhou County established a community rehabilitation network in 2014, hiring social workers to stay in touch with those addicted to drugs for a three-year period. This includes taking regular tests to ensure no relapses; the scheme also enables recovering drug users to maintain their jobs and provide for their families. If caught taking drugs again during or after community rehab, however, they are sent to a mandatory, isolated rehab center lasting for one or two years.

Longzhou resident Lin Licheng, 26, is in his third year of community rehabilitation. Addicted to ketamine, a drug with anesthetic properties that can cause hallucinogenic effects, Lin was caught with the illicit substance when authorities busted a local bar in 2018.

He recalls that peer pressure had pushed him into compulsive drug use, with disastrous consequences: His employer, a delivery company, fired him, and he was forced to rely on financial support from his elderly parents.

The exterior of a community rehabilitation center in Longzhou County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Aug. 25, 2020. Li You/Sixth Tone

You use the drug once ... Then youll do it again 10,000 times, he told Sixth Tone after taking a urine test at a local community rehab center. The test results were instantaneous, showing he was clean of three of the most common drugs: heroin, ketamine, and methamphetamine.

Those addicted to drugs in the community rehabilitation program can leave Longzhou but often have to return for tests. According to Lin, he tried to find work in Nanning but had to go through security checks every time he left and entered Longzhou, as his participation in the rehab program was on all government records.

Lin says the constant checks always left him feeling embarrassed. So he now hopes to obtain a drivers license and find a job out of town to restart his life after the three-year program ends.

In 2018, the State Council, Chinas Cabinet, announced that Longzhou was no longer in penury fewer than 2% of the population was under the poverty line. By March this year, the number of those addicted to drugs in poverty across the country dropped from 231,000 to 37,000. According to official data, the poverty alleviation rate among this group has reached 84%.

But some households in Longzhou still continue to rely on poverty allowance.

Qin Jiangming, 56, returned from Yunnan to Guangxi in 2013. After working as a barber in provincial capital Kunming for 14 years, he began to complain of chronic back pain. He thought surgery would help but says the pain only got worse.

Thats when a friend told him heroin can kill the pain. In 2018, he too was caught snorting heroin at a friends home. By that time, he had spent all his savings feeding his compulsive drug use and was bankrupt. Relying on social insurance, hed even cheated friends and relatives for money to buy more of the white powder, he says.

Qin Jiangming and his mother at their home in Longzhou County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Aug. 24, 2020. Li You/Sixth Tone

Qin and his 80-year-old mother now live on government subsidies. And since he couldnt farm any longer due to his chronic back condition, officials helped him open a barber shop in the village while he completed the community rehab program.

But stability is uncertain. When Sixth Tone visited him at his home in Longzhous Guanming Village, he was recovering from a road accident in which he suffered a broken leg, leaving him unable to run his shop. He only says: I hope I get better soon and pick up my scissors again.

(Header image: A farmer rides along a road cutting through sugarcane fields in Jinlong Town, Longzhou County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Aug. 27, 2020. Li You/Sixth Tone)

Read the rest here:

After Years of Forced Rehab, China's Drug Users Struggle to Stay Sober - Sixth Tone

President Donald Trump said this morning, America will always rise up, stand tall and fight back. | Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

BREAKING MORE BIG NEWS IN THE MIDDLE EAST President DONALD TRUMP announced that he spoke to HAMAD BIN ISA BIN SALMAN AL KHALIFA, the king of Bahrain, and Israeli PM BENJAMIN NETANYAHU today, and they agreed to the establishment of full diplomatic relations between Israel and the Kingdom of Bahrain.

-- LEADERS from BAHRAIN will join leaders from the UAE and ISRAEL in Washington on Tuesday, where they will participate in a signing ceremony.

CNNS VIVIAN SALAMA (@vmsalama): Important to note that Bahrain is basically an extension of Saudi Arabia (they are physically linked by a causeway but the Bahraini monarchy is also heavily reliant on Riyadh). This could not have happened without the blessing of Saudi Arabia. But also We mustnt forget that Bahrain was home to a major uprising during the Arab Spring, which saw a brutal crackdown led by Saudi Arabia. It sits only 60km from Iran & w/its Shiite majority under Sunni rule, it sees major benefit in this anti-Iran solidarity effort brokered by US.

AND NOW THEY PAUSE: THE STANDARD politicking we live through has been mostly paused for the day, as we begin the 20th year since the Sept. 11 attacks.

JOE BIDEN said explicitly this morning at the New Castle airport in Delaware that he wouldnt be campaigning or making any news, per pooler CHRIS CADELAGO.

TRUMP this morning in Shanksville, Pa.: The heroes of Flight 93 are an everlasting reminder that no matter the danger, no matter the threat, no matter the odds, America will always rise up, stand tall and fight back. Our sacred task, our righteous duty and our solemn pledge is to carry forward the noble legacy of the brave souls who gave their lives for us 19 years ago.

BIDEN and VP MIKE PENCE met at Ground Zero and exchanged pleasantries and an elbow bump. BIDEN also consoled an elderly woman using a wheelchair who was holding a picture of her son, who she told Biden had died at age 43. Biden took the image and looked it over, reflecting on losing his own son, Beau. It never goes away, Biden said. She repeated his words. The NYTs Todd Heislers great photo of Biden and Pence

IF YOU READ ONE THING DAVID MARANISS on A1 of The Washington Post, from Sunday, Sept. 16, 2001: September 11, 2001; Steve Miller Ate a Scone, Sheila Moody Did Paperwork, Edmund Glazer Boarded a Plane: Portrait of a Day That Began in Routine and Ended in Ashes

WHAT NEW YORK IS READING -- Trump administration secretly withheld millions from FDNY 9/11 health program, by the N.Y. Daily News Michael McAuliff: The Trump administration has secretly siphoned nearly $4 million away from a program that tracks and treats FDNY firefighters and medics suffering from 9/11 related illnesses The Treasury Department mysteriously started withholding parts of payments nearly four years ago meant to cover medical services for firefighters, emergency medical technicians and paramedics treated by the FDNY World Trade Center Health Program, documents obtained by The News reveal.

[Program director David] Prezant was never able to get an explanation After years of complaining, Prezant did get a partial answer when Long Island Republican Rep. Pete King put his political weight behind the inquiry. That answer was that some other agency in the city has been in an unrelated feud with the feds over Medicare bills. For some reason, Treasury decided to stiff the FDNY. Neither the Treasury Department nor the White House answered requests for comment. Daily News

A message from Morgan Stanley:

We honor all those who lost their lives in the World Trade Center on September 11th, including 13 Morgan Stanley employees. #neverforget

Titus Davidson, Jennifer De Jesus, Joseph DiPilato, Godwin Forde, Lindsay Herkness, Albert Joseph, Charles Laurencin, Wesley Mercer, Rick Rescorla, Nolbert Salomon, Steven Strauss ,Thomas Swift, Jorge Velazquez

HAPPENING TODAY -- Soldier to receive Medal of Honor after helping save 70 captives from execution by Islamic State, by WaPos Alex Horton: The team of elite U.S. Army soldiers had already freed dozens of captives at the Islamic State compound when an urgent plea crackled over the radio: Another team nearby on the roof of a burning building was taking enemy fire from multiple sides.

1st Sgt. Thomas P. Payne peered through his night-vision goggles in the predawn hours of Oct. 22, 2015, midway through a daring prisoner rescue in northern Iraq. A fellow soldier had already been shot. Lets get into the fight, he told another soldier before climbing a ladder to reach the rooftop, then dropping grenades and firing down through holes to the floor below. Then came the earsplitting staccato of detonating suicide vests, shaking the buildings foundation.

The next step, Payne and the team understood, was to enter the building, where dozens more prisoners were still trapped. The award will make Payne, 36, the first recipient of the award in the fight against the Islamic State and the first living Delta Force recipient since the counterterror units creation in the late 1970s. The Army has said the mission was one of the largest rescue operations in history.

Happy Friday afternoon.

JUST PUBLISHED -- Peter Thiel Met With The Racist Fringe As He Went All In On Trump, by BuzzFeeds Rosie Gray and Ryan Mac

SCOOP -- ICE flew detainees to Virginia so the planes could transport agents to D.C. protests. A huge coronavirus outbreak followed, by WaPos Antonio Olivo and Nick Miroff: The Trump administration flew immigrant detainees to Virginia this summer to facilitate the rapid deployment of Homeland Security tactical teams to quell protests in Washington, circumventing restrictions on the use of charter flights for employee travel, according to a current and a former U.S. official.

After the transfer, dozens of the new arrivals tested positive for the novel coronavirus, fueling an outbreak at the Farmville, Va., immigration jail that infected more than 300 inmates, one of whom died.

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STEEL YOURSELF -- Well put them down very quickly: Trump threatens to quash Election Night riots, by Quint Forgey: The remarks from the president came in an interview with Fox News host Jeanine Pirro set to air Saturday, in which he was asked how he would respond to incidents of rioting should he be declared the winner on Nov. 3.

Well put them down very quickly if they do that. We have the right to do that. We have the power to do that, if we want, Trump said. Look, its called insurrection, he added. We just send in, and we do it very easy. I mean, its very easy. Id rather not do that because theres no reason for it, but if we had to, wed do that and put it down within minutes. POLITICO

DEPT. OF VERY BAD NEWS -- 911 dispatchers slammed with calls about QAnon-backed false claims about wildfires, by CNNs Donie OSullivan: [L]aw enforcement agencies described 911 dispatchers being overrun with calls about a false online rumor that Antifa members had been arrested for setting the fires a claim promoted by the anonymous account behind the QAnon conspiracy theories.

