Thoughts from the void: Cannabis and the Black Market

"Legal sourcing of cannabis was greater in 2021 than 2020 for all ten cannabis products [surveyed]. In 2021, the percentage of consumers sourcing all their products legally in the past 12 months ranged from 49 percent of solid concentrate consumers in 2021 to 82 percent of cannabis drink consumers,” investigators reported. “Transitioning consumers of all cannabis products into the regulated market is important for public health and safety. Future studies should continue to examine cannabis product sourcing in Canada over time, as well as ways to displace the illegal market for all cannabis products without also promoting the use of high-potency cannabis products."

- NORML

'The United States is committed to working together with the countries of the Western Hemisphere as neighbors and partners to meet our shared challenges of drug trafficking and use. My Administration will seek to expand cooperation with key partners, such as Mexico and Colombia, to shape a collective and comprehensive response and expand efforts to address the production and trafficking of dangerous synthetic drugs that are responsible for many of our overdose deaths, particularly fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, and methamphetamine. In Mexico, we must continue to work together to intensify efforts to dismantle transnational criminal organizations and their networks, increase prosecutions of criminal leaders and facilitators, and strengthen efforts to seize illicit assets. In Bolivia, I encourage the government to take additional steps to safeguard the country’s licit coca markets from criminal exploitation and reduce illicit coca cultivation that continues to exceed legal limits under Bolivia’s domestic laws for medicinal and traditional use. In addition, the United States will look to expand cooperation with China, India, and other chemical source countries in order to disrupt the global flow of synthetic drugs and their precursor chemicals. '

- The White House

'The US sourced 92 percent of its heroin from Mexico in 2019, according to product analyzed by a DEA tracing program. The Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels continue to be identified as Mexico’s biggest drug trafficking organizations.

But, in terms of cannabis, the report says that Mexican weed in the States has “largely been supplanted by domestic-produced marijuana.”

As proof, the DEA explains that agency-driven marijuana seizures along the US-Mexican border have decreased by over 80 percent since 2013. 2009 was the high water mark for seizures along the Southwest Border. The agency nabbed close to 1.3 million kilograms that year.'

- MerryJane.Com

'Four themes emerged during analyses: “sort of legal,” “mitigating harm through legalization,” “Increasing acceptance,” and “seeking safety when purchasing cannabis.” Despite their limited knowledge of cannabis regulation, the majority of the participants supported recreational cannabis legalization from a harm reduction perspective. Most participants did not believe that cannabis legalization had affected their use behavior. However, participants, especially cannabis users, perceived that recreational cannabis legalization created a context where cannabis use was legally, socially, and behaviorally “safer” than in an illegal context, even for those below the legal age of sale.'

- Harm Reduction Journal

Till nearly 150 years ago the cannabis plant was available and grew everywhere. It had been so for tens of thousands of years, 28 million years actually, well before humans appeared on the scene, and nobody had even been around to bat an eyelid. People interested in the plant plucked it from wherever it grew in nature, shared it and possibly even sold it, if there was such a thing as a seller and a buyer, unlikely perhaps for a plant growing abundantly and freely in nature those days. It may have been used in barter, trade, or simply shared between people, and consumed socially, recreationally, industrially, spiritually and medicinally. Everybody else continued doing what they were doing, and life went on as usual. The human evolved in the presence of the plant, and it looks like his biology has also evolved in close association with the plant.

Suddenly in the blink of a cosmic eye, some people, seeing that the plant stood in the way of their aspirations for wealth and domination, said that the plant was evil, posing a great threat to health, caused insanity, and needed to be banned. Incredibly, a witch hunt was launched against the plant and the people who used it. It started in British colonial India and Burma (now Myanmar), in the 19th century, gained momentum in the US, and spread all over the world in the 20th century. These colonial empires and the US, with a growing sense of self importance, having suppressed most of the indigenous inhabitants of the land, decided that the plant must be banned, and its users severely punished, not just within the boundaries of these empires, but across the whole world which each empire saw as their new dominion. International treaties were signed and laws created. Soon gangs of anti-cannabis countries bullied the rest of the world into signing anti-cannabis laws, and threatened international sanctions and use of force against those who refused. The US, being the biggest funder of various international activities, including military and economic warfare around the world, was able to bring the UN to ban cannabis, so as to clear the path further for the industries that stood to gain from cannabis prohibition in the first place - petrochemicals, arms trade, pharmaceuticals, alcohol, tobacco, heroin, cocaine, timber and so on.

The cannabis communities, however, did not cease to follow the ancient traditions of the herb and their association with it, instead they went underground. From visible places, the exchange and trade of the plant moved to remote places, and under cover of darkness. Thus, the black market for cannabis was born. Repeated mindless action from law enforcement everywhere drastically cut off the many sources of cannabis, and moved supply from the hands of the many to the hands of the few. These few were usually resourceful persons who took additional risks to cultivate the plant and sell them to consumers. The risk involved and the supply shortage forced prices upwards but for a significant part of society, cannabis was a tradition and a way of life so paying a price for the herb, no matter how high, was the only alternative. Some cannabis growers and sellers in this environment made large profits, but many ran afoul of law enforcement. In many places they began to thrive working clandestinely with law enforcement. Many in the black market used the new easy money to expand business to other much more harmful areas like selling more dangerous synthetic hard drugs, weapons or indulging in other criminal activities like money laundering and extortion. With the creation of the black market, shortage of supply, and the exorbitant prices of cannabis, it became only the rich who could afford to use the herb. The very same rich, who brought about global cannabis prohibition, were now the only persons who had continuous supply of, and access to, the herb

As far back as in the 19th century, in India, where cannabis prohibition truly started, it was found that it was impossible to prevent the smuggling of ganja from unregulated Native Indian States into the British Provinces that sought to regulate and prohibit ganja. Despite the failure, the British government decided that the way forward was to try and prohibit ganja across the entire country. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission of 1894-95 was set up with the specific aim of studying the feasibility of prohibiting ganja across the entire country. Many prominent persons, speaking out against the prohibition of ganja, told the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission that it would be an impossible task. To quote the Commission on this subject, as stated in its report - '571. It is impossible to quote the mass of opinion against prohibition of ganja, but the following analysis of some of the most important opinions will give an idea of the strength of these opinions:— (1) Prohibition impossible or unnecessary, or could not be enforced without a large preventive establishment. (1) Hon'ble D. R. Lyall, C.S.I., Member, Board of Revenue. (2) Mr. Westmacott, Commissioner. (9) Mr. Price, Collector. (11) Mr. Skrine, Collector. (21) Mr. Jenkins, Collector. (17) Mr. Gupta, Commissioner of Excise. (46) Ganendra Nath Pal, Deputy Collector. (197) Mr. H. M. Weatherall, Manager, Nawab's Estates, Tippera'

Most black market operations involving cannabis these days are multi-member network based operations, often spanning multiple geographies, interstate and international. Cannabis is usually just one of the activities that these operations are involved in. Hard drugs, weapons, money, illegal wildlife, and human trafficking form other parts of the diverse business portfolio. Almost all operations function in connivance with politicians, law enforcement, drug enforcement and excise officials. 90% or more of worldwide cannabis trade is through the black market, and global spend on trying to curb this, which is a racket in itself, is said to be in the range of hundreds of billions of dollars. The small farmer with his limited produce has very limited chances of survival in this setting. Often difficult circumstances force him to join the crime networks, where he ends up becoming a victim of serious exploitation, enslaved to provide the elites their fix.

Prohibiting cannabis has proven to be a double-edged sword. Not only has it moved the herb into the black market, it has also boosted the sales of other dangerous drugs that also operate through the black market, drug like heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, fentanyl, novel psychotropic substances, etc. Cannabis is the "drug" that the most number of people procure from the black market and use. It is estimated that upwards of 250 million people procure their cannabis from the global black market. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020 states that 'The cultivation of cannabis plants was reported by 151 countries in the period 2010–2018 – countries home to 96 per cent of the global population – and was reported through either direct indicators (such as the cultivation or eradication of cannabis plants and the eradication of cannabis-producing sites) or indirect indicators (such as seizures of cannabis plants and the origin of cannabis seizures reported by other Member States).' Given that most drug sellers in the black market look to maximize profits, as does nearly all businesses today, there is great incentive for peddlers to "upsell" the more dangerous and expensive hard drugs to cannabis users. Many persons simply opt for these hard drugs because cannabis, which they prefer, is unavailable.

The black market has grown increasingly complex for a number of reasons. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) World Drug Report 2020 says that 'The growing complexity of drug markets can be also observed in the organizational structure of the actors involved. There has been a general trend over the past two decades towards an increasing fragmentation of the serious and organized crime landscape and the emergence of more groups and looser networks. Organizations based on loose cooperation across criminal networks have proved more resilient to law enforcement interventions than other types, as a network that gets dismantled can, in general, be easily replaced by another. The landscape of the global illicit drug trade has thus become more complex, is rapidly evolving and is facilitated by new technology such as encrypted communications software and the darknet.'

Also, in addition to the traditional hard drugs i.e. heroin and cocaine, much of which is sourced from countries in South America, Middle East and the Far East, and then routed to all parts of the world, especially Europe and North America, drug cartels now take innovative approaches such as creating drugs, specifically fentanyl, methamphetamine and novel psychotropic substances (NPS), locally in home labs, thus reducing many of their logistical issues. There is also the routing of pharmaceutical prescription medication to the black market from legal sources, as demand outstrips supply for these. Then there is a growing trend towards poly-drug use. The UNODC World Drug Report 2020 states that 'Demand-driven dynamics of drug markets are the result of changing patterns of drug use and the desire of users to experiment with new substances, which may lead to an increasing number of users starting a new habit. The establishment of the tramadol market for recreational use in certain regions may have initially been generated by an increased demand based on the supply available for medical use. But once a demand was generated, a new supply-driven phenomenon further expanded the market with illicitly manufactured products that were not part of the medical market'

In some places, such as the US and Canada, the two countries that, besides the UK, were pioneers of cannabis prohibition, cannabis legalization has enabled growers and sellers to come out in the open and follow their love and passion for the plant, in relative freedom, but with severe regulatory constraints. There are challenges such as license costs, taxes to be paid, high levels of regulation, etc., but these are seen as overheads in a cautiously emerging market that should hopefully resolve in the coming future. There is still the issue in many places where legalization has taken place that legal cannabis is more expensive than what is available in the black market. Legal cannabis businesses say that the extra cost of the regulated product brings in extra reliability and product quality as against the unregulated product that is sold in the black market. This high cost however means that the poorest and most needy persons, the original users of cannabis before it was prohibited, cannot afford the plant. This can be mitigated by legalizing home growing which should always be the first step of the legalization process. Currently the first step is to legalize medical cannabis and industrial cannabis before legalizing recreational use, if at all. This basically provides the same industries and entities that benefited from cannabis prohibition with the opportunity of now milking legal cannabis, while continuing to keep the majority of society in the dark as before.

One of Canada's objectives in legalizing cannabis in October 2018 was to reduce the black market for it. By the end of 2020, legal cannabis sales had overtaken illegal sales through the black market, thus helping the country to achieve its objective in just two years. This is a clear indication that legalizing cannabis will shrink the black market for it. Increasing accessibility of cannabis will result in reduced interaction between society and the black market, as well as a reduction in the demand for the other, more harmful synthetic drugs. The law and drug enforcement resources that are freed up as a result of this can be used to redirect focus on the harmful synthetic drugs in the black market. The UNODC World Drug Report of 2020 states that cannabis is the one drug that brings the most number of persons in contact with the legal system in over 69 countries surveyed.

In terms of economic benefits of legalizing cannabis, the benefits are huge, being both sustainable and renewable, enabling the world to combat climate change and the other harms that have resulted as a result of cannabs prohibition. In the US alone, with just 23 out of 50 states having legalized cannabis recreationally, at the time of writing, the economic value of the cannabis market is projected to be around $100 billion by 2024. The magazine Leafly reports that - 'If the illicit market is about 2.5 times the state-legal market, as the GrowCola/New Frontier data suggests, America is missing out on hundreds of thousands of legal jobs and billions of dollars in tax revenue. Today’s $14 to $23 billion legal cannabis market supports 243,700 full-time American jobs. Doing the math, a fully captured illicit market would add more than 600,000 full-time jobs to the national economy. At a relatively conservative 10% tax rate, capturing $60 billion in sales would yield $6 billion in cannabis tax revenue every single year. That’s as much as New Hampshire’s entire annual state budget.'

The need of the hour, worldwide, is the lifting of the incredibly bizarre and prolonged prohibition on cannabis cultivation and trade, as well as the prohibition on its home growing. Alcohol was not prohibited in the US for more than roughly a decade. It has been more than 150 years of cannabis prohibition now, though there is near universal acknowledgement that alcohol is more harmful than cannabis. There is an immediate need to support the small farmers currently cultivating the plant, and to protect the surviving plant varieties from damage and extinction. Removing all curbs on the cannabis grower, seller and consumer, in every single country in the world, is the only way that the black market for cannabis will disappear. Ensuring that supply meets global demand, and at affordable prices for all, coupled with home growing legalization across the board, will surely remove the black market for cannabis. For this, all the countries in the world need to become aware and make decisions fast. Then the sacred plant that nurtured the human mind and body can become free once again, can live like any other plant in nature, and can normality return to the long oppressed cannabis communities. The growing black market, with its increasingly complex and dangerous trends, can be curbed as well.

Listed below are articles taken from various media related to the above subject. Words in italics are the thoughts of your truly at the time of reading the article.

'To date, not a single state that has implemented legalization has reversed course. That’s because these policies are working largely as politicians and voters intended — and because they are preferable to marijuana prohibition.

Ultimately, common sense regulation allowing for the legal, licensed commercial production and sale of cannabis best addresses adult consumers’ demand while keeping marijuana products largely out of the hands of young people.

By contrast, the continued criminalization of cannabis only compounds the public safety risks posed to young people and others by the unregulated marketplace.'

https://norml.org/blog/2023/03/24/norml-op-ed-in-the-era-of-legal-marijuana-the-kids-are-alright/

“Legal sourcing of cannabis was greater in 2021 than 2020 for all ten cannabis products [surveyed]. In 2021, the percentage of consumers sourcing all their products legally in the past 12 months ranged from 49 percent of solid concentrate consumers in 2021 to 82 percent of cannabis drink consumers,” investigators reported. “Transitioning consumers of all cannabis products into the regulated market is important for public health and safety. Future studies should continue to examine cannabis product sourcing in Canada over time, as well as ways to displace the illegal market for all cannabis products without also promoting the use of high-potency cannabis products.

https://norml.org/news/2023/02/23/analysis-growing-percentage-of-consumers-obtain-cannabis-products-from-the-legal-marketplace/

'“States in the highest EVALI-quintile tended to either ban all marijuana use or have [medical cannabis] laws prohibiting home cultivation,” the researchers wrote. Most states with adult-use laws, meanwhile, “fell into the lower two quintiles for EVALI prevalence,” the study says.

The findings support what legalization advocates have long argued: that access to safe, legal cannabis is far preferable from a public health standpoint than sales on the illegal market, where products are unregulated and rarely tested for safety.

“Simply put,” the study says, “if the public can obtain products legally from reputable sources, there is less demand for illicit products.”'

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/lung-injuries-tied-to-contaminated-vapes-were-less-common-in-states-with-legal-marijuana-and-homegrow-study-finds/

'On the surface, the story was not complex. Basically, it was just another tale of Cinderella gone wrong, a wiggy little saga of crime, hubris, and punishment.

Herbert "Pete" Pulitzer Jr., fifty-two-year-old millionaire grandson of the famous newspaper publisher and heir to the family name as well as the fortune, had finally come to his senses and cast out the evil gold-digger who had caused him so much grief. She was an incorrigible coke slut, he said, and a totally unfit mother. She stayed up all night at discos and slept openly with her dope pusher, among others. There was a house painter, a real-estate agent, a race-car driver, and a French baker - and on top of all that, she was a lesbian, or at least some kind of pansexual troilist. In six and a half years of marriage, she had humped almost everything she could get her hands on.

Finally his lawyers explained, Mr. Pulitzer had no choice but to rid himself of this woman. She was more like Marilyn Chambers than Cinderella. When she wasn't squawking wantonly in front of the children with Grand Prix driver Jacky Ickx or accused Palm Beach cocaine dealer Brian Richards, she was in bed with her beautiful friend Jacquie Kimberly, thirty-two, wife of seventy-six-year-old socialite James Kimberly, heir to the Kleenex fortune. There was no end to it, they said. No even when Pulitzer held a loaded .45-caliber automatic pistol to her head - and then his own - in a desperate last-ditch attempt to make her seek help for her drug habits, which she finally agreed to do.

