Daily Archives: April 23, 2023

The headquarters of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands Mike Corder/AP hide caption

The headquarters of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands

MANILA, Philippines On a bright stage in a rented-out high school auditorium, Amelia Santos grieves openly before the audience.

Clutching a wireless microphone, the 55-year-old from Caloocan City, an area in Metro Manila's north, recalls the day she returned home from work in September 2016 and was told her husband, Edward Narvarte, had been killed.

"Somebody went to my house and told me, 'Go to your husband because he was killed, he was shot a lot of times by the police,'" she says. "When I arrived, there were police... and I saw the dead bodies of the victims, my husband was one of them."

Her family has not been the same, Santos tells the audience. Her children are scared and depressed and she is alone and afraid. Authorities linked her husband to a notorious Philippine drug lord, she says a connection Santos denies.

With tears streaming down her face and her voice quivering with a mix of outrage and sadness, Santos recalls asking God, "Why? Why did this happen to us?"

"I will not stop until justice has been served," she says.

Santos is not alone. Almost all of the nearly 20 people onstage in this play, titled EJK Teatro, have lost a loved one to the Philippine government's so-called war on drugs launched by former President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016.

Amelia Santos, 55, holds up a portrait of her late husband, Edward Navarte, during a recent performance. Santos says her husband was targeted in a 2016 extrajudicial killing by police as part of the Philippines' war on drugs. Ashley Westerman for NPR hide caption

Amelia Santos, 55, holds up a portrait of her late husband, Edward Navarte, during a recent performance. Santos says her husband was targeted in a 2016 extrajudicial killing by police as part of the Philippines' war on drugs.

The cast of EJK Teatro poses onstage with Roman Catholic priest Flaviano Villanueva (5th from left), founder of Program Paghilom, and European Union Special Representative on Human Rights Eamon Gilmore (center) following a performance. Ashley Westerman for NPR hide caption

The cast of EJK Teatro poses onstage with Roman Catholic priest Flaviano Villanueva (5th from left), founder of Program Paghilom, and European Union Special Representative on Human Rights Eamon Gilmore (center) following a performance.

EJK stands for extrajudicial killing. The play is part of the nonprofit Arnold Janssen Kalinga Foundation's Program Paghilom, which has been helping victims' families since 2016. Performing onstage is a sort of cathartic therapy for those who want to bring attention to critical issues in the Philippines. From inflation woes and environmental issues to the drug war and fears of a takeover by China, this eclectic performance a nearly hour-long mix of scripted lines, unscripted monologues and lots of music and dancing pulls no punches.

The day NPR attended, human rights campaigners, victims' family members and their supporters were joined in the audience by a delegation from the European Union, including EU Special Representative on Human Rights Eamon Gilmore.

The performance comes at a time when the slow wheels of justice appear to be starting to turn in the drug war.

Last month, the International Criminal Court denied an appeal by the Philippine government for the court to suspend collecting evidence for its investigation into alleged crimes against humanity committed during the seven-year war on drugs.

The denial of this appeal, analysts say, will inevitably bring government officials into the scope of the investigation putting current President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. in a tough bind politically, as his vice president is Duterte's daughter and she is a political ally who helped him secure the nation's top office last May.

The denial came two months after the ICC declared that the Philippines' own investigation into the drug war a tactic by Duterte to slow down the ICC investigation was not sufficient and that the court would resume the probe it attempted to launch in 2021.

A relative holds the hand of Jonathan Sevilla, who was shot dead by unknown attackers, at a morgue in Malabon, Metro Manila, Philippines, March 23, 2018. Ezra Acayan/NurPhoto via Getty Images hide caption

A relative holds the hand of Jonathan Sevilla, who was shot dead by unknown attackers, at a morgue in Malabon, Metro Manila, Philippines, March 23, 2018.

Nanette Castillo grieves next to the dead body of her son Aldrin, an alleged drug user killed by unidentified assailants, in Manila, Oct. 3, 2017. Noel Celis/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Nanette Castillo grieves next to the dead body of her son Aldrin, an alleged drug user killed by unidentified assailants, in Manila, Oct. 3, 2017.

Philippine officials say that some 6,200 people have died in anti-drug operations since Duterte launched the war on drugs. Human rights groups and the United Nations estimate the number could be much higher, with most killed by police or vigilantes.

It is these extrajudicial killings that the ICC is looking to investigate, and now the ICC Office of the Prosecutor can move forward in collecting evidence while a second appeal to throw out the investigation entirely is pending, says Aurora Parong, co-chair of the Philippines Coalition for the International Criminal Court.

Evidence, she says, includes information such as interviews and testimony from victims' families. The court will also be able to start asking the government for information, "and after they have collected all that evidence, they should be able to identify a possible suspect who will be charged," she says.

Many human rights campaigners and legal experts say Duterte is the person responsible. However, obtaining evidence such as communications between officials and police and testimony from officials will be a challenge, given that President Marcos has said his government will not cooperate with the ICC.

"I do not see what their jurisdiction is," Marcos told reporters in January. "I feel we have our police, in our judiciary a good system. We do not need any assistance from any outside entity."

Analysts say this jurisdiction argument is faulty, because even though Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the ICC in 2018, the alleged human rights abuses of the drug war began earlier so the ICC can still investigate them.

Still, Marcos has vowed to "disengage with the ICC" and has banned its investigators from entering the country.

This stance puts Marcos in a difficult spot politically as he works to both charm internationally and keep his own house in order, says Jean Encinas-Franco, a political scientist at the University of the Philippines Diliman.

Since taking office in May 2022, Marcos, the son of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, has traveled abroad in an attempt to secure economic and security agreements which he hopes will rehabilitate his family name following his father's peaceful 1986 ouster in what's known as the "People Power Revolution."