The incident highlights how online conspiracy theories, a sustained right-wing campaign to create increased fear of anti-fascist groups, and amplification of false claims by QAnon followers, have real consequences. CNN Business

-- NBCS BEN COLLINS (@oneunderscore_), who covers this beat: Nobody is appropriately gauging how quickly QAnon (and Q by other names) has taken over among suburban and rural white women. It is everywhere. I, too, am mentally and emotionally struggling with how many people have come to believe something simultaneously so stupid and dangerous. But pretending like it isnt happening and that were better than this isnt working. Its a crisis happening in a mom group text near you.

TIMES CHARLOTTE ALTER in Kenosha, Wis.: How Conspiracy Theories Are Shaping the 2020 Electionand Shaking the Foundation of American Democracy

CHOOSE YOUR NEWS NBC: Democrats are nervous about Trumps persisting edge over Biden on the economy WAPO: Trumps lead over Biden on the economy appears vulnerable, a potential turning point

REALITY CHECK -- Donald Trump isnt at risk of running out of campaign cash, election data shows, by Business Insiders Dave Levinthal: Sorry, Biden backers. President Donald Trump is not running out of campaign cash. Trumps overall reelection effort remains flush with 53 days until Election Day, particularly when compared to where it stood around this time four years ago.

[N]either campaign appears in jeopardy of running out of money, no matter how aggressive its 11th hour spending gets, prominent Democrats and Republicans both acknowledged in interviews this week. Insider

ANOTHER WOODWARD ANECDOTE, via FOX NEWS HOWARD KURTZ: The presidents view of the press is reflected in one conversation [in Rage] about another book, A Very Stable Genius, by Washington Post reporters Phil Rucker and Carol Leonnig. Trump took issue with one anecdote and said this is all made up. Woodward said they were excellent reporters with sources and this was a good-faith effort.

Trump retreated to 70 percent of it is made up. Woodward said that journalists sometimes got things wrong but were making good-faith efforts. Well, Trump joked, I have Russia and Sean Hannity with me. Fox News

MEDIAWATCH -- Leaked Documents Show Russian Trolls Tried to Infiltrate Left-Wing Media, by The Daily Beasts Adam Rawnsley and Max Tani: The Russian trolls private chat logs and emails, reviewed by The Daily Beast, show they tried to get their American contributors to write for Jacobin, a leading socialist outlet; recruited from Truthout, a left-leaning nonprofit news site; and tried to buy their way onto the website of the long-pedigreed liberal outlet In These Times.

None of the outlets showed any interest in content from the Russians or their shady business offers. But the outreach by PeaceData, a facade of a publishing operation linked to the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency and built up by American freelancers, demonstrates the ecumenical approach the Russians are taking to pollute the information ecosystem. Daily Beast

THE ATLANTICS CHRISTIAN PAZ: The Neglect of Latino Voters: The stakes have never been higher for millions of Latinos devastated by the pandemic and the economic crisis. That doesnt mean theyll vote.

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THE NEW COLD WAR -- Trumps first TikTok move: A China quagmire of his own making, by Meridith McGraw: Trump has backed himself into a corner. His moves against TikTok are part of a broader tough-on-China push he has made a centerpiece of his reelection campaign But each time he has chosen to face off with China over trade, 5G technology or Hong Kong he has ended up at a critical moment when he has to find his way out of a jam.

This time around, Trumps way out isnt clear. If China delays a TikTok sale or scuttles the deal altogether Trump will be forced either to relent with Beijing or to ban the viral video app outright from U.S. soil. If Trump blinks, he risks looking like he caved to Beijing weeks before the election. If Trump follows through with his threats, he risks Chinese retaliation against the U.S. business community, not to mention angering millions of TikTok-loving Americans. And a deadline looms Trump asked for a deal to be completed by the week of Sept. 20.

VACCINE UPDATE -- China Injects Hundreds of Thousands With Experimental Covid-19 Vaccines, by WSJs Chao Deng: China National Biotec Group Co., a subsidiary of state-owned Sinopharm, has given two experimental vaccine candidates to hundreds of thousands of people under an emergency-use condition approved by Beijing in July, the company said this week. Separately, Chinese drugmaker Sinovac Biotech Ltd. said it has inoculated around 3,000 of its employees and their family members, including the firms chief executive, with its experimental coronavirus vaccine. WSJ

-- NYT: From Asia to Africa, China Promotes Its Vaccines to Win Friends, by Sui-Lee Wee: The Philippines will have quick access to a Chinese coronavirus vaccine. Latin American and Caribbean nations will receive $1 billion in loans to buy the medicine. Bangladesh will get over 100,000 free doses from a Chinese company.

Never mind that China is still most likely months away from mass producing a vaccine that is safe for public use. The country is using the prospect of the drugs discovery in a charm offensive aimed at repairing damaged ties and bringing friends closer in regions China deems vital to its interests. NYT

WAR REPORT -- Attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq have increased, says U.S. commander, by NBCs Courtney Kube: More than eight months after a barrage of rockets killed an American contractor and wounded four American service members in Kirkuk, Iraq, militia groups continue to target U.S. military bases in that country, and the frequency of those attacks has increased.

ANOTHER INVESTIGATION -- House Democrats probing $250M coronavirus messaging contract, by Daniel Lippman and Dan Diamond: Senior House Democrats have launched an investigation into the Trump administrations awarding of a $250 million communications contract to help defeat despair and inspire hope over the coronavirus pandemic, as they questioned the political motivations behind the taxpayer-funded messaging campaign. The lawmakers are also calling on the administration to halt the contract while its under investigation. POLITICO The letter

RACIAL RECKONING -- Restraining Device Involved in Daniel Prudes Death Has Controversial History, by WSJs Shan Li: The restraining device that contributed to the asphyxiation death of Daniel Prude has garnered increasing controversy in recent years, figuring in at least 10 wrongful-death lawsuits since 2010 as advocates for criminal-justice changes and academics have called for better training and better regulation of the devices use by law-enforcement officers.

Although little known to the public, spit hoods have been used for decades by police, prison guards and medics to keep someone from biting or spitting. They are meant to prevent injuries and the spread of disease. Some academics who study policing say spit hoods may be deceptively simple to use, but without proper training of those applying the hoods, people placed in them can suffocate or choke on their own vomit while wearing the hoods. WSJ

-- NYT: Black Police Chiefs, Feeling Squeezed, Face Criticism on All Sides, by John Eligon: Some Black chiefs have had negative interactions with police officers while out of uniform, and they are expected to smooth out tensions between Black residents angry at the police and officers who recoil at the suggestion that they harbor racial bias.

The chiefs are lauded for trying to change the system, but also knocked as traitors by some of those in blue and in the communities they come from. Some chiefs have knelt with protesters, but they have also overseen officers deploying tear gas at demonstrations. NYT

MUCK READ REUTERS: Big Pharma wages stealth war on drug price watchdog, by Caroline Humer: As evidence grew this spring that the drug remdesivir was helping COVID-19 patients, some Wall Street investors bet on analysts estimates that its maker, Gilead Sciences Inc, could charge up to $10,000 for the treatment. Then a small but increasingly influential drug-pricing research organization, the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER), said the treatment only justified a price between $2,800 and $5,000. Shortly after, Gilead announced it would charge about $3,100 for a five-day treatment and $5,700 for ten days - in line with the ICER recommendation.

The episode illustrates the growing power of the Boston-based nonprofit to hold down U.S. drug prices. Over the past five years, ICER has pressured drugmakers to lower the cost of nearly 100 drugs. It aims to play a similar role with emerging COVID-19 treatments and vaccines. Health insurers increasingly use ICER's fair-value analyses to limit access to expensive drugs or to negotiate steeper discounts with drugmakers. Reuters

VALLEY TALK -- Facebook Appeals Move to Curb EU-U.S. Data Transfer, by WSJs Sam Schechner: Facebook Inc. is appealing a preliminary order by Irelands privacy regulator to suspend its data transfers from Europe to the U.S., pushing its stance in a case with wide-ranging implications for global tech businesses.

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK -- The American Enterprise Institute is welcoming seven new scholars: Scott Winship, who most recently was executive director of the Joint Economic Committee in Congress; Elaine McCusker, former Defense Department comptroller; William Greenwalt; Amitabh Chandra; Steven Kamin; Philip Wallach; and Kevin Kosar.

BONUS BIRTHDAY: Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon correspondent

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POLITICO Playbook PM: Bahrain follows UAE in normalizing with Israel, and the 9/11 truce - Politico

The world of psychedelics is painted with neon colors and smiling, white hippies with long hair who use hallucinogenic substances for wild, recreational trips. But psychedelics like LSD, MDMA (also known as molly or ecstasy) and psilocybin (also known as magic mushrooms) have a much richer history in their use as therapeutic medicines, which existed in Indigenous communities long before Western culture and medicine discovered them.

Host Anita Rao talks about the history, science and culture behind psychedelic medicine with Ismail Ali of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, Chapel Hill psychiatrist Dr. Hani Elwafi, UK-based Dana Saxon and Oakland-based therapist Leticia Brown.

In recent years, clinical trials have identified multiple psychedelics as treatments for mental health disorders ranging from depression and anxiety to obsessive-compulsive disorder. In 2017, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted Breakthrough Therapy Designation to MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD. The FDA gives this status to treatments that may have significant benefits over existing therapy. In 2018 and 2019, the organization granted the designation to two different treatments using psilocybin - one for treatment-resistant depression and one for major depressive disorder.

