The U.N. really wishes that voters in Alaska and Oregon hadn’t legalized weed

The U.N. really wishes that voters in Alaska and Oregon hadn’t legalized weed



The U.N.'s top drug czar says that state-level marijuana legalization initiatives are violations of longstanding international drug treaties. Yury Fedotov, the director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, told reporters that "I don't see how [state-level marijuana legalization in the U.S.] can be compatible with existing conventions," according to a Reuters report.

Fedotov's remarks are notable for coming less than a month after Assistant Secretary of State William Brownfield outlined an official policy of "flexibility" in the U.S.'s interpretation of existing U.N. drug control conventions, which require countries to strictly outlaw the sale and use of many common drugs.

Noting that the first of the three major treaties was drafted in 1961, Brownfield said that "things have changed since 1961. We must have enough flexibility to allow us to incorporate those changes into our policies." He called for all nations, the U.S. included, to "tolerate different national drug policies, to accept the fact that some countries will have very strict drug approaches; other countries will legalize entire categories of drugs."

These remarks clearly didn't sit well with Fedotov. The Brookings Institution's Wells Bennett, who has written extensively about U.S. drug policy in the context of international treaty obligations, said in an email that "Fedotov wasn't exactly a ready-made audience for a claim of "flexibility"... U.N. officials and Russia's government typically take a quite strict stance towards marijuana and other substances, and presumptively bat away any policy short of that."

Bennett says that Fedotov's remarks "suggest growing skepticism from the international drug control bureaucracy." And indeed, the United Nations already voiced disapproval after Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana in 2012.

Keith Humphreys, a Stanford University professor who studies drug policy, wrote at the time that state-level laws do not put the U.S. in violation of international treaties, since it is the federal government, not the states, who is a signatory to the treaties. He noted that the U.N. has very little ability to punish countries that legalize marijuana, and said "in short, supporters of marijuana legalization don't really need to worry about the UN drug control treaties."

In an email, Humphries said that Fedotov's remarks are about 2016: "Everyone I believe is positioning themselves for 2016, during which drug control will be the subject of a special session of the UN general assembly." After Obama leaves office in early 2017, "The new administration will have to decide if it wants to keep stretching the meaning of the treaties or formalize a different approach to marijuana. The politics around marijuana in the USA are favorable for this among voters, but not in the senate which would vote on any revised treaty."

Brookings' Wells Bennett agrees that there's a limit to how much flexibility the U.S. will be able to claim in its interpretation of international drug law, particularly with even more states considering legalization measures in 2016. "The administration asserts that its policy complies with the treaties because they leave room for flexibility and prosecutorial discretion," he wrote in a recent report with John Walsh of the Washington Office on Latin America. "That argument makes sense on a short-term, wait-and-see basis, but it will rapidly become implausible and unsustainable if legalization spreads and succeeds."

Cont -

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...rs-in-alaska-and-oregon-hadnt-legalized-weed/

I'm hoping for big changes at the 2016 Special Session. Not likely, but possible...

the U.N. has very little ability to punish countries

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This is really the core of the matter right here. I'm not a full-fledged believer in political realism, but it's an intriguing perspective which has given me much pause for thought. A hardcore political realist holds that there is not, and can never be, an institution capable of forcing a sovereign state to do anything. The reason I don't fully buy this is because I don't think the threat of military or economic harm is the only form true power takes. Still, the UN is, by its nature, not built to dole out punishment. All it's built to do is lasso countries into, or exclude them from, information loops. It's a clique, essentially. Being "in the loop" and on the same page as other powerful countries is indeed a form of power, IMHO, the same way being "in" with the in-crowd at school grants one real advantages.

So the UN is hoping that the rest of the world's heavy hitters will band together and exert group pressure on the US by giving it a vote of no confidence on allowing some of its states to legalize marijuana. Frankly, I think this is a long shot. Most of the US's true allies have remained entirely silent on its growing marijuana legalization, and to me, that silence speaks volumes -- at the very least it's an admission that this is the US's (and its citizens') own business. At the most, it can be read as a tacit support. Secondly, I think this movement, if sincere, is sure to backfire, and will only expose just how little the world's nations agree when it comes to marijuana policy.

Ah but you see, I think that's the point. In other words, I don't think this motion is sincere at all. I think it's a gambit on the part of a few heavy hitting UN members that are not US allies (ahem, Russia) to speak out against the US in general, and see who else is in their corner. Marijuana policy is a red herring or a synecdoche.

YAWN.. well lets look at this persons credentials..