Shanty dwellers living inside the cemetery look at bodies being buried on Jan. 24, 2017 in Manila, Philippines. Many bodies of victims of extrajudicial killings lie unclaimed in a morgue amid an upsurge in fatalities from the drug war. Dondi Tawatao/Getty Images hide caption

Shanty dwellers living inside the cemetery look at bodies being buried on Jan. 24, 2017 in Manila, Philippines. Many bodies of victims of extrajudicial killings lie unclaimed in a morgue amid an upsurge in fatalities from the drug war.

Relatives and friends carry the coffin of Kian Loyd Delos Santos during his funeral in Caloocan, Metro Manila, Philippines, Aug. 26, 2017. Ezra Acayan/NurPhoto via Getty Images hide caption

Relatives and friends carry the coffin of Kian Loyd Delos Santos during his funeral in Caloocan, Metro Manila, Philippines, Aug. 26, 2017.

But his stance on the ICC investigation "brings back the violent history of his father," Encinas-Franco says. That violent history included torture, extrajudicial killings and the targeting of political opponents, journalists and activists.

Domestically, Marcos knows he owes his presidential victory to his alliance with the Duterte family, she says particularly Vice President Sara Duterte, daughter of the former president. Riding the coattails of her father's popularity, Duterte helped Marcos secure a landslide victory last year.

"I think Marcos Jr. would not want to antagonize Sara Duterte's supporters at this point in his administration," Encinas-Franco says.

Both Rodrigo Duterte and the anti-drug campaign as a policy are still popular particularly among low-income voters. And it is these ordinary Filipinos that Marcos is probably banking on, Encinas-Franco says: "I think it would be very easy for him to sort of explain in simplistic terms that the ICC is encroaching on the Philippines' sovereignty."

But not all ordinary Filipinos will buy the sovereignty argument from Marcos especially those who've been deeply affected by the war on drugs.

People like Amelia Santos, who has wrapped up her performance back at the auditorium. This was her first time onstage, she says.

"I wasn't able to express much after my husband died, to say everything that's inside," Santos says. "I am relieved."

Like other victims' loved ones, Santos is waiting to see what justice if any the ICC investigation brings.

More here:

Families of victims await justice as the ICC reopens Philippines drug ... - NPR

One of the hottest new ideas in Republican politics is, apparently, launching a war in Mexico.

Three recent articles in Rolling Stone, Politico, and Semafor traced the rise of the proposal from obscurity to the partys highest levels, finding ample evidence of the ideas popularity in the GOP ranks. Former President Donald Trump, for example, has been asking for a battle plan to attack Mexico, specifically targeting drug cartel strongholds in the country. Every single declared Republican presidential candidate has endorsed treating cartels like terrorist organizations. And in both the House and the Senate, leading Republicans have proposed authorizing the use of military force in Mexico to fight cartels.

These proposals are typically billed as responses to the fentanyl overdose crisis. Roughly 107,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses in 2021, the last year data was available, a 15 percent increase over the 2020 death total. Of those deaths, a majority were attributable to fentanyl a synthetic opioid painkiller considerably stronger than heroin. This is a major problem, and coming up with some kind of policy response is as important as it is difficult.

But launching cross-border raids into the territory of the USs neighbor and third-largest trading partner, a vital partner on many issues, is just about the worst one. The US and Latin American partners have been waging a literal war on drugs for decades; military campaigns like Plan Colombia have repeatedly failed to stop narcotics from entering the United States. Attacks on Mexican soil seem no more promising and considerably more likely to backfire in dangerous ways.

In reporting this piece, I spoke to four different experts on foreign policy and/or the Mexican border from across the ideological spectrum; not one of them thought these proposals contained anything like a workable idea. The planning would embarrass Paul Wolfowitz, quipped Justin Logan, the director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute.

What this exposes, more than anything else, is an important way the Republican party hasnt changed in the Trump era.

As much as Trump billed himself as a kind of isolationist critic of the Republican foreign policy consensus, his actual track record as president shows that he was quite willing to use force aggressively. He used force in somewhat different ways, and for different reasons, than his predecessors but very clearly accepted that some of Americas big foreign policy problems could be solved by bombing them into oblivion.

The enthusiasm for a new Mexican-American war illustrates the same sort of principle. It marries a longtime idea on the center-right mainstream, the war on drugs, to the Trumpist concerns about illegal immigration and the decline in quality of life for the white working class and claims that the troops can solve them both.

In one sense, the surge in proposals to use force in Mexico is both a new and extremely dangerous development. But in another sense, its old Republican wine in a Trump Vineyards bottle.

The vogue for war in Mexico seems to date back to the late Trump presidency. In 2019, after the Sinaloa cartel brutally murdered nine US citizens, President Trump announced that he would designate the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs). He tweeted that Mexico, with the help of the United States, [should] wage WAR on the drug cartels and wipe them off the face of the earth.

Designating a group as an FTO is complicated; it requires that cartels have a political motivation for their violence, which isnt really the case. Nor is it clear that it would do very much aside from creating a headache for federal counterterrorism agents, who would now have to decide whether a gang member purchasing weed from a cartel was engaging in material support for terrorism (a federal crime).

Perhaps for these reasons, the designation never happened. But Trump still wanted to wage war on the cartels as if they were terrorists. In 2020, the president reportedly asked Defense Secretary Mark Esper twice if the military could shoot missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug labs.

Per Espers memoir, Trump argued that the Mexican government could not stop the cartels on their own they dont have control of their own country and that destroying narcotics manufacturing labs would be a swift and painless operation. We could just shoot some Patriot missiles and take out the labs, quietly, the president reportedly said. No one would know it was us.

The idea is so outlandish that Esper at first thought Trump was joking. First of all, Patriot missiles cant do this: theyre surface-to-air missiles designed to shoot down enemy aircraft. Presumably, Trump meant some form of cruise missile, but such a strike would make it exceptionally obvious who hit the laboratories. Most fundamentally, bombing a few drug manufacturing labs would not end trafficking into the United States. Even if the US had good enough intelligence to target most of them, the cartels would simply rebuild them.