Host Anita Rao talks with Ismail Ali, policy and advocacy counsel for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, about how psychedelic medicine came to be stigmatized and criminalized, the turn toward medicalization and what culturally responsible regulation and policy reform may look like in the future. Rao also speaks with psychiatrist Dr. Hani Elwafi and marriage and family therapist Leticia Brown about how they incorporate psychedelics into their therapeutic practices. And Dana Saxon joins to talk about her personal experience microdosing psilocybin to treat her depression.

The Healing Trip

Dana Saxon was diagnosed with depression in 2002. She tried Prozac. She tried therapy. For 15 years, nothing seemed to work.

Finally, after living in the Netherlands for a few years, she decided to try an alternative therapy: magic mushrooms.

She planned to microdose taking one-twentieth to one-tenth the amount of a recreational dose, or just enough to feel benefits in the mind and body without taking a full trip. But the research she did recommended taking a full dosage to prepare for the microdosing sessions.

It was an eye-opening experience.

Saxon recorded herself over video, and as she did, she saw another person looking back at her. That person looked like a panicked monster. But as she continued to talk to herself about what she was seeing, she became more aware of issues that had been plaguing her mind below the surface.

"This person inside of me that I was now seeing very clearly was not a monster," she said. "It was someone very scared, very lonely, feeling very unsafe in this world."

By the time the trip ended, Saxon said she felt like she had been through at least a couple of years of therapy.

Psychedelics, which translates from Greek to mean mind-manifesting, are a category of natural and synthetic substances that trigger altered states of consciousness.

Psychedelics work for healing purposes by making the mind more able to process troublesome subjects that may be harming a persons wellbeing, said Dr. Hani Elwafi, a psychiatrist in Chapel Hill.

Elwafi works with an FDA-approved medication and hallucinogen called ketamine to practice psychedelic-assisted therapy.

Instead of taking a daily medication that reduces symptoms much like Tylenol might reduce a fever but not necessarily get to the source of an infection molecules of ketamine can help someone to relax in conditions ... and to feel safe in confronting sources of anxiety, sources of fear, he said.

Psychedelic-assisted therapy is not the best form of treatment for everyone, and the substances should be used in a responsible and educated way.

How the Mushroom Got Its Bad Spots

What we have seen over the years is that demonization has, over time, shifted into appropriation.

For centuries, psychedelic substances have been used by Indigenous communities for community and therapeutic purposes purposes that continue in the present day.

They've often been used in community intergenerationally as rites of passage, or as initiations, or as containers in which various kinds of political, social, personal, healing and community work can be done, said Ismail Ali.

But when colonizers reached the North and South American continents, they demonized the use of plant medicines.

The strategy and tactics of European colonizers ... was based on the rupturing of cultural contexts and knowledge-holding containers, said Ali. Which included places like ceremonies where some of these substances were utilized.

This messaging that discouraged psychedelic substances continued centuries later, making an appearance during the war on drugs. In 1970, President Richard Nixon signed the Controlled Substances Act and listed MDMA, LSD and other substances as the most dangerous drugs with high rates of addiction and low medical benefit.

One of the things that we know that happened with the war on drugs is that in addition to Black and brown folks being penalized at rates very different from their white counterparts, we also received these messages about drugs being bad, said Leticia Brown, marriage and family therapist at Doorway Therapeutic Services in Oakland. It makes complete sense that you think this isn't for you.

Despite the growing interest in psychedelics among medical communities in the present day, limited access to psychedelic-assisted therapy in communities of color has continued to reinforce their stereotype as white people drugs. In a review of 18 psychedelic studies from 1993 to 2017, researchers found that over 80% of study participants were white.

What we have seen over the years is that demonization has, over time, shifted into appropriation, Brown said.

See the article here:

The Great Power And Great Responsibility Of Using Psychedelic Medicine - WUNC

National has resurrected its "War on P" with a promise to fund an intensive treatment programme and 13 detox beds to reduce methamphetamine harm.

The party's drugs policy, launched by National leader Judith Collins in Hawke's Bay on Monday, includes a promised $50 million in contestable funding for community-based harm reduction programmes, and more drug dogs at airport and ports to stop drugs entering the country.

We can either decide that were going to lose the war, or were going to decide to take it seriously, Collins said.

The use of this drug tears families apart, fuels violence, enriches criminals and destroys lives. We cannot tolerate the continued misery this drug causes, which leads to rising levels of violence and poverty, and widespread social harm.

Maarten Holl/Stuff

National has accused the current Government of dropping the ball in the fight against meth.

READ MORE:* Government quietly scraps Meth Action Action Plan 2020 * Helen Clark takes job at Global Commission on Drug Policy* Dave Armstrong: Progress in war on drugs won't come by locking more people up* Editorial: More prisons are not the answer

Methamphetamine, colloquially named "P", remains a drug of choice in New Zealand, and a tough stance on methamphetamine was a hallmark policy of the former National Government.

National has accused the Labour-led Government of taking an ad hoc and piecemeal approach to meth, after it scrapped the partys Meth Action Plan when coming into power.

Justice Minister Andrew Little has said the Government was taking a more balanced approach to reducing harm from crime. Police Minister Stuart Nash has said the Government was going after methamphetamine by targetting gangs through an increase in police recruits.

The action plan would be rebooted under Nationals new policy, with Collins saying the party would unify the resources of justice, health, police, and customs.

Bejon Haswell/Stuff/Stuff

National Party leader Judith Collins has announced the partys drug policy in Hawkes Bay, on Monday. (file photo)

There is no single solution to what has become a scourge on our society. A National government will tackle this problem from all angles, addressing both demand and supply," Collins said.

The party wants to trial the Matrix Methamphetamine Treatment Programme in 11 unspecified locations across the country.

This intensive outpatient programme, developed in the US and already being piloted in Nelson, has people who want to stop using meth attend three sessions a week for 20 weeks. The party intends for people in the programme to be tested for drug use each week.

National has promised 13 detox beds for methamphetamine, and will ensure each District Health Board has at least one bed. A full-time specialist that can assist with detoxing would be available at each DHB.

National health spokesman Dr Shane Reti said there were currently seven in-patient beds for methamphetamine across the country, and the additional beds would cost $2m each year.

The Matrix treatment programme would cost possibly $8m a year, he said. The party intended to reveal the overall cost of the policy at a later date.

We are costing policies, but theyll be out in the fiscal plan. When we put it all out together, youll see it, Collins said.

Dom Thomas

National justice spokesman Simon Bridges said the party would further fund drug intelligence work by agencies.

Police and Customs officers would also refer methamphetamine users to health of social support or proactively inform them of treatment options, when users are identified through frontline police work or small seizures of the drug made at the border.

National justice spokesman Simon Bridges said the party would ensure a strong response from law and order agencies would disrupt distribution of meth.

There would be more funding how much was unspecified for police and customs drug intelligence capabilities. National, in its policy document, said it would crack down on illegal cash smuggling what aided Chinese and South American crime syndicates.

There can be no tolerance for the dealing and supply of methamphetamine. Those who peddle this drug are responsible for the misery and social harm it causes, Bridges said.

Former National leader John Key waged a War on P while in Government, after declaring a crackdown on the drug was a top priority in 2009.

Testing of wastewater earlier this year shows meth makes up more than half of the drugs detected, which include MDMA, cocaine, and heroin but excludes cannabis.

Police estimate meth use causes $16m in social harm each week, or $884m in harm each year.

See the article here:

Election 2020: National brings back its 'War on P' with promised spend on meth-harm reduction - Stuff.co.nz

A cannabis dispensary in Oregon, USA. Photo:WireStock/ AlamyStock Photo

Drug experts have this week called for more ethical cannabis markets, warning that current examples are dominated by rich, white businessmen and do not redress the harms caused by prohibition.

The International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), a global network of around 200 NGOs, has released a set of principles it hopes will advance social justice, equity and human rights within legal cannabis markets.

The reports 20 key principles for creating more just cannabis industries include protecting the rights of drug users, helping people who were criminalised for their involvement in the cannabis trade to progress into the legal markets, ensuring the weed industry is a fair and equitable employer, and involving local communities.

Ann Fordham, IDPCs Executive Director, warned: As the momentum for cannabis regulation grows, we cannot leave the design and implementation of the new legal markets solely in the hands of private interests.

Recreational cannabis is currently legal in Canada, ten US states and Uruguay, while medical cannabis is legal in an additional 21 US states and in around 50 countries, including the UK.

As noted here, here and here by VICE News, current legal cannabis markets are as the IDPC warns not doing enough to atone for harms caused by the war on drugs, nor are they doing enough to uphold rights, promote public health, protect the environment or resist being captured by corporate interests.

Launching its report, Principles for the Legal Regulation of Cannabis, the IDPC said: Communities that have borne the brunt of the war on drugs are being excluded from these legal markets. Not only does this mean they do not benefit from these critical reforms, but these developments are serving to further entrench and exacerbate inequality.

The report warned that Canadian corporations currently control over 70 percent of the Colombian and Uruguayan cannabis markets, while Black, indigenous and people of colour own less than 20 percent of the U.S. weed market.

Legal regulation has the potential to become a powerful tool to redress decades of criminalisation, economic exclusion and lack of access to appropriate health care, the report said.

However, legal markets can also be captured by corporate interests, fail to include comprehensive measures to redress the harms brought by the war on drugs, and further criminalise people that remain in the illegal spaces inevitably persisting outside any regulated market.

