Category Archives: War On Drugs

J

oe Clark lives two blocks from Summit Sierra High School, located on King Street in Seattles Chinatown-International District.

The neighborhood always felt safe, Clark says, until his daughter Julienne began sharing alarming stories about her walk to the school.

"'When I walk to school, I can see people shooting up in their neck to get a vein, and if they can't find a vein in their neck, you see them bent over, looking between their toes,' Clark recalls Julienne saying to him.

Bearing witness to the suffering of people struggling with addiction is just one part of his daughter's story, he adds, that has led to her being too afraid to walk to school by herself.

For her, it escalated to a different level of being followed, of things being thrown at her, things said to her that are inappropriate for a 15-, 16-year-old girl to hear, Clark says.

Stories like Clark's are one reason why drug policy is now at the center of this years city council races. Voters tell pollsters drugs are a top issue, but what exactly do they want?

RELATED: Seattle 'poised' to get serious about public drug use, Mayor Harrell says

The answer to that is complicated in a city like Seattle, where nearly half of respondents in a recent Crosscut/Elway poll called themselves progressive," and where many people remember the failed War on Drugs, in which punitive drug policies disproportionately harmed people of color.

Nearing the corner of 12th Avenue South and South King Street, Clark suggests crossing the street to avoid walking through the middle of what looked like it could be a drug deal. He sometimes feels afraid, too, he says. But he doesnt believe a heavier law enforcement presence is the best path forward.

We need to come up with solutions to help this need that they're in, and not have more police or more police activity, because that's not going to help anyone, he says.

Last spring, Clark wrote to his local representative, Councilmember Tammy Morales, asking for help. Like Clark, Morales doesn't think law enforcement is the answer. She favors drug treatment and harm reduction.

Emails went back and forth. But after a few months, the emails from Morales's office just stopped.

There's been no response. And it's kind of disappointing that she runs on this platform of being a progressive, but she doesn't respond to her constituents, Clark says.

KUOW contacted the staffer on the email thread for comment but did not hear back.

Morales voted against a new law passed by the council this week, which allows the Seattle city attorney to prosecute public drug use and possession cases. It emphasizes a public health approach, which encourages referrals to drug treatment programs. But the ordinance doesn't allocate any new funds for those programs.

The bottom line is that this bill will not address the fentanyl crisis in any meaningful way," Morales said before casting her no vote.

"While we sit here on the dais, people are dying and we're spending a lot of energy on a bill that won't help them.

On the other side of the drug debate is candidate Tanya Woo, an activist in the Chinatown-International District who is running to unseat Morales in District 2. She showed up before the council's drug ordinance vote on Tuesday to urge Morales and her colleagues to pass it.

How many of you have had a friend die from fentanyl? We've seen too many deaths and we need something to be done. We cannot have a perfect plan be an enemy of a good plan, she said.

Woo favors more treatment and hiring and deploying more police.

For his part, Joe Clark is thinking about the upcoming election and who hell support in the race for District 2.

I don't know, I don't know, he says.

While he's impatient with Tammy Morales, he doesnt agree with the approach of her opponent Tanya Woo, either.

RELATED: Is the 'generation gap' back in Seattle City Council races? District 2 offers clues

In the meantime, Clarks family has made a big decision. His daughter now takes a 40-minute bus ride to school in Bellevue, rather than walk the two blocks to her neighborhood high school.

But Clark still thinks about the kids at Summit Sierra who don't have a better option.

"I have the privilege to have my daughter go to a different school. What about the people who don't?"

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'When I walk to school, I can see people shooting up.' How Seattle's ... - KUOW News and Information

Welcome to Declassified, a weekly humor column.

Whats the most important gift you can give someone? Perhaps its to give your child a great name something cool but not weird, and not one of those names that everyone has, like Methamphetamine Rules!

What? Yes, an Australian journalist has called her son Methamphetamine Rules (Meth for short?). What were the parents thinking? Methamphetamine is obviously a girls name!

Kirsten Drysdale said she was testing whether the authorities had the power to change a babys name if the one submitted by the parents was deemed offensive or unacceptable. Drysdale said she was mulling between Methamphetamine Rules and Nangs Rule, which is the Australian slang for nitrous oxide canisters that some people use to get high. Thank goodness they didnt pick the latter, or the kid would have been bullied mercilessly!

Politicians dont have to worry about naming a child when they visit their counterparts, but they do need to bring a gift. The European Parliament has a vault where diplomatic giftsare kept. Items down in the vault include a pot of French mustard and a Huawei smartphone given to European Peoples Party chief Manfred Weber in 2013 thats clearly recording all of the important events at the Parliament. Nothing of interest has happened yet but its only been a decade.

This week, Keir Starmer leader of the U.K. Labour Party and next British prime minister barring a complete meltdown visited Emmanuel Macron and very subtly threw shade at the French president with his choice of gift.

Starmers present for Macron was an Arsenal football shirt and Arsenals club crest is a cannon pointing at France (if you stand with your left arm facing France). On the back of the shirt was Macron 25, a clear reference to the Battle of Sandwich in which the English defeated the French on August 24, 1217. As everyone knows, the next day August 25 the English forces celebrated by eating sandwiches (probably). Shots fired by Starmer!

Macron is a football fan he supports Olympique de Marseille but that Arsenal shirt was 100 percent put in the bin within 10 minutes of Starmer leaving.

A day after Starmer was allowed into the Elyse via the tradesmans entrance, the red carpet was rolled out for King Charles, with an itinerary that included a ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe and a banquet dinner at the Palace of Versailles (where royals have always enjoyed a warm welcome). Apparently, the choice of dinner venue was a close-run thing between Versailles and a branch of Flunch.

Listen, if you promise never to try and sneak into the Concerned Women event ever again, I wont call the police.