Its worth dwelling on this Trump proposal not only because of its absurdity, but because it helps illustrate why some on the right have moved on to more ambitious war plans.

In their logic, if the cartels are a violent threat to the US homeland akin to ISIS, then it follows that the US should do what it did with ISIS: take away the territory that they control and use it as a base to operate. In the case of ISIS, that meant airstrikes in tandem with local Iraqi and Syrian fighters who could take back the territory held by the terrorist group. But according to Mexico hawks, the Mexican government and its security forces have been corrupted by the cartels unable or unwilling to wage war on drug and human traffickers.

As a diagnosis, thats not entirely wrong. Leftist Mexican President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador, widely known as AMLO, has been more willing to use force against cartels than his hugs not bullets campaign slogan would suggest. But he has failed to address the cartels growing clout, which includes significant penetration of the Mexican government. A recent tranche of leaked documents revealed, among other things, that Mexican soldiers ordered to fight cartels were actually selling guns to them.

Mexicos failure to stop the cartels is a major motivating factor behind an October 2022 policy proposal written by Ken Cuccinelli, an immigration hardliner who served as acting deputy secretary of Homeland Security in the last two years of the Trump administration. In the paper, written for the Trumpy Center for Renewing America think tank, Cuccinelli calls for a defensive war against cartels facilitating drug trafficking and undocumented migration.

The proposal is thin on military detail. It proposes that the President should conduct specific military operations to destroy the cartels, but does not specify what exactly those operations would look like aside from involving special forces and airstrikes. If that fails, he argues for deploying unspecified elements of the Marines, Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard to Mexico.

The proposal fails to answer basic questions. For example: How many troops would an operation require, and where would they be deployed? What would the casualties look like on both sides? How would a US troop presence suppress drug trafficking and production when it failed to do so in Afghanistan? If the cartels start using locations where American troops arent, does the war expand to more parts of Mexico or even other countries? And would any gains be sustained after a US withdrawal?

Given all the things that have gone wrong with recent American invasions of foreign countries, youd think that the proponents of a new one might want to sweat the details.

And make no mistake: This is an invasion plan. While Cuccinelli repeatedly calls for the Mexican governments cooperation, Cuccinelli explicitly says Mexican refusal shouldnt block American action. It is vital that Mexico not be led to believe that they have veto power to prevent the US from taking the actions necessary to secure its borders and people, he writes.

Cuccinellis paper, for all its murkiness, is actually the most developed of the many different proposals for going to war in Mexico floating around. Even actual proposed legislation on the topic is vaguer.

In the Senate, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and John Kennedy (R-LA) have proposed designating nine cartels as foreign terrorist groups. The text of the legislation does not provide any explicit permission to use military force or any framework for its use, but Graham said in a press conference that his intent is to authorize it in some unspecified fashion.

[We will] give the military the authority to go after these organizations wherever they exist. Not to invade Mexico. Not to shoot Mexican airplanes down. But to destroy drug labs that are poisoning Americans, he said.

Sen. Lindsey Graham speaking in Washington in front of posters depicting cartels and terrorist groups.

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images

Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) and Mike Waltz (R-FL) have written a more specific Authorization for Use of Military Force for the cartels, one modeled on the laws that permitted the use of force against the Taliban and Saddam Husseins Iraq. Like Graham, Crenshaw insists that any use of force wouldnt constitute an invasion that he primarily envisions the military assisting with surveillance of cartels, and that any bombings or troop deployments would be coordinated with the Mexican government.

But there are no such restrictions in the actual legislation, which authorizes the president to use all necessary and appropriate force against cartel targets specifically permitting its use against foreign nations deemed to have trafficked fentanyl into the United States. This opens the door to direct attacks on, lets say, Mexican soldiers who are on the take from Sinaloa.

Nor would Mexicos president ever cooperate with a US incursion. After these congressional proposals began bubbling in March, AMLO understandably erupted in fury at the thought of US military action inside his country.

They have the arrogance to say that if we dont fight crime in Mexico, theyre going to pass an initiative in Congress so the armed forces of the US intervene in our territory, AMLO said in a press conference. We wont allow it. And not only are we not going to allow it, were denouncing it.

So how could military force be used to destroy drug labs in Mexico without either bombing the country or invading it? Graham and Crenshaw dont really say.

The bottom line is, very simply, that these are not intellectually serious proposals. At this stage, theyre barely even policy proposals at all. This is something even some of the harshest conservative critics of Bidens Mexico policy acknowledge.

[People] just throw this stuff out Yeah, bomb em! Call them all terrorists! without a lot of thought, says Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies.

Its tempting, given the thinness of these proposals, to simply dismiss them as political nothings: empty gestures of being strong on crime and strong on border security.

Many of these proposals conflate drug trafficking, undocumented migration, and violence as various different problems caused by cartels that could be solved with sufficient amounts of American ordnance. That makes little sense as a policy matter each has different contours, even if the cartels have a hand in all of them but makes perfect sense as a political matter, as it conjures a picture of a lawless border that the Biden administration is failing to secure out of sheer fecklessness.

But dismissing this rhetoric as purely political would be a mistake.

For one thing, ideas like this have a tendency to go from absurdities to policy. When Trump first called for a total and complete shutdown on Muslim immigration to the United States in 2015, it was widely rejected by Republicans and Democrats alike. During his presidency, Trump repeatedly tried to do it at first causing chaos at American airports and, ultimately, successfully implementing a version of it.

Given that the former president is once again the prohibitive favorite in the 2024 race, and that he is reportedly asking for battle plans for a war on the cartels, the proposal needs to be taken at least somewhat seriously.

Moreover, the fact that these ideas have gained so much traction in the past month accelerating after another brutal murder of Americans by cartels illustrates some profoundly important things about the state of the Republican party.