Originally posted here:

Global Drug Body Recommends 20 Ways to Improve the Cannabis Industry - VICE

The monster in the title of I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad doesn't refer to the criminal cops it chronicles, but it would be easy to make a case that that's what they were. These plainclothes officers held certain parts of the city in a reign of terror that reads like a lost season of The Wire.

The story of Baltimore's Gun Trace Task Force, and the swath of criminality and violence it created rather than terminated, is chronicled in I Got a Monster by ex-alt-weekly editors Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg in a staggering feat of research. The two painstakingly reconstructed the actions of the crew from trial testimony, evidentiary text messages, transcriptions of calls from jail and from tapped phones, and dozens of interviews. Orlando Weekly spoke with the authors about how the GTTF can be seen as a microcosm of the "counter-insurgent" mindset of modern police departments a mindset that's spreading across the country, as we've seen in the increasingly militaristic response to protesters.

Soderberg: I Got A Monster tells the story of the Gun Trace Task Force, a Baltimore police squad whose objective was to seize guns and locate gun dealers (essentially doing what police do with drugs, but with guns, all under the auspices that it would curb violence) and instead robbed people, stole drugs, dealt drugs, planted evidence and routinely violated people's constitutional rights. Our book focuses on how these cops responded to the 2015 Baltimore Uprising following the death of Freddie Gray and their last year in action, when they went on a particularly shocking crime spree that lasted almost until they were federally indicted in 2017. It is a gang story, except here the gang is the police.

Woods: And on the other side, since the gang is the police, the investigator is Ivan Bates, a Black defense attorney who had been battling Wayne Jenkins, the squad's white leader, in court for years. The story begins when Jenkins steals more than $100K from Bates' client. So, reversing the cat-and-mouse game you normally have in true crime, where a cop goes after a criminal, we have the defense attorney investigating the cop (who is the criminal) and piecing together the crimes because no one in the system would listen.

Baltimore has a reputation as a high-crime city. Is that deserved? And what makes I Got a Monster more than just "a Baltimore story"?

Soderberg: The crime here is very real. Especially the homicide rate which has surpassed 300 homicides per year every year since 2015. The nature of that violence, though, is what's maybe not perceived accurately or at least, it's often simplified. There is deep and pervasive segregation. There is a severe lack of jobs because of deindustrialization. There is an unaccountable political and business class who see it as their only job to give tax breaks to developers and their other buddies at the expense of working people.

And there is, as our book shows, just a shocking level of police corruption here and that is part of that violence too. Cops in Baltimore were creating crime and running a criminal enterprise within the police department. The police corruption is part of, for example, The Wire it's there occasionally but what we came to see is that corruption defines the Baltimore Police Department.

Woods: Sometimes it feels like there is no legitimate authority in the city. While we were writing the book, the police commissioner who took over after the GTTF indictment was sentenced to prison for cheating on taxes and the mayor was busted in a crazy, and lucrative, children's book scheme. And like Brandon said, there's 300-plus homicides a year and a clearance rate of around 30 percent meaning the cops aren't going to get the guy who shot your brother. So people are scared on all sides and arm themselves. That's what the GTTF was created to respond to but it only added to the chaos, corruption and violence.

This task force obviously believed their wrongdoing didn't matter because it was in service of taking down "bad guys." Would you say this is applicable to the police in general? Becoming more so?

Woods: Like the rest of us, these cops grew up watching all of the movies and shows that tell us that great cops break rules to get bad guys. They get the job done and they also buck against the bureaucracy and we love them. Wayne Jenkins was exactly that kind of cop. We all made him. But just like he wanted to be the best cop, I think he wanted to be the best criminal. But we, as a society and often as reporters, overlook cases of police misconduct and violence because we are eager to believe they are taking down bad guys.

Soderberg: What informed these cops' criminality especially Jenkins' is the logical extension of American policing: People are the enemy (even though cops are supposed to "protect and serve"), crimes must be stopped by any means necessary (even if that creates more crime) and police are in a war with the citizens (a war on drugs but also in Baltimore, a very similar "war on guns"). This kind of thinking is common in police forces everywhere and it enables corruption. You see this behavior all around the country right now at protests where cops are attacking protesters. If this is what the police will do to people who are in public, you can only imagine what these cops are doing when no one is recording them. And through FBI wiretaps and body camera footage, for example, we were able to see what the GTTF were doing when they thought no one was watching or listening to them.

Do you think these guys saw what they were doing as more important than just getting paid? Were they shoring up their power in a moment where white people were starting to question police tactics?

Soderberg: What happened in Baltimore in 2015 is what happened in Ferguson in 2014 and what happened nationwide this summer following the police killing of George Floyd. We understood these cops in our book as a "counter-insurgency." They were out there to crush the protests and then after the protests ended, destroy any insurgent sense citizens still felt. They did this by aggressively and illegally policing. They went harder after the uprising.

You see that now across the country. People protest police violence and the cops show up and get violent, proving the activists' point. Then the cops use protests or even just public criticism of the police as a reason why they have to keep doing the kind of policing everyone wants to stop. It's a pretty good scam.

Woods: Paradoxically, the more crime there is, the better it is for police. Every time we surpass the old record of annual homicides, people call for more money for the police, which often translates into overtime for individual detectives and officers. And less accountability as long as you're getting guns that the department can put up on Twitter and Facebook, people will look the other way. So if you are stealing drugs and money, you're creating chaos on the streets, which leads to more crime. Which leads to more leeway and more overtime.

You started work a few years ago, but IGAM came out in summer 2020, when it seems like consensus has finally been reached on the idea that policing as it's being performed now simply does not work. Do you feel optimistic about change happening?

Soderberg: I'm not optimistic, but it is encouraging that more and more people are seeing through the rhetoric that protects police and realizing it for what it is. Trump's rhetoric, police being more brazen in showing just who they protect (or what they protect, which is property) is all terrifying but it also shows that people in power are scared. Also like Trump, there doesn't seem to be a bottom to the corruption. Take these stories about the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department having a gang in the department called the Executioners, for example. You can't "reform" that.

What with the ongoing investigation and the fear of retaliation, the logistics of making this book had to be challenging. The public records requests alone must have been insane.

Woods: We had a long email exchange with one of the former cops, who was in federal prison, and we spoke with the cocaine-dealing bail bondsman who was probably Jenkins's closest co-conspirator. But it was also really important to us to talk to the people who had been victimized by the task force. They are the Freddie Grays and George Floyds who lived.

Soderberg: And while there were public records requests, nearly all of them were ignored by the police. One of the few they responded to was to charge Baynard $40,000 for Jenkins' department emails. So even public information here in Baltimore is an extortion racket by the police, you know?

We also would go to the scenes of crimes and walk around and reconstruct the robberies and cross-reference it with details from our interviews and documents and testimony. So that was all used to build out the book's events because the book (which is all true, just to be clear) really feels like a novel more than conventional reporting. I wanted it to be a piece of investigative journalism that felt like a movie.

As I said, IGAM could be seen as just another wild "Baltimore story." But these task forces and undercover units exist in most, if not all cities. How much oversight is there? How can citizens get a sense of what's happening with the police in their own city?

Soderberg: In terms of what citizens can do, here are two fairly easy things. The first is that whether you support "defund" or "abolish" or aren't sure about it or hate it but want there to be changes in policing, you need to concede that those ideas are not any more "outrageous" or "not feasible" than cities spending huge chunks on their budget on police who always ask for more, are unaccountable and are harming citizens. It is very useful to just imagine what a world without police or very different police looks like.

The second thing: Try to understand how policing works. I Got A Monster is really intimate and by being so close to them, it's a case study in how corrupt cops operate. I'm glad you mention these kinds of task forces and plainclothes units because it's central to this book and I think, many of the problems with policing. We give these plainclothes cops a lot of power, little oversight, and let them run wild. It's almost like a shadow police force: guys in unmarked cars in cargo pants and henleys driving around looking for people to roll up on, throw against a wall, chase, whatever. The lack of oversight is the point. The cops in I Got A Monster got away with it because they were also producing results: seizing guns, making arrests. The corruption can't be extracted from what is considered "good policing" with plainclothes.

Woods: Over the last generation, we've all but abandoned the 4th Amendment. We need more 4A absolutists, because, in every single town in America, the police have the capacity to engage in some versions of these crimes, because of the power we have given them. We have created a shield of invisibility around police departments everywhere at the same time that we have given them more power both power over citizens and firepower. We're seeing similar cases coming out of Mount Vernon, New York, and I think we'll see a lot more in coming years. But if you want to know about dirty cops, talk to public defenders. Defense attorneys in general, but especially public defenders, are the heroes of the book.

More:

The Authors of an Ugly Story About Cops-Turned-Robbers Discuss Why Police Seem to Be at War With Citizens - Cleveland Scene

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A Colombian army major recounts how a civilian coca eradicator, tasked with ripping out the crop, sets off an IED.

The blast wave exploded his eyeballs, the major says.

This is one of many jarring anecdotes in journalist Tony Muses new book, Kilo: Life and Death Inside the Secret World of the Cocaine Cartels, an equally horrifying and captivating account of the Colombian drug world since the 2016 Colombian peace agreement with the FARC.

Muse takes the role of the major telling the storyhe becomes the narrator, in third-person omniscient. After the blast, the coca eradicator became a live, screaming skull with holes for eyes, Muse writes. The eradicator had to be evacuated by a Black Hawk helicopter, but the nearest hospital was 45 minutes away. Doctors operated on him for five hours. Finally, he died of a massive heart attack. He was only 33 years old.