And did, for that matter, but five days in Highland Park Central Hospital was not enough. The cure didn't take, Pete's attorneys charged, and she soon went back on the whiff and also back to the pusher, who described himself in the courtroom as a "self-employed handyman" and gave his age as twenty-nine.'

- A Dog Took My Place, July 21, 1983, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson

'The drug haul is considered to be one of the biggest in the world with the value of the seized heroin estimated to be Rs 21,000 crore in the international markets. One kg of the drug sells at Rs 5 to 7 crore. "A total of eight persons including four ...'

Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/national/west/ed-to-launch-probe-into-mundra-heroin-haul-under-pmla-1033395.html

'“The United States is facing an unprecedented crisis of overdose deaths fueled by illegally manufactured fentanyl and methamphetamine,” said Anne Milgram, Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. “Counterfeit pills that contain these dangerous and extremely addictive drugs are more lethal and more accessible than ever before. In fact, DEA lab analyses reveal that two out of every five fake pills with fentanyl contain a potentially lethal dose. DEA is focusing resources on taking down the violent drug traffickers causing the greatest harm and posing the greatest threat to the safety and health of Americans. Today, we are alerting the public to this danger so that people have the information they need to protect themselves and their children.”

These counterfeit pills have been seized by DEA in every U.S. state in unprecedented quantities. More than 9.5 million counterfeit pills were seized so far this year, which is more than the last two years combined. DEA laboratory testing reveals a dramatic rise in the number of counterfeit pills containing at least two milligrams of fentanyl, which is considered a lethal dose. A deadly dose of fentanyl is small enough to fit on the tip of a pencil.

Counterfeit pills are illegally manufactured by criminal drug networks and are made to look like real prescription opioid medications such as oxycodone (Oxycontin®, Percocet®), hydrocodone (Vicodin®), and alprazolam (Xanax®); or stimulants like amphetamines (Adderall®). Fake prescription pills are widely accessible and often sold on social media and e-commerce platforms – making them available to anyone with a smartphone, including minors.'

https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/2021/09/27/dea-issues-public-safety-alert-sharp-increase-fake-prescription-pills

'Here’s the thing, though, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). By putting the brakes on legal cannabis sales, towns are actually supporting the so-called black market.

“These moratoriums only serve to protect and prolong the illicit cannabis marketplace,” NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano said, commenting on the recent wave of local bans in New Jersey.

“Time and time again, we have seen that consumers prefer to obtain cannabis products from safe, licensed, above-ground retailers,” Armentano said. “But, absent access to such facilities, the illicit market will continue to fill this void.”'

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/illegal-markets-will-thrive-in-nj-towns-with-weed-bans-advocates/ar-AANEcJW

'Viscous, stratified, and hot to the touch, a five-gallon water tank bubbled with unknown chemicals at an illegal marijuana grow site in California’s San Bernardino National Forest. Marijuana growers most likely planned to use this brew as a high-powered pesticide to keep any and all animals away from their marijuana plants.

On U.S. Forest Service land in California alone, more than 400 illegal grow sites have been identified. This is in part because international drug organizations have traditionally set up illegal grow sites on national forests in California.

However, organized sites are now popping up as far east as North Carolina, and smaller, unorganized grow sites occur in most states. These sites pose problems for Forest Service law enforcement, the public, and the environment – with pesticides poisoning wildlife, soil, and water.'

https://www.usda.gov/media/blog/2017/08/21/cleaning-illegal-marijuana-grow-sites

https://www.wsj.com/articles/marijuana-decriminalize-legalize-weed-black-market-drug-war-prohibition-11629929165

'Today, a major California retail owner and market expert told Leafly, “The legal and illegal market prices have equalized.”

Fixing the legal California market’s oversupply problem will require new stores in new cities, and lowering cultivation taxes to match the shrinking profit margins industry-wide, said Devitt.

“There’s no quick fix, but to bring more stability to the market and sustain one of the State’s great heritage industries, we need to open up more jurisdictions to retail and we need to fix the cultivation tax system, which is a flat tax based on weight. At $154.40 per pound, the tax rate is currently 20% to 70% or higher, while taxes were 10% to 15% a year ago,” said Devitt.'

https://www.leafly.com/news/industry/california-pot-supply-glut-2021

'"These moratoriums only serve to protect and prolong the illicit cannabis marketplace," NORML's Deputy Director Paul Armentano said, commenting on the recent wave of local bans in New Jersey.

"Time and time again, we have seen that consumers prefer to obtain cannabis products from safe, licensed, above-ground retailers," Armentano said. "But, absent access to such facilities, the illicit market will continue to fill this void."'

https://patch.com/new-jersey/bloomfield/illegal-markets-will-thrive-nj-towns-weed-bans-advocates

'“As much as lawmakers, whether they’re state or local, tend to be somewhat overall cautious or skittish at first over time they become more comfortable with the concept of a legal market,” Armentano says. “Over time, what we see is a lot of the skittishness gives way to a more rational approach.”

And so ultimately, the proof—if legal cannabis in NJ does in fact integrate well with communities as it has in other states—will be in the (dank) pudding. And successful integration of cannabis businesses will be quiet.

“At the end of the day when I’m asked what does the industry look like, my vision is you’re going to walk down Main Street and you’re going to walk by a restaurant where you can walk in or walk by it; you’re going to walk by a pharmacy and walk by it. You’re going to walk by a liquor store and if you want something while walking by you’ll drop in and if you don’t you’ll just keep walking,” DeVeaux says. “Then you will walk by a dispensary or a consumption lounge and, guess what, if you want to go in as an adult you will, and if you don’t you’re going to walk by without thinking twice because it’s going to be part of the fabric of the community.”'

https://njindy.com/2021/07/09/why-nj-towns-are-opting-out-of-legal-cannabis-and-why-it-might-perpetuate-the-illicit-market/

'Americans spent more than $12 billion on legal cannabis products in the first six months of 2021, according to data analyzed by Leafly and Whitney Economics.

That’s nearly as much as Americans spent on milk in all of 2020. According to the Dairy Farmers of America, consumers spent roughly $12.6 billion on milk last year.

Cannabis sales topped $18 billion in 2020. The six-month trend in 2021 puts the industry on pace to reach $25 billion to $26 billion in sales by the end of the year. That would represent a year-over-year revenue increase of roughly 35%.

That growth would continue the cannabis industry’s position as the nation’s fastest-growing industry. In 2020, sales revenue increased roughly 60% over 2019, driven by increased buying during the coronavirus pandemic. '

https://www.leafly.com/news/industry/americans-on-pace-to-spend-twice-as-much-on-weed-as-on-milk

'Economics and barriers to entry in the legal and illicit markets couldn’t be wider.

An illegal 1,000- to 2,000-square-foot grow can be set up in only a few weeks.

The Orange County grower said it costs him about $1,500 to $2,000 in rent, electricity, equipment, nutrients and labor to operate one grow in the coastal county.

By contrast, a similar setup in the legal market would take more than two years in the licensing process and cost about $1 million, according to the Orange County grower and other industry sources.

High capital, licensing and operational costs, coupled with higher prices for legal cannabis, have been devastating for licensed businesses.

“Regulations and tax rates need to change drastically for the legal market to surpass the illegal one,” industry consultant Joey Espinoza said. “It truly comes down to economics.”'

https://mjbizdaily.com/why-3-illicit-marijuana-operators-decline-to-go-legal-in-california/

'The UN body cites a global survey conducted last year that found cannabis consumption was perceived to have increased in approximately 32 countries.

“In the absence of information on global production of cannabis, this can be read as an indication that supply may have expanded to meet the increase in consumption,” according to the report, which deals mostly with unregulated cannabis markets.

“Some cannabis markets have grown strongly during the pandemic – and likely because of it – as a result of stay-at-home orders and social distancing restrictions,” it said.'

https://mjbizdaily.com/un-report-cannabis-markets-likely-grew-because-of-pandemic/

'With continued growth in the number of cannabis consumers nationally, both legal medical and adult-use markets will increasingly erode the demand met by illicit sources. Population growth and rising usage rates will naturally lead to an increase in the size of the total addressable market for cannabis, though the illicit market will continue to serve most of the demand while most consumers in the U.S. live either in medical-only markets or states without legalized cannabis.

Yet, an unanticipated effect of the COVID-19 pandemic was the growth acceleration of legal cannabis markets in those states which have activated both medical and adult-use sales. With one key objective of legalization being to disrupt illicit markets, that end is being achieved in states where cannabis is legal. In 2020, an estimate 24% of U.S. cannabis sales were believed legal; by 2025, 42% of total annual U.S. cannabis demand will be met by legal purchases in regulated marketplaces. That upward revision to total projected legal capture is due largely to the legalization of adult-use programs in New York and Virginia in early 2021.'

https://newfrontierdata.com/cannabis-insights/expanding-legalization-and-the-erosion-of-the-illicit-market/

'“It is absolutely thousands, no question,” Genine Coleman, the executive director of the Origins Council, said of those rural growers kept out of the legal market.

“If we’re going to summarize it into one key issue, it is that cannabis cultivation is treated like development,” added Coleman, whose Mendocino County-based group advocates small marijuana farmers across the state.

“It’s regulated as though you’re building a shopping mall, straight up. So that, for folks that are homestead producers on a small scale, it’s out of reach. It’s too expensive. It’s too onerous. It’s too time-consuming.”'

'The gap between Canada’s legal and illicit cannabis markets continues to widen, the latest Statistics Canada data suggests.

Household spending on adult-use cannabis products in regulated channels grew to 918 million Canadian dollars ($800 million) in the final quarter of 2020, or CA$204 million more than the estimated amount spent on illicit cannabis in the same period.

Spending on legal recreational cannabis overtook illegal transactions for the first time in the previous quarter, when regulated expenditures outpaced approximate illicit sales by CA$59 million.'

https://mjbizdaily.com/canadas-legal-cannabis-market-continues-to-erode-illicit-markets-share/

'In 2020, nearly 70 percent of cannabis consumers who participated in the study reported obtaining cannabis from a legal source, up from 47 percent in 2019. (Because the survey included respondents ages 15 and older, some subjects would be unable to obtain cannabis from any legal sources – which require users to be at least 18 years of age.)

“One of the goals of legalization was the elimination (or substantial reduction) of the cannabis black (illegal) market and consequently keeping profits from criminals and organized crime,” the author wrote. “According to this study, there is some evidence that this may be working.”'

https://norml.org/news/2021/04/29/canada-far-fewer-consumers-accessing-illegally-sourced-cannabis-following-enactment-of-adult-use-legalization

Has the Mexican government met the April 30 deadline, extended twice already, set by the Mexican Supreme Court for recreational cannabis legalization? The government has been requesting extensions citing Covid and issues with the bill's content. Mexico supplies heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine to its big brother next door, the US. Mexico's rich and powerful drug cartels have friends both in Mexico's government as well as across the border among US politicians and US drug networks. Cannabis was once one of the drugs that Mexico supplied to the US, but with legalization in many US states, the flow of cannabis has now reversed into Mexico. Mexico legalizing cannabis will add pressure on the US federal government to legalize as well, considering then that both its immediate neighbors, Mexico and Canada, have legal cannabis. So, for Mexico's people, who have fought long and hard for the sacred herb, the forces against them are both within and outside their borders. The Mexican government will do all it can to delay legalization. All the government needs to do, as a simple mediate first step, is legalize home growing, release prisoners jailed for cannabis and expunge their records, while getting its commercial sales aspect right at a later time, like so many US states have done. That would be the case if the interests of the people were foremost, but then, name one government where this is the case?

Apr 30, 2021 4:56:58pm

'Results
Most participants reported that using cannabis for pain management helped improve daily functioning. Some participants turned to cannabis as a supplement or periodic alternative to prescription and illicit drugs (e.g. benzodiazepines, opioids) used to manage pain and related symptoms. Nonetheless, participants' access to legal cannabis was limited and most continued to obtain cannabis from illicit sources, which provided access to cannabis that was free or deemed to be affordable.'

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dar.13294

'Spending on nonmedical cannabis products in the third quarter of last year reached 824 million Canadian dollars ($644 million), according to the updated figures.

Unlicensed nonmedical sales, by comparison, were estimated to be CA$754 million in the same period.

George Smitherman, CEO of industry group Cannabis Council of Canada, said the numbers are encouraging because there is more growth to come.

“It illustrates the success of one of the policy goals, which is bringing (cannabis) sales into the legal framework,” he said.

The underground market is in retreat.'

https://mjbizdaily.com/legal-recreational-cannabis-sales-in-canada-outstrip-illicit-spending-for-first-time/

'Highlights

• Legal recreational market share rose from 8% to 24% over the first 12 months
• Legal sales were limited by shortages of retailers and dry cannabis, but not oils
• Provincially, legal recreational shares in month 12 ranged from 13% to 70%
• Legal sales can succeed if given sufficient supplies, stores, and time'

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0955395920303662

'Ontario’s government-operated Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) claims it is undercutting illicit marijuana prices with an average price of 7.05 Canadian dollars ($5.30) per gram of dried flower, taxes included, during its first fiscal quarter.

In comparison, the average price for a gram of marijuana from illicit mail-order dispensaries was CA$7.98, the OCS said in a new quarterly report covering April, May and June.'

https://mjbizdaily.com/ontario-government-cannabis-prices-beating-illicit-market-report-says/

'If the illicit market is about 2.5 times the state-legal market, as the GrowCola/New Frontier data suggests, America is missing out on hundreds of thousands of legal jobs and billions of dollars in tax revenue.

Today’s $14 to $23 billion legal cannabis market supports 243,700 full-time American jobs. Doing the math, a fully captured illicit market would add more than 600,000 full-time jobs to the national economy.

At a relatively conservative 10% tax rate, capturing $60 billion in sales would yield $6 billion in cannabis tax revenue every single year. That’s as much as New Hampshire’s entire annual state budget.'

https://www.leafly.com/news/industry/americans-will-spend-60-billion-on-illicit-marijuana-this-year-report-says

'Many industry officials claimed that vitamin E was more commonly found in illicit market products and pointed out that legal cannabis is regulated, tested and safer than unregulated street products.

Most recently, an academic study published in August confirmed that states lacking licensed, regulated cannabis saw the highest rates of EVALI, particularly those in the northern Midwest.

The report, from the Society for the Study of Addiction, noted “these results suggest that EVALI cases did not arise from e-cigarette or cannabis use per se, but rather from locally distributed e-liquids or additives most prevalent in the affected areas.”'

https://mjbizdaily.com/marijuana-vape-firms-say-customers-turning-to-legal-suppliers-over-illicit-market/

'Large hauls of cannabis seized post-lockdown is proof that bans and over legislation don’t work, especially when there is public demand. In 2018, a whopping four lakh kgs of ganja was seized. Such massive production is surely not a sign of deterrence. Besides, over 60% narcotics cases involve personal use rather than trafficking or production. Instead of choking overburdened police and courts with thousands of cannabis cases, there is a strong case for cash strapped governments regulating cannabis production, sale and use. In two years after legalisation in January 2018, California has netted $1 billion in revenue receipts from marijuana. With a nationalist government mindful of traditional cultures and strongly betting on ease of doing business, it is time to let go of overzealous, impractical, ineffective policies.'

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-editorials/legalise-cannabis-government-wrongly-banned-an-age-old-indian-habit-now-it-must-correct-that-mistake/

'Canadian household spending on legal cannabis in the second quarter of the year outpaced the illicit market for the first time, marking a significant milestone for the licensed pot industry.

Statistics Canada said Friday that Canadian household spending on recreational cannabis reached $648 million in the second quarter of 2020, an increase of 74 per cent from the same period last year. Meanwhile, spending on medical cannabis was flat at $155 million in the second quarter, StatsCan said.

Canadian household spending on illicit cannabis fell to a new low of $784 million in the second quarter, StatsCan added. Taken together, the legal cannabis market now accounts for 50.5 per cent of all pot-related spending in Canada. '

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/legal-cannabis-spending-outpaces-illicit-market-for-first-time-in-q2-statscan-1.1486347

'Estimated expenditures on unlicensed adult-use cannabis fell to 785 million Canadian dollars ($600 million) in the latest quarter, almost half what they were before Canada legalized marijuana in late 2018.

The Statistics Canada data shows that spending on recreational cannabis products via regulated channels reached CA$648 million in the same period.