Dara Lind, a senior fellow at the pro-migration American Immigration Council (and my former Vox colleague), sees the vogue for using force as an outgrowth of broader Republican ideology: the ongoing conflation of migration with invasion and the idea that fentanyl importation is a deliberate plot to weaken America. On these theories, cartels and the Mexican government (through its inaction) are facilitating nothing less than the broad-based destruction of American communities.

This kind of apocalyptic picture of the United States, a country whose middle class is being destroyed by drugs and undocumented migrants driving down wages, is an archetypical Trump-era Republican theme. Again and again, the populist right mentions drugs and immigration along with the decline of manufacturing and the rise of wokeness as some of the root causes of terminal American decline.

But as well tailored as invade Mexico is to the Trump era, its not a wholly new impulse. Waging literal war on drugs outside of Americas borders is a very old idea, one with significant bipartisan support. For Republicans in particular, casting themselves as tough on drugs and crime in contrast to weak Democrats predates Trumps rise by decades.

So too does a willingness to launch a unilateral ground invasion in the name of fighting non-state actors that allegedly threaten American national security.

Trump, in theory, was supposed to be a break with that kind of hawkishness: he ran in part on his (false) claim to have opposed the war in Iraq. Yet time and again in his presidency, we saw that the strangely widespread idea of Donald the Dove was essentially false: Trump was no less willing to use force than other post-Cold War presidents, just willing to do it for somewhat different reasons.

A new Mexican-American war would be every bit as reckless as the Iraq war, quite possibly more so, since Mexico is literally Americas neighbor. That its become popular again shows both how the focus of the Republican party has changed in the past 20 years and the ways in which its essential hawkishness has not.

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Queensland parliament is poised to pass legislative changes that will divert thousands of people out of the courts and into health and education programs each year in a landmark shift in the state's approach to illicit substances that new polling shows has popular support.

The police drug diversion program for cannabis will be expanded to include all drugs, meaning people found with small personal quantities of substances like heroin and methamphetamines will be given three chances to avoid criminal charges.

The impact of the changes will be widespread prompting a call for more resources for "already swamped" health services.

Under the new laws, police will issue a warning on the first occasion and offer a place in a diversionary program, run by health care workers, on the second and third occasions.

If drugs were found a fourth time, police would issue a court notice.

Anyone facing criminal charges, or who has already been to jail for drug offences, would be ineligible for diversion.

According to 2019 data from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, one in six Australians used an illicit drug in the previous 12 months.

The state government estimates 17,000 Queenslanders could avoid prosecution in the first year of implementation with the majority never having contact with police again.

For those with problematic drug use, the early intervention by support services might prove life changing.

Brisbane woman Sally* spent years addicted to heroin, which became a way to deal with trauma and low self-esteem.

The 38-year-old ended up in the justice system and spent time in jail.

"The first time I think it was for a month and that was for failing a urine test," she said.

"You start accumulating possession charges, multiple possession charges, and that makes you more targeted for policing and you slowly become more 'othered' from society."

Sally said she has been off heroin for more than three years and is working and studying.

But the legacy of those convictions still taints many aspects of her life, from her employment and housing prospects to her sense of identity.

"The worst and most long-lasting impacts from my drug use were as a result of the social and legal consequences rather than the drug use itself," she said.

She hopes the shift to a health-based approach will provide support for those who need it.

"It could have helped me stay out of prison and pursue my goals it wouldn't have taken me this long journey to function in society," she said.

Emma Kill is the CEO of Queensland Injectors for Advocacy and Action (QuIVAA), the state's peak organisation for people who use drugs and a member of the Queensland Mental Health Commission's advisory council.

She said the changes are a "monumental decision" to "improve the lives of people who use drugs and their communities".

"This is happening in most countries around the world, most countries have forms of diversion, this is a first for Queensland and it's pretty significant," she said.

Ms Kill said Queensland has many people embroiled in the justice system for minor drug use.

"The war on drugs hasn't worked and it's not going to work, so this is a new approach and it's based in evidence and research.

"People don't seek help at the moment because of stigma. When they walk into a hospital or they walk into a health service, they're afraid they're going to get discriminated against and they don't open up.

"This is a real opportunity for people to start engaging with the services."

AMA Queensland president Maria Boulton said there is "overwhelming consensus" for a health-based response to minor drug possession.

The shift has the support of the Queensland Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll and her post-Fitzgerald-era predecessors.

Dr Boulton said the financial savings made by police and the courts should be "reallocated" to Queensland Health for drug treatment services.

"It is critical that our already swamped diversion services are properly resourced to treat the estimated 17,000 people who will access this program in the first year," she said.

The Alcohol and Drug Foundation said a new poll "suggests a clear majority of Queenslanders from the Gold Coast to Cairns are supportive of a health-based response to personal drug use, such as no action, a caution or warning only, referral to treatment or a fine".

The survey, conducted on September 22, contacted 6,123 people in the state electorates of Barron River, Broadwater, Maiwar, Cairns, Kawana, McConnell, Moggill, South Brisbane, Mundingburra and Townsville.

Support for a non-punitive response to cannabis possession was strongest in the inner-Brisbane seat of McConnell at 94.9 per cent of respondents.

There was less support in the seats of Broadwater and Townsville for a health-based approach to heroin and methamphetamine possession, but it was still above 50 per cent.

An LNP spokesman said the opposition will wait until the legislation is debated before MPs decide how to vote.

The Palaszczuk government's majority means the legislation will pass regardless.

* Name changed to protect privacy

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New Queensland drug laws will keep thousands of people out of justice system, advocates say - ABC News

Some of the most popular strains of cannabis sound more like ice cream flavors than plants: Blue Dream, Girl Scout Cookies, Sour Diesel, Strawberry Fields, Granddaddy Purple.

They would fit right into the freezer case with the funky names of some of Ben & Jerry's most iconic products, including Chunky Monkey, Phish Food and Chubby Hubby. But Ben Cohen, Ben & Jerry's cofounder, took a decidedly more mellow approach with his new Vermont cannabis company, Ben's Best Blnz.