Some soldiers tell you these details because they dig your reaction, Muse continues. This major seems bummed out by the ordeal.

In Muses estimation, the major took no pleasure in detailing the ordeal, but what about Muse himself? This question pervades Kilo.

Americanized narconovelas are the new mafia drama, with Narcos and Sicario replacing The Sopranos and Goodfellas (although, arguably, Scarface and Al Pacinos terrible Cuban accent started the trend.) Nonfiction books like Kilo are starting to hit the mainstream too, from Ioan Grillos El Narco to Anabel Hernndezs Narcoland.

These TV shows and movies flirt with educational moralizing, but mostly just care about retaining viewers. The books are different. They are written by some of the most respected reporters covering Latin America, and with clear intention to portray the terror of the drug warand the complicity of the U.S. public.

Early on in Kilo, Muse visits a Wild West cartel town. At a brothel, he interviews a 19-year-old Venezuelan migrant and sex worker who, according to Muse, has seen more of humanity in this ghastly cell than Ill see in several lifetimes.

She asks him why he is writing a book. I do this because I hope what I report will change the world, he replies, self-aware of his naivete. If the world knows the truth, things can change.

Kilo doesnt dwell on the policy failures of supply-side eradication, though, or examine crop substitution programs. It is light on academics, NGO researchers, and government officials, and the dry facts, figures, and proposals that come with them.

Muse clearly came to the same conclusion as Netflix showrunners: that the best way to attract people is morbid tales of violence with high stakes. Maybe Muses motivation is to reach policymakers or create a groundswell of outrage. Or maybeas a natural storyteller and someone whos had a touch of the war crazies as he writeshe just needs to share these unspeakable details.

About a sicario who has killed at least two thousand people, Muse writes, The knowledge alone that a man like Iguano exists is enough to change you. The spectrum of evil is broader than you thought. The dark knowledge expands the mind, stains the soul. Muse has learned the truth, and he needs to pass it on.

Whether or not it will effect change, Kilo is undeniably gripping. There is such a saturation of Colombian cocaine content that I was skeptical we needed another account of Pablo Escobar and the irony of Medelln becoming a top tourist destination. Yet Muse easily justifies the need for his book.

For one, he is covering new ground. Colombias drug landscape changed dramatically following the 2016 accords, and Muses reporting is both current and thorough. He details the failures of the implementation of the peace plan, the power vacuum it created, and even timely developments such as the arrest of the Honduran presidents brother on drug trafficking charges. While he delves into the obligatory history of Colombias storied pastand sometimes gets bogged down by the foundation mythsKilo is still a necessary new volume to understanding the contemporary state of the global drug trade.

Second, the journalism is astonishing. While Muse has reported from the frontlines of Iraq and Syria, his forte is Colombia, where he has lived for more than 15 years. The conceit of the book is that Muse follows a kilo of cocaine, from harvest and processing in the rainforest to trafficking and smuggling in the cities. It is clear Muse is not a dilettante but has spent years working on the subject. He establishes himself as a credible expert passively, through access alone. This is not parachute journalism and could not have been achieved through even the most expensive fixer. Muse embeds with both cocaine pickers and a military crew tasked with eradicating the crop, with low-level enforcers and top drug traffickers, and finally, with the top U.S. Coast Guard cutter patrolling the Pacific for smugglers.

Occasionally, Muse lifts the veil to reveal how he managed to insert himself into these situations, including a few moments of sheer terror when he thinks he will be killed. For the most part, though, the reader is relegated to the back seat, thankful for the opportunity to serve as witness.

And finally, Muse is as gifted a writer as he is a reporter. Using the first-person is always a risky maneuver for a foreign correspondent, but Muse heightens the tension by framing the book through his own perspective. Every scene in the book feels more immediate, especially because he has an eye for details that make Kilo unfold like a novel. Sometimes they are as small as a sticker on the back of a traffickers motorbike reading, If God is with me, then who would be against me?

It seems unbelievable that Muse is able to record such minutiae in the thick of life-and-death scenarios, but its essential for adding humanity to an otherwise nihilistic world. He writes with an empathy that demonstrates hes not just an adrenaline junkie pretending to care about those trapped in a vicious cycle. He cares about his characters and portrays them as real people in impossible situations.

After all, Muse understands the drug trade for what it is. In one of his most affecting passages, he describes the amount of the money and effort that goes into ripping out coca bushes, only for them to be replanted almost immediately: An eternal, pointless circle.

It feels like a cruel, divine punishment, he writes. Sisyphus is the patron saint of the war on drugs.

Leo Schwartz is a reporting fellow at Rest of World. He was previously the web editor at NACLA.

More here:

Kilo: Life and Death Inside the Secret World of the Cocaine Cartels (Review) - NACLA

Come November 3, Oregon residents will have a chance to approve the most far-reaching drug reform measure ever to make a state ballot when they vote onMeasure 110, the Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act. While the initiative indeed expands drug treatment, what makes it really revolutionary is that it would also decriminalize the possession of personal use amounts of all drugs, from psychedelics to cocaine and methamphetamine, as well as heroin and other illicit opioids.

While successful marijuana legalization initiatives in a number of statesand possibly four more in Novemberare nothing to sneer at, even if pot were legalized nationwide, more than a million people are likely to be arrested on drug charges in a year. In 2018, the last year for which data is available, there were more than1.65 million drug arrests; only 663,000 of them were for marijuana. Historically, just under nine out of ten drug arrests are forpossession, which means that drug decriminalization nationwide would result in somewhere north of a million fewer drug arrests each year. That would be more than a million fraught encounters police avoided, every year.

Our current drug laws can ruin lives based on a single mistake, sticking you with a lifelong criminal record that prevents you from getting jobs, housing and more, Bobby Byrd, an organizer with the More Treatment for a Better Oregon campaign, said in apress release.

If Oregon voters approve the measure, the state will be in select company. At least 25 to 30countries, mostly in Europe and Latin America, have drug decriminalization laws on the books, with the most well-known beingPortugal, which pioneered the way, decriminalizing drug possession in 2001. Instead of being arrested and jailed, people caught with less than a 10-day supply of illicit drugs there are given a warning and a small fine or asked to voluntarily appear before alocal commissionwhose aim is to determine whether the person needs drug treatment and if so, to offer it to them at no expense. (It helps that Portugal has universal health care.)

Drug decriminalization has worked for Portugal.According to a Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) report, before drug decriminalization, Portugal suffered rapidly increasing drug overdose deaths, a high number of people who got HIV through needle-sharing, and the country led the European Union in drug-related AIDS. A delegation led by DPA visited Lisbon in 2018 and found that since decriminalization, though, the number of people voluntarily entering treatment has increased significantly, while overdose deaths, HIV infections, problematic drug use, and incarceration for drug-related offenses has plummeted. Not bad at all.

It was just three years ago that the Oregon legislature approveddrug defelonizationmaking drug possession a misdemeanor instead of a felonybut now advocates are already prepared to push further down the Portuguese path. Thats because while,according to the state Criminal Justice Commission (CJC), drug defelonization indeed resulted in felony drug convictions dropping by nearly two-thirds after the bill was passed (from 5,183 in 20162017 to 1,992 in 20182019), it also included a nearly tenfold increase in misdemeanor drug possession convictions. That translates into only a slight decline in overall drug arrests, from more than 10,000 in 2016 to 8,903 in 2018.

Under Measure 110, those misdemeanor drug arrests would vanish as drug possession gets reclassified as a mere violation,punishableonly by a $100 fine or by completing a health assessment with an addiction treatment professional. Those who are deemed to benefit from drug treatment could go to an addiction recovery center, one of which will be located in every organization service area in the state. Those centers, as well as additional funding for treatment, will be paid for with revenues from marijuana sales taxes.

The measure is backed byDrug Policy Action, the political and lobbying arm of DPA, which has put $2.5 million into the campaign already, DPA director of media relations Matt Sutton said in an email exchange. And thats just the beginning, he added.

Well continue to invest in terms of what it takes to win it, he said. The campaign is starting a variety of different ads and raising awareness in the final push. Weve invested a lot already and were very committed to it financially. We think this is winnable.

So, why Oregon and why now?

We have to start somewhere, said Sutton. Oregon is a very progressive state and has really been the leader on a lot of drug policy reforms. It was one of the first to decriminalize [and legalize] marijuana, one of the first to legalize medical marijuana, one of the first to defelonize drug possession. Its no surprise that Oregon would be an attractive state to do this in.

The special nature of this year, with its double whammy of enduring [the] pandemic and its long, hot summer of street protests around racial justice and police brutality, makes drug decriminalization all the more relevant, Sutton said.

Having a state like Oregon that has been a progressive leader take this on will signal to the rest of the country that this can be done and that its not actually that radical of a proposition, Sutton added. And just in terms of everything thats happened this yearCOVID-19 and the awakening to racial injusticeit just doesnt seem [like] such a radical proposition. With COVID-19 weve seen the discrepancies in the health care system.

Its the same communities that are being overpoliced and have been hit hardest by the war on drugs, he continued. And people are realizing that the war on drugs is racist. The real reason behind the war on drugs was to criminalize and marginalize communities of color, and weve demonized drugs and the people who use them. The drug war hasnt made drugs less accessible to youth, but instead, we get a lot more people incarcerated and dying of drug use. The more we criminalize it, the more dangerous it becomes.

In anAugust report, the state CJC made clear just what sort of impact drug decriminalization would have on racial inequities, and the results are impressive: Racial disparities in drug arrests would drop by an astounding 95 percent.