Estimated expenditures on cannabis products for medical use approached CA$157 million, according to the data.

The underground market is the biggest competitor for legal cannabis businesses.'

https://mjbizdaily.com/illegal-cannabis-expenditures-at-multiyear-low-in-canada-data-shows/

'“A negative relationship between EVALI prevalence and rates of pre-outbreak vaping and marijuana use suggests that well-established markets may have crowded-out use of riskier, informally sourced e-liquids,” the press release on the study says. “Indeed, the five earliest states to legalize recreational marijuana—Alaska, California, Colorado, Oregon and Washington—all had less than one EVALI case per 100,000 residents aged 12 to 64. None of the highest EVALI-prevalence states—Utah, North Dakota, Minnesota, Delaware and Indiana—allowed recreational marijuana use.”'

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/most-legal-marijuana-states-had-fewer-vaping-related-lung-injuries-study-finds/

'The report analyzes the financial impact from the 75 percent of cities and counties that have implemented cannabis market bans despite the 2016 statewide vote to legalize the plant for adult use.

“Inconsistencies between different jurisdictions, particularly with tax rates, licensing procedures, and land use regulations” have created a situation in which “the illegal market continues to make up a large majority of the cannabis sales in California,” it concludes.

The analysis shows that while there’s strong demand and potential for revenue, California is far behind other legal states because of the widespread localized prohibitions.'

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/local-marijuana-bans-in-california-keep-illicit-market-alive-and-block-revenue-study-shows/

'Demand for marijuana illegally trafficked from Mexico will continue to decline as the legalization movement spreads, a new report from Congress’s research arm states.

With a growing number of U.S. states—as well as Canada—allowing people to legally purchase cannabis in a regulated market, they’re less inclined to seek out the product through illicit channels, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) said.'

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/congressional-researchers-admit-legalizing-marijuana-hurts-mexican-drug-cartel-profits/

'Analysed through the lens of the Sustainable Development Goals, the comparison of villages affected and not affected by illicit opium cultivation suggests that different development factors drive farmers to engage in illicit cultivation. For example, in 2017, in Afghanistan, the development gap was particularly acute with regard to the Sustainable Development Goals related to security and access to health and education services, while in Myanmar (Shan State) it was mostly associated with the Sustainable Development Goals related to infrastructure and natural resources. In the same year, in Colombia, a comparison among 6,000 households, located in 12 departments of the country, showed that households cultivating coca had less access to public services such as electricity and drinking water than households not cultivating coca. The development gap and inequality of opportunities differ not only between countries but also between specific locations within a country; for example, in 2017, in North Shan State in Myanmar, they were largely related to water, sanitation and energy, while in South Shan State, to deteriorating natural resources. Therefore, generalizations about the drivers of illicit cultivation and the specific gaps and inequalities of opportunities that alternative development may be aimed at reducing could be deceptive.'

- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020,

https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_6.pdf

'The extent of the area under illicit crop cultivation does not in itself reflect the sustainability of development efforts and is not a sufficient indicator for assessing the success of alternative development interventions. Experience has shown that shortterm reductions in illicit crop cultivation can be quickly reversed, or cultivation can be displaced to other locations, if interventions have not addressed the root causes of illicit crop cultivation and provided sustainable solutions'

- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020,

https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_6.pdf

So governments, the pharmaceutical industry and the medical industry cut off the supply of natural intoxicants like cannabis, opium, coca and palm toddy. They create refined and much more potent extracts from these natural materials. They control the supply and stock of these chemical drugs. They use the doctor-pharmacist route to administer these drugs to the public legally and the peddler-narcotics agent-rehabilitation center route to administer these drugs illegally. The individual is not allowed to grow or procure these intoxicants from nature. He must rely on the system to get his intoxicant and pay the maximum price for it. To realize more and more profits the system creates more and more potent chemical intoxicants moving further and further away from natural territory into synthetic chemically constructed territory. As the toxicity and addictive power of these drugs increase, the public gets addicted to an even greater extent and pays even more for any available intoxicant. Profits rise and fuel the growth of the system tremendously. The individual pays for the system, pays for the synthetic drug, pays for the treatment which is further synthetic drugs and eventually pays with his life for the synthetic intoxicant. Legalize all natural drugs - opium, coca, cannabis and toddy to name a few. Most importantly, legalize cannabis, the universal drug of the world...

'The data tracks arrests, not individuals, so there’s no mechanism for winnowing out repeat offenders. Nor does it include arrests for the sale or production of marijuana. But the numbers still illustrate how marijuana enforcement continues to make up a big part of many police agencies’ caseloads.

The findings reflect, in part, a few simple realities: The federal government incentivizes aggressive drug enforcement via funding for drug task forces and generous forfeiture rules that allow agencies to keep cash and other valuables they find in the course of a drug bust. And because marijuana is bulky and pungent relative to other drugs, it’s often easy for police to root out.'
https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2019/04/15/where-war-weed-still-rages/

'"Unregulated illicit market cannabis products, like products in an unregulated marketplace, are of variable quality and may put some consumers at risk," Armentano said. "These incidents linked to the use of unregulated, illicit market vapor cartridges reinforce the need for greater market regulation, standardization, and oversight — principles which NORML has consistently called for in the cannabis space. Consumers must also be aware that not all products are created equal; quality control testing is critical and only exists in the legally regulated marketplace."'
https://norml.org/news/2019/08/29/hospitalizations-linked-to-use-of-unregulated-vapor-cartridges

'There is little industry-wide consensus on cultivation best practice. Some outdoor growers might divert streams to water crops, whereas others pursue dry farming, which uses no irrigation.

Indoors, growers sometimes choose cooler, light-emitting diode (LED) lights to substantially decrease water use. Meanwhile, others simply expand small, energy-intense facilities into larger operations. “There is a wide range of energy efficiency,” Smith says. “Outdoor crops planted from seeds might have a zero footprint, while old-style indoor cultivation can be 500 times more energy intensive.”'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02526-3

'A bizarre happening in the United States during the prohibition era around 1930 was an omen of things to come. It was caused not by an insecticide but by a substance b-elonging chemically to the same group as the organic phosphate insecticides. During the period some medicinal substances were being pressed into service as substitutes for liquor, being exempted from the prohibition law. One of these was Jamaica ginger. But the United States Pharmacopeia product was expensive, and bootleggers conceived the idea of making a substitute Jamaica ginger. They succeeded so well that their spurious product responded to the appropriate chemical tests and decieved the government chemists. To give their false ginger the necessary tang they had introduced a chemical known as triorthocresyl phosphate. This chemical, like parathion and its relatives, destroys the protective enzyme cholinesterase. As a consequence of drinking the bootleggers' product some 15,000 people developed a permanently crippling type of paralysis of the leg muscles, a condition called 'ginger paralysis'. The paralysis was accompanied by destruction of the nerve sheaths and by degeneration of the cells of the anterior horns of the spinal cord.' - Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, 1962

'“These data reveal a predominant use of prefilled THC cartridges sold through informal and unregulated markets, although the origin of these products further back in the production and distribution chain is unknown,” the report states.

The report goes on to say that it’s unclear if the cause of the illness is THC or “a substance associated with prefilled THC cartridges, such as a cutting agent or adulterant.”'
https://mjbizdaily.com/cdc-reports-majority-of-patients-sickened-in-vape-epidemic-used-marijuana-vaporizer-devices-many-from-illicit-market

'CannaSafe also tested 10 of the unregulated cartridges for pesticides. All 10 tested positive. The products all contained myclobutanil, a fungicide that can transform into hydrogen cyanide when burned.'
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/vaping/tests-show-bootleg-marijuana-vapes-tainted-hydrogen-cyanide-n1059356

'After discussing the data limitations of the study, the authors concluded that “it indeed seems to be the case that legalizing the recreational use of marijuana results in fewer marijuana related arrests and court cases” and that while law enforcement sources voiced various concerns, several “indicated that methamphetamine and heroin were much larger problems for their agencies than was marijuana.”

The team “saw no evidence that marijuana legalization had an impact on indicators in border states,” adding that they “found no indications of increases in arrests related to transportation/trafficking offenses.”'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/study-funded-by-feds-debunks-myths-about-marijuana-legalizations-alleged-harms/

'That means a gram of cannabis purchased in the illicit market was 45% cheaper on average than marijuana bought in the regulated market.

It shows Canada’s illicit market is staying competitive with the regulated market on price.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/price-gap-grows-in-canada-between-legal-illicit-cannabis/

'Since 2011, interceptions of cannabis along U.S. borders have fallen 89%, reflecting the convergence of changing social, economic, and legal developments.The southern border continues to account for almost all the interceptions (99%), though it has also seen the steepest decline (90%) of them since 2011.
The decrease in southern interceptions is likely attributable to a range of factors: falling demand for illicit cannabis in states with legal medical and adult use programs, less appeal for traditionally lower-quality cannabis from Mexico or other southern countries than for domestically cultivated products, and increased border enforcement efforts raising the risk of interdiction.
Conversely, interceptions at the norther border increased 113% between 2018 and 2019, reflecting Canada’s nationwide adult-use legalization in 2018 and the appeal of its reputed high-quality cannabis.
The data suggest that legalization is having a major disruptive effect on international cannabis smuggling operations aimed at the U.S., and underscores American consumer preference for regulated cannabis products where available and competitively priced'

https://newfrontierdata.com/cannabis-insights/cannabis-border-interceptions-decreasing/

'In Washington state, the past-month use of cannabis among high-school students of different grades has generally remained stable, although it increases by grade, with the highest past-month prevalence found among twelfth grade students, as in Colorado. The perception of risk relating to cannabis use among high-school students has also declined since the nonmedical use of cannabis was legalized, with nearly three quarters of twelfth grade students seeing no or low risk in trying cannabis a few times and less than half perceiving no or low risk in the regular use of cannabis in 2018. Similarly, some 38 per cent of twelfth grade students considered that it was fairly easy to get cannabis.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The question is frequently asked: Why does a man become a drug addict?

The answer is that he usually does not intend to become an addict. You don't wake up one morning and decide to become a drug addict. It takes at least three months' shooting twice a day to get any habit at all. And you don't really know wht junk sickness is until you have had several habits. It took me almost six months to get my first habit, and then the withdrawal symptoms were mild. I think it is no exaggeration to say it takes about a year and several hundred injections to make an addict' - Prologue, Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'While the daily or near-daily use of cannabis among high-school students in Colorado has declined, the prevalence of occasional users, that is, those who report having used cannabis one or two times in the past month, has increased since legalization. Nevertheless, 4.7 per cent of high-school students reported using cannabis daily or nearly daily (20 or more times in the past 30 days) in 2017. Moreover, although the share of high-school students smoking cannabis declined from 92 per cent in 2015 to 84 per cent in 2017, there was an increase in the share of those who reported using edibles with high THC content (from 28 per cent in 2015 to 36 per cent in 2017) or “dabbing” cannabis extracts and concentrates (from 28 per cent in 2015 to 34 per cent in 2017) in the past month.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'One concern about legalizing the non-medical use of cannabis for adults (21 years and older) is that its use could also increase access to cannabis and its use among adolescents. Based on national data, cannabis use among high-school students remained stable overall, whereas the risk perception of the occasional use of cannabis declined in the United States over the period 2012–2018. In Colorado, although there has been a decline in daily or near-daily use of cannabis among high-school students, they are now consuming and exposed to cannabis products with far higher THC content than was available or used earlier. In 2017, about 20 per cent of high-school students in Colorado reported non-medical use of cannabis in the past month; that rate is comparable to the national average among high-school students.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'He located a doctor in Brooklyn who was a writing fool. That croaker would go three scripts a day for as high as thirty tablets a script. Every now and then he would get dubious on the deal, but the sight of money always straightened him out.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'The sale of non-medical cannabis through legal sources represents only a portion of the cannabis market, as it appears that a substantial proportion of users still rely on illegal sources to obtain cannabis (42 per cent in 2019). Moreover, cannabis prices on the illegal market have remained considerably lower (and have been declining) compared with the prices on the legal market. In the second quarter of 2019, based on 236 submissions, the average price per gram of cannabis on the legal market was Can$10.65, compared with Can$5.93 per gram on the illegal market.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'After the cannabis regulations were adopted and sales began in October 2018, retail sales of nonmedical cannabis online and in cannabis stores up to September 2019 totalled some 908 million Canadian dollars, or an average of Can$24 (approximately $18) per capita. Although Ontario had the smallest number of retail outlets, it had the highest retail sales (Can$216 million), followed by Alberta (Can$196 million) and Quebec (Can$195 million), by the end of September 2019. Out of the total of Can$908 million, most sales were made through bricks-and-mortar stores (Can $788 million), while online retail sales (Can$120 million) accounted for 13 per cent. Direct-to-consumer trade by wholesalers, which includes retail sales by public sector stores classified as wholesalers, accounted for 1.9 per cent over the same period.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'By the end of July 2019, about 400 retail outlets had been opened across Canada. The opening of retail outlets has been slower in some places than in others. Ontario, the most populous province in Canada, with a population of 14 million, began with a retail system in which licences were issued to operators by way of a lottery. At the end of July 2019, the province thus had only 24 outlets, fewer than 2 outlets per 1 million population, whereas Newfoundland and Labrador had the same number of outlets per 500,000 population. The province of Alberta permitted the opening of the largest number of retail outlets, with 176 private retail outlets for a population of 4 million.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'In most provinces, the retail licensing regime is similar to that regulating the sale of liquor, and cannabis is sold through licensed retailers (private sector), provincial retail stores (public sector) and online. Many provinces have adopted a hybrid model that allows either public or private physical retail outlets together with online retail controlled by regulatory authorities, or a combination of all three. With the exception of the Nunavut territory, all the provinces and territories allow retail sales of cannabis products online. British Columbia and Yukon are the only province and territory that allow all three modes, while Alberta, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario and Saskatchewan have allowed private bricks-and-mortar retail stores.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'In 2019, young people aged 15–24 were more likely than those in older age groups to obtain cannabis from illegal sources, whereas a larger share of older cannabis users relied solely on legal sources; 41 per cent of cannabis users aged 65 or older reported using only legal sources to obtain cannabis, compared with roughly one quarter of the other age groups.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The transition from the illegal market to legal sources of cannabis has been a gradual one. The proportion of cannabis users sourcing their products from the legal market increased from around 25 per cent in the second and third quarters of 2018 to about 50 per cent one year later, and in 2019 nearly 30 per cent relied solely on the legal market for their cannabis (compared with 10 per cent in 2018). Many users relied on multiple sources to obtain their cannabis, with about 40 per cent of cannabis users still getting their product from illegal sources.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'At the baseline, in the first quarter of 2018, nearly 14 per cent of Canadians (12.2 per cent of women and 15.8 per cent of men) reported that they had used cannabis, including cannabis products for medical purposes, in the past three months. The highest prevalence rates were reported among those aged 25–34 (26 per cent) and 15–24 (23 per cent). By the beginning of 2019, the prevalence of use in the past three months had increased to 17.5 per cent, and it remained close to that level until the third quarter of 2019 (17.1 per cent). While the prevalence of cannabis use in the past three months rose in most age groups in 2019, the most marked increase was observed in the oldest age group (65 and older), for which the prevalence nearly doubled in comparison with 2018. There also seems to be a larger proportion of new users among older adults than in other age groups: while 10 per cent of new cannabis users were aged 25–44 in the second and third quarters of 2019, more than one quarter were aged 65 and older.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The objectives of the current cannabis legislation in Canada are to keep cannabis away from young people (under 18 years of age), to prevent criminals from profiting from the distribution and sale of cannabis and to safeguard public health and safety by allowing adults (aged 18 and older) legal access to cannabis. Under the constitutional division of powers in Canada, the federal Government and provincial governments have different responsibilities. As the provinces historically developed their own systems to regulate the sale of alcohol, a similar approach has been applied to regulate the non-medical use of cannabis products.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'A previous analysis of 103 darknet markets selling drugs over the period 2010–2017 revealed that those markets were, on average, active for just over eight months, and their average lifespan does not appear to have increased in recent years. In fact, as at May 2019, most of the previously important darknet markets had disappeared. Out of more than 110 darknet markets for drugs identified during the period 2010–2019, just 10 remained fully operational. Most of the darknet markets selling drugs that were operational in 2019 had been launched only in 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'There are several varieties of writing croakers. Some will write only if they are convinced you are an addict, others only if they are convinced you are not. Most addicts put down a story worn smooth by years of use. Some claim gallstones or kidney stones. This is the story most generally used, and a croaker will often get up and open the door as soon as you mention gallstones. I got better results with facial neuralgia after I had looked up the symptoms and committed them to memory. Roy had an operation scar on his stomach that he used to support his gallstone routine.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'In general, the drugs are delivered by public or private postal services, presumably without their knowledge, although the drugs may also be hidden in locations that are secretly communicated to the buyer. Parcels are often sent to anonymous post office boxes, including automated lockers for self-service collection. In jurisdictions with strong secrecy-of-correspondence laws, which typically apply to letters, drugs are often dispatched in letters. In some countries, drugs purchased on the darknet are thus preferably posted in letters to destinations within the poster’s own country. This has also prompted some darknet vendors to transport letters containing drugs across the border into neighbouring countries in order to post them within the client’s destination country and avoid detection.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'Customers intending to buy drugs over the darknet typically access it through the onion router (TOR) in order to conceal their identities. Specialized darknet explorers (such as GRAMS, before it was taken down in December 2017, DuckDuckGo, Ahmia, Torch, Hidden Wiki, etc.) enable them to access their desired market platforms. The goods bought on the various darknet marketplaces are then typically paid for in cryptocurrencies, most notably bitcoins, which are also used for licit transactions on the open web. These cryptocurrencies can subsequently be used to buy other goods and services, or they may be exchanged for various national currencies' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'There was one oldtime doctor who lived in a Victorian brownstone in the West Seventies. With him it was simply necessary to present a gentlemanly front. If you could get into his inner office you had it made, but he would write only three prescriptions. Another doctor was always drunk, and it was a matter of catching him at the right time. Often he wrote the prescription wrong and you had to take it back for correction. Then, like as not, he would say the prescription was a forgery and tear it up. Still another doctor was senile, and you had to help him write the script. He would forget what he was doing, put down his pen and go into a long reminiscence about the high class of patients he used to have. Especially, he liked to talk about a man named General Gore who once said to him, "Doctor, I've been to the Mayo Clinic and you know more than the whole clinic put together." There was no stopping him and the exasperated addict was forced to listen patiently. Often the doctor's wife would rush in at the last minute and tear up the prescription, or refuse to verify it when the drugstore called.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'The main characteristic and comparative advantage of darknet markets is their perceived anonymity, in particular the physical anonymity of those who do business on such markets. Purchasing drugs on those markets does not necessarily require physical contact, which reduces the inhibitions of some customers who might otherwise be reticent to interact personally with drug dealers. In addition, the customer does not have to go to dangerous places to buy drugs. Darknet trafficking also overcomes the challenge of sellers and buyers having to be in the same location; thus, organizations that traffic drugs over the darknet do not need to have the critical mass of customers necessary to sustain a local market.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The process is part of an experiment in the Netherlands to legalize for the first time – though it’s limited in scope and time – the production of marijuana destined to be sold in coffee shops.