His pre-rolled joints come in five carefully crafted formulas designed to deliver specific states of mind: Focus, ECS (enhanced, creative and stimulating), Cloud 9, Kick Back, and Dream Sweet Dreams. Each of these Blended SloSmokes is supposed to do what the name says.

Cohen entered the cannabis business to bring something different to the party both operationally and philosophically. Blended SloSmokes embrace the latest innovation in weed, emphasizing terpenes over THC to create a more effects-driven experience. The products are expected to land at Vermont's medical cannabis dispensaries around May 1 and in the retail market a few weeks later.

With Ben's Best Blnz, aka B3, Cohen will carry on the social and political activism he started at Ben & Jerry's to raise awareness and money for progressive causes ranging from voter and LGBTQ+ rights to climate and racial justice. Cohen plans to use the earnings from B3 to correct what he sees as the longtime injustice of U.S. drug policy, giving back to the marginalized communities most harmed by it. Cohen remains a Ben & Jerry's employee, with the title of cofounder, though he has no involvement in running the ice cream business today, he said.

B3 is registered in Vermont as a 501c3 tax-exempt entity. Cohen said he'll draw no salary or profit from the business. B3 will distribute 80 percent of its proceeds as grants and loans to Black cannabis entrepreneurs, 10 percent to the Burlington-based Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, and 10 percent to the Last Prisoner Project, a national effort to release individuals incarcerated on cannabis-related charges and expunge their records.

B3 itself isn't licensed in Vermont to cultivate, manufacture or sell cannabis. It makes money by selling the rights to use the Ben's Best Blnz brand, product formulas and package designs to small, mostly minority-owned weed growers, processors and distributors. For the moment, Cohen is concentrating on building the business in Vermont, though he has plans to eventually expand the model to other states.

"It was Black people, mostly, that got screwed over by the war on drugs," Cohen said. "So we're trying to use as many Black vendors as we can."

As when he and Jerry Greenfield founded their eponymous ice cream company in Burlington in 1978, Cohen grew his latest enterprise from an unfilled niche in the marketplace.

"I was sitting around a campfire with a friend of mine, smoking some pot," Cohen said. They both agreed: "The problem with pot today is that it's just too fucking strong," Cohen said. "You can't have the experience of enjoying the process of getting high, because you take one or two tokes and you're done."

In college, Cohen said, he'd pass around a joint with THC content between 4 and 8 percent and slowly get stoned. Most weed for sale today has 20 to 30 percent THC, the element of cannabis that gets consumers high.

"Somebody oughta come up with a brand of pot called 'Mediocre Marijuana,'" Cohen said his friend suggested. "I couldn't get the idea out of my head, so I decided to actually start a business that would put out this moderate-THC pot."

High levels of THC have dominated the cannabis market, Cohen said.

"Most people are first familiar with THC," he said. "So what ended up happening was that people who wanted to buy pot would go into dispensaries and say, 'I want the highest THC you got.' That's all they knew."

B3, on the other hand, touts "terpene-forward" pre-rolls. THC gets you high, but the terpenes determine the kind of high you get. As Cohen likes to say, "Terpenes make the music. THC is the volume." (The THC content in Blended SloSmokes ranges from 6 to 8 percent.)

Cohen brought in Chris Walsh, a former owner of downtown Burlington nightclub Nectar's, to help him formulate B3's products. Walsh is a cannabis industry veteran who spent a year in Jamaica growing weed for the University of the West Indies medical school, which was studying terpenes. In Burlington, he helped start Green State Gardener, a cultivation shop in the South End, and Upstate Elevator Supply, a company producing CBD- and now THC-infused beverages, edibles and other products. Walsh also serves on the advisory committee to the Vermont Cannabis Control Board, which governs the state's cannabis industry.

"You can't go wrong with Ben Cohen creating a product for himself," Walsh said. "A lot of famous products were created by people that wanted something that they couldn't find."

Cohen, Walsh and B3's development team blew through many attempts to come up with the right formulas for the Blended SloSmokes. Working in a lab that Walsh referred to as the "bat cave," in an undisclosed Vermont spot, they used a gas chromatograph to measure and analyze the chemical components. They balanced major cannabis terpenes such as myrcene and limonene with cannabidiol, cannabigerol and THC, using different strains of flower to create the blend that gives the joints the desired effect, reliably.

"In almost any other industry, a brand stands for a consistent product," Cohen said. "But in the pot industry, that's not the case."

To check that the blends delivered the intended results, Walsh put together a testing panel of weed smokers of various ages, some heavier users than others.

"We had a couple of J. Peterman types in the group," Walsh said, referring to the eccentric, globe-trotting parodied version of the founder of the real-life J. Peterman Company on the TV series "Seinfeld." "They would say, 'This evokes that weekend I spent in the Serengeti. I smell fresh-cut grass and lion dung.'"

Cohen recognizes that he got his business ventures backward: He should have started his pot company first and then, once followers were overcome by the munchies, sold them ice cream.

But pot wasn't legal, and wouldn't be anywhere in the United States for another 40 years, when Cohen and Greenfield met as seventh graders in Long Island, N.Y. They were the slowest runners in gym class when they hatched the idea to sell ice cream their drug of choice at the time, Cohen said. Cohen's limited sense of smell, a condition called anosmia, compelled him toward concoctions with big chunks and a creamy mouthfeel.

Vermont still hadn't approved the adult-use sale of cannabis when Cohen had the idea for his new venture more than three years ago.

He started it in Colorado, the first state to legalize nonmedical cannabis sales, but it had barely gotten off the ground when the pandemic hit. So he moved the company to his home state of Vermont and continued to develop the products.

B3's first local production and distribution partner is Lee Stowell, a former Wall Street junk bond broker and now general manager of Grassroots Vermont, a medical cannabis production facility and dispensary in Brandon. Cannabis giant iAnthus, a multistate operator based in New York and Toronto, currently owns Grassroots Vermont, but Stowell is in the process of buying out the larger entity and earning the state Cannabis Control Board's approval to sell adult-use weed. (Walsh spent years as Grassroots' president and previously served on iAnthus' board.) The deal with B3 will give Stowell, who is white, a big boost, she said.