Can you do better? Email [emailprotected] or on Twitter @pdallisonesque

Last time we gave you this photo:

Thanks for all the entries. Heres the best from our postbag theres no prize except for the gift of laughter, which I think we can all agree is far more valuable than cash or booze.

And now, for my friends to the right, I will perform a double backflip U-turn on my climate-change policy, by Tom Morgan.

Paul Dallison is POLITICOs slot news editor.

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The best gifts ever? Being named after drugs and declaring war on ... - POLITICO Europe

At 32 years old, Mercosur faces an existential crisis. Talks to establish a trade agreement between the Mercosur customs union and the European Union (EU)20 years in the makingwere on the brink of stalling out for good before they restarted on September 14. Still, if the two parties dont seal the deal by years end, it could put Mercosurs future in doubt. Spain, the most vocal European advocate of the deal, steps down as EU president in December, and Brazilian President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, its biggest South American champion, hands off Mercosurs rotating presidency in January. European politicians are turning their attention to next years European Parliamentary elections. Even before the latest crisis, Mercosur was in trouble. Trade flows between its membersBrazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguaypeaked in 2011, at US$54 billion, and havent fully rebounded since. Political disagreements divide the bloc, too. Members clash over whether to readmit Venezuela, which the union suspended in 2016 for breaking with democracy. Uruguay is already toying with going it alone by negotiating free trade agreements (FTAs) with China and Turkey as well as by applying to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, an 11-country FTA with many of the major Indo-Pacific economies. If the EU-Mercosur agreement doesnt come together quickly, other Mercosur members may have no choice but to go it alone, following Uruguays lead.

Petro signals a big shift on drug policy. If hes counting on U.S. support, he should move fast. Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who consistently blasts the war on drugs as a failure, just unveiled a new drug policy for Colombia. Petros policy shifts away from the forced eradication model of years past and toward crop substitution and the creation of alternative livelihoods for rural communities that depend on growing coca. For now, Washington is listening. As synthetics have overtaken plant-based drugs and U.S. drug overdose deaths have topped 100,000 per year, the Biden administration has increasingly focused on harm reduction, rehabilitation, and stopping the flow of precursor ingredients for fentanyl, meth, and other synthetics produced largely in China. Report after report to Congress, the executive, and by leading NGOs show that forced eradication operations using Colombias police and military just havent worked. Instead they have pushed coca cultivation into new areas (including Colombias national parks) and wreaked havoc on the environmentall while coca production hit an all-time high in 2022. Biden administration officials suspended satellite monitoring of Colombias coca crops and voiced support for the Petro governments holistic approach to counternarcotics last October. Even so, Petro wont have an easy time implementing his plans. For one, he faces weak domestic support: 65 percent of Colombians believe the narcotrafficking situation is worse now than when Petro took office, and 61 percent disapprove of his government. Republicans distrust Petro. If the party wins control of the White House in 2024, expect the next administration to pressure Colombia to return to a more traditional approach to drug policy. The clock is ticking.

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Massas pre-election spending spree will hobble the next government. Argentinas Economy Minister and ruling party presidential candidate, Sergio Massa, announced a slew of new spending and social policies that go into effect immediately. The plans include tax breaks for huge swaths of the population, more social spending, and wage increases for government workers. The Central Bank helped out by not raising interest rates, despite accelerating inflation. The largesse wont win over voters tired of economic crisis. But it will leave the next president in even more of a financial bind. The spending spree comes just weeks after negotiating a US$7.5 billion disbursement from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Argentina conducted a complicated shell game to pay off a US$1.8 billion debt with loans from Qatar and the Development Bank of Latin America and a US$1.7 billion swap with the Chinese to cover payments. With the new tranche of capital, the government renewed promises to keep the fiscal deficit at 1.9 percent and 0.9 percent of GDP in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Massas largesse will pull Argentina even further from these commitments ahead of the next rounds of reviews and negotiations with the IMF, set for November 2023 and March 2024.

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Latin America This Week: September 20, 2023 - Council on Foreign Relations

The lucrative cocaine business is booming worldwide, after a contraction due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite the interesting positions of some of the countries in the region, Latin America has yet to seriously discuss its drug policy and abandon once and for all the prohibitionist and militarist recipes of the United States, the main consumer.

What has made this phenomenon so serious in our continent is social inequality, which is scandalous. For example, the peripheries are overpopulated by people who have no chance of getting jobs in the legal market and who see a way out in trafficking. Business? Big business: A tonne of cocaine fetches a thousand US dollars in Bolivia and sells for 35,000 in European ports.

The problems associated with drug production, trafficking and consumption in Latin America affect the quality of life of the population, are linked to forms of social exclusion and institutional weakness, generate greater insecurity and violence, and corrode governance in some countries, according to a recent report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

In terms of production, Latin America accounts for the worlds total global production of coca leaf, cocaine base paste and cocaine hydrochloride. It also has a marijuana production that extends to different countries and areas, destined both for domestic consumption and export. Increasingly, it is also producing poppy, opium and heroin.

In terms of trafficking, the Caribbean area remains the most frequent route for drug trafficking to the United States, but the non-violent route via Central America has become relatively more important. Recently, river transport from coca-cocaine producing countries via Brazil has gained importance.

The problem of consumption mainly affects the youth population and males more than females. Marijuana, followed by cocaine base paste, crack and cocaine hydrochloride are the most widely consumed illicit drugs in the region, generating greater problems among young people with high social vulnerability, adds ECLAC.

Prohibitionism began more than 100 years ago as a way of controlling dangerous substances, often through militarisation, police, repression and prisons. Viewed in the big picture, the danger of the substances ends up being the militarised response to them, rather than the substances themselves. This war under the US vision of the problem is not the way out for the region, which has been in this war for at least four decades and got nowhere, but a lot of money is spent (not invested). The beneficiaries of these policies are the arms industries and the battalions of drug trafficking workers who see it as a way of securing their livelihoods.