Only applicants that demonstrate the capability to cultivate at a large scale – a minimum of 6,500 kilograms (14,330 pounds) per year – will be considered. But the government’s newly released FAQ specifies that the winners won’t necessarily have to grow that amount.

Up to 10 growers will be selected to supply roughly 80 coffee shops in 10 municipalities during a period of at least four years. The government estimates a minimum production of 65,000 kilograms per year will be needed, considering that each of the 80 coffee shops has an average turnover of about 1 kilogram per day – 20% of which is hashish.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/netherlands-clarifies-process-for-applications-to-grow-legal-adult-use-cannabis/

'Generally speaking, old doctors are more apt to write than the young ones. Refugee doctors were a good field for a while, but the addicts burned them down.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'Cannabis regulators in Canada’s Northwest Territories (NWT) reduced prices of legal marijuana products by 10% in an effort to eliminate illicit marijuana sales.

The price cuts, which took effect July 2, apply to all cannabis products sold by the Northwest Territories Liquor and Cannabis Commission (NTLCC), the NWT government said.“With close to two years of legal sales, NTLCC has a better understanding of the operating costs associated with the distribution and sale of cannabis and is confident that it can reduce the price of these products while continuing to maintain a safe and secure retail regime,” the agency noted.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/canadas-northwest-territories-cuts-cannabis-prices-to-fight-illegal-market/

'Kathmandu had become a haven for anti-war ‘peaceniks’, draft dodgers, and Vietnam veterans. White House recordings from the early 1970s reveal Secretary of State Henry Kissinger warning Nixon: “They come from Nepal to demonstrate against you because up there they can get free pot … or at least it is legal.”

Banning cannabis drove the cultivation and use of this important cash crop underground and into the hands of organised criminals with police and political protection. Nepal’s subsistence farmers were pushed deeper into poverty, and may even have sparked the Maoist revolution in later years.

Campaigners in Kathmandu now see no reason why Nepal should keep the ban when the Americans who forced it on Nepal have legalised it in 25 states for medical and commercial purposes.'
https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/the-grass-is-greener-in-nepal/

'An analysis of NPS reported to UNODC suggests increasing diversification in the NPS market until 2015, followed by a trend towards stabilization in the number of new substances arriving on the market in individual countries, at an overall rate of more than 500 NPS per year, with 528 synthetic NPS and 13 plant-based NPS reported in 2018. While there was a decrease in the number of new synthetic cannabinoids arriving on markets worldwide over the 2014–2018 period, the number of NPS with stimulant effects increased, and the number of newly emerging NPS with opioid effects rose sharply, from 7 substances in 2014 to 48 in 2018. That increase represents a rise from 2 per cent of all NPS in 2014 to 9 per cent in 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'Doctors are so exclusively nurtured on exaggerated ideas of their position that, generally speaking, a factual approach is the worst possible. Even though they do not believe your story, nonetheless they want to hear one. It is like some Oriental face-saving ritual. One man plays the high-minded doctor who wouldn't write an unethical script for a thousand dollars, the other does his best to act like a legitimate patient. If you say, "Look, Doc, I want an M.S. script and am willing to pay double price for it," the croaker blows his top and throws you out of the office. You need a good bedside manner with doctors or you will get nowhere.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'In March 2019, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs decided to schedule four substances (all fentanyl analogues) under the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 as amended by the 1972 Protocol and a further five substances under the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, thus raising the total number of psychoactive substances under international control to 282 as at the end of 2019. By comparison, the number of NPS identified by authorities worldwide and reported to UNODC is already more than three times that figure, having reached a total of 950 in December 2019, up from 892 in December 2018 and 166 in 2009.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'Where data are available, they show a steady decline in the use of NPS in Europe, but such substances have established themselves in some marginalized groups in society, such as the homeless or people in prison, among whom the smoking of synthetic cannabinoids has been identified as a problem. In Europe, the use of NPS in prisons was reported by 22 countries, with synthetic cannabinoids identified as posing the main challenge and health risks (16 countries), whereas the use of synthetic cathinones in prisons was reported by 10 countries, NPS with opioid effects by six, and new benzodiazepines by four countries. In Latvia, the use of synthetic opioids in prisons has also been linked to an increase in overdose cases and in injecting drugs and sharing needles among prisoners who use drugs.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'We were having trouble filling the scripts. Most drugstores will only fill a morphine script once or twice, many not at all. There was one drugstore that would fill all our scripts anytime, and we took them all there..' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'Data on the United States also indicate a marked decline in the use of NPS. In particular, the prevalence of synthetic cannabinoid use among twelfth-grade students fell from 11.4 per cent in 2011 to 3.3 per cent in 2019. Similarly, the use of ketamine fell from 1.7 to 0.7 per cent over the same period, and the use of “bath salts” (synthetic cathinones) dropped from 1.3 per cent in 2012 to 0.6 per cent in 2018, the most recent year for which data are available. This happened in the context of a deterioration in the reputation of many of those substances among young people, in parallel to several waves of controls of synthetic cannabinoids and synthetic cathinones at the national level during the 2010–2012 period and later at the global level, as well as the control of ketamine at the national level in 1999. Over the 2000–2019 period, the annual prevalence of ketamine non-medical use among twelfth-grade high-school students fell drastically, from 2.5 per cent to 0.7 per cent' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'After marked increases over the 2009-2012 period, the overall quantities of synthetic NPS seized have shown a downward trend since 2012, most notably when they fell from 44 tons in 2017 to 10 tons in 2018. This may partly reflect the fact that some of the most widely used and most harmful NPS have been put under national and international control in recent years and therefore, according to the current definition, no longer belong to the NPS category. Moreover, a number of countries in North America, Europe and Oceania, where major markets for NPS are located, have introduced various controls on NPS trade in recent years. In parallel, China, which is frequently mentioned as the main country of origin or departure for various synthetic NPS (with 27 per cent of all such mentions over the 2014–2018 period, ahead of India with 10 per cent), has introduced controls in various waves on the manufacture of and trade in such substances. This and other developments appear to have had an impact on the proliferation of NPS at the global level, reducing the quantities of those substances on key markets.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The 2019 drug use survey in India estimated that nearly 1 per cent of the population aged 10–75 had misused pharmaceutical opioids in the past year and that an estimated 0.2 per cent of the population (2.5 million people) were suffering from drug use disorders related to pharmaceutical opioids. Although the breakdown by type of pharmaceutical opioids misused in India is not available, buprenorphine, morphine, pentazocine and tramadol are the most common opioids misused in the country.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The doctor's office was in junk territory on 102nd, off Broadway. He was a doddering old man and could not resist the junkies who filled his office and were, in fact, his only patients. It seemed to give him a feeling of importance to look out and see an office full of people. I guess he had reached a point where he could change the appearance of things to suit his needs and when he looked out there he saw a distinguished and diversfied clientele, probably well dressed in 1910 style, instead of a bunch of ratty-looking junkies come to hit him for a morphine script.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'The non-medical use of tramadol among other pharmaceutical drugs is reported by several countries in South Asia: Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. In 2017, 130,316 capsules containing tramadol and marketed under the trade name “Spasmo Proxyvon Plus (‘SP+’)” were seized in Bhutan. In Sri Lanka, about 0.2 per cent of the population aged 14 and older are estimated to have misused pharmaceutical drugs in the past year. Among them, the non-medical use of tramadol is the most common, although misuse of morphine, diazepam, flunitrazepam and pregabalin have also been reported in the country. The misuse of more than one pharmaceutical drug (including tramadol) is also a common pattern among heroin users who may use them to potentiate the effects of heroin or compensate for its low level of availability. Recent seizures of tramadol suggest the existence of a market for the drug: in April and September 2018, 200,000 and 1.5 million tablets of tramadol were respectively seized by customs in Sri Lanka.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'In the Sudan, while population-based estimates of the extent of substance use are not available, research suggests that the drug scene has rapidly changed, especially with the increasing non-medical use of pharmaceutical drugs among young people, including tramadol, benzodiazepines, cough syrups and antihistamines, trihexyphenidyl, anticonvulsants and neuropathic pain agents such as pregabalin and gabapentin.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'All croakers pack in sooner or later. One day when Roy came for his script, the doctor told him, "This is positively the last, and you guys had better keep out of sight. The inspector was around to see me yesterday. He has all the R-xes I wrote for you guys. He told me I will lose my license if I write any more, so I'm going to date this one back. Tell the druggist you were too sick yesterday to cash it.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'In North Africa, tramadol is reported as the main opioid used non-medically in Egypt, where scientific literature about tramadol misuse is more available than elsewhere in the subregion. An estimated 3 per cent of the adult population misused tramadol in 2016, the latest year for which data are available, while 2.2 per cent were diagnosed with tramadol dependence. In drug treatment, tramadol was also the main drug, accounting for 68 per cent of all people treated for drug use disorders in 2017. A cross-sectional study conducted over the period 2012–2013 among 1,135 undergraduate college students in Egypt showed that 20.2 per cent of male and 2.4 per cent of female students had misused tramadol at least once during their lifetime, resulting in an overall lifetime prevalence of 12.3 per cent The average age of initiation of non-medical use of tramadol was around 17 years. Polydrug use was also quite common, with the majority of respondents (85 per cent) reporting use of either tobacco, alcohol or cannabis with tramadol. Among those who had misused tramadol, 30 per cent were assessed to be tramadol dependent.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The drug use survey in Nigeria reveals tramadol to be a more accessible opioid than heroin, although it is still relatively costly if used frequently. While use of tramadol appears to cost about one third the price of heroin ($3.60 versus $10 per day of use in the past 30 days), in a country where the minimum wage of a full-time worker is around $57 per month, regular tramadol use still poses a considerable financial burden on users and their families. There is no information on the prevalence of drug use in other West African countries, but treatment data reveal tramadol to be the main drug of concern for people with drug use disorders. Tramadol ranks highly among the substances for which people were treated in West Africa in the period 2014–2017. This was particularly the case in Benin, Mali, the Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Togo.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The clandestine manufacture of fentanyls within North America is thus not really a new phenomenon and has the potential to increase in importance following the recent control of fentanyls substances in China. Moreover, the clandestine manufacture of fentanyl has already spread beyond North America to neighbouring subregions, as a clandestine fentanyl laboratory was dismantled in the city of Santiago, Dominican Republic, in 2017. At the same time, there is a risk that other countries with a large and thriving pharmaceutical sector may become involved in the clandestine manufacture of fentanyls. In 2018, for example, authorities of India reported two relatively large seizures of fentanyl destined for North America. Furthermore, according to United States authorities, in September 2018, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence of India, in cooperation with DEA of the United States Department of Justice, dismantled the first known illicit fentanyl laboratory in India and seized approximately 11 kg of fentanyl' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'According to United States authorities, most of the fentanyls destined for the North American market have been manufactured in China in recent years, from where they were either shipped directly to the United States, mostly through postal services, or were first shipped to Mexico and, to a lesser extent, Canada and then smuggled into the United States. However, after the introduction by China in May 2019 of drug controls based on generic legislation with regard to the fentanyls, which effectively brought more than 1,400 known fentanyl analogues under national control in China, early signs suggest that fewer fentanyls were smuggled from China to North America. At the same time, attempts to manufacture fentanyl and its analogues inside North America are increasing, notably in Mexico, by means of a method using precursor chemicals smuggled into the subregion from East Asia and South Asia.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'Ten minutes later Herman arrived. The brother-in-law was giving him the same treatment when Herman pulled out a silk dress he had under his coat - as I recall somebody unloaded a batch of hot dresses on us for three grains of morphine - and turning to see the doctor's wife who had come downstairs to see what all the commotion was about, he said, "I thought you might like this dress." So he got a chance to talk to the doctor who wrote him one last script. It took him three hours to fill it. Our regular drug store had been warned by the inspector, and they would not fill any more scripts.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'The current crisis of fentanyls appears to be more supply-driven than earlier waves of increases in the use of pharmaceutical opioids or heroin. Fentanyls are being used as an adulterant of heroin, are used to make falsified pharmaceutical opioids, such as falsified oxycodone and hydrocodone – and even falsified benzodiazepines – which are sold to a large and unsuspecting population of users of opioids and other drugs; users are not seeking fentanyl as such. It seems that some local distributors are not able to distinguish between heroin, fentanyl and fentanyl laced heroin, nor between diverted pharmaceutical opioids and falsified opioids containing fentanyl. A general problem with fentanyls is dosing by nonprofessional “pharmacists”, where small mistakes can lead to lethal results. Furthermore, as the overdose death data suggest, even people using cocaine and psychostimulants, such as methamphetamine, are also exposed – probably unintentionally – to fentanyls or other potent synthetic opioids mixed with those substances' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'There is a great incentive for trafficking organizations to expand the fentanyl market: the large associated revenues. Compared with heroin, the production costs of single-dose fentanyls are substantially lower. For instance, it may cost between $1,400 and $3,500 to synthesize 1 kg of fentanyl, which could bring a return of between $1 million and $1.5 million from street sales. For comparison, 1 kg of heroin purchased from Colombia may cost $5,000 to $7,000,99 around $53,000 at the wholesale level in the United States and around $400,000 at the retail level in the United States. With fentanyls, the logistics for supply are also more flexible because fentanyls can be manufactured anywhere and are not subject to the climatic conditions or the vulnerable conditions required for the largescale cultivation of opium poppy.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'Our croaker had packed in. We split up to comb the city. We covered Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, Jersey City and Newark. We couldn't even score for pantopon. It seemed like the doctors were all expecting us, just waiting for one of us to walk into the office so they could say, "Absolutely no." It was as though every doctor in Greater New York had suddenly taken a pledge never to write another narcotics script. We were running out of junk.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'All factors driving fentanyl use converged from 2013 onwards in the United States and Canada, which may explain the unprecedented spread of the fentanyls in those markets: factors such as the diffusion of simpler, more effective methods of manufacture of synthetic opioids and their analogues (primarily fentanyls), assisted by the availability on the Internet of instructions for their manufacture; a shift from preparation by a limited number of skilled chemists to preparation by basic “cooks” who could simply follow the posted instructions; the discovery of ever more fentanyl analogues; a lack of effective control of precursors and oversight of the industry; expanding distribution networks that reduced the risk of detection through the use of postal services and the Internet; and increased licit trade including e-commerce.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'In 2018, approximately 10.3 million people (3.7 per cent of the population aged 12 years or older) had misused opioids in the past year in the United States. Most of them, 9.9 million (3.6 per cent of the population aged 12 years and older), reported non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids, while almost 800,000 reported past-year use of heroin (comprising just 8 per cent of the total population who reported past-year misuse of opioids).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'I got a codeine script from an old doctor by putting down a story about migraine headaches. Codeine is better than nothing and five grains in the skin will keep you from being sick. For some reason, it is dangerous to shoot codeine in the vein.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'Overall, in 2018 overdose deaths attributed to synthetic opioids, comprising mainly fentanyls, accounted for nearly half of the total overdose deaths in the United States. Among the reasons for the high number of overdose deaths attributed to fentanyls are their often small lethal doses relative to other opioids: fentanyl, for example, is approximately 100 times more potent than morphine, and carfentanil may be as much as 10,000 times more potent than morphine for an average user. A lethal dose of carfentanil for a human can be as low as 20 micrograms.

