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Bellatrix

IAL- TRP Press Release
08/04/2004 | IAL

DRUGS: ONCE AGAIN REASON AND CREATIVITY SACRIFICED ON THE ALTAR OF IDEOLOGY AND STABILITY AS SECURITY COUNCIL WARNS DRUGS THREATEN AFGHAN STABILITY AND KARZAI CALLS FOR JIHAD-STYLE STRUGGLE AGAINST OPIUM

Note from Bellatrix; the International Prohibitionist League is a great organization for those of us concerned about the Drug War worldwide. They are closely connected to the Transnational Radical Party, a political group that campaigns worldwide for human rights. Visit thier home page at http://www.radicalparty.org/lia_paa_...rm.php?lang=en and sign the petition if you haven't already!

Until the United Nations Conventions on Drugs are repealed, countries cannot make thier own autonomous decisions regarding drug policy. These conventions make it possible for the UN to criticise, censure and penalize countries that deviate from the hardline prohibitionism that was, and continues to be, dictated by the United States worldwide.

NEWS FROM THE IAL :
On April 6, endorsing the results of last week's Afghanistan's reconstruction conference in Berlin, the Security Council called on the world to redouble its efforts to eliminate the opium trade. In fact, the Council identified narcotics as one of the greatest threats to Afghanistan's stability, as the country produces three-quarters of the world's opium that is needed to refine heroin.

Bellatrix : See what I mean? The UN has organizations and offices concerned with health, resources, food production and pollution, but it is the Security Council, a military body, making this statement. As if opium somehow has a mind of it's own, growing and selling itself. As usual, it is the prohibition of the drug that is causing problems, not the drug itself.

According to the Agence France Press, in his first press conference since the Berlin Conference, where donors pledged $8.2 billion for an Afghan development plan of three years, President Hamid Karzai, called upon the elders to "struggle against narcotics very strongly, jihad-style," as "narcotics is one of the things which threatens our dignity, our economy, our agriculture. It threatens our government and our roots - and it is against our religion."

Bellatrix ; how much of the $8.2 billion has already dissappeared down the bottomless "War on Drugs" hole already? Bear in mind two things here - first, that Karzai and the gov't that he leads barely control Kabul, never mind the rest of the country, and are powerless to implement any kind of official policy country-wide. Thanks to the skewed military priorities of certain countries, Afganistan was invaded but not stabilized or reconstructed. The result has been the return of the reign of the warlords and the Taliban in the countryside. The rhetoric that Karzai is using here is exactly what the Taliban was saying years ago, and it got them billions in aid from the US gov't despite a deplorable human rights record. I'm amazed it took Karzai so long to take his space at the trough.

Statement by Marco Perduca, Executive Director of the International Antiprohibitionist League and UN Representative of the Transnational Radical Party:

"In an unfortunate series of events, happening within the UN and in Afghanistan, we have witnessed once again reason and creativity sacrificed on the altar of ideology and stability. When it comes to drugs, it seems like the international community is incapable of finding alternative ways of addressing the issue, reaffirming, time and again, prohibition as the only possible "cure" for the "disease". A diagnosis that has proved ineffective for over three decades now.

What is even more worrying is President Karzai's declaration to launch a holy war on drugs - just like the Talibans in 2000 and 2001 - with the hope to eradicate a formidably lucrative crop in the name of God. Paradoxically, poppy could in fact help the development of a sustainable and effective Afghan economy, but its production would need to be legalized in an effort to devise more effective ways to govern the phenomenon, taking it away from the war-lords turned drug-lords.

Bellatrix: who often work for the CIA, which is why they can be so tricky to catch.

If the production and consumption of drugs could happen within a legal framework rather than in the current Narco-Mafia governed context, licit poppy from Afghanistan could be used to produce licit heroin for Europe's harm reduction programs (not to mention other non narcotic products).