Today the criminals are much more articulate, they move through high society and, at the same time, attract poor people to do the dirty work because of their lack of economic prospects.

In South America there are two major drug trafficking routes. One is the southern route Paraguay, central-southern Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay which is important because it has larger urban centres and a larger airport and port structure, a logistical development that facilitates the transport of drugs, including a well-structured road network, which facilitates the export of cocaine to Europe, which is currently the big business.

The second is the Amazonian route, which leaves Peru and Colombia and heads towards the non-violent, following roads like the one that went from Ecuador to Costa Rica and from there to the Caribbean. It is a more US-oriented route.

Uruguay, which has some good laws to combat trafficking and money laundering, struggles to apply controls. In addition to the traditional domestic money laundering and drug transit services, there has been a growth in the domestic market and the refuge that fugitives from other parts of the world have been able to find in the country, often under the protection of corrupt rulers.

Uruguay has come to occupy an increasingly important position in the international distribution of the drug market. It is not a producer country, nor does it have a high demand, although it is one of the best in terms of per capita consumption: it is located in a strategic place for placing large shipments in Europe. And there are major weaknesses in the systems for monitoring and detecting illicit shipments.

In the large-scale consumption of information on the world of drugs, many things are taken for granted: criminal groups fight, corrupt or illegally deceive states that are always willing to confront them. However, outside of the great discursive hegemonies, even the name by which the phenomenon is known is under discussion.

The term drug trafficking derives from only two components of the activity: narcotics (which are a family of drugs, among others) and trafficking or transit (a link in a productive chain that also includes production, stockpiling, marketing, etc.). Although in terms of language there is no more than an example of metonymy in which the part (in this case, two parts) is taken for the whole, this composition is without

Allan De Abreu, a Brazilian journalist with the magazine Piau, who has been investigating organised crime for two decades. He points out that the caipira route began to be used in the 1970s for coffee smuggling. At that time, Brazil charged very high taxes on coffee exports and Paraguays taxes were negligible, so coffee growers smuggled it to Paraguay to export it from there.

And in the 1990s, when this business ceased to be interesting because of changes in taxation, the direction of the route was reversed and cocaine was taken from Paraguay to Brazil via the same route, trafficking centred in the cities of Punta Por on the Brazilian side and Pedro Juan Caballero on the Paraguayan side, practically a single city. A large part of the cocaine that Paraguay receives from Bolivia and Peru passes through there to Brazil.

To dominate this region is to dominate the route. And the Brazilian cartel First Capital Command tried to control it, which led to a conflict with Pedro Jorge Rafaat, who was the big boss on that border, a story that culminated in Rafaats murder in 2016. The Paraguay River route, which runs down the Paran and reaches the Ro de la Plata, involving Uruguay, is also well established and has had many uses. Sebastin Marset is operating along this route, which culminates in the port of Montevideo, from where the cocaine leaves for Europe.

The Red Command Brazils oldest criminal organisation displaced local mafias from the Amazonian tri-border area and has taken control of cocaine production on the Peruvian side. The Amazonian triple frontier has become a disputed territory for several armed groups from Brazil, which have violently imposed themselves on the local Peruvian and Colombian mafias.

An investigation by Ojo Pblico reveals how this gang operates the Amazon river route, in alliance with Colombian criminal groups, and the recruitment of Peruvian riverside dwellers and indigenous Peruvians for drug production. This came in the midst of a war with Los Cras, a local faction from Tabatinga, which has allied with the powerful Brazilian First Capital Command to dispute territorial control.

But it is the Red Command that has managed to dominate as it has done further south, on the border between Ucayali (Peru) and Acre (Brazil) a large part of the routes in this Amazonian territory where not only drug trafficking, but also illegal logging and fishing predominate.

Meanwhile, the southern port of Montevideo, the Uruguayan capital on the Ro de la Plata, offers drug traffickers the advantage of being a counter-intuitive exit point, due to its greater distance from the ports of arrival and the lack of control, as is the case in Paraguay, which has no control over what passes through the river.

In this narco-business, there have been changes, the most notorious of which is that the gang leader has to distance himself from the drugs and that compartmentalisation is necessary. The first drug traffickers were personally involved in transport and thus always ran the risk of going to prison. With compartmentalisation, the lower levels of the gang do not know who they are working for and this protects the head of the scheme.

According to experts, the third change (or lesson learned over the years) is to be aware of the risk of verticalisation. For example, in the Medelln Cartel everything depended on Pablo Escobar and when he spilled out, everything fell apart.

The Brazilian PCC learned these lessons from history and today enjoys a horizontalised structure, organised in syntony: the syntony of ties (the lawyers), transport, finance, and communication (encryption of messages, which means that eavesdropping is a thing of the past). In the CCC, the head is the tuning, not the capo Marcos Willians Herbas Camacho (better known as Marcola), although nobody doubts that he is the big boss. But if he dies or spills out, the structure continues.

In Brazil, the PCC dominates and regulates crime in So Paulo and refrains from attracting the attention of the media and the police, while Rio is disputed by the militias, the Comando Vermelho and the Terceiro Comando Puro. The truth is that the PCC was born as a kind of prisoners union, after the massacre in the So Paulo prison of Carandiru, which left 111 prisoners dead. The prisoners then realised that they would have to unite against a corrupt state and a murderous police force.

The PCC was born in the prisons and spread from there: it is the fruit of mass incarceration, the result of this, of prisons overcrowded with small-scale traffickers, of absolutely inhumane health conditions. Does it make sense to arrest a micro-trafficker and imprison him so that he can leave with a postgraduate degree in crime?