The rapid expansion of fentanyl use in the United States is also visible in the data on seizures and the drug samples analysed, with a considerable increase since 2014 in the number of samples identified as fentanyl. In 2018, fentanyl accounted for 45 per cent of the pharmaceutical opioids that were identified in different samples, while oxycodone accounted for 14 per cent' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'“These data reveal a predominant use of prefilled THC cartridges sold through informal and unregulated markets, although the origin of these products further back in the production and distribution chain is unknown,” the report states.

The report goes on to say that it’s unclear if the cause of the illness is THC or “a substance associated with prefilled THC cartridges, such as a cutting agent or adulterant.”'

https://mjbizdaily.com/cdc-reports-majority-of-patients-sickened-in-vape-epidemic-used-marijuana-vaporizer-devices-many-from-illicit-market

'One day Herman told me about a kilo of first-class New Orleans weed I could pick up for seventy dollars. Pushing weed looked good on paper, like fur farming or raising frogs. At seventy-five cents a stick, seventy sticks to the ounce, it sounded like money. I was convinced, and bought the weed.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'People in states where recreational marijuana is legal were significantly less likely to experience vaping-related lung injuries than those in states where cannabis is prohibited, according to a new study published in an American Medical Association journal.

The finding seems to affirm what many reform advocates said during the peak of the e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI) crisis last year. With thousands being hospitalized over EVALI, it became clear that contaminated vape cartridges were the source and that contamination was more common in illicit, unregulated markets where consumers can’t walk into retail stores and buy tested and labeled marijuana products.'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/legal-marijuana-states-had-fewer-vaping-related-lung-injuries-study-finds/

'Italian mafia groups such as the ‘Ndrangheta maintain a dominant position within European drug markets, and a diverse criminal portfolio involving corrupt control over legitimate industries.'

https://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/FINAL-EN_2020report_web.pdf

There may be a consolidation happening among the pharmaceutical companies, medical industry and governments to ensure that their supply of raw materials for opioids, benzodiazepines and analgesics remains intact by squeezing out illicit suppliers in the middle of a Covid feeding frenzy..a great time to hike prices in the middle of shortages..more poisoning to treat global poisoning...

'Several countries have reported drug shortages at the retail level. This can lead to an overall decrease in consumption, but mainly of drugs mostly consumed in recreational settings. In the case of heroin, however, a shortage in supply can lead to the consumption of harmful, domestically produced substances – heroin shortages have been reported by countries in Europe, South West Asia and North America and some countries in Europe have warned that heroin users may even switch to fentanyl and its derivatives.

An increase in the use of pharmaceutical products such as benzodiazepines has also been reported, already doubling their price in certain areas. Another harmful pattern resulting from drug shortages is the increase in injecting drug use and the sharing of injecting equipment. All of which carry the risk of spreading diseases like HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and COVID-19 itself.

The risk of drug overdose may also increase among those injecting drugs and who are infected with COVID-19.'
https://www.unodc.org/unodc/press/releases/2020/May/covid-19-is-changing-the-route-of-illicit-drug-flows--says-unodc-report.html

'In practice, pushing weed is a headache. To begin with, weed is bulky. You need a full suitcase to realize any money. If the cops start kicking your door in, then you are like with a bale of alfalfa.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

The war on drugs is morphing into a war on unlicensed retailers now..these unlicensed retailers are most likely from the poorer and minority communities unable to pay the price and qualify for licensed retail. At some point of time, the cannabis plant needs to be recognized as just another plant, requiring as much regulation as, say, spinach. That is when we can say that the plant has been truly normalized. Otherwise, the same crimes against the same people are going to be enacted in a different garb, while the upper classes buy their posh cannabis at exorbitant prices from licensed cannabis shops run by celebrities..
https://mjbizdaily.com/los-angeles-illicit-cannabis-enforcement-suffers-setbacks/

'The world’s single largest heroin trafficking route continues to be the Balkan route, which takes heroin from Afghanistan to markets in Western and Central Europe via Iran (the Islamic Republic of), Turkey and the Balkans. This route accounted for 58 per cent of the heroin seizures made outside Afghanistan in 2018. Cocaine smugglers, too, are diversifying routes. The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela was once a major departure point but declined in importance as a result of political volatility. Brazil remains a major transit country and may even have to play an increasing role, and Uruguay appears to be growing in importance. In late 2019, the authorities of Uruguay seized more than 9 tons of cocaine destined for West Africa in two separate shipment' United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf

'Heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine traffickers have varied routes and continue to develop new trading patterns. For example, the manufacture of methamphetamine was traditionally carried out in small-scale laboratories in the United States to serve the domestic market. But this kind of production seems now to be dwarfed by industrial-size laboratories in Mexico. The methamphetamine seized in the United States over the past few years is increasingly imported, with the trade controlled by Mexican cartels' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf

'Tea heads are not like junkies. A junkie hands you the money, takes his junk and cuts. But tea heads don't do things that way. They expect the peddlar to light them up and sit around talking for half an hour to sell two dollars worth of weed. If you come right to the point, they say you are a "bring down." In fact, a peddlar should not come right out and say he is a peddlar. No, he just scores for a few good "cats and "chicks" because he is viperish. Everyone knows that he himself is the connection, but it is bad form to say so. God knows why. To me, tea heads are unfathomable.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'Given the almost universal restrictions imposed on air travel, the biggest impact on drug trafficking can thus be expected in countries where a large proportion of drugs is trafficked by air. Indeed, the supply of drugs trafficked by air may be completely disrupted. This is likely to have a particularly drastic effect on the trafficking of synthetic drugs, not least methamphetamine, to countries in South-East Asia, such as Japan and the Republic of Korea, and in Oceania, such as Australia, as well as on the cocaine trafficking that relied on commercial flights prior to the pandemic.
A recent uptick in heroin seizures in the Indian Ocean could be interpreted as an indication of an increase in the use of maritime routes for trafficking heroin to Europe along the “southern route”. If confirmed, the shift to the southern route would indicate a change in the strategy of drug trafficking organizations as a result of the COVID-19 measures.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf

'Continued large-scale seizures of cannabis products in the Middle East and North Africa suggest that cannabis resin trafficking to Europe is not being disrupted by the restrictions related to the COVID19 pandemic. There are indications that the lockdown measures in Europe may lead to an increase in demand for cannabis products, which could intensify drug trafficking activities from North Africa to Europe in the future.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf

'In countries with limited law enforcement capacity, enforcing measures to counter the spread of COVID-19 may divert resources away from counter-narcotics efforts, making drug trafficking and production less risky for organized criminal groups and providing a conducive environment for illicit activities. Moreover, there are indications that drug trafficking groups are adapting their strategies in order to continue their operations and that some have started to exploit the situation so as to enhance their image among the population by providing services, in particular to the vulnerable.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf

'Many countries have reported drug shortages at the retail level, with reports of heroin shortages in Europe, South-West Asia and North America in particular. Drug supply shortages can go together with an overall decrease in consumption (for example, of drugs that are mostly consumed in recreational settings such as bars and clubs) but may also, especially in the case of heroin, lead to the consumption of harmful domestically produced substances, as well as more harmful patterns of drug use by people with drug use disorders. In terms of alternatives, some countries in Europe have warned that heroin users may switch to substances such as fentanyl and its derivatives. An increase in the use of pharmaceutical products such as benzodiazepines and buprenorphine has also been reported, to the extent that their price has doubled in some areas.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf

'Tea heads are gregarious, they are sensitive, and they are paranoiac. If you get to be known as a 'drag" or a "bring down", you can't do business with them. I soon found out I couldn't get along with these characters and I was glad to find someone to take the tea off my hands at cost. I decided right then I would never push any more tea.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'In contrast to Western and Central Europe as a whole, which continues to be supplied mainly by heroin trafficked along the Balkan route by land, trafficking to Belgium in 2018 to a large extent (98 per cent) took the form of maritime shipments departing from the Islamic Republic of Iran or Turkey. Similarly, trafficking to Italy was characterized by maritime shipments in 2018 (61 per cent of the total quantity seized by customs authorities), with the bulk of seizures in 2018 having departed from the Islamic Republic of Iran in containers, followed by shipments by air (37 per cent), often departing from the Middle East (Qatar) or Africa (South Africa), while heroin shipments destined for France typically transited the Netherlands and Belgium in 2018' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'In line with the dominance of the opium production in Afghanistan, quantities of heroin and morphine seized related to Afghan opiate production accounted for some 84 per cent of the global total in 2018, a slight decrease from 88 per cent in 2017, the year of the bumper harvest in the country. Most of the heroin found in Europe, Central Asia/ Transcaucasia and Africa is derived from opium of Afghan origin, accounting for 100 per cent of all mentions in the responses to the annual report questionnaire by countries in Central Asia/Transcaucasia, 96 per cent in Europe and 87 per cent in Africa over the period 2014–2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'The Islamic Republic of Iran reported that 75 per cent of the morphine and 75 per cent of the heroin seized on its territory in 2018 had been trafficked via Pakistan, while the remainder had been smuggled directly into the country from Afghanistan. Typically, heroin is then smuggled to Turkey (70 per cent of all the heroin seized in the Islamic Republic of Iran in both 2016 and 2017) and from there along the Balkan route to Western and Central Europe, either via the western branch of the route via Bulgaria to various western Balkan countries or, to a lesser extent, via the eastern branch of the route via Bulgaria and then to Romania and Hungary, before reaching the main consumer markets in Western and Central Europe' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'The main countries identified in which heroin was trafficked along the southern route to Western and Central Europe over the period 2014– 2018 included India, the Gulf countries (notably Qatar and United Arab Emirates) and a number of Southern and East African countries (notably South Africa, Kenya, Ethiopia, Mozambique, the United Republic of Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Madagascar). The European countries reporting most trafficking along the southern route over the period 2014–2018 were Belgium (mostly via Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa, Ethiopia and the United Republic of Tanzania) and Italy (mostly via Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Ethiopia, Madagascar and Oman).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Suddenly I remembered about that letter. The friend in New York who'd written it was a tea head and he pushed weed from time to time. He'd written to me asking the price of good weed in New Orleans. I asked Pat, who quoted me a tentative price of forty dollars per pound. In the letter on the table my friend made reference to the forty-dollar per pound price and said he wanted some at that figure.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'The most significant trafficking activities worldwide of opiates not of Afghan origin concern opiates produced in South-East Asia (mostly Myanmar), which are trafficked to other markets in East and SouthEast Asia (mostly China and Thailand) and to Oceania (mostly Australia). Seizures made in those countries accounted for 11 per cent of the global quantities of heroin and morphine seized (excluding seizures made by Afghanistan) in 2018, down from 15 per cent in 2015. This went in parallel with reported reductions in opium production in Myanmar of 20 per cent over the period 2005–2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Most heroin (and morphine) trafficking in the Americas continues to take place within North America, i.e., from Mexico to the United States and, to a far lesser extent, from Colombia and from Guatemala (typically via Mexico) to the United States. Based on forensic profiling, United States authorities estimated in 2017 that over 90 per cent of the heroin samples analysed originated in Mexico and 4 per cent in South America, while around 1 per cent originated in South-West Asia. This stands in stark contrast to a decade earlier (2007), when only 25 per cent was sourced from Mexico and 70 per cent was imported from South America.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'The quantity of ATS [amphetamine type stimulants] seized at the global level has increased over the past two decades, in particular over the period 2009–2018, when the quantity of ATS seized quadrupled. The increase was primarily due to the increasingly large quantities of methamphetamine being seized, as seizures increased sevenfold over the period 2009–2018. The largest proportional increase (18-fold) was for the group of “other stimulants” (including prescription ATS, a number of cathinones, such as mephedrone or MDPV, which are now under international control, and non-specified ATS). The total quantity of “ecstasy” seized doubled over the period 2009–2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'At first we filled the scripts without too much trouble. But after a few weeks the scripts had piled up in the drugstores that would fill M[orphine] scripts and they began packing in. It looked like we would be back with Lupita. Once or twice we got short and had to score with Lupita. Using that good drugstore M had run up our habits, and so it took two of Lupita's fifteen-peso papers to fix us. Now, thirty pesos in one shot was a lot more than I could afford to pay. I had to quit, cut down to where I could make it on two of Lupita's papers per day, or find another source of supply.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'In most years since 1998, the ATS [amphetamine type stimulants] seized in the largest quantities was methamphetamine, which in the period 2014–2018 accounted for 71 per cent of the total quantity of ATS seized globally, followed by amphetamine (21 per cent) and “ecstasy” (5 per cent). The rest (3 per cent) of seized ATS included former synthetic new psychoactive substances such as mephedrone, MDPV or methylone (0.4 per cent of the total). While the number of countries reporting seizures of “ecstasy” declined slightly, from 109 countries in the period 2004–2008 to 100 countries in the period 2014–2018, the number of countries reporting seizures of amphetamine increased from 85 to 97 in that same time. Those reporting seizures of methamphetamine increased by more than 50 per cent, from 69 to 105 countries, which suggests that there has been a significant increase in the geographical spread of methamphetamine trafficking at the global level' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Nonetheless, seizures of methamphetamine remain highly concentrated: the three countries responsible for most of the methamphetamine seized worldwide in 2018 (the United States, Thailand and Mexico) accounted for 80 per cent of the global total, while the three countries reporting the largest quantities of amphetamine (Turkey, Pakistan and the Syrian Arab Republic) and the three countries reporting the most “ecstasy” seized (Turkey, the United States and Australia) accounted for a significantly smaller proportion of the global total (around 50 per cent) in 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Different substances are predominant in the seizures of ATS in different regions:
methamphetamine is predominant in North America, East and SouthEast Asia, South Asia and Oceania; and amphetamine in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, Europe, Africa and Central America. South America and the Caribbean were the only subregions where the quantities of “ecstasy” seized were predominant among all ATS intercepted in the period 2014–2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Ike came back from the bathroom with the works and began cooking up a shot. He kept talking. "You're drinking and you're getting crazy. I hate to see you get off this stuff and on something worse. I know so many that quit the junk. A lot of them can't make it with Lupita. Fifteen pesos for a paper and it takes three to fix you. Right away they start in drinking and they don't last more than two or three years." - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'In contrast to previous decades, when methamphetamine was primarily manufactured from ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, nowadays more than half of seized precursor chemicals linked to the manufacture of methamphetamine are P-2-P and/or its precursor chemicals. There is, however, a significant geographical divide. Most methamphetamine production in Asia, Oceania and Africa – and possibly some in Europe – continues to be based primarily on ephedrine and pseudoephedrine as the key precursor chemicals, while manufacture of methamphetamine in North America is now primarily based on P-2-P and its precursor chemicals. In some instances, precursor chemicals for the manufacture of P-2-P also seem to have been used in the manufacture of methamphetamine in Western Europe.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'While the quantities of methamphetamine seized have increased rapidly over the past decade, seizures of internationally controlled chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphetamine have fluctuated over the years and showed a clear increase only in 2018, when methamphetamine precursor seizures almost tripled compared with 2017. The marked increase was the result of record quantities of P-2-P linked to methamphetamine manufacture in North America being seized – an almost ninefold increase – and the global quantities of ephedrine seized increasing almost fivefold. By contrast, the reported number of dismantled laboratories continued to decline, from 10,600 methamphetamine laboratories dismantled in 2010 to close to 3,700 in 2017 and less than 2,100 in 2018. A possible explanation of the phenomenon of an expanding market going hand in hand with fewer and fewer laboratories being dismantled could be a shift towards operating fewer but larger laboratories in parallel with a general shift in production to countries with comparatively limited interdiction capacities.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