"I'm very excited to see how the market responds, because Vermonters love Ben. Vermonters love his ice cream," Stowell said. "I think Vermonters are gonna say this is a differentiating product."

C&C Higher Love is another B3 partner, a for-profit marketing company owned by Walsh and Craig Mitchell, a well-known local DJ and Black gay activist with experience in the "legacy" cannabis market. While Walsh develops and explains B3's products to potential partners, Mitchell handles selling them to medical and retail cannabis dispensaries.

Mitchell has to educate those "budtenders behind the counters" not only on lower-THC weed but also on B3's social justice objectives.

"People are reaching out like crazy," Mitchell said. "We want our products on shelves, and we want it to be prominent. We want them to commit to what we're doing and the mission behind what we're doing."

While the product names aren't so colorful, the Blended SloSmokes come in plastic-free boxes with vivid, neon colors and groovy designs by local Black graphic artist Eddie Opara. Available in recyclable tins and glass tubes, B3's organically grown pot is vacuum-packed and nitrogen flushed to keep air out and stay fresh.

B3 plans to have other products, including a rotating selection of limited-edition, high-THC buds of single-strain, not blended, cannabis. A discerning team of five testers decides if a particular flower makes the cut.

A line of full-spectrum vaping cartridges is pending, as B3 awaits a July 1 change in state law that now imposes a 92 percent wholesale tax on all vaping products to discourage e-cigarette use. Edibles are likely to emerge down the road, as well.

Just don't expect a cannabis ice cream. Cohen said he's done with products that require such extreme temperature control even though he recommends that B3 customers store their weed in the refrigerator to maintain freshness.

"One of the nice things about pot, as opposed to ice cream," he said, "is you don't have to keep it frozen."

Continued here:

Ben Cohen's Cannabis Company Tries to Undo the Harm of the War ... - Seven Days

More than half of the U. S.have some form of cannabis legalization program, whether its recreational or medical. But even with cannabis programs growing more than 40,000 individuals are incarcerated in the U.S. on marijuana-related charges.

Racial disparities in policing are proven in all states regardless of legalization. According to the marijuana law reform nonprofit, NORML, nearly 13,000, adults and just over 1,000 juveniles were arrested for possession of marijuana in 2021.

NORMLs data shows Black individuals are five times more likely to be arrested than white people for cannabis-related charges in Pennsylvania, even though cannabis use is roughly the same for both groups.

If we had to think of a more just world it would be Black and Brown people being able to legally grow, produce, distribute, deliver, or sell cannabis products, Tauid Chappel, founder of Philly CannaBusiness Association, said. That money generated supports their businesses but also goes back into the communities that have been destabilized and devalued by the war on drugs and puts resources into those communities to help them get healthy again.

The war on drugs has been affecting communities of color since the Nixon administration. With state after state ending cannabis prohibition, how can communities that have been damaged benefit from legalization?

One thing you can do is pardon and expunge and obviously pardoning and expunging means de-incarcerating, said former Pennsylvania State Senator Daylin Leach. Stop punishing people for a crime that is not a crime anymore, thats number one. Number two, you have to provide some economic opportunities to communities that were not only adversely affected by cannabis prohibition, but in fact, targeted.

On Oct. 6, 2022, President Joe Biden pardoned thousands convicted of marijuana possession, and promised to examine its drug classification. This pardon does not expunge convictions but allows individuals to regain civil liberties such as the right to vote, sit on a jury, and hold public office. Biden also wants governors to pardon for state marijuana violations as fewer than 800 cases are brought to federal court. However, the Marshall Project estimates nearly 30,000 state cases exist nationwide.

Zachary Uzupis, executive director of Bucks County NORML, said, Even after all of the pardons get processed, there will still be many who deserve to be pardoned who are not part of it. It is the hope of Bucks County NORML that cannabis victims, i.e., people who are imprisoned by cannabis sentencing are set free from those crimes with their records expunged, unequivocally. I would go so far as to say that these people deserve reparations for their lives being ruined. But thats an unrealistic wish. Instead, I hope that these people are released as quickly as possible and that the people who are out of prison their records are expunged immediately.

Cannabis is predicted to be a $100 billion dollar industry by 2030. Yet as of 2021, only 13.1 percent of industry executives are minorities. Social equity programs are put in place by cannabis companies or states, where cannabis is legal for medical or adult use to help ensure those with convictions prior to legalization have a chance to participate.

If it is going the way its going, it will be very white, male-dominated, Chappel said. [Philly CannaBusiness] goal is to make it as diverse as possible.

Restorative justice programs give back to the communities and people disadvantaged by cannabis prohibition. In New York state these individuals will have priority in the marijuana regulation and taxation act. Social justice initiatives are built into the bill, including restorative justice. Nearly 40% of the funds accumulated from the sale of recreational marijuana will be dispersed to nonprofit organizations in communities affected most by the war on drugs and will help to fund job placement programs, housing, and financial literacy. The bill also will work toward plans to create diversity and equity in ownership and employment in the cannabis market, although there may be issues with these policies.

Dr. Matt Reid, assistant professor of sociology and criminology, said In terms of communities, depending on how they structure legalization, tax money can go to schools I would like to see, if they legalize it, some of that tax money go toward restorative justice programs. So, expungement programs, and ways for people who were arrested for weed to seek normalcy.

As reported by the Marijuana Policy Project $538.7 million from taxes on cannabis were used to improve Colorados public school system. In Connecticut, nearly 60% of cannabis tax revenue will fund social equity programs supporting workforce education, community funding, and individual access to business.

After years of redlining policies, Evanston, Illinois voted to pass a historic program to fund housing reparations for Black residents. Funds will come from the first $10 million in revenue from the citys tax on the sale of recreational marijuana.