With the new century, the CCC is heading west to establish itself on the Paraguayan and Bolivian borders, looking for cocaine suppliers to feed its outlets in So Paulo. After Rafaats death, they penetrated Paraguay and Bolivia, and today dominate the entire chain, from production in the Bolivian jungle to export.

To become a mafia, they only need to achieve consistent infiltration of the state. But unlike Pablo Escobar, the CCC has no political ambitions at least for now although it does have Italian mafia-style rituals.

What is striking is that the Brazilians imprisoned in Uruguayan jails who make up the PCC spread their ideology there, which is a strict set of rules. To join the PCC you have to be baptised and for that you have to have a godfather, which means that a member of the PCC will have to propose the candidate and take responsibility for his or her actions. It allows its members to have their own illicit businesses, but they can never fail to carry out the missions entrusted to them, nor divert money or weapons from the organisation. They have criminal courts.

But there is also a different, business model, that of Cabea Branca, a large cocaine wholesaler that was above these organisations. It built an important logistical scheme in transit countries, such as Brazil and Uruguay. The wholesaler buys the cocaine and moves it to its point of exit: his power will be greater according to how many routes he has to make it.

Cabea Branca, who remained unpunished for 30 years (the Federal Police did not even have a photo of him), had a fleet of planes, a fleet of trucks, officials in almost all Brazilian ports, ranches in Mato Grosso that served as warehouses for the cocaine that arrived by plane and from there continued by truck to the big centres.

The operation that led to his imprisonment was oriented towards a policy that did not focus on drug seizures, but rather on investigating money laundering and then seizing the criminals assets.

Ecuador has become one of the worlds largest exporters of drugs. The assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio is one of the predictable consequences of the new state of affairs.

The country has four geographical regions: coast, highlands, Amazon and Galapagos Islands. The coast is dominated by criminal gangs associated with drug trafficking. These gangs have moved into the highlands and the Amazon, but have not yet reached the control they exercise on the coastal strip. They transport drugs from the borders, which they then take to the high seas or remove it from the country in small planes. Their Mexican and European partners receive the drugs at sea, on airstrips in Central and North America or in European ports. In other words, Ecuador is a cog in the global machinery of drug production, transport and sale.

Before becoming one of the links in the trafficking, Ecuador was already a territory where drug money was laundered. The country uses US dollars as its national currency, which made it much easier to introduce dollars into the financial system and into all kinds of investments. Ecuador was laundering dollars before it became the main channel for cocaine outflows.

In recent years, the countrys modernisation has been dizzying. It has even been the case that private builders themselves finance the works being done for governments, such as municipalities and prefectures. There was money circulating discreetly to finance all kinds of enterprises, under conditions that would be incomprehensible if it were not for the fact that the money was not intended to make a profit, but simply to circulate. However, once a person had received money once, he or she could not refuse to receive it a second time.

Ecuador is geographically small compared to its neighbours: it has a quarter of the territory of Peru or Colombia. Over the last twenty years, central and sectional governments have built and improved highways, roads, airports and ports, making the country much more accessible than before. All this infrastructure has been exploited by criminal gangs.

Drug trafficking cases were not alien to the criminal history of the Republic. During the 1990s and at the beginning of the millennium, local drug traffickers were arrested and prosecuted, but they were still small examples of what drug trafficking was all about. Even so, the murder of Congressman Jaime Hurtado in the late 1990s was linked to his investigations into money laundering in the financial system in those years.

The current system of things, the unprecedented power that criminal gangs have come to have, was established over the last twenty years. Allegations of complicity between politicians and drug traffickers in Ecuador became increasingly common. Clandestine airstrips and docks were set up in collaboration with politicians in the coastal region. One incident gives us an idea of the penetration of the state apparatus by drug traffickers: in 2013, a diplomatic pouch full of drugs was sent to Italy. The scandal ended up affecting the foreign ministry and showed what kind of relations had been established between drug traffickers and politicians.

The non-violent coexistence between narcos and politics ended with the coming to power of Lenin Moreno in 2017, when he completely broke with his revolutionary past and dedicated himself to pursuing the corruption of his former coidees: Jorge Glas, his vice-president, was investigated, tried and convicted for corruption. Among other cases, Glas was accused of receiving bribes from the Brazilian company Odebrecht. Right now, the Brazilian justice system has just withdrawn the cases against Glas.

Moreno and his successor, Guillermo Lasso, broke alliances with Russia and cooled their relationship with China. Moreno handed over Julian Assange and in a very short time the United States regained a former ally in the region. The ground was thus prepared for the war on drugs, in which the United States is the countrys main ally. The war against drugs began with Moreno and has continued with Lasso. This war means millions of dollars and huge amounts of arms for the police and the army.

As everyone knows, the war on drugs with US technology and intelligence has not worked in Colombia or Mexico. Why would it work in Ecuador?

A few months ago the US ambassador in Quito accused several police generals of collaborating with drug traffickers. The US embassy withdrew the generals visas, but the government of Guillermo Lasso did not separate them, nor did it investigate or prosecute them. It did nothing: why cant anyone confront the police? Its a question that unfolds into another: why cant anyone confront the narcos?

The accusation that Ecuador is governed by a narco-state takes on full validity in the face of the murder of Fernando Villavicencio. It turns out that those who are supposed to control crime actually collaborate with it. Not only do criminal gangs already totally control cities like Daule, where they tried to assassinate the mayor, and others like Manta, where they effectively killed him last July. Two cities on the coast.

There is still no clear reason why Fernando Villavicencio was murdered. The journalist and politician was determined to denounce cases of corruption during the years of the Revolution. And during the last few weeks he confronted the criminal gangs: he even held a political rally in one of the cities that are the cradle of these gangs. Villavicencios relatives and comrades say that the police were negligent in the protection they were supposed to give him.

