UN: cannabis law changes pose 'very grave danger to public health'

[edgarshade]

Guardian

Alan Travis
Tuesday 4 March 2014 11.15 GMT

With reader comments

International Narcotics Control Board calls US and Uruguay moves on cannabis 'misguided initiatives'.

The UN has launched a counter-offensive against moves to liberalise drug laws around the world, warning that cannabis legalisation poses a grave danger to public health. The UN body for enforcing international drug treaties, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), voiced concern over "misguided initiatives" on cannabis legalisation in Uruguay and the US states of Colorado and Washington that fail to comply with international drug conventions.

The INCB annual report published on Tuesday claims that the introduction of a widely commercialised "medical" cannabis programme in Colorado has led to increases in car accidents involving "drug drivers", cannabis-related treatment admissions, and positive drug tests for cannabis.

"Drug-traffickers will choose the path of least resistance, so it is essential that global efforts to tackle the drug problem are unified," said Raymond Yans, INCB president. "When governments consider their future policies on this, the primary consideration should be the long-term health and welfare of the population." He said the UN was concerned about some initiatives aimed at the legalisation of the non-medical and non-scientific use of cannabis that posed "a very grave danger to public health and wellbeing" – the very things international drug conventions had been designed to protect.

More...
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/04/un-warning-cannabis-law-change-us-uruguay

 

[neversickanymore]

Thank God they fail to comply with international drug conventions, designed to protect, but yeah that design utterly failed.

 

[23536]

The UN needs to step into the 22nd century.

 

[neversickanymore]

Much of world calls on international narcotics board to end its 40 years of misguided initiatives... and if it doesn't, mehhh.. it doesn't seem like we give a shit what they are saying anymore.

 

[exists]

increases in car accidents involving "drug drivers"¹
cannabis-related treatment admissions²
and positive drug tests for cannabis³

1) Possibly resulting in fewer traffic fatalities overall, since more people are switching from driving drunk to driving stoned. I'd rather share the road with stoned drivers than drunk drivers any day.
2) Only a health & safety issue because, by simply walking into a hospital, you're exposing yourself to any number of diseases. If more people understood that being really stoned != risk of death, there would be fewer hospital admissions.
3) Only a problem because many employers will fire you if it's determined that you're going to work stoned, regardless of how your job affects public safety.

One of the safest drugs in the world, yet the UN is treating it like the Next Big Plague. Makes you really wonder why.

 

[omnipresenthuman]

Anywhere that cigarettes and alcohol are legal, cannabis, by matter of fact, should also be legal.

Cannabis is much less dangerous to your overall health than either cigarettes or tobacco - this is a fact.

 

[weekend addiction]

If the UN doesn't like it they should sanction the US with their army. Oh thats right! The UN doesn't have an army. Well if I didn't have an army I would shut the fuck up. You hear that UN shut the fuck up!

 

[neversickanymore]

 

[Clocktower]

The UN remains most concerned about the scale of illicit opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, which set records in 2013 reaching 209,000 hectares, a 36% increase compared with 154,000 hectares in 2012.

The UN should establish stricter sanctions for illicit Heroin trafficking and make it more difficult to obtain globally. That should make poppy less attractive as a cash crop for Afghan farmers. If they do choose to farm poppies, they won't be able to turn to their government for protection from organized criminals and will have to hire or bribe them instead.

It repeats its warnings on legal highs or new psychoactive substances as they are officially known, and says unprecedented numbers and varieties of these synthetic chemical substances are being sold in the developing world as well as Europe.

More sanctions should be put in place to reduce efforts to circumvent sanctions.

 

[ro4eva]

Cannabis sativa, Papaver somniferum, Erythroxylum coca - These plants (and others related to them) are not patented, were not invented by humans, and are nobody's intellectual property.

The UN and their draconian views on the psychotropic constituents of these plants is about as important to me as the constituents found in my feces.

The UN's dictatorship-style enforcement of their ideologies regarding these plants contradicts my basic human rights to do with my body (which is my property) as I please. Nearly two decades of recreational drug use, and I have never physically harmed anyone, nor have I ever stolen anyone's property or money to support my habit. The day that I do end up doing so, feel free to lock me up, but until then, go fuck yourselves and leave me the hell alone.

Unless the human race goes extinct, the supply and demand of these plants and their psychotropic constituents will NEVER be quelled - so piss off already and stop wasting your time, my time, and a staggering amount of tax payer money on what is a victimless crime.

Lastly, stop preaching to me about the dangers of marijuana use while you go about smoking your tobacco and drinking your alcoholic beverages, as it screams "fascist" to pretty much everyone who knows which recreational drugs are the biggest burden on society.

Damn hypocrites - be gone!