One medical marijuana patient in Pennsylvania who wished to remain anonymous said, Its pretty bipartisan at this point Everybody wants weed to happen. I dont understand why it doesnt happen. Especially when the government could benefit from taxation and legalization I would like to see decriminalization of most drugs just because then you can have people seek help without fear.

The future of recreational legalization opens up the possibility for people to grow their own cannabis, however, access still remains a problem. Home grow provisions not only allow individuals to grow their own medicine, but also promote financially equitable consumption.

Uzupis said, Any recreational law that goes forward must have a homegrown provision Not only will this provide low cost medicine for people who have a green thumb, but it will also put a check on the multistate operators who are right now more or less operating as an almost oligarchic force, preventing prices from going lower because they control the medium of production.

The 2022 midterm election resulted in a democratic majority with Governor Josh Shapiro, and newly elected U.S. Senator John Fetterman both supporting recreational legalization. Many now wonder when the Keystone State will join the dozens of others ending cannabis prohibition.

Leach is optimistic. I think it is going to be sooner than people may have otherwise thought, hes said. The more states that do it and the more the sky doesnt fall it becomes harder to justify. It becomes harder to sustain this irrational, foolish, and frankly racist policy.

Continued here:

Pt. 2: The war on cannabis - Cabrini College Loquitur

Its been a long, painful road in the seven years since British Columbia declared a public-health emergency because of the rising death toll from illicit-drug overdoses.

Deaths from overdoses back in 2016 were rising sharply, and fentanyl was the cause in about a third of cases far higher than a few years earlier. But no one predicted how bad it would get. Overdose deaths in 2016 reached 994 in B.C., almost double from the year before. And that turned out to be just the start.

What began as a health emergency in one province has since seemed intractable. In B.C. and Alberta, overdoses have killed more people since 2016 than COVID-19 has during the coronavirus pandemic.

The worst year for overdoses came in the middle of the pandemic. In 2021, 2,306 people died in B.C. and 1,852 people in Alberta, the two hardest-hit provinces. The death rate in Ontario was roughly half that of Western Canada, but opioid overdoses still killed 2,866 people in that province in 2021.

As the accompanying chart shows, there was finally some good news last year: The number of overdose deaths fell slightly in 2022, down 1.5 per cent in B.C., 12 per cent in Alberta and an estimated 12.4 per cent in Ontario (complete data have not yet been published online). The three provinces account for most of the overdose deaths in Canada. Fentanyl, once the cause in a minority of cases, now accounts for four out of five deaths.

For years, political leaders moved too slowly to grapple with overdose deaths. In the past year, however, after the terrible spike of deaths in the pandemic propelled by an increasingly toxic supply of street drugs, theres been a renewed policy and funding push, led by B.C. and Alberta.

The end goal has to be the successful treatment of individuals who are trapped in the grip of substance-use disorders. Its a difficult goal, and a long journey for a person to get off dangerous drugs and the merciless grip of strong opioids. But successful treatment requiring a major investment of public money and health care resources means one less person exposed to a potential deadly overdose.

Improving a persons life, by helping them get off drugs, is critical. Keeping people who are currently struggling with drugs alive is just as essential. As we have repeatedly said, a person who dies of a drug overdose cannot seek treatment.

Political leaders are finally taking more action, but there has been sniping between political parties in B.C. and Alberta. Addiction is often entwined with challenges of housing and mental health. The scale and breadth of the issues demand that all policy options be deployed. This means everything from harm reduction whether thats supervised consumption sites, a regulated supply of pharmaceutical drugs or B.C.s new experiment in decriminalization of small amounts of illicit drugs to innovative approaches to treatment. Both B.C. and Alberta, despite differing political rhetoric, are investing in similar treatment strategies.

One glaring issue in treatment is there isnt a cohesive system to deliver it. Many facilities are privately run; some are publicly funded. And theres not much government oversight. Theres also a lack of data such as available spaces, the length of the waiting list, and the success or failure rate.

Alberta has built two specialized treatment centres, with six more to come. B.C. is working on several approaches. One is called the Red Fish Healing Centre, for especially difficult cases, and another is a strategy billed as the Road To Recovery that includes 45 beds set to open this fall at a downtown Vancouver hospital. B.C. Premier David Eby in February told The Globes editorial board that his government is trying to knit together an integrated treatment system, and gather and publish data so people can see where were going and where were struggling.

Drug overdose deaths have finally ticked down. There is cause to hope that the worst may be over. But theres still a long way to go to declare any sort of victory.

More:

Globe editorial: The tide is turning, but the war on drug overdoses is ... - The Globe and Mail

Eric Clapton announced Monday that his recurring Crossroads Guitar Festival will take place in Los Angeles this fall, with a roster of 41 guest musicians or bands set to take the stage across two nights at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles Sept. 23-24.

Musicians due to perform one or both nights include Santana, the War on Drugs, the John Mayer Trio, ZZ Top, Sheryl Crow, Gary Clark Jr., H.E.R., Buddy Guy, Los Lobos, Vince Gill, Stephen Stills, Jimmy Vaughan, Robbie Robertson, the Del McCoury Band and Joe Bonamassa.

Others announced include John McLaughlin, Albert Lee, Doyle Bramhall II, Keb Mo, Roger McGuinn, Robert Randolph, Jakob Dylan, Sierra Hull, Marcus King, Eric Gales, Sonny Landreth, Pedro Martins, James Bullard, Andy Fairweather Low, Samantha Fish, Ariel Posen, Ben Haggard, Christone Kingfish Ingram, the Bros. Landreth, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Gustavo Satnaolalla, Danial Santiago and Bradley Walker.

With more than three dozen players named for the shows, and more said to be addd later, not all artists will perform both nights but Eric Clapton will perform both nights, a note above the artists roster read. No two-day passes will be sold, so any guitar fans hoping to catch most or all of the announced guests will need to buy individual tickets for both nights.