At the time he was killed it was uncertain whether he would be able to make it to a second round. His murder has spread terror in the capital and deepened the feeling that there is no way to stop narco violence against the state and society.

Pablo Cuvi, editorialist of the portal Primicias, is already openly talking about legalising some drugs. The basic problem is that the mafias do not want to go legal, because they would have to pay for the crimes related to drug trafficking and because it is more profitable for them to keep the business clandestine. As Clausewitz said, war is a continuation of politics: for many actors, it is preferable to keep the war going, so that they can gain power that they could not conquer through politics. Who, then, is responsible and guilty for the murder of Fernando Villavicencio? It should be borne in mind that criminal gangs have links with the corresmo and even with the current government: the recent discovery of links between Albanian drug traffickers and high-ranking government officials in charge of public procurement is a recent development. The murder of Rubn Chrrez, a friend and adviser to Lassos brother-in-law, points in this direction.

Vernica Sarauz, widow of Fernando Villavicencio, has pointed the finger at Corresmo and the government as responsible, although she lacks the evidence for it to make such a claim. Lasso came out practically unscathed from the investigation against him for being one of the protagonists of the bank holiday, that is, for the collapse of the financial system that meant the loss of savings for hundreds of thousands of bank customers.

The police did not guard Villavicencio as they should have and one of the gunmen they were supposed to take to hospital died in the hands of the police: instead, they took him to a police station. In other words, politicians and assassins acted in full view of the forces of law and order, who let them act. It is like what happens in the film Z, by Costa Gavras.

Finally, we must ask ourselves if Fernando Villavicencio was a CIA agent, as former president Rafael Correa claimed, and as Telesur revealed. If such a thing were to be proven one day, it would not only be local politicians, but also the governments of the region and even that power that is waging war in Europe, who would be behind his assassination

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The drug trade is taking over Latin America - PRESSENZA International News Agency

Toronto, Ontario(Newsfile Corp. September 22, 2023) Safe Supply Streaming Co. Ltd. (formerly Origin Therapeutics Inc.) (Safe Supply or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has completed itspreviously announcedreverse take-over transaction (the Transaction). The Transaction was completed by way of a three-cornered amalgamation under theCanada Business Corporations Act, whereby the Company was amalgamated with the predecessor entity operating as Safe Supply Streaming Co. Ltd (SSSC).

Safe Supply is the first company that was created to invest in and incubate companies at the forefront of the third wave of drug policy reform.

Safe Supply anticipates that the common shares of the Company (the Shares) will commence trading on the Canadian Securities Exchange (the CSE) on or about September 26, 2023, under the symbol SPLY, subject to customary conditions, including the final approval of the CSE.

This is a watershed moment for the safe supply ecosystem and the third wave of drug policy reform, said Bill Panagiotakapoulos, Safe Supplys CEO. Jurisdictions around the world are descheduling, rescheduling and legalizing drugs, which is not only smart policy, it is creating a massive investment opportunity. Our public listing on the CSE gives investors a means to gain exposure to this movement, as we execute on our strategy to invest in and incubate companies at the forefront of this opportunity, and help to bring a responsible end to the war on drugs.

In connection with the Closing:

Following closing of the Transaction, the Company has 70,217,750 Shares outstanding, of which 14,140,750 Shares are held by the shareholders of Origin Therapeutics Inc. prior to the completion of the Transaction (and after a 4:1 consolidation of common shares of Origin Therapeutics Inc.) and 56,077,000 Shares (inclusive of subscribers in the Concurrent Financing) are held by the former shareholders of SSSC. In addition, an aggregate of 375,000 Shares are issuable upon the exercise of stock options of the Company and an aggregate of 434,750 Shares are issuable upon the exercise of compensation options or warrants granted to brokers, finders or agents in connection with the Concurrent Financing.

Additional information regarding the business of the Company and the biographical details of management and the board of directors can be found in the Companys CSE Form 2A Listing Statement, which will be filed on SEDAR prior to the commencement of trading on the CSE.

About Safe Supply

With a mission to help bring a responsible end to the war on drugs, Safe Supply Streaming Co. Ltd. is investing in and incubating companies at the forefront of the third wave of drug policy reform. As jurisdictions around the world move to decriminalize, regulate and legalize drugs, Safe Supply is investing in the infrastructure necessary to support the transition. From developing the facilities to analyze, manufacture and distribute psychoactive compounds including the coca plant, to investing in the research and innovation to harness the potential, and minimize the harm, of these medicines, to constructing the clinical infrastructure to ensure safe and responsible access and treatment, Safe Supply is building a platform of tightly woven companies that will help save millions of lives and build a safer, healthier post-war on drugs worlds.

Learn more atwww.safesupply.comand follow Safe Supply on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

For Further Information:

Bill Panagiotakopoulos Chief Executive Officer and Director Safe Supply Streaming Co. Ltd. http://www.safesupplystreaming.com [emailprotected]

Media contacts:

McKenna Miller KCSA Strategic Communications [emailprotected]

Forward-Looking Information and Statements

Certain statements in this news release related to Safe Supply are forward-looking statements and are prospective in nature, including but not limited to the express or implied statements and assumptions regarding the intention of Safe Supply to list the common shares on the Exchange and the timing thereof. Forward-looking statements are not based on historical facts, but rather on current expectations and projections about future events and are therefore subject to risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from the future results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. In particular, there is no guarantee that the Corporation will successfully list the common shares on the Exchange. These forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking words such as may, should, could, intend, estimate, plan, anticipate, expect, believe, will or continue, or the negative thereof or similar variations. There are numerous risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and Safe Supplys plans and objectives to differ materially from those expressed in the forward-looking statements, including but not limited to adverse market conditions and risks inherent in the Safe Supplys business in general. Actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. These and all subsequent written and oral forward-looking information are based on estimates and opinions of management on the dates they are made and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this news release. Except as required by applicable law, Safe Supply does not intend to update these forward-looking statements.