''Regarding precursor chemicals, it has to be taken into account that increasing quantities of methamphetamine are now being produced from pre-precursors that are not under international control; for example, substances such as benzaldehyde and nitroethane are used in the clandestine manufacture of P-2-P, in both North America and Europe. Similarly, benzyl chloride and sodium cyanide are used in the clandestine manufacture of phenylacetic acid, which is also used to manufacture P-2-P, the main precursor used in methamphetamine manufacture in North America.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'The United States reported the dismantling of 1,607 methamphetamine laboratories in 2018, accounting for 78 per cent of all methamphetamine laboratories dismantled worldwide that year. However, the overall output of domestic methamphetamine manufacture in the United States now appears to be considerably smaller than the potential output produced by several of the large, industrial-scale laboratories found in other parts of the world, such as Mexico and East and South-East Asia, in recent years. Over the past few years, the United States has reported that most of the methamphetamine found on its market has been smuggled into the country from abroad, most notably from Mexico. Most of the clandestine production and smuggling seems to be controlled by various Mexican drug cartels.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Safe in Mexico, I watched the anti-junk campaign. I read about child addicts and Senators demanding the death penalty for dope peddlers. It didn't sound right to me. Who wants kids for customers? They never have enough money and they always spill under questioning. Parents find out the kid is on junk and go to the law. I figured that either Stateside peddlers have gone simple-minded or the whole child-addict set-up is a propaganda routine to stir up anti-junk sentiment and pass some new laws.
Refugee hipsters trickled into Mexico. "Six months for needle marks under the vag-addict law in California." "Eight years for a dropper in Washington." "Two to ten for selling in New York."' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'The vast majority of the methamphetamine production facilities dismantled in the United States were “kitchen laboratories” (1,426), which typically produce two ounces or less per production cycle for local demand, although the overall figure also included the dismantling of 11 industrial-scale methamphetamine laboratories in the United States in 2018. Nevertheless, the overall number of clandestine methamphetamine laboratories detected in the United States fell by about 90 per cent over the period 2010–2018 and by 93 per cent since the peak in 2004. According to the United States authorities, the initial decline after 2004 resulted from improved precursor control, notably through the regulation of over-the-counter sales of methamphetamine precursor chemicals such as ephedrine preparations and pseudoephedrine, and ongoing efforts to dismantle laboratories, which acted as a deterrent to domestic methamphetamine manufacture.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'By contrast, the decline in the number of dismantled laboratories after 2010 was no longer in line with the upward trend in a number of other indicators, which had been clearly pointing to an expansion of the methamphetamine market, both in terms of supply (rising seizures, falling purity adjusted prices) and demand (rising prevalence rates, positive tests among the general workforce, treatment admissions and deaths). The purity of methamphetamine rose from 95 per cent in the first quarter of 2012 to 98 per cent in the first quarter of 2018, while the potency of methamphetamine increased from 85 to 97 per cent over the same period. This indicates an improvement in the know-how of organized crime groups manufacturing methamphetamine from various (non-scheduled) P-2-P precursors in neighbouring Mexico, an overall increase in the supply of methamphetamine in the United States and the emergence of a potentially even more problematic substance, showing everhigher levels of purity and potency, thus increasing the risk of overdose.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'While the annual prevalence of methamphetamine use more than doubled from 0.3 to 0.7 per cent of the population aged 12 and older in the United States over the period 2008–2018, the number of psychostimulants involved in drug poisoning deaths in the United States rose from 1,302 to 12,676 deaths over the same period, equivalent to an almost 10-fold increase. This increase may have been inflated by an increasing number of contaminations of psychostimulants with opioids (such as fentanyl and its analogues); however, psychostimulant-related deaths excluding any involvement of opioids still showed an eightfold increase, from 807 deaths in 2008 to 6,271 deaths in 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'The decline in the domestic supply of methamphetamine, indicated by the falling number of manufacturing facilities dismantled in the United States, going hand in hand with increasing use and an overall increase in the supply of the drug, can be explained by the increasing importance of rapidly growing illegal methamphetamine imports from clandestine manufacture sites in neighbouring Mexico. According to the United States authorities, the latter phenomenon appears to have resulted from attempts by Mexican organized crime groups to diversify their drug portfolio as they attempted to reduce their dependence on cocaine produced in countries in South America, preferring instead to source the required chemicals from China and produce methamphetamine themselves. Methamphetamine shipments intercepted along the south-western border of the United States increased almost fourfold between 2013 and 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'What about Roy?" I asked.
"Didn't you hear about him? He went wrong and hanged himself in the Tombs." It seemed the law had Roy on three counts, two larceny, one narcotics. They promised to drop all charges if Roy would set up Eddie Crump, an old-time pusher. Eddie only served people he knew well, and he knew Roy.

The law double-crossed Roy after they got Eddie. They dropped the narcotics charge, but not the two larceny charges. So Roy was slated to follow Eddie up to Riker's Island, where Eddie was doing pen indefinite, which is maximum in City Prison. Three years, five months, and six days.

Roy hanged himself in the Tombs, where he was awaiting transfer to Riker's. Roy had always taken an intolerant and puritanical view of pigeons. "I don't see how a pigeon can live with himself," he said to me once.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'The region with the next largest number of methamphetamine laboratories dismantled was Asia, accounting for 6 per cent of the global total in the period 2014–2018. Most of these facilities were dismantled in China and the Islamic Republic of Iran, which together accounted for 94 per cent of all reported laboratories dismantled in Asia, while some clandestine methamphetamine laboratories were also dismantled, in descending order of importance, in Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, the Republic of Korea, Myanmar and Hong Kong, China. In addition, the clandestine manufacture of methamphetamine has been reported in recent years by Afghanistan and Iraq.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Countries identified as significant source countries for methamphetamine shipments in Asia in the period 2014–2018 included Myanmar, followed by China, Thailand, India and Iran (Islamic Republic of). Clandestine methamphetamine manufacture in Asia seems to be still largely based on the use of pseudoephedrine or ephedrine as precursors, although reports from Afghanistan suggest that ephedrine is extracted from ephedra plant material and used as a precursor for methamphetamine.80 The authorities in Myanmar and Thailand have reported the seizure of increasing quantities of sodium cyanide and benzyl cyanide in recent years. These substances can be used for synthesizing P-2-P, which is then used to manufacture either amphetamine or methamphetamine.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Similar to the situation in the United States, where the manufacture of methamphetamine declined while increasing in neighbouring Mexico, both China and Iran (Islamic Republic of) reported declining domestic production, reflected in the decreasing numbers of methamphetamine laboratories dismantled in recent years, going hand in hand with the expansion of methamphetamine manufacture in their neighbouring countries. Indeed, by 2018 the Islamic Republic of Iran reported that most of the methamphetamine found on its territory originated in Afghanistan and was trafficked either from there directly or via Pakistan. Similarly, China reported that methamphetamine seized in recent years has originated primarily in Myanmar. In contrast to many other countries, however, the marked declines in the domestic manufacture of methamphetamine in China appear to have more than outweighed any increase in clandestine manufacture and imports from neighbouring countries. This is revealed in the decline in methamphetamine found in the wastewater in cities across China, with wastewater-based estimates suggesting a fall in methamphetamine consumption amounts of 26 per cent over the period 2014 –2018' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

Officially sponsored myth 7 - '"There is a clear line between addict and peddler. The authorities pity the addict and are out only to get the peddler."
I have never seen an addict who did not sell, or a street peddler who did not use. There is no line at all. The authorities make no distinction, and the penalty for selling and possession are about the same.'- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'The information available globally on methamphetamine points to a market expansion over the past two decades, in particular since 2009. Qualitative information on methamphetamine trafficking trends reported by Member States, data on drug treatment facilities, prevalence data in countries based on survey data, and prices all suggest that the methamphetamine market has been expanding, particularly in the two subregions where demand for the drug is highest, South-East Asia and North America, while most trafficking in methamphetamine continues to be intraregional. Methamphetamine continues to be seized mainly in North America and in East and South-East Asia which accounted for, respectively, 50 per cent and 42 per cent of the global quantities of methamphetamine seized in the period 2014–2018, while the quantities of the drug seized in Oceania (4 per cent), the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia (2 per cent), South Asia and Europe (1 per cent each) continued to be far smaller.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'The largest quantities of methamphetamine seized in 2018 were the quantities seized in the United States, followed by Thailand and Mexico. Marked increases in the quantities seized from 2017 to 2018 were reported by the United States and Thailand, while the quantities of methamphetamine seized in China declined, in line with reports of wastewater analysis that showed a significant decline in methamphetamine consumption in that country.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'In the United States, most methamphetamine is sold as methamphetamine. However, there have also been reports of tablets sold as “ecstasy” that contained methamphetamine instead (notably in Missouri). The sale of methamphetamine in the form of falsified Adderall tablets is a new phenomenon, with laboratories manufacturing such falsified medicaments found in a number of states, in particular Georgia and California. The expansion of methamphetamine trafficking has also gone hand in hand with the increasingly common practice of mixing methamphetamine with fentanyls. This practice has proved to be particularly harmful and has contributed to the rapid rise in methamphetamine-related deaths in recent years.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'The quantities of methamphetamine seized in North America rose sixfold between 2009 and 2018, to 117 tons. North American methamphetamine seizures accounted for more than 99 per cent of all the methamphetamine seized in the Americas in 2018. Methamphetamine seizures in the subregion were dominated by those reported by the United States (71 per cent of the total in 2018), followed by Mexico (29 per cent), while the quantities of methamphetamine seized in Canada (0.4 per cent) remained more limited' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'As cross-border methamphetamine trafficking in North America consists mainly of trafficking from Mexico to the United States, the south-western border thus remains the main entry point for illegal imports of methamphetamine into the United States: in 2018, 95 per cent of the methamphetamine seizures made by United States customs authorities were effected at or near the country’s south-western border. Quantities of methamphetamine seized in the United States as a whole almost tripled between 2013 and 2018, whereas those intercepted along the south-western border quadrupled during the same period. Trafficking modi operandi include concealment by human couriers on commercial flights, the use of parcel delivery services, and the use of pick-up trucks and commercial buses, as well as unusual goods deliveries such as concealment in metal collars, cargo stabilizers, electric transformers and industrial drill bits, reflecting the increasing sophistication of methamphetamine smuggling activities. Another emerging trend over the past few years has been the use of drones, which easily fly over physical barriers on the border while the operators remain at a safe distance from where the drugs are dropped, thereby reducing the risk of arrest.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Practically all the major transnational criminal organizations in Mexico seem to be involved in the smuggling of methamphetamine to the United States. They include the Sinaloa Cartel, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, the Juárez Cartel, the Gulf Cartel, the Los Zetas Cartel and the Beltrán-Leyva Organization. In parallel, outlaw motorcycle gangs continue to be involved in the distribution of methamphetamine within the United States. The increased involvement of Mexican organized crime groups in the trafficking of drugs other than cocaine has contributed to the spread of methamphetamine trafficking from the western United States to the whole country over the past decade, including states in the eastern part of the country that had previously been spared from the large-scale harmful use of methamphetamine.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

Officially sponsored myth 8 - '"Peddlers try to get high school children on junk, or marijuana. A recent magazine article depicts peddlers slipping laudanum into the Coca-Cola of teenagers."
This is utterly ridiculous. No peddler wants kids for customers. They never have enough money, they talk too much and they cannot stand up under police questioning. The best customers are the old-timers. They know all the angles and generally have some source of revenue.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'The United States, for example, has been reported by other countries as a country of departure of methamphetamine for Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), Asia (Japan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, China and Mongolia) and Europe (Ireland). Moreover, methamphetamine trafficking has been reported not only from Mexico or from Canada into the United States but also from the United States to those two countries, suggesting a number of two-way trafficking flows across the countries of North America. Methamphetamine trafficked from Canada has been reported in the United States, South America (Chile), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand) and a few countries in Europe (Iceland and Latvia).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'More recently, methamphetamine shipments have also been intercepted en route from Mexico to the Netherlands for distribution in Europe; moreover, Mexican “methamphetamine cooks”, linked to Mexican organized crime groups, were arrested in Europe, after being detected in large-scale methamphetamine manufacture in Western Europe.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Quantities of methamphetamine seized in East and South-East Asia increased eightfold over the period 2009–2018, to close to 100 tons, and preliminary data for 2019 show further strong increases in the quantities of methamphetamine seized, in particular in South-East Asia, with increases reported in 2019 by, among other countries, Brunei Daraussalam, Cambodia. Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Japan, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Viet Nam. In most years in the past decade the largest quantities of methamphetamine seized in East and South-East Asia were reported by China. In 2018, by contrast, 66 per cent of all the methamphetamine seized in that subregion was seized in Thailand, followed by Indonesia (8 per cent) and Malaysia (8 per cent) and only then by China (6 per cent), reflecting underlying shifts in the methamphetamine market in South-East Asia, that is, a decline in the methamphetamine market in China in parallel with ongoing increases in the ASEAN countries.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'While the typical purity of methamphetamine tablets encountered in East and South-East Asia has remained relatively stable in recent years (mostly within a range of 15 to 25 per cent), retail prices of methamphetamine tablets have decreased sharply in several countries in the subregion, which, when combined with the increases in quantities seized, suggests that the supply of methamphetamine may have outstripped demand in East and South-East Asia' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'The average purity of crystalline methamphetamine in East and South-East Asia continues to remain very high, again suggesting an abundant supply of the drug. The average purity of samples analysed in China reached 95 per cent in 2018 and other countries in the subregion (Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Viet Nam) reported purity levels of between 70 and 90 per cent. While purity has remained high, retail prices of crystalline methamphetamine have decreased in several countries in the subregion in recent years, including Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malaysia and Myanmar, pointing to an increase in the availability of crystalline methamphetamine in the subregion. In Indonesia, Thailand and Viet Nam, retail prices of crystalline methamphetamine have actually more than halved over the past decade. At the same time, the average purity of crystalline methamphetamine rose in Thailand from 90 per cent in 2011 to around 95 per cent in 2019, with almost all (99 per cent) of the crystalline methamphetamine samples analysed in 2019 showing purity levels of over 90 per cent.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'All in all, tablet and crystalline methamphetamine prices in several countries in the region reached their lowest level over the past decade despite a record number of seizures being made every year during the same period. The decrease in prices also appears to have contributed to an increase in the use of methamphetamine and, subsequently, in more methamphetamine-related treatment demand. Thus, there have been sharp increases in methamphetamine-related treatment admissions reported in recent years by several countries in South-East Asia, including a more than 30-fold increase in the number of treatment admissions for the use of methamphetamine reported by Malaysia over the period 2011–2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'This shift from China as the main location of methamphetamine manufacture and trafficking to other countries in East and South-East Asia is also indirectly reflected in trafficking data reported by Australia. China and Hong Kong, China, were the two main embarkation points for methamphetamine trafficked to Australia in 2015, whereas in the fiscal years 2016/17 and 2017/18 the most important embarkation points were the United States, followed by Thailand and Malaysia. In fact, in 2018, the Australian authorities reported that the importance of China as a source country for methamphetamine had declined while there has been an emerging trend in the growth of quantities of seized methamphetamine originating in South-East Asia, mainly in the Mekong region, including the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Thailand.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Most of the methamphetamine available in East and South-East Asia is sourced within the subregion. The dynamics of methamphetamine manufacture and trafficking within that subregion are, however, less well understood than in others as the available indicators show partly contradictory patterns. Although in previous years, China and Myanmar were identified as the most frequently identified countries of “origin”, “departure” and “transit” in East and South-East Asia, manufacture of methamphetamine may now be more widely spread across the subregion, although it is not clear whether frequently mentioned departure countries, such as Malaysia or Thailand, are also the countries of origin or mainly transit countries for methamphetamine manufactured in Myanmar. In fact, Myanmar reported Thailand and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic as main destination countries for methamphetamine shipments in 2018, while Malaysia reported Thailand as the main departure country' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'While methamphetamine trafficking flows from East and South-East Asia to countries outside the subregion remain modest, some smuggling to destinations around the world was reported, mainly smuggling from Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar in 2018 or, when the period is extended to the past five years, mainly from China and Thailand. Destinations outside the subregion included countries in South Asia, the Near and Middle East (Saudi Arabia as well as Israel), Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), North America (the United States as well as Canada), Western Europe (notably Switzerland as well as Italy, Germany, France, Spain and Iceland), Eastern Europe (notably the Russian Federation) and Africa (notably South Africa) over the period 2014–2018' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Methamphetamine found in Australia and New Zealand is both locally manufactured and, to a larger extent, imported from North America and Asia. In the fiscal year 2017/18, methamphetamine was mainly smuggled into Australia from the United States, followed by Thailand, Malaysia, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, China (including Hong Kong, China), Mexico, Lebanon, Viet Nam and India. The United States was also the main source country of the methamphetamine found in New Zealand in 2018, followed by Canada and, in SouthEast Asia, by Malaysia and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Of the total number of amphetamine laboratories reported dismantled worldwide in the period 2014–2018 (749 laboratories), more than half were dismantled in Europe (417), most notably in Western and Central Europe (316) and, to a lesser degree, in Eastern Europe (100). Overall, 16 European countries reported the dismantling of clandestine amphetamine laboratories over the period 2014– 2018, in particular the Netherlands. The Netherlands, followed by Poland, Lithuania and Belgium, were the most frequently identified source countries of amphetamine in Europe. Amphetamine from South-Eastern Europe was reported as being mainly sourced from Bulgaria and Turkey. However, it is likely that such statistics are heavily skewed as a number of countries, in particular in the Middle East, where large-scale amphetamine manufacture has been reported, have a very limited capacity to dismantle laboratories and thus are not appropriately represented in these statistics' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'"Nembies": after the phrase, "to take the edge off," Burroughs first draft glossary continued; "Sometimes injected intravenously. If you miss the vein you will surely get an abcess. Barbiturates are more dangerous than junk because a user of barbiturates - eight or more capsules per day - gets the horrors when he is cut off barbiturates, and he is subject to epileptic fits with frequent head injury from flopping around on concrete floors. He is most likely to find himself cut off in a place where the floors are concrete."- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953