Its the first time the charitable event will have taken place in L.A., and only the sixth time its happened at all since the first such festival 19 years ago. The inaugural iteration of Claptons signature festival, captured on a DVD and live album, unfolded in Dallas in 2004, followed by festivals in Chicago in 2007 and 2010, New York City in 2013 and Dallas, again, in 2019.

Tickets go on sale Friday at 10 a.m. PT via Ticketmaster.

Guitar Center will be in charge of hosting the Guitar Center Festival Village in Xbox Plaza and Chick Hearn Court at LA Live, adjacent to the arena, with rare items on display and interactive installations from gear manufacturers.

The event benefits the Crossroads Centre in Antigua, founded by Clapton in 1998 to provide treatment for individuals suffering from addiction or alcoholism.

An online auction also benefitting the Crossroads Centre, with guitars donated by festival performers and other items, will take place following the festival for three weeks, culminating in a live auction Oct. 21. Heritage Auctions will conduct the sales.

Read this article:

Eric Clapton Bringing Crossroads Guitar Festival to L.A., With 41 Guests Ranging From Buddy Guy to the War on Drugs - Variety

The assessment and evaluation conducted on senior officers of the Philippine National Police (PNP) through courtesy resignations of those with the rank of full colonel to general will have significant impact on the anti-illegal drugs internal cleansing in the organization, Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong said.

Magalong, a retired police general, is one of the five members of the five-man advisory group that has so far concluded the evaluation of more than 900 PNP third level officers.

The result would be significant in terms of internal cleansing. This will have a big positive impact, said Magalong.

The conduct of evaluation and assessment of all senior police officers stemmed from the call of Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary Benhur Abalos over the repeated allegations of policemen involved in illegal drugs operations.

Aside from Magalong, other members of the advisory group include former Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro and PNP chief Gen. Rodolfo Azurin, Jr.

We are now currently wrapping up. The President is already asking about it and I said it would be finished in two weeks, said Magalong.

The hard part of the process, according to Magalong, is the individual assessment and evaluation of each of the senior officers.

He said part of the documents that would be submitted to the President are the recommendations on policies in order to address the involvement of policemen to illegal drugs.

It was not only an evaluation, there were times that we are already investigating in order to get more details, said Magalong.

Azurin earlier said that the result of the assessment would give the PNP a clean slate and moral ground to initiate aggressive anti-illegal drugs operations.

Abalos was earlier quoted saying that at least 917 officers were found clean from illegal drug involvement.

If the courtesy resignation is accepted, the concerned PNP officers will be forced to retire.

Excerpt from:

Evaluation of all PNP senior officers has significant impact on war on ... - Manila Bulletin

Imphal: Committee for War On Drugs, Khundrakpam Kendra in association with district police, Imphal East has conducted a poster campaign on War on Drugs 2.0 at Pangei bazaar, Imphal East on Wednesday.

Superintendent of police Ksh Shivakanta said Khundrakpam is located at the joining areas of hills and valley. He said some of the valley people were also found involved while transporting poppy from place to place.

Those who are drug abusers but wanted to come in mainstream can contact the committee and district police, he added.

He appealed the people not to involve in such activities which is against the society. And further appealed the locals and club members to cooperate while removing drugs from the state to save the society.

President of Committee for War On Drugs, Khundrakpam Kendra, Wahengbam (O) Premila said the poster campaign is organised to make the public aware of the harmful impact of drugs not only to the society but also inside the family.

The poster reads Stop Poppy Plantation, Save Our Generation, Save our Life and No to Drugs Yes to Life.

More:

War on Drugs Poster Campaign launched at Pangei bazaar - Pothashang

History of 420 Day

April 20 is often a day with laughter or snickers when brought up in conversations. The date when written is 4/20, but where does the correlation between this number and marijuana come from?

According to Time, April 20 and the number 420 is generally associated with weed because, in 1971, five students at San Rafael High School met regularly to smoke week at 4:20 p.m. They chose this time because their classes and extracurricular activities were typically over by then. They would say 420 to each other as code for marijuana. Since then, the association has become increasingly popular.

Youve likely heard of the War on Drugs from a history class. If not, you are likely at least familiar with the term. According to History, The War on Drugs is a phrase used to refer to a government-led initiative that aims to stop illegal drug use, distribution and trade by dramatically increasing prison sentences for both drug dealers and users. In 1971, President Richard Nixon declared an official war on drugs stating drug abuse was public enemy No. 1.

On the surface, it seems like a positive effort to limit the harmful effects of drugs, but some believe there was an ulterior racist motive. The History article says, The Nixon campaign had two enemies: the antiwar left and Black people. His comments led many to question Nixons intentions in advocating for drug reform and whether racism played a role.

The Nixon administration sought to place a negative, unsafe and criminal stigma surrounding marijuana when it could easily be argued that using cannabis is safer than drinking alcohol. People can overdose on alcohol, and too much can certainly be fatal. According to American Addiction Centers, A fatal dose of (THC), the potent chemical in marijuana, would be between 15 and 70 grams. A typical joint contains about half a gram of marijuana. This means you would have to smoke at least 238 joints in a day to reach a lethal dosage of weed.

Whether you call it weed, cannabis, MJ or mary jane, it can be used in a variety of different ways in a variety of different states. Every state has laws regarding the plant and what you can and cant do.

In Ohio, weed is not permitted for recreational use but can be obtained with a medical marijuana card. Although cannabis cant be used recreationally legally in Ohio, there is a gray area that depends on the amount you possess. According to the Benesch Law Firm, adults can possess up to 2.5 oz of marijuana and/or 15 grams of concentrates.

Regarding medical marijuana cards in Ohio, one must be 18 years old or older, prove Ohio residency and be affected by a qualifying condition listed on the website. Conditions include PTSD, HIV, Sickle Cell Anemia and others.

@olivia_rohling

or325320@ohio.edu

Read more:

Mary Jane, MJ, Weed, Oh my! - The Post - The Post