The CSE has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this news release and accepts no responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy hereof.

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Safe Supply Streaming Co. Ltd. Completes Reverse Take-Over ... - The Dales Report

September 22, 2023

JAKARTA In a bid to reduce overcrowding in prisons, a government-sanctioned but independent team tasked with renewing ongoing judicial reforms has recommended a mass clemency program for convicted drug users and a revision of the narcotics law, which is among the worlds strictest.

Data from the corrections directorate general of the Law and Human Rights Ministry shows that hundreds of correctional facilities across the country hold more than 228,000 inmates, almost double the maximum capacity of around 129,000, while the judicial reform team says that most of the inmates are behind bars because of drug-related crimes.

The proposed mass clemency was laid in the document of recommendations the team recently presented to President Joko Jokowi Widodo after it completed its task formulating plans to accelerate criminal justice reforms.

Harkristuti Harkrisnowo, a professor of criminal law at the University of Indonesia who leads one of the reform teams four working groups, said that inmates serving prison terms for abusing drugs, are not repeat offenders and never break prison rules would be eligible for the clemency program.

We have submitted our proposed requirements for clemency to the government, she told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday. We also recommend that law enforcement officers differentiate between drug addicts, drug traffickers and drug producers.

Rifqi Sjarief Assegaf, who is a member of Haskristutis working group, said the team also recommended that policymakers revise the 2009 Narcotics Law, which does not clearly differentiate between drug addicts, victims of drug abuse and drug dealers.

The law permits judges to sentence drug users and victims of drug abuse to rehabilitation programs rather than prison, but the option is rarely used, while police and prosecutors often either mistakenly classify drug addicts as drug traffickers or charge them with drug possession, an offense which carries harsher prison sentences and for which, offenders are not eligible for rehabilitation. This, according to critics, was exacerbated by President Joko Jokowi Widodos war on drugs, which was introduced in 2015.

Read also: Activists unconvinced new law can reduce prison overcrowding

In the document, the team is also recommending that the government treat drug addicts as patients in need of help, not as criminals, and provide clearer guidelines on how to send drug addicts to rehabilitation centers.

But activists are unconvinced, saying that mass clemency may look good on paper but is not tenable.

Julius Ibrani of the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI) said encouraging the government to offer drug users clemency without changing the punitive attitudes of the judiciary, prosecutors and law enforcement officers regarding drug users would not solve the problem.

Granting mass clemencies is nothing more than a gimmick because many drug users in fact were convicted for possession of drugs, he said. So, the government should instead temporarily stop criminalizing drug consumption, while evaluating why they are using harsh drug possession charges against drug users instead of charging them with drug consumption, which carries a lighter punishment.

Read also: AGO seeks rehabilitation, not jail for drug users

Afif A. Qoyim of the Jakarta-based Community Legal Aid Institute (LBH Masyarakat) also doubted that mass clemency could solve the root of the problem: the punitive system.

He said the government should turn their focus to efforts to decriminalize drug use and treat addiction as a medical issue rather than a criminal problem. However, he stressed it must not cause the overcrowding problem to move from the penitentiaries to rehabilitation facilities.

Chronic prison overcrowding, which is exacerbated by underfunding and understaffing, has led to numerous prison riots and escape attempts. Among the most notorious cases are the 2021 fire that broke out in the Tangerang Class I Penitentiary in Banten and killed 49 inmates, most of whom were drug offenders.

Besides proposing the mass clemency program, the teams four working groups made at least 150 recommendations addressing four different groups of issues, including a push to revise the 2016 Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law that is often used to silence critics.

The team was formed in May by Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD and is comprised of notable experts, including Susi Dwi Harijanti, a law professor at Padjadjaran University who heads the working group on legislative reform, forest policy professor Hariadi Kartodihardjo, who leads the agrarian and natural resources policy reforms and former Financial Transactions Reports and Analysis Centre (PPATK) chairman Yunus Husein, who leads the working group on corruption prevention and eradication.

Originally posted here:

Critics claim drug use clemency proposal to reduce overcrowding in ... - asianews.network

Acting Commissioner of Police (ACP) Juki Fong Chew says methamphetamine is being produced in Fiji through prescribed medicines that could be obtained from pharmacies around the country.

He said meth was not only found in Suva but also in Vanua Levu.

So, there are a lot of arrests that have been made, not only on green, but also on white and on the streets, not only here in Suva but in Vanua Levu too. Meth is in Vanua Levu, Mr Chew said.

They are being bought; they are also being cooked in the country.

He said people could search for how to manufacture meth on the internet and there are a lot of chemicals that are available at our pharmacies.

They come and they do trial and error. With trial and error, you get that white residue, you put it in a plastic bag, and an ordinary person thinks oh this is meth, its all trial and error, but whoever takes it, they will get sick.

Mr Chew said police had increased their effort on the war against drugs.

Its not just, you can get it over the counter and once its prescribed by the doctors, then a person is eligible to buy it over the counter.

But if the pharmacist and the person have been colluding to get this over the counter to manufacture meth, then we have to go that way.

Why are they colluding? Maybe because of money or something else?

Crime statistics released by Fiji Police on Wednesday showed that of the 161 drug cases recorded for the month of August, 17 cases were meth-related.

A primary component of methamphetamine is pseudoephedrine.

This is a drug which can be obtained over the counter, through a doctors prescription for nasal congestion, sinus congestion or other infections.

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War on illicit drugs | Police warn of meth production, collusion with ... - Fiji Times

You know the saying, When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time?

Jaahnavi Kandula should be alive. Charleena Lyles should be alive. John T. Williams should be alive. The Seattle Police Department has been telling us who they are for a very long time. Why wont we believe them?

