Browsing: Cocaine

Four Western countries—the US, Britain, Italy, and Sweden—have formally objected to Bolivia's rejoining the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs with a reservation that allows for the traditional habit of coca leaf chewing, the Transnational Institute reported Friday. The move is the latest twist in the Latin American nation's effort to remove the international proscription on the ancestral habit.

France looks to be the latest European country to embrace the harm reduction practice of providing supervised injection sites, according to France 24 TV. Facilities could be open by year's end, said Health Minister Marisol Touraine.
Arts & Entertainment

Hollywood is known for being a liberal town, where conservatives like Jon Voight and Chuck Norris seem outnumbered by a cadre of Clooneys and Weinsteins. So when it comes to issues like the Drug War, it would logically follow that the thrust of movies touching on America's relationship with cocaine, marijuana and any other number of illegal substances would denounce the government's war on drug users and vilify the DEA.

Over the past 15 years, I have given thousands of doses of drugs like cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine to people. I do this as part of my research to understand how the drug affects the brain, behavior and physiology.

In a significant expansion of the war on drugs, the United States has begun training an elite unit of counternarcotics police in Ghana and planning similar units in Nigeria and Kenya as part of an effort to combat the Latin American cartels that are increasingly using Africa to smuggle cocaine into Europe.

The federal government’s effort to battle drug abuse has been a tragic and expensive failure. But of course, admitting that would make politicians, who regularly endorse it to sound tough, seem foolish and careless with taxpayer dollars. So the War on Drugs continues, while of necessity it slowly morphs into new forms of federal waste and unnecessary intrusion into people’s lives.

A Jacksonville, Florida, police officer shot and killed an unarmed drug suspect during a traffic stop early Wednesday morning when the man reached down inside his car.
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