'The manufacture of counterfeit “captagon” tablets, that is, amphetamine tablets mixed with caffeine, in the Near and Middle East is more widespread than the manufacture of amphetamine in South Asia or in East and South-East Asia. Indications received from other countries in the subregion pointed to the existence of clandestine laboratories manufacturing “captagon” tablets in the period 2014–2018, in particular in the Syrian Arab Republic and Lebanon, intended partly for domestic consumption and partly for the more lucrative markets of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, as well as the Sudan and Libya. In addition, Iran (Islamic Republic of) and Jordan have been identified by other countries in the subregion as possible countries of origin of amphetamine shipments. Jordan reported that all of the amphetamine found on its market originated in either the Syrian Arab Republic or Lebanon.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Although data for 2018 were unavailable for key countries in the Near and Middle East, more than half (54 per cent) of the global quantity of amphetamine seized in the period 2014–2018 was reported in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia. Of the rest, some 24 per cent was seized in Europe (including 14 per cent in Western and Central Europe), 13 per cent in the Americas (including 7 per cent in North America), 6 per cent in Africa (mostly in North Africa) and 1 per cent in Oceania (mostly in Australia). The regional totals for Europe and the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia show larger seizures of amphetamine than of methamphetamine over the period 2014–2018, suggesting that the availability of amphetamine may be still greater than of methamphetamine in those regions' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report -2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'In the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, the quantities of methamphetamine seized increased markedly in 2018. However, the marked decline in the reported quantities of amphetamine seized in recent years (-37 per cent in 2017 and -80 per cent in 2018) seems to be largely a statistical artefact. Some of this decline may have been related to changes in the categorization of stimulants seized, for example, “prescription stimulants” instead of “amphetamine”. Even more important has been the hiatus in the reporting of seizures to UNODC by some countries known to be affected by major amphetamine trafficking activities. There is plenty of evidence that trafficking in amphetamine, in particular of “captagon” tablets, has also continued in the Near and Middle East in recent years. INCB, for example, in its most recent annual report noted the following: The manufacture and trafficking of counterfeit “captagon” continued to seriously affect the countries of the Middle East, which not only are destination markets for those drugs but are also increasingly becoming a source of counterfeit “captagon”…Political instability and unresolved conflicts, poverty and the lack of economic opportunities in some parts of the subregion have contributed to increased trafficking in…“captagon”' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Instability and conflict in the Middle East contributed to the trafficking in falsified “captagon” in the subregion. A lack of control and monitoring led to an increase in the manufacture of “captagon” tablets in some countries over the period 2014–2018, which turned into an additional source of income for terrorist and insurgency groups in the Middle East. Captagon was originally the trademarked brand name of a medicinal product containing fenetylline, until the substance was placed under international control in 1986. While the diversion of fenetylline from existing stocks might have continued until the end of the 1990s, those stocks, some of which were apparently located in Bulgaria, became depleted. However, the “captagon” name and logo continued to be used even though the composition of the counterfeit tablets had changed, and increasingly, seized “captagon” tablets were found to contain amphetamine, often mixed with caffeine and other substances.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'The two countries most frequently reported as countries of origin of amphetamine (mainly “captagon”) seized in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia in the period 2014–2018 were Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic, which together accounted for some 40 per cent of all mentions of countries of origin reported by the authorities in the subregion. Final destinations are mostly countries in the Near and Middle East, most notably Saudi Arabia and various other Gulf countries, in particular the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, using both direct and indirect routes.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Large-scale trafficking of “captagon” from Jordan to Saudi Arabia has also been documented. In two separate incidents, in January and March 2018, customs authorities in Saudi Arabia foiled attempts to smuggle “captagon” tablets into the country. Prior to that, a total of about 6.3 million tablets of the substance were recovered during operations at the border with Jordan in 2017. Although some of those tablets may have originated in neighbouring countries, in January 2018, Jordan also dismantled a clandestine laboratory manufacturing “captagon” that was mainly destined for markets in Saudi Arabia and neighbouring countries.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Unlike other plant-based drugs, for which cultivation and production is concentrated in only a limited number of countries, cannabis is produced in almost all countries worldwide. The cultivation of cannabis plants was reported by 151 countries in the period 2010–2018 – countries home to 96 per cent of the global population – and was reported through either direct indicators (such as the cultivation or eradication of cannabis plants and the eradication of cannabis-producing sites) or indirect indicators (such as seizures of cannabis plants and the origin of cannabis seizures reported by other Member States).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Most countries do not have a comprehensive system in place for monitoring areas under illicit cannabis cultivation. At present, the information available is insufficient to produce scientifically accurate global estimates of the area under illicit cannabis cultivation. In addition, most of the estimates of the areas under illicit cannabis cultivation reported to UNODC do not generally meet scientific standards.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Globally, outdoor cannabis cultivation continues to be more widespread geographically than is indoor cannabis cultivation. Overall, 88 countries reported outdoor cannabis cultivation, law enforcement activities linked to outdoor cannabis cultivation (eradication, seizures of cannabis plants, seizures of cannabis-producing sites) or trends related to outdoor cannabis cultivation over the period 2012–2018, while only 64 countries reported data for those activities as linked to indoor cultivation. Some countries reported both indoor and outdoor cannabis cultivation.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'The largest quantities of cannabis herb seized in 2018 were those reported in the Americas (61 per cent of the total), with South America alone accounting for 43 per cent of the global total. Of note is the marked decline in the share of seizures made in North America, which had long been the subregion reporting the largest cannabis herb seizures: on average, 50 per cent of the global total over the period 2008–2018, falling to 17 per cent of the global total in 2018, that is, to less than the total for Africa that year (19 per cent). The next largest regional reported seizure totals in 2018 were those for Asia and Europe.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'The quantity of cannabis herb seized in 2018 declined by 16 per cent compared with a year earlier, falling to 4,303 tons, the lowest level since 1999. As compared with 2010, the quantity seized fell by 34 per cent at the global level, largely due to decreases reported in North America (-84 per cent), with marked declines being reported by Mexico, the United States and Canada. Discussions and policies aimed at liberalizing the cannabis markets, including changes in the drug’s legislation in Canada and some jurisdictions of the United States, legalizing the production, distribution and the recreational use of cannabis, seem to have played a key role in this respect. By contrast, the quantities of cannabis herb seized almost doubled in the rest of the world over the period 2010–2018 (South America: +194 per cent; Oceania: +94 per cent; Europe: +73 per cent; Asia: +71 per cent; Africa: +53 per cent). The global cannabis herb trafficking index, based on qualitative information reported by Member States on trends in cannabis herb trafficking, also increased over the same period, although the trend appeared to be stabilizing in 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'In 2018, the largest quantities of cannabis herb seized worldwide continued to be those reported by Paraguay, followed by the United States and India. Cannabis herb produced in Paraguay is reported to have been mainly destined for neighbouring Brazil (77 per cent) and Argentina (20 per cent). Over the period 2008–2018, the largest cannabis herb seizures worldwide took place in the United States, followed by Mexico, Paraguay, Colombia, Nigeria, Morocco, Brazil, India and Egypt' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Trafficking in cannabis resin continues to be far more geographically concentrated than is trafficking in cannabis herb. More than half of all cannabis resin was seized in Western and Central Europe (51 per cent) in 2018, followed by the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia (36 per cent) and North Africa (8 per cent). These three subregions accounted for 95 per cent of all cannabis resin seized worldwide in 2018.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'Morocco, with 47,500 ha reported to be under cannabis cultivation in 2018, continues to be the most frequently mentioned source country for cannabis resin worldwide in the annual report questionnaire, being mentioned in more than a fifth of all cases as the main country of origin of cannabis resin seized worldwide over the period 2014–2018; Morocco was followed by Afghanistan, where, a UNODC survey found, in 2010 an area of 9,000–29,000 ha was under cannabis cultivation. Cannabis resin produced in Morocco is mainly destined for other markets in North Africa and markets in Western and Central Europe. Some cannabis resin of Moroccan origin is also trafficked to Eastern Europe and South-Eastern Europe. Most cannabis resin of Moroccan origin destined for Europe is first shipped to Spain, from where it is smuggled to other markets in the region. For many years, including in the period 2014–2018, Spain has been identified by other European countries as the principal country of departure and transit for cannabis resin, followed by the Netherlands.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

Afghanistan and Mexico source the heroin and morphine. Mexico, Thailand, Myanmar and China source the methamphetamine. The Middle East and Eastern Europe sources the amphetamine. The US consumes heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine. Europe consumes heroin, morphine, methamphetamine and amphetamine. Asia consumes heroin, morphine and methamphetamine. Australia consumes methamphetamine. The Middle East consumes heroin and amphetamine. West Asia consumes heroin and methamphetamine. All countries grow and consume cannabis. Opioids, methamphetamine and amphetamines kill the most in terms of drug deaths, cannabis kills none. Who are the leading opponents to cannabis legalization and leading enforcers of global anti-cannabis policy? The countries involved the most in heroin, morphine, amphetamines and methamphetamines. They put on a mask of concern about harms from drugs, produce, sell and consume the most dangerous synthetic drugs and vehemently oppose cannabis legalization worldwide while clandestinely feeding their habits and protecting their sources. They use arms and armies to protect and promote their synthetic drug habits, and drug money to fund and wage a war on cannabis everywhere, pushing man and planet ever closer to death on massive scales and away from the safe, healing cannabis herb...
Jul 10, 2020, 1:14 PM

'“It is hardly a surprise that those who elect to clandestinely cultivate cannabis on federal lands engage in practices that provide greater potential risks to both the environment and to the end product itself,” Paul Armentano, deputy director for the advocacy group NORML, told Marijuana Moment. “By contrast, a legal market provides regulatory oversight and demands that those engaged in these activities be licensed and utilize best practices.” “While legalization itself will likely not entirely eliminate the illicit market, just as, for instance, broader alcohol legalization has not eliminated moonshining in its entirety,” Armentano added, “the reality is that it will continue to severely curtail these activities and the involvement of criminal entrepreneurs.”'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/feds-hire-hazmat-firm-for-marijuana-eradication-training/