 

[pmoseman]

1) Possibly resulting in fewer traffic fatalities overall, since more people are switching from driving drunk to driving stoned. I'd rather share the road with stoned drivers than drunk drivers any day.
2) Only a health & safety issue because, by simply walking into a hospital, you're exposing yourself to any number of diseases. If more people understood that being really stoned != risk of death, there would be fewer hospital admissions.
3) Only a problem because many employers will fire you if it's determined that you're going to work stoned, regardless of how your job affects public safety.

One of the safest drugs in the world, yet the UN is treating it like the Next Big Plague. Makes you really wonder why.

1) Where is your justification, are these accidents safe?
2) Cannabis related treatment could be almost anything. What is the reason for these admissions? What is the risk of entering a hospital under these types of conditions?
3) Decriminalization has the effect of increasing use for an illicit substance. Is this an asolute denial of the harm done by marijuana?

 

[pmoseman]

Cannabis sativa, Papaver somniferum, Erythroxylum coca - These plants (and others related to them) are not patented, were not invented by humans, and are nobody's intellectual property.

The UN and their draconian views on the psychotropic constituents of these plants is about as important to me as the constituents found in my feces.

The UN's dictatorship-style enforcement of their ideologies regarding these plants contradicts my basic human rights to do with my body (which is my property) as I please. Nearly two decades of recreational drug use, and I have never physically harmed anyone, nor have I ever stolen anyone's property or money to support my habit. The day that I do end up doing so, feel free to lock me up, but until then, go fuck yourselves and leave me the hell alone.

Unless the human race goes extinct, the supply and demand of these plants and their psychotropic constituents will NEVER be quelled - so piss off already and stop wasting your time, my time, and a staggering amount of tax payer money on what is a victimless crime.

Lastly, stop preaching to me about the dangers of marijuana use while you go about smoking your tobacco and drinking your alcoholic beverages, as it screams "fascist" to pretty much everyone who knows which recreational drugs are the biggest burden on society.

Damn hypocrites - be gone!

These laws are made to benefit society. I do not feel you have a right to do as you please with yourself because we are all linked collectively. That is to say, I do not see you using a substance without a recognized benefit and harming yourself (statistically/theoretically of course) as doing no harm to me.

I feel your sense of autonomy is culturally bound, not a universally recognizable human right.

 

[neversickanymore]

Since Pmose you can not, are unwilling, or unable to, ever ,provide ways in which these laws have actually benefitted society, even though asked many times, then I say put up or shut up, right now.. period.

These laws are made to benefit society. .

EDIT: the world is waiting pmose.. tick tock, tick tock.. *yawn*

 

[pmoseman]

Since Pmose you can not or are unwilling, or unable, to ever provide ways in which these laws have actually benefitted society, even though asked well more than once, then I say put up or shut up.. period.

You are asking me to quantify every effect "these laws" have on society. This is impossible. A simpler question is whether unnecessary harm to an individual harms the collective. Which I infer from our previous arguments, you agree it does.

 

[pmoseman]

Since Pmose you can not, are unwilling, or unable to, ever ,provide ways in which these laws have actually benefitted society, even though asked many times, then I say put up or shut up, right now.. period.



EDIT: the world is waiting pmose.. tick tock, tick tock.. *yawn*

I made it quite clear my conjecture was independent of harm being done by drugs. As did ro4eva.

 

[neversickanymore]

Im not referring to you and ro's discussion.. im calling you out.. so please stop trying to slip the question.. its far past old.. if you can provide no positive result of the policies you promote then I am afraid you will loose all standing you have with me and hopefully the world... so lets here it?

 

[Roger&Me]

so much on the line, pmose

must maintain standing

entire world awaiting your response

 

[neversickanymore]

You know it rodge..

 

[exists]

1) Where is your justification, are these accidents safe?
2) Cannabis related treatment could be almost anything. What is the reason for these admissions? What is the risk of entering a hospital under these types of conditions?
3) Decriminalization has the effect of increasing use for an illicit substance. Is this an asolute denial of the harm done by marijuana?

1) No accident is safe, but being in better control your faculties increases your survival rate, should the unthinkable occur. Alcohol's effect on the reflexes is much, much more severe than cannabis's, and I don't need to wait for the latest study to prove it to me.
2) How life-threatening is cannabis intoxication? How many people die from being stoned, because they didn't make it to the ER on time? How does entering a hospital not put you at risk for picking up a nasty virus?
3) If your contention is true (that drug use goes up after decriminalization), then it makes perfect sense to decriminalize only the safest drugs first. Cannabis falls into the "safe" category. I'm not denying that cannabis is absolutely harmless, but it's certainly nowhere near as harmful as it's often made out to be.

 

[pmoseman]

These are not impossible to answer questions and that is not a contention.

It matters in what order we decriminalize drugs?