Browsing: Global
| Photo: Russia Beyond The Headlines |
| Russian Drug Czar Viktor Ivanov: “The people who are addicted develop psychiatric deviations” |
Russian drug czar Viktor Ivanov has flown into California and offered his unsolicited opinion on marijuana legalization there, warning of “psychiatric deviations” if Proposition 19 should pass.
Ivanov, a former KGB officer and now a prominent member of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, took the unusual step of going to Los Angeles to “conduct a campaign against legalizing marijuana in California,” as he said in an interview, according to Foreign Policy.
He also came to Washington, D.C., this week to meet with U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske and U.S. Afghan envoy Richard Holbrooke to discuss anti-opium poppy measures in Afghanistan and call for an “intensified program” of aerial poppy eradication there.
Ivanov, who heads up Russia’s Federal Service for Narcotics Control, had a stern warning for those pot-smoking Californians.
“I’m afraid that the consequences of [legalization]will be catastrophic,” Ivanov warned.
“Even the Netherlands, where they sell marijuana legally in coffee shops, they are now reversing on this,” he inaccurately claimed. “Because there, and everywhere, drug addiction is becoming stronger and the people who are addicted develop psychiatric deviations. They say, ‘What does God do when he wants to punish a person? He deprives him of his mind.’ “
| Photo: Tomas Bravo/Reuters |
| Bullet-riddled patrol trucks and a pockmarked building are the aftermath of an attack at a police station in Los Ramones, about 43 miles from Monterrey, Mexico. |
Every cop in a small northern Mexican town quit Tuesday after gunmen heavily sprayed their brand new police headquarters Monday night.
All 14 members of the Los Ramones police force reportedly resigned, according to MSNBC. Nobody was answering the phone at the office of Mayor Santos Salinas, The Associated Press reported.
Gunmen fired more than 1,000 rounds at the building’s facade, reports Noroeste. Six grenades, three of which detonated, were also thrown at the building, according to the the newspaper.
| Photo: follow the money |
| Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos: “Tell me if there is a way to explain to a Colombian peasant that if he produces marijuana we are going to put him in jail… [while]the same product is legal [in California]” |
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has said that if Proposition 19 passes next week in California, legalizing marijuana in the state, it could force his country to rethink its drug policies.
“Tell me if there is a way to explain to a Colombian peasant that if he produces marijuana we are going to put him in jail… [while]the same product is legal [in California],” President Santos said, reports All Headline News. “That’s going to produce a comprehensive discussion on the approach we have taken on the fight against drug trafficking.”
Just a couple of months ago, Santos endorsed the call for a debate on drug legalization made by Mexican President Felipe Calderon, reports Juan Carlos Hidalgo at Cato @ Liberty. However, Santos also said he believes legalization would increase consumption of drugs, despite the fact that it hasn’t happened in countries with liberal drug policies such as Portugal.
Santos brought up the subject again on Tuesday at a Latin American presidential summit in Cartagena, Colombia. “If we don’t act in a consistent way on this issue, if all we are doing is to send our fellow citizens to jail while in other latitudes the market is being legalized, then we have to ask ourselves: Isn’t it time to review the global strategy against drugs?” he asked.
| Photo: Borderland Beat |
| Trust me, you don’t wanna be police chief of Guadalupe. |
A 20-year-old female student majoring in criminology has been named police chief of a violence-torn northern Mexican border town — because nobody else wanted the job.
Marisol Valles became director of municipal public security of Guadalupe on October 18 “since she was the only person to accept the position,” according to the mayor’s office, reports AFP. Guadalupe is home to about 10,000 people.
Valles is studying criminology in Mexico’s most violent city, Ciudad Juarez, about 37 miles west of Guadalupe. Three years of ongoing turf battles between rival drug gangs have claimed 6,500 lives in Juarez alone.
Much of Chihuahua, the Mexican state within which Guadalupe is located, has suffered from the drug cartel-related violence. The mayor of Guadalupe was murdered in June and police officers and security agents have been killed, with some of them being beheaded.
| Photo: CTV News |
| Samuel Mellace holds up the joint he smoked in Canada’s House of Commons on Parliment Hill in Ottawa, Monday, October 4. |
It smelled good in Canada’s Parliament on Monday. A medical marijuana patient lit up a joint in the House of Commons to protest what he called unfair rules set by Health Canada.
Samuel Mellace, who lives in Abbotsford, British Columbia, is a licensed cannabis user under the Canadian federal government’s medical marijuana program, reports Meagan Fitzpatrick of Postmedia News. He started smoking a joint Monday afternoon while in the public gallery of the House of Commons as the daily question period came to an end.
| Photo: Macleans |
| Canadian Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff: It’s time to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana for recreational use |
Canadian Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff said his party will reintroduce legislation to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana for recreational use.
The Opposition Leader told an audience of about 200 people in Montreal on September 27 that the Libs would bring back Martin Cauchon’s decrim bill that would eliminate criminal penalties for possession of under 15 grams of cannabis and replace them with fines, reports Jeremiah Vandermeer at Cannabis Culture.
| Photo: Cannabis Culture |
Police in New Zealand who were burning seized cannabis were left red-faced when the wind sent a thick cloud of heady marijuana smoke billowing over a primary school, it was reported Tuesday.
Officers in the South Island town of Picton, New Zealand were destroying cannabis and shredded paper and an incinerator at the local police station when the incident occurred, the Marlborough Express newspaper reported, according to The Raw Story.
St. Joseph’s School principal Peter Knowles noticed the smoke on Friday morning and complained to police, who immediate put out the fire, according to the paper.
| Graphic: Flagspot.net |
Jeff McKay has had a stressful eight months as he waits for Health Canada permit allowing him to possess and use an additional eight grams of marijuana to alleviate symptoms of HIV and Hepatitis C.
McKay, 37, of Guelph, already has a Health Canada permit allowing him to possess three grams of marijuana per day, which he takes to improve his appetite that he says has been drastically affected by HIV treatment, reports Thana Dharmarajah of the Guelph Mercury.
“Everything is riding on the balance of possessing that card,” McKay said. Following a doctor’s appointment in February, with a recommendation that he increase his daily intake of marijuana, McKay sent his application to Health Canada.
| Photo: Seedscanner |
Selling cannabis seeds has long been legal in the United Kingdom, unlike the United States, and as a result the U.K. market for marijuana seeds has reached such maturity now that it merits its own price comparison website, according to the creators of a new site that, you guessed it, does exactly that.
Launched in August, Seedscanner offers an overview of the cannabis seed trade for a growing and increasingly discerning international market, according to marketing director Sophie Banks.