The report also found that decriminalization would radically reduce overall drug convictions, with projected convictions of Black and Indigenous people declining by an equally astounding 94 percent.

This drop in convictions will result in fewer collateral consequences stemming from criminal justice system involvement, which include difficulties in finding employment, loss of access to student loans for education, difficulties in obtaining housing, restrictions on professional licensing, and others, the report found.

This report only scratches the surface, Kayse Jama, executive director ofUnite Oregon, said in apress release. Drugs are too often used as an excuse to disproportionately target Black and Brown Oregonians and economically disadvantaged communities.

This initiative addresses those racial disparities more than anything, said DPAs Sutton. It will help those communities that have been down for far too long. A lot of the economic problems we see there are a result of decades of drug war, taking generations of people out of their homes and saddling them with felony convictions. This would be a huge win in taking drug reform to the next level. It doesnt solve all the problems of drug prohibitionpeople would still be charged with distribution and drug-induced homicidebut it would still be a huge step forward.

And now, a broad coalition of change agents are uniting to push the initiative to victory in November.Endorsementsrange from national and international groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, AFSCME, the National Association of Social Workers, and Human Rights Watch, as well as dozens of state and local racial justice, human rights, and religious groups and groups representing health and social welfare professionals.

Weve received an incredible amount of support, and its really broad, said Sutton. And there is no organized opposition.

If things go well in November, DPA and its lobbying and campaign arm, Drug Policy Action, are already planning next moves.

We just a few weeks ago [on August 6] releaseda national frameworkfor drug decriminalization, the Drug Policy Reform Act, Sutton added. This has been a goal of DPA all along and where our work is focused today, all drug decriminalization. We think that people are ready for that. We decided to release the framework right now just because of everything happening in the country especially around racial justice issues. People are seeing the direct impact of the war on drugs and the racial disparities.

Were already looking ahead at other states where we could replicate this, he revealed. Some of the first states to legalize marijuana would likely be the first to consider drug decriminalization.

Once again, Oregon voters have a chance to burnish their drug reform credentials, only this time with the most dramatic attack yet on drug prohibition. If they approve Measure 110, they will truly be the drug reform vanguardand blaze a path voters and legislators elsewhere will surely follow.

Phillip Smith is a writing fellow and the editor and chief correspondent ofDrug Reporter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. He has been a drug policy journalist for the past two decades. He is the longtime author of the Drug War Chronicle, the online publication of the non-profitStopTheDrugWar.org, and has been the editor of AlterNets Drug Reporter since 2015. He was awarded the Drug Policy Alliances Edwin M. Brecher Award for Excellence in Media in 2013.

This article was produced byDrug Reporter, a project of the Independent Media Institute. The Drug Policy Alliance is a funder of Drug Reporter.

Read more here:

Oregon is on the cusp of a major drug reform: Decriminalizing everything - AlterNet

Networks of drug users and harm reductionists have been repeatedly devastated as overdose deaths surge amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Now that community is grieving the death, on September 7, of Jesse Harvey, a harm reduction leader in Maine.

Jesse founded Journey House Recovery in December 2016 and the Church of Safe Injection (CoSI), a grassroots distributor of harm reduction supplies, in 2018. He advocated for expanding syringe service programs and introducing safe consumption sites. He wrote a short article for Filter last year, condemning Maine legislators rejection of SCS.

Members of the harm reduction movement are mourning his passing and recognizing his important contributions. In a statement posted to Facebook announcing his death, Journey House honored his vision and incredible enthusiasm that brought the organization into existence in 2016. His legacy will live on at our recovery residences and in the greater recovery community, they wrote.

Jesse worked so hard and was so genuine in every minute of that work, wrote author and journalist Travis Lupick. He only wanted to help people. He was idealistic, in the best way possible.

It has been reported that police believe Jesses death to have been from an overdose; that has yet to be confirmed, however.

In his work, Jesse was serious, dedicated and passionate. In his life, he was this big crazy, nutty goofball that just always loved making jokes and making people laugh, Kari Morissette, executive director of the Church of Safe Injection, told thePortland Press-Herald. Its a huge loss for the harm reduction community as a whole. Everybody knew of Jesse. He changed a lot of peoples perceptions on a lot of things and molded the way the people approach harm reduction in this area.

***

As a fellow 20-something drug user dedicated to popularizing harm reduction and building community power, I considered Jesse a role model. I first met him in 2019 while I was passing through Portland, Maine. We knew of each other through the online grapevine, and soas so many millennials doI hit him up on a whim to hang out while a friend and I were in town.

He eagerly accepted and invited us to join him on a ride. He had to drop off some safer injection gear to a Church member. We met at his house, the entrance crowded with boxes of syringes and naloxonea sign of good company. Loading up his beloved red Honda, we drove around handing out supplies, chatting with folks. We stopped by one of the Journey House locations, where he introduced us to the residents and we played with a dog roaming the house. The hospitality and openness expressed by Jesse felt exceptional.

The author (left), her friend (center), and Jesse doing harm reduction supply distribution in April 2019.

Im not going to lie: I had been second-guessing our impromptu meet-up just before we arrived. I was wary if how Jesse would regard myself and my friend: a trans woman and a gender-nonconforming dyke. Its no secret that certain sects of harm reduction can feel like a bit of a boys club, whether that means heterosexual male drug users are being prioritized or that men are listened to over the rest of us. Nonprofit harm reductions chronic neglect or exploitation of sex workers feels exemplary of this atmosphere of male chauvinism.

But Jesse was different. It wasnt simply that he asked for our pronounswhich was great! Rather, he was genuinely interested in the lives and experiences of queer and trans people who use drugs, and how he could better show up for us. Half a year later, after I had co-founded the now-defunct trans harm reduction collective Do It Safe, Heaux! (DISH)which was partially inspired by his Churchwe would DM on Instagram about how his work could better reach queer and trans people who use drugs. Hed offer me his own advice for my organizing work, like the best wholesalers for heat-resistant meth pipes. I cant say I know any other cisgender, heterosexual harm reductionist who was so ready to make time to build a collaborative relationship with a trans woman.

***

The last nine months of his life had been rough. Jesse allegedly faced rights violations while held at a a notorious jail-based civil commitment program in Massachusetts, as I reported in January. It was only a few weeks since being released in February that Jesse, like the rest of us, had to face the COVID-19 crisis.

He began using again in March soon after a bad interaction with a cop while distributing harm reduction supplies amid the lockdown. The police officer told Jesse, as well as Kari Morisette, who recently recounted this to the Bangor Daily News, that their distribution efforts were not a public health necessity.

Thats despite the reports of increasing overdose deaths in the state since the pandemic exploded. Even before the effects of COVID-19 were felt by Maine drug users in spring 2020, many among them were already fatally overdosing in higher numbers of statistical significance during this years first quarter, compared to the final three months of 2019.

Jesse had told me that the erasure of his work, as one of the few local harm reduction providers to keep going in the early days of COVID-19, was not limited to the cop. There is currently a City of Portland Public Health Department narrative out that they are the only ones providing harm reduction services, when in fact they are providing almost none, Jesse wrote to me in a March 27 email. They shut down for COVID19 and are only now suddenly reopening in a very fake and tokenizing way. And they pretty much with one tweet tried to erase the work that our church was doing the whole time they were closed.

On a single Sunday in late March, his rag-tag group served almost 100 people. He told me he and his Church members distributed 1,220 syringes, 47 naloxone kits, 40 crack pipes, 106 meth pipes and over 50 fentanyl test strips. If we hadnt been there, the 97 people we served would have still used drugs, just with contaminated syringes instead and/or without a fentanyl test strip or lifesaving naloxone, he wrote.

Jesse seemed to be increasingly disillusioned and frustrated by the inadequate institutional attempts to support people who use drugs. In mid-July, he forwarded me his provocative response to an email he received from a Maine Department of Corrections case manager, inquiring about an incarcerated client looking to join Journey House when released that month. Jesse was no longer working for Journey House, he informed the worker, going on to express a sense of pessimism about what established systems could do for people who use drugs.

If your client ever relapses, its probably best that he DOES NOT GO to a hospital to seek treatment or the state might fuck him too, Jesse responded, seemingly referring to his civil commitment experience earlier that year. And God forbid hes black, then theyd just shoot him dead.

There was something surreal about the email thread: a carceral bureaucrat just looking to shuffle a body out of a cage and into a home, only to be met by Jesse expounding the violence of the war on drug users in graphic metaphors. He wantedand neededthe world to be different, and he did so much to make that happen. Jesse embodied the harm reduction tenet described by writer Tracy Heltonin a tweet mourning Harveys death: [W]e do the things that need to be done- whether they are comfortable, feasible, legal, or even funded.

Yet his world remained recalcitrant.

All this pain, psychosis, misery, suicide attempts, relapse, OD, etc and for what? All to fatten up the sacrosanct prison industrial complex that is so fiendishly thirsty for the dripping blood and the severed and dismembered limbs of societys lower classes and anybody who isnt white, wrote Jesse in the July 16 email. Its classicide and white supremacist genocide unfolding right before us daily. And we just watch it and go about our days, and the bureaucrats making $80k/yr just schedule a meeting to schedule another meeting.

It shouldnt take the loss of life to compel the state and society to work in support of drug users health, power and autonomy. Drug users have been envisioning the paths forward for years: from safe consumption spaces to a safe supply, from housing for all to drug legalization. Even with mass death, only crumbs have been delivered to activists by politicians and bureaucrats, like the expansion of take-home methadone, and some wins are even being rolled back, as seen with the recent closure of a busy safe consumption site in Canada.