Since the body camera recording of Seattle police union Vice President Daniel Auderer laughing about Jaahnavi Kandulas death went public, the nation has expressed its outrage with the Seattle Police Department (SPD) and with the officers involved in the situation.

As South Asians living in Seattle, we share that outrage. We see ourselves in Jaahnavi, and our hearts are with her family and friends. This moment calls for an indictment not just of SPD, but of the larger system of policing and the culture that allowed such disregard for Jaahnavis life. A culture that bolstered Auderers comfort in making the comments he did, and the policies that embolden police to wield power with impunity.Furthermore, we must steel ourselves against the fake solutions that local leaders will no doubt offer in the coming weeks. Dont let them harness our outrage to promote failed approaches to securing safety for all.

In the days following the release of Officer Auderers tape, South Asian public figures, influencers, and global organizations rightly condemned his cruel remarks. We feel this solidarity, but we cannot limit our outrage to this instance of police violence, in which this victim happened to be South Asian like us. Nor can we limit our outrage to the officers involved in Jaahnavis death.

This is the same police department that kept a fake tombstone of a man one of them killed in their locker room. This is the same police department that produced the officers who killed a pregnant Charleena Lyles in front of her children while she was having a mental health crisis. This is the same police department that just marked its 11th year of federal oversight for excessive use of force after one of its officers killed Indigenous woodworker John T. Williams. Though a judge recently lifted much of that oversight, SPDs racially disparate enforcement continues on today. This department cannot be reformed, but that wont stop politicians from promoting that response.

Often after police cause harm, governments will rush to deliver a menu of reforms that seek to quell the rage of impacted communities. Well see pushes for more guidance and training for officers, funds to expand the police accountability system, increased cultural competency training, expanded powers for prosecutors, or hiring and recruitment drives meant to put a friendly face behind a deadly uniform. Many members of our community will sign onto these ideas thinking it might finally end racist policing.

But we have to resist going down that path. As South Asians, we know that people see us and Asians more broadly as a model minority. This concept only serves as a wedge to ensure we distance ourselves from Black Americans and draw borders between ourselves that systems such as policing aim to exploit. The four of us want to stress that collective liberation and solidarity is our only way to create communities that truly keep all of us safe.

To practice that solidarity we must not allow media outlets or politicians to co-opt our tragedy and push policies that expand policing in ways that hurt everyone. Very quickly, they will combine our outrage with a narrative about one bad apple, and then insist that the overall system is still designed to protect and serve.

But Auderers disgraceful cackling is not about one bad apple. It isnt even about one bad police department. Just outside of Seattle, a King County Sheriffs Deputy shot and killed unarmed, 20-year-old Tommy Le. The deputy thought Le had a knife, but he only held a pen. South of Seattle in Tacoma, cops hog-tied 33-year old Manuel Ellis and then placed a spit hood over his head. After Ellis told officers he couldnt breathe, he fell unconscious and died. The list of victims of police violence is long, and the culture it produces creates these indignities and deaths.

Officer Auderer revealed part of that insidious culture when he joked about the City simply cutting a check to Jaahnavis family. Without any civil liability for the officers themselves, cops know that the City will simply cut a check if impacted families sue. In 2021, Seattle spent nearly $8 million on police actions, and the 2023 budget holds nearly $9 million for police actions. On top of those penalties, the City of Seattle has spent millions of dollars on the reforms mentioned above partly to comply with federal oversightand yet here we are.

People often argue that abolitionists or left organizers dont care about public safety or that we dont care about victims and survivors. But this could not be further from the truth. We do this work and believe in these values because we have a deep-seated love for our communities and we want to see them safe and healthy.

The truth is, our communities have been creating safety with each other outside of policing for a very long time. Getting people housed, helping people into well-paying jobs, increasing access to child care, delivering healthy food and good schoolsthese are all ways that communities create safety. The safest communities are never the ones with the most police, they are the ones with the most resources.

It is with this fight in our hearts that we denounce harmful policies like the new law the Seattle City Council passed Tuesday to re-criminalize drug possession and ban public drug use. The law expands the power of our Republican City Attorney Anne Davison to prosecute public use and possession of drugs, a power she previously did not have.

The expanded powers given to the City Attorney will create increased incentive for SPD to arrest unhoused community members who often have to use outside. It is no coincidence that those suffering from addiction and homelessness are disproportionately Black and Indigenous. It is no coincidence that this bill targets public use of drugs rather than promoting harm reduction. It is not lost on us that the officer who killed Jaahnavi was rushing to answer a call related to drug use. How can we trust that officers like Daniel Auderer, who believe community members' lives have limited value," will actually follow any guidelines in this bill to divert people to services before arrest? The legislation also provides no additional funding for diversion or treatment. Taking a punitive approach rather than a public health approach to drug use only increases the likelihood of Jaahnavis tragedy happening again, all while simultaneously ushering Seattle back to Nixons War on Drugs era.

We call on our South Asian community members to channel their anger and outrage at Jaahnavis killing to fight for other communities just as hard. Will you maintain your outrage after the press around Jaahnavis killing has quieted down and the media moves on to something else? Will you still show up when there arent people in the streets, or when the victim of police violence isnt a part of the South Asian community? Practicing collective liberation means pushing back against harmful policies like the drug bill and instead pushing for life-giving resources that make our communities whole.

We ask our community: Dont let Seattle sacrifice the pursuit of real safety for our most vulnerable neighbors for false feelings of safety from a system that thinks a young brown womans life is only worth a few thousand dollars.

Aretha Basu is a local organizer with Seattle South Asians for Black Lives, Solidarity Budget, and Shutdown King County Jail. She also serves as the political director at Puget Sound Sage and as a member of the podcast Activist Class.