Fedotov graduated from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations in 1971

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Fedotov

ROFL.. really who gives a fuck what this clown puppet thinks. Just a product of the cold war propaganda machine.. Its pretty embarrassing if you even care.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/w...to-decriminalize-drugs-and-drug-use.html?_r=0
http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/

creepy is creepy




Russia blows innocent passenger planes to a fiery oblivion and is all but hurt over grass.. get a fucken clue, you look like idiots.

If "the Russians" are "a product of the Cold War propaganda machine", where does that leave the US and much of the English speaking west?
"We" are as much a product of Cold War bullshit as anyone from the other side of the "iron curtain". And lets just say there have been some pretty embarrassing moments for the aforementioned countries on the international stage in the past couple of decades.
Lets not reduce this to us vs them west vs east parochialism, shall we?
I mean, thanks for leading the way, USA - but let us not forget who instigated this global drug war.

spacejunk said:

I mean, thanks for leading the way, USA - but let us not forget who instigated this global drug war.

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Yup. Take responsibility for your evil actions by leading other countries towards legalization now.

spacejunk said:

I mean, thanks for leading the way, USA - but let us not forget who instigated this global drug war.

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As for the first part of what you said.. yeah please dont put words is my mouth, especially words as ridiculous as those. For the second part there are sovereign countries all over the world, if they choose to adopt the programs of other nations like good little pretenda counties, then they only have their pathedic selves to blame.

Yeah we are used to countries that cant think for themselves bitching. In fact we are just used to bitching.

Am i totally misreading what this first sentence is supposed to mean?
If so, perhaps you can enlighten me.

neversickanymore said:

YAWN.. well lets look at this persons credentials..


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Fedotov

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The UN is a collective of differing viewpoints. Some palatable, some not.
That's the nature of such enormous international bodies.
Now, I'm reading it as - you either have something against the UN, former communists/the Soviet Union, or you're making xenophobic remarks about Russians.
...or your axe to grind in regard to the drug war is clouding your judgement.
Am I putting words in your mouth? I intend to do no such thing.
It's just that this sort of "ridiculous" stuff reads like a 'xenophobic rant' to me.

neversickanymore said:

Russia blows innocent passenger planes to a fiery oblivion and is all but hurt over grass.. get a fucken clue, you look like idiots.

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Like I say - we are as much a product of the Cold War mentality as anyone else, are we not?

The U.N.'s top drug czar says that state-level marijuana legalization initiatives are violations of longstanding international drug treaties. Yury Fedotov, the director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, told reporters that "I don't see how [state-level marijuana legalization in the U.S.] can be compatible with existing conventions," according to a Reuters report.

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I would say that "existing conventions" are changing because they need to change.

Exactly.
The legalisation movement (for cannabis anyway) is emerging globally.
Where nation states go, UN agenda will follow.

spacejunk said:

Am i totally misreading what this first sentence is supposed to mean?
If so, perhaps you can enlighten me.



The UN is a collective of differing viewpoints. Some palatable, some not.
That's the nature of such enormous international bodies.
Now, I'm reading it as - you either have something against the UN, former communists/the Soviet Union, or you're making xenophobic remarks about Russians.
...or your axe to grind in regard to the drug war is clouding your judgement.
Am I putting words in your mouth? I intend to do no such thing.
It's just that this sort of "ridiculous" stuff reads like a 'xenophobic rant' to me.

Like I say - we are as much a product of the Cold War mentality as anyone else, are we not?

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First you put words in my mouth.. then you judge me on the words you put there.

My opinion, of this one individual's educational background, is that it does not do much to qualify him to make very wise decisions in this matter. The reason I stated that he was the product of the cold war propaganda machine was because he graduated from that school at that time.

How you jumped from that to all those other ideas is beyond me.

The people are the ones who have assumed control and are changing these ridiculous failed laws. They need to because our government is broken and very corupt.. its just we call bribery lobbying.

herbavore said:

I would say that "existing conventions" are changing because they need to change.

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It probably has to more so in the US because of the ridiculous levels of incarceration for weed pocessions. The majority of the western world either turn a blind eye or deliver wet slaps on the wrist for weed, at the same time following the UN ban.

Well if the UN doesn't like it they can sanction us with their fucking army. Oh that's right they don't have an army.

spacejunk said:

If "the Russians" are "a product of the Cold War propaganda machine", where does that leave the US and much of the English speaking west?
"We" are as much a product of Cold War bullshit as anyone from the other side of the "iron curtain". And lets just say there have been some pretty embarrassing moments for the aforementioned countries on the international stage in the past couple of decades.
Lets not reduce this to us vs them west vs east parochialism, shall we?
I mean, thanks for leading the way, USA - but let us not forget who instigated this global drug war.