I wasnt close with Jesse, but from our working relationship, I know he will not rest in peace until all drug users are safe, healthy and have the resources to self-determine their lives.

CoSI is raising funds for Jesse Harveys family and his September 19 candlelight vigil. Donations can be made to their Venmo: @churchofsafeinjection.

Link:

Rest in Power, Jesse Harvey - Filter

KUALA LUMPUR: A total of RM5.16mil worth of drugs were seized following 15 raids in the city and Selangor.

Police also detained 17 syndicate members aged between 28 and 59, including the mastermind in his 40s, following the raids on Sept 8 and Sept 9.

Bukit Aman Narcotics Crime Investigation Department deputy director Deputy Comm Zainuddin Ahmad said police conducted six raids in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur on Sept 8 and detained five locals - three men and two women.

"We also uncovered a drug processing lab at a house in Damansara.

"Three of those detained tested positive for drugs while two of them had past criminal records and drug-related offences," he told a press conference in Bukit Aman on Friday (Sept 11).

An array of drugs worth RM2.25mil were also seized from the first series of raids, he added.

"Among the drugs seized were 43.56kg of ketamine, 154.22g syabu and 1.5g ecstasy pills.

"We also seized equipment used to produce drugs and assets belonging to the syndicate worth RM334,750," he said.

In the second series of raids, DCP Zainuddin said nine raids were conducted in the Klang Valley on Sept 9.

"Eight local men, two local women and two Vietnamese women were detained.

"Two of them tested positive for ketamine while five local men had past criminal records," he added.

Police also seized various drugs, including 32.72kg of MDMA powder, 1.4kg syabu, 11.43kg ecstasy pills and 3.32kg of ketamine worth RM2.91mil.

"We also seized assets of the syndicates worth RM1.2mil including 13 vehicles," he said.

DCP Zainuddin said those detained have been remanded until Sept 17.

"The drugs seized from the raids could have supplied more than 400,000 addicts.

"We believe the syndicates have been operating for about two months," he added.

He also thanked the cooperation of the public that led to the successful raids.

"We will continue to combat the drug syndicates as the war on drugs is far from over," he said.

See the rest here:

Over RM5mil worth of drugs seized in KL, Selangor raids - The Star Online

PORTLAND, Maine Kari Morissette had been sober for three months when she moved from Florida to Maine last winter. Born in Rumford, she returned to the state after bouncing around Miami, part of a long stint as an intravenous drug user. Now, she was looking for a fresh start.

Morissette wasnt in Maines recovery community long before she met Jesse Harvey, an energetic advocate and charismatic founder of the Church of Safe Injection, at a meeting at the recovery center.

He was this cool, funny, quirky guy, Morissette said.

The Church of Safe Injection is a mobile operation to distribute sterile needles for people who use drugs. A week or so after meeting Harvey, she saw a social media post that said the church was looking for help.

Morissette asked Harvey where she could apply. He told her she didnt need to. The job was hers.

Soon, Morissette was helping Harvey conduct distribution calls, dropping Narcan, an overdose prevention drug, and clean syringes for people who used drugs in Lewiston. Soon she was participating in meetings with health professionals and others in recovery. Before she knew it, she was leading the organizations outreach program in Lewiston.

All Jesse ever wanted to do was help people, Morissette said.

Harvey died Monday, in what police called a possible overdose. He was 28.

A vigil will be held at 6 p.m. Sept. 19 at the gazebo in the Eastern Promenade in Portland to remember Harvey.

Maine saw a record-breaking 132 fatal drug overdoses in the first quarter of 2020, a 23 percent increase of such deaths during the last three months of 2019. That rate has increased again as the pandemic persists.

Over the past few years, Harvey became one of the most visible forces fighting addiction. A leader in the recovery and harm reduction movements, Harvey advocated for cities to set up and fund safe-injection sites staffed with trained health professionals to prevent fatal overdoses to counter the opioid epidemic. Before the Church of Safe Injection, Harvey founded the first Journey House, a network of sober-living homes for low-income people that has become a vital part of a surge of recovery residencies in the state.

Morissette quickly recognized that Harvey had a special ability to connect with people when she met him last fall. He spoke from personal experience in a way that drew people into his work. He was also a goofball who put people at ease and did not shy away from radical positions or policy goals.

He was the person in the harm reduction community that said what everybody else wanted to say but were too fearful of controversy, Morissette said.

In 2015, after arrests, a jail sentence and a fifth commitment to a treatment center, Harvey began to make serious strides toward creating spaces where harm reduction principles could apply. He embraced recovery houses, safe-injection sites and medication-assisted treatment. Today, there are four certified Journey House recovery residencies in the state, in Lewiston and South Portland and two in Sanford,

Harveys ability to connect with people helped Mainers understand the crisis they were in. Through his advocacy, Harveys relationships with politicians, professionals and people who used drugs helped people understand their stake in the opioid epidemic. His efforts expanded beyond the state, too.

Ryan Hampton, a national advocate for addiction recovery who worked on addiction recovery policy in the White House, considered Harvey a friend someone I cared about and loved immensely whose spirit will live on.

Harveys work saw significant barriers from Republican and Democratic administrations, said Kenney Miller, Harveys friend and colleague. His bipartisan advocacy for criminal justice reform and the implementation of safe-use sites showed that government officials have politicized public health in a way that doesnt help vulnerable people despite overwhelming evidence that supports these approaches, Miller said.

Harvey was early down the road to his own recovery when he met Miller at a harm reduction conference. Miller, the executive director of Health Equity Alliance, a Bangor-based nonprofit that advocates on behalf of marginalized people in Maine, was impressed with Harveys eagerness to learn and apply the principles of harm reduction through his own experiences.

After Harvey launched the first Journey House in 2016, he joined Miller on a number of policy issues, helping to lay the policy agenda for the Maine Coalition For Sensible Drug Policy. In 2017, Miller asked Harvey to sit on the organizations board of directors, which Harvey did for two years. The organization presented with the Harm Reduction Hero award in 2018.

The way Harvey conducted his work both in and outside the recovery community was an inspiration, said Glenn Simpson, who counted Harvey as a friend and colleague for many years.

The way he navigated really complex systems with people that werent [always] open to his perspective, and the way that he was able to do that with passion and compassion, humility and the truth it inspired me, Simpson said.

Simpson is a Portland-based therapist who specializes in working with people with substance use disorder and the traumas that accompany it. He met Harvey while he was getting his masters degree a few years ago, and came aboard when Harvey launched the Portland Overdose Prevention Society, which evolved to the Church of Safe Injection.

Simpson and Harvey would hang out in Deering Oaks at the gazebo and talk about how the opioid epidemic was affecting their communities.

He came to me and said, I have this idea, its something called The Church of Safe Injection, what do you think about that? Simpson recalled those conversations in the park. I said, Jesse, if theres any person who can handle the pushback that comes from creating something like that, its you.

Harvey rubbed off on Simpson. More than 20 years his elder, Simpson had just finished his masters degree and wasnt fully public about his recovery. Harvey convinced him to recover out loud.

That was the beginning of me getting involved as an advocate and being really open about my own recovery, Simpson said. To speak about it not only from a professional perspective but also a personal perspective.

Harveys personal accountability and ability to connect with people was a virtue, but it made him more visible. When he relapsed, many of the relationships he built over the years seemed to wash away. The isolated pandemic conditions further cut him off from his people.

He really felt abandoned by the people he thought of as friends up until that point, Miller said.

To Miller, the isolation he saw Harvey live through after years of building connections illustrates the persistence of stigma that vulnerable people face in the absence of public support and available resources a stigma that can reinforce cultural narratives about who deserves to live.

He fell victim to the war on drugs, Miller said, referring to U.S. policies that criminalize and strip support systems from people who use drugs more than the drugs themselves.

Harveys struggles were bigger than the coronavirus, but the conditions and policies in place during the pandemic didnt help.

According to Morissette, Harvey relapsed roughly a week after the coronavirus pandemic reached Maine in March. They were in Lewiston doing a routine distribution drop after the shutdown orders when a police officer told them that their work wasnt a public health necessity. Harvey began using again after they were forced to change their operations.

Harm reduction principles have evolved to respond to the pandemic, but other factors are at play. Social distancing guidelines have made it harder to seek resources or support, while increased isolation has been found to threaten peoples recovery and compromise mental health, the Health Equity Alliance has found. Travel restrictions and heightened safety precautions have also strained the blackmarket drug trade, making it harder for people who use drugs to get and maintain access to their normal suppliers. As a result, Miller has heard tales that even more toxic supplies of drugs have circulated through the state, making fatal overdoses more likely.

Whenever we see supply being compromised, whether by law enforcement or in this case the pandemic, we see an increase in overdoses as well, Miller said.

The Portland City Council has discussed the possibility of safe-injection sites in the past.

On Tuesday, hours after reports of Harveys death surfaced, the citys health and human services committee postponed discussion of safe-injection sites for possible recommendation to the City Council. Philadelphia became the first city in the country to approve a facility that would allow and supervise the injection of illegal drugs, but plans have been put on hold during the pandemic.

Those who worked alongside Harvey say the push for more public support for addiction recovery services has never been more urgent, and there are a lot more people empowered because of him.

Substance use disorder is not a moral issue, and it is certainly not a criminal justice issue, Simpson said.

When are the police and the policymakers and the politicians and the public going to stand up like Jesse did like Jesse continues to do and say nobody who uses drugs deserves to die, Simpson said.