The same day the Security Council launched its appeal, the Financial Times published a picture of a young Afghani peasant demonstrating against poppy eradication. The liberation of Afghanistan should also mean the liberation from failing models and dogmas."

Bellatrix : Bravissima, Marco! The people of Afganistan clearly do NOT want a return to the days of the Taliban. The UN is clearly ignoring the will of the people in this matter.

The following are snippets of worldwide narco-news. Check the website above and do some searches (use the name of the publication) for more information. Cheers!


NEWS FROM THE WORLD :
3441 01/04/2004
SPAIN (Catalonia)
MEDICINE
EL PAIS
The Public Health Department is finalising a project aimed at administering cannabis to sufferers of certain illnesses but only on physician's prescription and in pharmacies.

3447 04/04/2004
EUROPEAN UNION
ORGANISATION
ANSA
The EMCDDA has issued a report favourable to clean and safe public shoot-up rooms. 'There is no proof that that such facilities encourage or increase drug use, nor do they prolong addiction among the frequenters.'

3446 06/04/2004
UNITED KINGDOM
POLITICS
THE TIMES
Prime Minister Tony Blair has proposed compulsory drug testing of those charged with robbery, burglary and/or theft in order to 'break the ties between crime and drugs' and to launch the 'guilty' on the way to rehabilitation. Civil Rights organisations are protesting strongly.

3442 02/04/2004
IRELAND
REHABILITATION
ONLINE.IE
Research undertaken by Merchants Quay Ireland's help centre for addicts shows that eighty-seven per cent women heroin addicts are infected with hepatitis-C. The Centre asks for rapid implementation of a safe-syringes programme.

3444 05/04/2004
U.S.A.
HEALTH
BOSTON HERALD
According to Dr. Sharon Levy, drug-testing kits for home or family use are unreliable, largely because interpretation of the readings requires specialist competence. Some drugs don't show after brief lapses of time, whilst some innocuous substances such as cough syrups can show up as illegal drugs.

3439 02/04/2004
AFGHANISTAN
THE WAR ON DRUGS
DAWN
Pakistan's foreign minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri asks the U.S. to dispatch more troops to Afghanistan to help fight against the various 'war lords', the Taliban among them. The aim is to cut back opium production, the immensely profitable business of these private armies.

3443 03/04/2004
AFGHANISTAN
THE WAR ON DRUGS
FINANCIAL TIMES
General David Barno, C.-in-C. of Coalition forces in Afghanistan, says that there are 'ever more convincing signs' of ties between the drug trade and terrorism. 'It's too early to say that this is widely spread, but great quantities of drugs are being discovered in guerrilla of drugs are being found in guerrilla strongholds,' he said.

3445 06/04/2004
AFGHANISTAN
THE WAR ON DRUGS
NEWS24
President Hamid Karzai has launched a 'holy war' against drugs. 'Opium puts to shame our dignity, economy and agriculture, our cultural roots and our government. Moreover, it's against our religion,' he said.

3440 07/04/2004
AFGHANISTAN
THE WAR ON DRUGS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A pact has been reached among Afghanistan and bordering nations (China, Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) for the creation of a security belt around Afghanistan that would exclude drug trafficking. Exchanges of views and increased collaboration are planned.

3448 07/04/2004
MEXICO
THE WAR ON DRUGS
VOA NEWS
The American State Department says that Mexico's opium-grade poppy cultivation has increased by seventy per cent, notwithstanding the government's fumigation programmes. Last year there were 36,000 hectares given over to marijuana cultivation and 20,000 to poppies.

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Editor in Chief: Marco Perduca
Director: Vincenzo Donvito
Layout & Distribution: C.E.D. Roma

The Liafax is published with a contribution from the Open Society Institute

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mindraver

did you mean the International Antiprohibitionist League?

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Bellatrix

Yes, that's what I meant! Just testing you! Good work! :-P

WNB

Damn, are you really from South Korea?! I just noticed your location now for some reason

Anyway, great read. Interesting website too.

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