Tag: the war on (some) drugs

Belgian drug seizures overload incinerators

Customs agents in Belgium have seized more cocaine than they are able to dispose of in a timely manner, officials told local outlet VRT News on Saturday. It is estimated that more than 100 tons of the drug – valued at about €5 billion – will have been intercepted at the Port of Antwerp this year. This comes after a record-setting 90 tons were seized in 2021. 

“There has been something of a bottleneck as there have been so many seizures and also because just one incinerator was in use,” Federal Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne told the outlet. “Moreover, you cannot burn these batches in bulk, in one go, in large quantities as this would cause issues with the filters at the incineration plant.” Only 1,000kg or at most 1,500kg of the drug can be destroyed in a single session, he said. 

A representative of FPS Finance, the parent agency of Belgium’s customs service, agreed. “The rapid destruction of confiscated goods is an ongoing challenge,” spokesperson Francis Adyns told local outlet Gazet van Antwerpen. “Due to the technical limitation of the licensed incinerators and environmental standards, we have to use several incinerators.” 

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Trump Calls for Death Penalty for Drug Dealers in 2024 Announcement

While announcing his presidential bid in 2024, former President, Donald J. Trump called for death sentences for drug dealers. Drug overdoses have skyrocketed and accelerated over the past decade. A record-high 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2021, with fentanyl overdoses accounting for a large percentage of those deaths.

Trump spoke in a subdued, professional tone and largely focused on policy. A number of conservative pundits have commented that Tuesday’s speech was Trump’s ‘most presidential sounding speech,’ which happen to be his formal announcement of his 2024 Presidential campaign.

Trump hit in many important issues during Tuesday’s presidential announcement, though he placed significant emphasis on drug overdoses and the border crisis which has only exasperated the flow of deadly drugs into the United States.

The president argued that drug dealers who sell hard drugs like fentanyl will be responsible for dozens, potentially hundreds of deaths. Thus, the punishment for being caught dealing such drugs should carry the same penalty as a first-degree homicide charge.

“We are going to be asking that everyone who sells drugs/who gets caught selling drugs to receive the death penalty for their heinous acts,” announced former President Trump. “I don’t like to say it, and I’m not sure if the American public is ready for it.”

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Cities Are Teaching Drug Users How to Shoot Up Properly

As drug users grapple with an increasingly toxic drug supply, some are receiving training on how to shoot up properly and achieve the high they’re seeking.  

“What we learned really quickly when we started working with people who use drugs is that everything they learn about drug use generally comes from their peers, the Internet, TV, movies, and it’s all wrong,” said Kailin See, senior director of OnPoint NYC, which runs New York’s safe injection sites, also known as drug consumption sites. 

“You can’t go to your medical doctor and say, ‘I’m really trying to achieve X, Y, and Z physical feeling or X, Y, and Z emotional feeling through my drug use’.” 

While people generally think of drug consumption sites as places that people go to use drugs and have their overdoses reversed if needed, these facilities often offer a range of services, including checking drugs for contaminants, wound care, and injection tutorials. 

And injecting drugs properly has only become more important as overdoses reach record highs and drugs like tranq, a combination of fentanyl and the animal sedative xylazine that’s been linked to skin ulcers and amputations, continue to spread across the U.S. Knowing what to do can also help empower younger drug users, women and queer people, who might find themselves particularly vulnerable in certain situations. 

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‘Squad’ Members Urge Biden to Extend Marijuana Pardons to Illegal Aliens, Allow Deported People to Come Back

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Jesús G. “Chuy” García have sent a letter to President Joe Biden asking him to include illegal aliens in his marijuana pardons.

The far-left lawmakers also called on Biden to “prioritize decriminalizing and rescheduling marijuana and reopening the immigration cases of those who were deported for marijuana-related offenses.”

“We write to commend you on your administration’s decision to pardon thousands of people convicted of marijuana possession under federal law and to review how marijuana is classified in the United States,” the letter began. “The decision is an essential step for our country’s promise of justice for all. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the Administration pardon all simple marijuana possession offenses – regardless of immigration status.”

The lawmakers continued, “Using the power of the pardon is a constitutional imperative and a critical tool in rectifying the compounding racial injustices of draconian drug policies.”

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Netherlands to ban laughing gas from January

The Dutch government is banning the use of nitrous oxide, commonly known as laughing gas, amid concerns over the health risks for the growing number of young people using it.

The ban, which starts in January, makes it illegal to buy, sell or own the gas.

However, the authorities say it can still be used for medicinal purposes and in the food industry.

The government also hopes the ban will reduce the number of road traffic accidents involving the drug.

According to road safety monitor TeamAlert, laughing gas has played a role in 1,800 accidents across the Netherlands over the past three years.

“Almost two a day, figures that really shocked us,” Maartje Oosterink of TeamAlert told AD newspaper earlier this month.

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Washington Has Been Much More Successful Than California in Displacing the Black Market for Pot

A new report indicates that Washington, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, has been much more successful at displacing the black market than California, where voters approved legalization in 2016. In a 2021 survey by the International Cannabis Policy Study (ICPS), 77 percent of Washington cannabis consumers reported buying “any type of marijuana” from a “store, co-operative, or dispensary” in the previous year, while 17 percent said they had obtained pot from a “dealer.”

The share of Washington consumers who report buying marijuana from a “store, co-operative, or dispensary” is higher than the average for states that have legalized recreational use, which was 57 percent in 2021, according to a nationwide ICPS survey. Washington’s Liquor and Cannabis Board (LCB) paid for the ICPS report on cannabis consumption in that state, and the ICPS has not published California-specific survey data. But calculations based on estimated total consumption and legal sales suggest that the black market accounts for somewhere between two-thirds and three-quarters of marijuana purchased in California.

California’s striking failure to shift consumers from illegal to legal dealers is largely due to a combination of high taxes, onerous regulations, and local retailing bans. While Washington has a relatively high retail marijuana tax (37 percent, plus standard sales taxes), in other respects the state has made it easier for licensed suppliers to compete with illegal sources.

A 2022 study from Reason Foundation (which publishes Reason) notes that local restrictions in California have created “massive cannabis deserts” where “consumers have no access to a legal retailer within a reasonable distance of their home.” Washington has more than three times as many legal dispensaries per capita as California.

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Colorado voters decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms

Colorado voters have passed a ballot initiative to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms for people 21 and older and to create state-regulated centers where participants can experience the drug.

Colorado becomes the second state after Oregon to establish a regulated system for substances like psilocybin and psilocin, the hallucinogens found in some mushrooms.

Colorado’s initiative eventually will allow an advisory board to add other plant-based psychedelic drugs to the program.

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