Original post:

Jesse Harvey made helping vulnerable Mainers part of his own recovery from addiction - Bangor Daily News

For those who have no experience with child protective services, the state foster system often brings to mind thoughts of wrongs righted, children saved, and love persevering.

Unfortunately, thats too often not the case.

A recent report reveals how the state foster system acts as a secondary criminal justice system, one that targets cannabis consumersand even medical marijuana patients.

A recent report reveals how the state foster system acts as a secondary criminal justice systemand uses drug allegations, including cannabis use, as a pretext to rip children away from their parents.

The 174-page report, How the Foster System Has Become Ground Zero for the U.S. Drug War, was produced by a coalition of social justice organizations, including the Movement for Family Power, the NYU Family Defense Clinic, and the Drug Policy Alliance.

Recent years have seen infamous examples of children forcibly removed from their homes due to a parents use of medical marijuana:

Those cases arent glitches in the system. They are examples of the system functioning as its meant towhich is to say, case workers are instructed to tear families apart over the slightest whiff of cannabis, even in legal states.

Todays foster system dates back to 1935, when its forerunner was established at the federal level to identify and respond to families living in poverty who were determined to be undeserving of cash assistance.

Our dedication to the idea of bootstrapping has resulted in millions of children being ripped away from parents who may have needed just a little help.

This basic premise still exists to this day. The problem lies in determining which families are undeserving of state or federal aid. Those judgments functionally criminalize poverty. They shift the blame for problematic family conditions away from systemic issues of oppression and onto the individual.

Our collective dedication to the idea of bootstrapping has resulted in millions of children being ripped away from parents who may have needed just a little help.

Children removed from their families and placed into foster or adoptive care often face worse outcomes than children from similar circumstances who remain with their families.

In one survey of nearly 6,000 people incarcerated in the Kansas prison system, 20% had spent time in a state foster system as children. Children who grow up within the foster system are much more likely to be scrutinized by that same system when they themselves become parents.

Instead of helping provide aid to struggling families, the foster system punishes them. Just like the carceral system, the punishment dealt out by the foster system comes with its own traumas and contributes to the cycle of children forced into that system.

The arrival of crack cocaine in the 1980s, and the hysteria surrounding it, spurred politicians into a frenzy of legislation, passing ever-more draconian sentencing laws that disproportionately affected people of color. That era also affected the child welfare system: Child removals more than doubled.

Over time, the federal government has granted more and more power and funding to state-based foster care systems to remove children from families deemed unfit in the eyes of case workers. That pattern intensified during the War on Drugs, aided by Congress passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA) in 1997.

AFSA created monetary incentives for state foster care agencies to fast-track the permanent removal of children from their families. AFSAs policies mean that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services now sends state agencies a benefit of $4,000 to $10,000 for each child adopted out of the foster system.

The enormous costs associated with this bill are covered, in part, by funding originally designated for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), a program whose aim is to alleviate the worst impacts of poverty on children.

Because of AFSA, the United States now has the dubious honor of having the highest number of legal orphans in the world.

When it comes to legal cannabis use, many adult consumers and medical marijuana patients are hesitant to reveal their use to their own doctors. That reticence isnt without good reason. Federal and state laws, passed in the name of child protection, have criminalized the doctor-patient privilege of privacy.

How exactly? Heres how the dots connect.

Federal and state laws, passed in the name of child protection, have criminalized the doctor-patient privilege of privacy.

States interested in receiving federal funds provided through the Child Abuse Prevention Treatment Act (CAPTA) amendments of 2003, 2010, and 2016 can get that money only if they create a reporting system for medical professionals to utilize when faced with an infant impacted by substance abuse. That medical provider must also notify a local child protective services (CPS) agency, and ensure that the agency establish a plan of safe care for the infant and mother.

That safeguard has effectively put millions of pregnant people and mothers at risk of being reported to CPS for cannabis use that is perfectly legal. Women of color and those struggling economically are far more likely to be reported and thereby taken into a system that may monitor them for years thereafter.

CAPTAs passage resulted in a slew of punitive state-level policies related to parental drug use, and functionally made reporting to child protective services the nations primary response to substance use during pregnancy, according to the Ground Zero report.

The problematic nature of those laws hasnt gone unnoticed. The Family First Act of 2018, passed by Congress two years ago, appears on its surface to remediate some of the harms of the foster system. It legislated the reallocation of funds previously used to rehome foster children towards programs to treat substance abuse, mental health services, and parenting classes.

Some question, though, whether the foster system should be the vehicle through which these services are provided. Given its historically punitive behavior towards parents, the foster system is often viewed with suspicion and mistrust by the communities who stand to benefit from the Family First Act.

On its face, the foster system is meant to protect children from negligent or abusive parents. But the ability to assess a parents ability to raise children has never been standardized. What may be a perfectly normal act of parenting in the eyes of one case worker or agency may be, to a social worker in a different state, cause for removal of children from the home.

Goals follow money. Funding for separating children from families is three times higher than funding for keeping them together.

Furthermore, the system has evolved with the nearly-exclusive focus of separating children from their families. The goal is not to repair families and support struggling parents. The goal is to post positive numbers of children savedthat is, taken from their parents and placed in the state foster care system.

As in any business, goals follow the money. And in the foster system, funding for separating children from their families is three times higher than funding for keeping families together.

One quote stands out in the Ground Zero report: A drug test is not a test for addiction and certainly not a parenting test. So said a nationally renowned OBGYN and addiction medicine specialist interviewed by the reports authors. The fact that the doctor did not feel comfortable or safe enough to attach their name to the quote speaks volumes about how risky it still is to talk bluntly and honestly about drug use.

Once a family comes into contact with the child protective services system, state investigators have nearly unassailable power when it comes to determining if a parent is fit to raise children.

In New York City, 25% of child removals involve allegations of parental drug use.

That power has resulted in a system where, according to the report issued earlier this year, the most consistent variable used to determine child maltreatment was [the investigators] opinion about the presence of maltreatment. When faced with a system whose punitive actions are nearly entirely subjective, how are determinations about parenting made? Too often it comes down to the use of certain categories of drugs.

In New York City, 25% of child removals involve allegations of parental drug use. Although data is hard to come by for foster systems nationally, some studies estimate that over 80% of all foster system cases involve caretaker drug use allegations at some point in the life of the case. Drug use has allowed the foster system a false sense of certainty in their evaluations of parental fitnessso much so that it has become almost weaponized.

Historically, leaders of the War on Drugs often justified their actions by claiming they were protecting children from harm by their drug-addled parents. But, as with most things, the real story is far more complex. Because of the legislation passed to support the foster system nationally, and the corresponding legislation at state and local levels, drug use is equated to drug abuse in nearly all foster system cases.

Think about how the issue of drug use/abuse is racialized. In the contemporary cannabis community, there is a growing movement of mostly white, female parents fighting for the right to enjoy cannabis while raising children. And why not? Its legal in many states, and has been proven to be far safer than alcohol.

But speaking publicly about cannabis use, for women who arent white and economically well off, risks the destruction of their entire family.

If those same mothers were Black and poor, they would face the real risk of permanently losing custody of their children. The report details the story of one mom whose blood was drawn for testing as she was giving birth. When the test turned up evidence of cannabis use within the past few weeks, state workers removed the newborn from the mothers care. It took her two years to contest the removal of her daughter and eventually regain custody.

The criminal justice system has established clear standards for what kind of drug testing is allowed in court. Those same standards dont apply to the foster system.

The most common drug test used within the foster system is, in fact, so inaccurate that it is not allowed to support legal action without confirmatory testing. But within the foster system its enough to start a case file and initiate a years-long battle for parents facing the loss of their children.

Drug treatment programs required by the foster system are functionally more akin to surveillance programs than anything else. Parents are forced, in most cases on their own dime, to attend these programs without any clear indication of what it means to graduate from them. In many cases, the foster system forces parents to remain in these time-intensive programs with little more reason than a suspicion that they are unfit parents.

Hospitals that serve low-income populations regularly engage in drug testing of pregnant women and newborns without their consent.

Then theres the problem of consent. Hospitals that serve predominantly low-income populations regularly engage in drug testing of pregnant women and newborns without their consent. If they find evidence of drug use, those test results are reported to child protective services and can result in immediate removal of the newborn. These are the same drug tests that are not accurate enough to be used in court.

The focus on drug use within the foster system all revolves around the idea that all drug use indicates drug abuse.

The medical world has a clear definition of what constitutes a substance use disorder. As defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM5), substance use must negatively interfere with the users life or the lives of the people around them in order to qualify as a disorder. A simple drug test cannot show that negative effect.

The cause of the struggle for many families is poverty, not drug use.

Despite the foster systems insistence on equating drug use with unfit parenting, studies have found no correlation between parental drug use and child maltreatment. Instead, research has shown a strong correlation between maltreatment and environmental factors associated with poverty such as lack of access to health care and housing.

Poverty is cause of the struggle for many families, not drug use. But the foster system doesnt address poverty. Instead, it uses evidence of drug consumption as a cheap, nonsensical, and counterproductive way to cast moral blame upon parents, and set in motion the violent process of state removal of children from the family home.

The authors of the Ground Zero report have constructed a framework for reimagining the foster system. They offer an action list for each group of stakeholders, as outlined below.

Zoe Sigman serves as Broccoli Magazines science editor, previously served as the program director for Project CBD, and has testified about CBD and cannabis regulation before the FDA. She thinks science is magic made real, and loves breaking the technical jargon down so anyone can understand it. IG: @zoe_sigman

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Focus on the family: How the War on Drugs destroyed America's foster care system - Leafly