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Nice strawman. A lot of Americans are pretty aware of how fucked up things, especially the justice system, in this country are. However when one criticizes Russia and their of apparent love of authoritarianism and subjugation, Russians always just counter with "USA is just as bad". Well, I hate to break it to you but America is the one that's slowly but surely legalizing cannabis while Russia is passing laws that persecute gay individuals and basically gives thugs legal sanction to beat them up.

I wonder exactly what type of first hand experience does this old fart have with respect to marijuana and other street drugs. My guess would be zero.

People have this illusion that they can read a book and/or observe others in order to become experts of something/anything.

As a male, I've read a lot of literature over the past couple of decades, and have observed many women - including one in person - giving birth. And no matter how many times I continue to read up on this topic or continue to observe women giving birth, I do not pretend to understand how it FEELS to personally experience such a thing. And for me to think otherwise about myself regarding the aforementioned topic would be nothing short of irrational and possibly delirious.

Yet here we are, almost 15 years into the 21st Century, with a bunch of clueless dolts being considered "experts" in the the field of "recreational drug use." And even worse: many of them are prohibitionists with corresponding opinions based solely on observation and biased, outdated textbooks.

And this in a nutshell is what Mr. Fedotov appears to be - a walking/talking organic record player with a playlist consisting of nothing substantial; nothing personal; nothing fundamental, but rather, the same antiquated propaganda over and over again like a bad re-run on television. Frankly I'm tired of these impostors.

^ Nice points, Ro.

neversickanymore said:

First you put words in my mouth.. then you judge me on the words you put there.

My opinion, of this one individual's educational background, is that it does not do much to qualify him to make very wise decisions in this matter. The reason I stated that he was the product of the cold war propaganda machine was because he graduated from that school at that time.

How you jumped from that to all those other ideas is beyond me.

The people are the ones who have assumed control and are changing these ridiculous failed laws. They need to because our government is broken and very corupt.. its just we call bribery lobbying.

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Former Russian Ambassador to the UK "not qualified" to be a diplomat?
Spare me.

How did the whole world step in line with the USA's drug prohibition campaign?
Lets see -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs

Again, thanks for starting to turn the pot war back, America.
Your incarceration rate leads me to feel it's a bit early for victory laps and back-slapping, but it's a start.
Creepy indeed.

Does anybody know anything about Russian "drug policy"?

I would be happy to share, as in how the "science" and reasoning behind their drug policy is actually a product of the same environment that brought them much of their cold war bullshit and suffering (in other words that experienced by Russians, not the cold war bullshit Americans or Westerners have suffered through). [*See the bit in blue I've edited into this post that explain an aspect of this. The second paragraph in the quote sums up the beginning to this discussion well enough for now.*]

Like much of Russian history in and post the 20th century, shit can get a little complicated though, and I'm hoping someone out there wants to do it for me

EDIT: for those interested in a little insight into this, see the paper Breaking worse: The emergence of krokodil and excessive injuries among people who inject drugs in Eurasia (International Journal of Drug Policy 24 (2013) 265–274)

The image [misrepresentation] of krokodil users portrayed in the Russian language media – and the horrific footage accompanying it – contributes to what economist John Kenneth Galbraith dubbed “conventional wisdom,” an idea widely accepted as true by both the public and ‘experts,’ but unexamined and preserving the status quo (Galbraith, 1958). Stigma among medical providers towards PWID in this region – and the resulting substandard treatment – is, as an anony- mous expatriate medical worker recently pointed out, not only widespread and fuelled by lack of proper information, but also rooted in this type of conventional wisdom: “They talk about these things with their family and friends, as we all do” (Anonymous, personal communication, 2012). In countries where public cam- paigns or media position drug use as social evil and where health providers are viewed as closely aligned with law enforcement or other systems of social control (e.g. child protection agencies), PWID are likely to postpone seeking treatment for medical prob- lems that need urgent professional care (Elovich & Drucker, 2008; Orekhovsky et al., 2002; Wolfe, Carrieri, & Shepard, 2010).