Shomya Tripathy works to advance policies and programs that serve Asian communities across Washington state and is also an organizer with Seattle South Asians for Black Lives.

Uma Rao is a lifelong learner, community activist, and nonprofit consultant who strives to approach everything with an intersectional feminist lens.

Chandan Reddy teaches at the University of Washington and organizes with groups supporting Migrant workers, incarcerated immigrants, and queers of color.

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From Grief to Action - The Stranger

Senior anti-drug police officers from Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand will host a meeting on measures to fight the scourge and strengthening cooperation earlier next month in Vietnam.

Anti-Drug Department Chief Lieutenant General Khoeung Sarath said Vietnamese police called for the four-day meeting on October 5 in Ho Chi Minh City.

Lt Gen Sarath said that five senior Cambodian police officials will attend the meeting and expect that it will strengthen cooperation to crack down on drug trafficking along the borders, especially the corridors of neighbouring borders.

The main purpose of the meeting is to discuss drug issues along the common borders of Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.

The meeting will seek to have better cooperation to crack down on the drug trafficking along the borders, said Lt Gen Sarath.

We must tighten controls and closely monitor all border crossing points, international checkpoints, and international airports in order to combat the import and export of drugs into each nation to the greatest extent possible, he said.

According to Lt Gen Sarath, Cambodia is merely a victim nation where drugs are smuggled and moved to other nations.

He said that most of the drugs, which had been trafficked in Cambodia, were imported from the Golden Triangle in Myanmar or Laos or Thailand.

The majority of drugs trafficked into Cambodia and seized by Cambodian officials were brought in via smuggling routes along the borders with neighbouring countries, he said.

We expect that if we can cooperate with our neighbouring countries to strengthen monitoring of all the border corridors, international border checkpoints, including the land, seas, air and at international airports, we will be able to combat or reduce drug trafficking in Cambodia, Lt Gen Sarath said.

He said that so far, Cambodian authorities have had good connection and cooperation with foreign police.

Lt Gen Sarath said after a tip-off from the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Brazilian federal officials, Cambodian police arrested a Bolivian woman named Karen Cecia Lopez Vaca, 36, and seized 4,356 grammes of cocaine from her at the Phnom Penh International Airport.

On September 10, Prime Minister Hun Manet expressed the governments commitment to ending drug abuse, which is creating greater issues for the populace and society as more and more narcotics have entered Cambodia in recent years.

The Prime Minister also declared that drugs are a chronic and pervasive problem in Cambodia, regionally and globally.

He said that the new government will do its best to reduce and eliminate drugs in Cambodia.

Mr Hun Manet also issued a sub-decree for the National Authority for Combatting Drugs to expand the scope of the war against drugs in Cambodia.

According to the sub-decree, the anti-drug affairs committee will be led by a deputy prime minister as Chief of Committee, followed by three other deputy prime ministers from the Ministry of Interior, Ministry of National Defence, and the Ministry of Justice as Deputy Chiefs of Committee, and there is a Senior Minister as Permanent Deputy Chief of Committee.

Read the original:

Police in region to discuss war against drugs - Khmer Times

Durban The killing of five people in Richards Bay on the North Coast of KwaZulu-Natal on Tuesday could be a raging territorial war between druglords in the area.

It is alleged that unknown men opened fire outside a retail supermarket, killing four people on the spot while a fifth person died on the way to hospital.

Police said a drug war could not be ruled out as the motive for the killing.

A source in the area who spoke on condition of anonymity for safety reasons said some who were killed were car washers and there were suspicions that they were also involved in drugs. The source added that the motive could be a territorial war between druglords who are fighting for customers.

We do not yet know the motive because police are still investigating but by the looks of things and modus operandi, one can easily conclude that this was a drug-related shooting. We suspect that they were disguising themselves by washing cars while selling drugs, said the source.

One of the deceased was identified as Thulani Rasta Nxumalo from Mzingazi village outside Richards Bay.

Speaking to the Daily News on Tuesday, his brother, Nkosinathi Nxumalo, said he believed his brother was killed by mistake because he had just alighted from the car he (Nkosinathi) was driving, telling him he wanted to see the driver of the bus that was being washed.

It was just five minutes after I had dropped him and I heard gunshots and I got to know that my brother was one of the people that were being shot at. He died by mistake, said Nxumalo.

The other four were not yet identified but were believed to be from Eshowe.

KZN Police spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda confirmed the shooting, adding that police have launched a manhunt. He said five suspects were believed to have been behind the shooting which took place in a shopping centres parking lot.

Netshiunda said information at the polices disposal indicated that four of the suspects alighted from a vehicle and opened fire at the victims. He said four victims were certified dead at the scene while the fifth one succumbed to gunshot injuries at a local clinic.

The suspects reportedly fled from the scene of the crime in a Blue VW Polo. The motive for the shooting has not been established, although drug-related turf war could not be ruled out.

Police are appealing to anyone who might have information regarding the whereabouts of the suspects to contact the nearest police station or Crime Stop on 08600 10111. Alternatively, they can tip-off the police anonymously through the MySAPS App, said Netshiunda.

The incident was condemned by uMhlathuze Local Municipality mayor Xolani Ngwezi, who rushed to the scene after being informed about the shooting. The mayor said shootings like these have been prevalent in areas like Macekane but the situation had been calm as it had now moved to the central business district.

Ngwezi said the motive is not known, adding that once police apprehended suspects the public would be informed. He said the incident happened while the municipality was busy putting modern technology to help fight crime in the town.

The province has seen a number of mass shootings recently with some taking place in uMlazi in a suspected drug-related incident. It is believed that the shootings were fuelled by territorial wars where drug lords compete for customers.

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Five die in suspected drug turf war in Richards Bay - Durban - IOL