Elsewhere we have argued that the current response to drug use, HIV and infectious diseases in Russia and many former Soviet countries is strongly rooted in the Soviet Union’s approach to deviance (Grund et al., 2009; Grund, 2002; Latypov, 2011). In Soviet times, narcology and psychiatry collaborated closely with law enforcement and security services in repressing political dissidents, drug users, prostitutes and sexual minorities alike, with leading psychiatrists and narcologists co-opted by the KGB as “trusted per- sons” (Latypov, 2012). Seeking drug treatment or getting arrested meant inclusion in a narcological registry, with personal and medical information shared among law enforcement, narcological centers and other agencies of state control. Registration as a narkoman entailed restrictions of civil rights and personal freedom, such as driving permits and professional licenses being revoked, targeted and unwarranted stop-and-frisk by the police looking for drugs or a bribe and the threat of compulsory treatment looming (Grund et al., 2009). In many former Soviet countries these practices have not significantly changed.

In Russia and many other post-Soviet countries, the old ideol- ogy lingers on in narcological institutes, out of sync with modern public and mental health concepts (Grund et al., 2009). Many nar- cologists continue to view addiction as criminal or moral deviance and not as a disease. Narcological dispensaries continue to share information with law enforcement (Mendelevich, 2011). The threat of removal of child custody rights may impede women’s access to health care in particular (Shields, 2009). Stigma and discrimina- tion, hostile treatment and lack of confidentiality are persistent in the treatment of PWID and must be viewed as important bar- riers to timely seeking medical care (Beardsley & Latypov, 2012; Mendelevich, 2011; Wolfe et al., 2010). PWID have therefore strong incentives to avoid narcological facilities and, by association, other state health services. In their personal “hierarchy of risk,” seeking help for significant health problems is subordinated by the need to stay under the radar of the authorities (Connors, 1992). Several of the YouTube clips on the internet furthermore document not only the gravity of harms among krokodil users, but also poor and inhumane treatment of those hospitalized with krokodil related injuries. In one video a man’s leg is sawn off under the knee with a lint saw in what seems not to be a surgical unit, but perhaps a common hospital ward. The man sits wide-awake in an ordinary wheelchair and holds his leg himself above a bucket, which was lined with a garbage bag just before. These videos and case reports (Asaeva et al., 2011; Daria Ocheret, personal communication, 2012; Sarah Evans, personal communication, 2012) suggest that the care provided to those with krokodil related injuries may be (grossly) substandard, sometimes exacerbated by improper diagnosis and faulty clinical decisions.

Absence of opioid substitution treatment

An important practical concern is the absence of opioid substitu- tion treatment (OST) in surgical units and general hospitals. Except for Russia (where OST is banned through existing legislation), Turk- menistan (where national authorities are still ‘considering’ whether to introduce OST or not) and Uzbekistan (where OST was discon- tinued in 2009), all countries in Eurasia have introduced opioid substitution treatment (OST), predominantly in state health facil- ities. However, OST coverage remains well below under 5% of estimated PWID in the majority of the former Soviet countries. In most of these countries the highly centralized and vertical health care structures inherited from the Soviet era impede the provision of integrated, patient-centred health care, in particular for PWID and other vulnerable populations, where an integrated approach is deemed of crucial importance to containing the clustering epi- demics of HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis. As a rule, OST programs are almost exclusively run by narcological centers, while integra- tion with e.g. HIV, TB or hepatitis treatment or primary care remains rare and take-home OST doses are authorized only in the three Baltic states and Kyrgyzstan (Latypov, Bidordinova, & Khachatrian, 2012). These restrictions pre-empt the use of substitution medi- cation as an adjunct treatment to facilitate access and adherence to in-patient treatment in, for example, surgeries and general hos- pitals. The prospects of acute withdrawal when hospitalized offer PWID further incentives for avoiding biomedical treatment.

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p269-271

enjoy :D I left that last paragraph because I thought ya'll would like it. And for the record iirc PWID = people who inject drugs.

The UN can go sit on a cactus and rotate. A lot of governments signed those drug conventions, but did they do so via national referenda? I didn't recall anyone asking me if I support Canada signing such conventions, even though my government just went ahead and did it.

It's true that the UN is toothless, but the problem is actually the presumption that the UN in any way, shape of form gets to override the independent sovereignty of my country. If my people vote for a drug's legalization, then the UN has no business telling us we are wrong, especially with such flimsy evidence for harm as cannabis has.

Foreigner said:

The UN can go sit on a cactus and rotate. A lot of governments signed those drug conventions, but did they do so via national referenda? I didn't recall anyone asking me if I support Canada signing such conventions, even though my government just went ahead and did it.

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QFT.. well said. Hopefully the governments can catch up at some point.

spacejunk said:

Russian Ambassador to the UK "not qualified" to be a diplomat?
Spare me.

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No man.. this person does not seem qualified to determine drug policy.