'As a further factor, in most countries the highest prevalence of drug use is found among adolescents and young adults, in particular those aged 18–25. Over the period 2000–2018, the population in that age group grew significantly in developing countries – by 18 per cent, thus raising the overall vulnerability to drug use in those countries. In developed countries, by contrast, the population in that young age group decreased by 10 per cent over the same period.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The lack of disaggregated data makes it impossible to obtain a global overview of drug use as distributed between urban and rural areas and to analyse interacting global trends in urbanization and drug markets. From the information available, it seems that drug use is more prevalent in urban areas than in rural areas, in both developed and developing countries, with the exception of some major rural drug-producing areas. Urbanization has also been found to be a general risk factor for drug use; for example, data from school surveys in Colombia and Mexico show the prevalence of use of some drugs being up to 60 per cent higher in urban areas than in rural areas. Data on drug law offences including possession and trafficking of drugs in Germany and Austria confirm the same patterns with main cities showing higher per capita offences than the national average (typically around 50 per cent higher in 2018)'- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'A study conducted in India in the Chandigarh area, that city being the capital of the two neighbouring States of Punjab and Haryana, also suggested there are higher levels of drug use in urban slum areas than in rural areas. If this information were to be validated across all countries, the rapid urbanization of the past decade could be an element that explains, at least partially, the growth in the global drug market. In this context, urbanization becomes a crucial element when considering future dynamics in drug markets, in particular in developing countries, where growth in urbanization is more pronounced than in other countries.'- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'Over the past two decades, drug markets have become increasingly complex in terms of variety and combinations of substances used and trafficked, manufacturing processes and the organizational structure of drug trafficking organizations. There has been a rapid emergence of new substances, as well as new mixes of controlled and non-controlled substances, with an increasing misuse of pharmaceuticals, which poses new challenges for both drug demand and supply control efforts at the national, regional and global levels.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'In the late 1990s, some 230 psychoactive substances were under international control, of which a handful dominated the global drug markets, most notably cannabis, cocaine, opium, heroin, amphetamines and “ecstasy”. Two decades later, the situation has changed, as there are now far more substances on the market. A number of synthetic NPS (i.e. psychoactive substances that mimic the properties of substances already under international control) emerged on the drug markets in the past decade, including synthetic cannabinoids, cathinones, phenethylamines, piperazines and various fentanyl analogues, resulting in a new wave of scheduling of such substances at the international level, with the total number of substances under international control rising from 234 in 2014 to 282 in 2018. At the same time, the number of NPS rose from 166 substances over the period 2005–2009 to 950 substances by the end of 2019. Worldwide, in recent years authorities have identified more than three times as many NPS as there are psychoactive substances under international control' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'Beyond internationally controlled substances, the legal status of many substances in the market differ from country to country, and sometimes within countries. This creates quite complex production and trafficking patterns in which some substances are under national control in some countries but not in others, leaving ample opportunities for producers and traffickers of the substances to select countries depending on the legal status of those substances in the respective jurisdictions, while also quickly adjusting to new controls wherever and whenever they may occur. The multiplicity of substances currently in the market challenges the effectiveness of national and international interventions because the elimination of one substance from the market easily leads to replacement by another.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The growing complexity of drug markets can be also seen in the manufacturing processes of synthetic drugs. In the past, a limited number of precursor chemicals was used to manufacture synthetic drugs, such as amphetamine (manufactured mostly from P-2-P), methamphetamine (manufactured mostly from ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, or from P-2-P in North America) and “ecstasy” (mainly manufactured from 3,4-MDP-2-P). This has changed over the past two decades. As the key precursors mentioned above are all under international control, traffickers have been looking for alternatives. Over the years, different strategies have been adopted by traffickers to overcome controls using as alternative precursors substances that were not equally well controlled in all countries, noncontrolled pre-precursors and so-called “designer precursors”, that is, chemicals specifically designed to circumvent existing precursor control systems. Pharmaceutical preparations containing controlled precursor chemicals have also been used to supply precursors because, although controlled, they are exempt from a number of control mechanisms such as the system of pre-export notifications' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The growing complexity of drug markets can be also observed in the organizational structure of the actors involved. There has been a general trend over the past two decades towards an increasing fragmentation of the serious and organized crime landscape and the emergence of more groups and looser networks. Organizations based on loose cooperation across criminal networks have proved more resilient to law enforcement interventions than other types, as a network that gets dismantled can, in general, be easily replaced by another. The landscape of the global illicit drug trade has thus become more complex, is rapidly evolving and is facilitated by new technology such as encrypted communications software and the darknet.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The shift away from purely hierarchically organized crime groups, characterized by an extensive division of labour within such organizations, also entails the emergence of new groups engaged in specific activities, covering only limited aspects of drug manufacture and logistics or specific areas such as money-laundering and the investment of drug proceeds. Moreover, a number of new groups have emerged in recent years, bypassing many of the traditional actors, purchasing and selling drugs online through the darknet to end users. They make use of private or public postal services to transport drugs to anonymous post office boxes from which they are collected by the end users. The payment is made in parallel by means of cryptocurrency transactions on the darknet' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The way drug trafficking organizations operate has been influenced by the growth of licit international trade and by the emergence of new ways of transporting goods. Notably, the use of containers has increased, and GPS devices have helped to retrieve the drug cargo within the multitude of containers. In a few cases, organized crime groups have even succeeded in hacking the computers of shipping companies to have containers redirected to locations where the drugs could be more easily removed from the container. In parallel, technological innovation has also enabled drug trafficking groups to acquire semi-submersibles to transport drugs, such as cocaine, from South America to Central and North America and, more recently, even to Europe, without being easily detectable. Moreover, drones are being used by drug trafficking groups to assist them in the shipment of drugs across borders. Another technological advance that has facilitated the connection of criminal groups is the emergence of encrypted messaging applications for mobile telephones, which have helped drug dealers to stay connected while maintaining a high degree of anonymity' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'Polydrug use is not a recent trend. It remains a public health concern because the use of multiple drugs potentially increases risks and exacerbates dependence. The management of polydrug use remains a complex and challenging task because treatment is often less successful for individuals who use multiple substances. Moreover, it is difficult to find evidence to address the question about whether the complexity of the drug markets has increased over the past two decades in terms of the number of substances and combinations involved in polydrug use.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'There is evidence that the number of polydrug users has increased in the United States and in the United Kingdom because in both countries the ratio of the aggregated number of users of individual drugs compared with the total number of drug users has followed an upward trend. It is still difficult, however, to assess the actual impact of this trend in terms of health consequences.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'However, polydrug trafficking is not limited to Europe and can also be found in other regions and subregions, including North America, South America, Asia, Oceania and Africa. For a number of years, for example, polydrug trafficking organizations have been dismantled in the United States. A recent example was the dismantlement in July 2019 of an organization involving more than 50 people selling counterfeit oxycodone pills (containing fentanyl), methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and benzodiazepine pills, as well as various types of weapons.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'Demand-driven dynamics of drug markets are the result of changing patterns of drug use and the desire of users to experiment with new substances, which may lead to an increasing number of users starting a new habit. The establishment of the tramadol market for recreational use in certain regions may have initially been generated by an increased demand based on the supply available for medical use. But once a demand was generated, a new supply-driven phenomenon further expanded the market with illicitly manufactured products that were not part of the medical market' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'Increases in drug use have at times also been supply driven, as users react to growing supply and the attendant falling prices by increasing their consumption of those drugs. This was the case with cocaine in recent years, among other drugs. Some of the recent changes in drug markets, such as the opioid crisis in North America and the rapid emergence of a synthetic drug market in the Russian Federation and Central Asia, can also be defined as supply driven phenomena. The expansion of the synthetic drugs market in the Russian Federation seems to be mainly linked to the Hydra darknet platform. While there may now be an established user-based demand for synthetic drugs, the initial trigger was new suppliers. The rise of fentanyl in North America was not defined by a new demand either but was the result of opportunities seized by drug suppliers to reduce costs and thus increase profit margins.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'While the main drug treatment interventions in Asia and Europe continue to be linked primarily to opiates, in Africa to cannabis, and in South America to cocaine, in North America there has been a shift over the past decade from the predominance of cocaine to an increasing importance of opioids. Marked shifts in the main drug for which patients receive drug treatment can also been observed at the subregional level. In a number of countries in East and South-East Asia, for example, methamphetamine has emerged as the predominant drug; in the Near and Middle East, “captagon” tablets (amphetamine), and along the eastern coast of Africa, heroin, have emerged as the predominant drugs.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'Although in Europe opioids continue to be the predominant main drug for which people seek drug treatment, cocaine has become more common in Spain and methamphetamine remains the main drug of concern in Czechia. Within the amphetamines group, different patterns have developed in different subregions. For example, amphetamine continues to be the primary ATS of concern in Europe and in the Middle East, while methamphetamine has emerged as the primary ATS of concern in East and South-East Asia and in North America.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'England and Wales and Australia are examples of places where cocaine and amphetamines have competed for their share of the stimulant market over the past 20 years. Germany and the United States are examples of places where cocaine and amphetamines have together led the changes in the stimulant market. Within the stimulant markets, there are also examples of substitution effects in the “ecstasy” market. In England and Wales, for example, trend data on the use of “ecstasy”, mephedrone and NPS in the period 2005–2019 suggest that first mephedrone and later NPS filled the market space left by the decreasing supply of “ecstasy”, mainly due to a supply shortage, until 2012. Once “ecstasy” started to regain its previous share, the other substances declined sharply' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'In the context of the long-term dynamics of the global drug market, there are many different changes that have affected selected geographical areas. Within the past two decades some regions have seen a gradual transformation of their drug markets: methamphetamine has become the predominant drug in South-East Asia, amphetamine (“captagon’’) in the Middle East, North America has been confronted with the opioid crisis, Africa has seen an expansion of its domestic heroin market, and countries in North and West Africa are now facing a tramadol crisis. More recently, two subregions, the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia and the Russian Federation/ Central Asia, appear to have been affected by rapid changes in their drug markets, with new drugs taking a substantial share of the drug market.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'In the past few years, the manufacture and use of methamphetamine have emerged in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, subregions that until recently were dominated by use of “captagon”. Methamphetamine manufacture and consumption used to be largely unknown in those subregions. Initially reported by only one country in the subregion (Israel), the number of countries reporting seizures of methamphetamine has increased in subsequent years. Overall, eight countries in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia reported seizures of methamphetamine in the period 2000–2009, rising to 14 countries in the period 2010–2018. The bulk of the methamphetamine seized, however, continued to be seized by the Islamic Republic of Iran.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'Much of the methamphetamine production in these subregions was originally intended for exports to the rapidly growing markets of East and South-East Asia, but domestic markets also appear to have started to emerge in the Near and Middle East/ South-West Asia in recent years. Of 15 reporting countries in these subregions, 12 countries reported the use of methamphetamine by 2018 (or the latest year for which data are available). In the absence of scientific data for the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia, qualitative information on trends in methamphetamine use reported by national authorities to UNODC give an indication of the threat experienced by the region. National authorities have reported a clear upward trend in methamphetamine use in those subregions. Methamphetamine appears to have emerged in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia as the main ATS used in the Islamic Republic of Iran (2009– 2018) as well as in Iraq (2016 and 2017), Lebanon (2014–2017), Bahrein (2016), Afghanistan (2015 and 2016), Israel (2014 and 2015) and Kuwait (2003, 2009, 2013' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The emergence of methamphetamine use in Iraq was reported in 2012, when, on the basis of data from medical and psychiatric hospitals, outpatient clients, health centres, surveys of medial patients and prisoners and law enforcement reports, the primary drugs of concern in Iraq were found to be “captagon”, crystalline methamphetamine and tramadol. A study conducted in 2015 reported that drug users in Iraq thought that cannabis was “very difficult” to obtain while “captagon” and methamphetamine were “very easy” to obtain. Both official and media sources report a recent rapid increase in methamphetamine use in Iraq. Initially, law enforcement sources in Iraq suggested that methamphetamine was mainly smuggled into the country from the neighbouring Islamic Republic of Iran, across the long shared border, being smuggled to Basra in the south in particular. However, there have been reports of the clandestine manufacture of methamphetamine inside Iraq. In November 2016, for example, the Iraqi National Security Agency discovered methamphetamine laboratories in Basra and in the south-eastern province of Maysan.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'In this context, INCB raised concerns over large-scale exports of pseudoephedrine preparations from Jordan to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq. While the officially reported estimate of pseudoephedrine used in Iraq in 2018 was approximately 10 tons, notified shipments of pseudoephedrine preparations sent through the Pre-Export Notification Online system were three times that amount. Those shipments took place even though the national authorities objected.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'Most of the clandestine methamphetamine manufacture in the Near and Middle East/South-West Asia has traditionally been in the Islamic Republic of Iran, being manufactured both for the local market and for export to countries in East and South-East Asia (including Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand) as well as for export to Central Asia and the Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Georgia and Tajikistan) and to Europe (including Bulgaria, France, the Russian Federation, Turkey and the United Kingdom). However, the Islamic Republic of Iran is not the main source of the methamphetamine found in other countries in the Near and Middle East/SouthWest Asia (with the exception of Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic). The main source countries for other countries in this subregion seem to continue to be countries in East and South-East Asia. The extent of clandestine methamphetamine manufacture in the Islamic Republic of Iran actually appears to be declining, while manufacturing is rapidly increasing in neighbouring Afghanistan.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'By contrast, quantities of stimulants seized rose twentyfold [in the Russian Federation] over the period 2008–2018, in particular seizures of ATS, which rose to almost 33 times the initial level. Moreover, according to seizure data, a variety of substances (internationally controlled or not) are now present in the synthetic drugs market: methamphetamine and various cathinones, including mephedrone and alpha-PVP. The emergence of “new drugs” in the Russian Federation seems to be supply-driven as it may be, at least partly, linked to the rapid spread of the darknet in the Russian Federation. Data collected among a convenience sample of Internet users suggest that the Russian Federation may have the highest proportion worldwide of Internet users who use the darknet for purchasing drugs; those who purchased drugs on the darknet represented 46 per cent of the drug users among the survey respondents in January 2018, rising to 86 per cent in January 2020.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'An analysis of the Hydra market, based on webscraping techniques, conducted in February 2019, revealed a total of 13,935 drug listings on the platform in one day, dominated by synthetic cathinones (39 per cent of all listings, notably alpha-PVP and mephedrone), cannabis, mostly marijuana (16 per cent) and hashish (14 per cent), traditional ATS, mostly amphetamine (10 per cent) and methamphetamine (1 per cent), cocaine (4 per cent), psychedelics (3 per cent), dissociatives (2 per cent) and opioids (2 per cent). The analysis also indicated that, partly due to the increasing availability of drugs through the darknet, two thirds of the Russian population were now able to buy drugs instantly. The importance of trafficking ATS through the darknet and/or through web shops is also indirectly reflected in the high proportion of ATS being shipped to end users and local retail traffickers by mail: 80 per cent in 2018 – a higher proportion than for most other drug categories in the Russian Federation' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids is not a new phenomenon. It has been observed for decades as part of the polydrug use pattern among high-risk or regular opioid users. What characterizes the most recent opioid crisis is the emergence of non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids as the main phenomenon, leading to alarming rates of dependence and overdose deaths at the national level. The subregions most affected by this crisis are North America and West, Central and North Africa, where different opioids and different dynamics are driving the threat. In North America, the introduction of fentanyl and its analogues (fentanyls) in the drug market has resulted in a syndemic of use of opioids characterized by an unprecedented increase in opioid overdose deaths' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'From what is known, it is possible to identify common threats and different dynamics in the two opioid crises, in Africa and in North America: • The ease of manufacturing, easy accessibility and low-cost production make the illicit markets for tramadol and fentanyls substantially more profitable for traffickers than are other opioids such as heroin. • The large-scale manufacture of tramadol and fentanyls for the illicit market started in a context of an absence of international regulations on tramadol and many fentanyl analogues or their precursors. • The interchangeability (or substitution) of fentanyl and tramadol within the pharmaceutical and illicit drug markets makes it more difficult to address their misuse. Their non-medical use is also seen in the context of self-medication, and thus carries less stigma or is countered by lesser legal sanctions than is the case with other controlled drugs.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'Although geographically disconnected, the areas that were initially affected by the opioid crisis in Canada and the United States have experienced remarkably similar market dynamics, which can be broadly described in the following sequential steps: (a) High rates of prescriptions for pharmaceutical opioids leading to diversion and an increase in the non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids, opioid use disorders and an increase in opioid overdose deaths (b) Regulations introduced to reduce diversion and non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids (e.g., tamper-proof formulations to prevent injecting) (d) Fentanyl (illicitly manufactured in clandestine laboratories) and its analogues emerge as adulterants in heroin and stimulants (cocaine and methamphetamine) and are sold as falsified pharmaceutical opioids, resulting in massive increases in deaths attributed to fentanyls (e) Fentanyls emerge as the dominant opioid in opioid overdose deaths, as well as contributing to overdose deaths attributed to other drugs (g) Fentanyl-related deaths are the main contributor to total opioid overdose deaths;' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The scientific literature has attempted to understand the reasons for the sudden rise of fentanyls in preexisting opioid markets. It seems that an interplay between a number of external factors and local market dynamics played a role in the spread of the opioid crisis in North America. Some of the factors that have led to the rise and continued presence of fentanyls include: (a) the diffusion of simpler and more effective methods of manufacture of synthetic opioids and their analogues (primarily fentanyls); (b) a lack of effective control of precursors and oversight of the manufacture industry; (c) expanding distribution networks; (d) reduced smuggling risks because of new methods of trafficking within the expanded licit trade; and (e) pre-existing market conditions (demand for opioids and potential supply shocks)' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The rate of prescription of opioids in the United States fell to 51.4 prescriptions per 100 persons (a total of more than 168 million opioid prescriptions) in 2018 from a peak of 81.3 opioid prescriptions per 100 persons (or 255 million opioid prescriptions) in 2012. The opioid prescription rate in the southern United States remains high, however, with most states in the region reporting opioid prescription rates of 64 or more per 100 persons in 2018. A number of factors at work, including advertising by the pharmaceutical industry, physicians’ prescription practices, dispensing and medical culture and patient expectations have, since the new millennium, resulted in high prescription rates and dosages of opioids given for an extended duration of care, primarily for the management of acute to chronic non-cancer pain. These practices have also enabled the diversion and misuse of pharmaceutical opioids, together with a greater risk of opioid use disorders among those with a legitimate prescription.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'The illegal trade of Cannabis is one of the most developed illicit industries in the world (> 7 000 tons seized in 2013 ), yearly generating enormous profits used to finance other criminal activities. Exploiting the genetic heterogeneity of marijuana should be the focus of further forensic development to aid the international fight against narcotrafficking.

Given the tremendous diversity of marijuana and the legal difficulty to access samples, joint efforts between Cannabis genetics’ experts worldwide would allow unprecedented opportunities to extend forensic advances and promote the development of the industrial and therapeutic potential of this emblematic species.'
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0170522

'Ideally, Statistics Canada would like to estimate how much cannabis Canadians consume, in total, through the sewage measurements. It might be possible then to subtract legal sales and arrive at the amount of cannabis sold illegally, Peluso says.'
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/04/13/599747395/canada-to-measure-marijuana-use-by-testing-sewage

'In these animated videos, you’ll learn about the racist origins of drug seller stereotypes, the myth of the drug kingpin, and who this broken system hurts the most.'
http://www.drugpolicy.org/drugsellers#swipebox

'“We grow up being told that drug dealers are the worst of the worst,” said Alyssa Stryker, Criminal Justice Reform Manager at the Drug Policy Alliance. “We’re told we need to put them in prison for decades because they’re violent kingpins getting rich by preying on people who use drugs. But many people who sell drugs are people who use drugs, or are working at the very bottom of drug selling hierarchies and barely making ends meet. Many are not involved in any kind of violence or coercion, and are simply trying to support their families under challenging economic conditions.” '
http://www.drugpolicy.org/press-release/2019/03/dpa-releases-nine-part-video-series-rethinking-drug-dealer

'Cannabis is the most widely used drug in the country, with 12 per cent of people reporting having used it in the past year.

At the moment, the black market is worth at least $4.5 billion a year — all of which goes into the pockets of criminals and organised gangs, the Oceania Cannabis Report found.'
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/australia-missing-out-on-more-than-5-billion-by-not-legalising-cannabis-use-report-finds/news-story/50cef9f897412bdbcdb2ec33aa448c1e

'“I expect business to be consistent, if not better. Based on what I’m seeing in other states, I think I can count on the dispensary prices being enough of a deterrent to keep most of my clients—and even up the price tag a little. Once people go to a dispensary and see the receipt, they’ll be, like, ‘That’s why I called you.’

Maybe they’ll go once, as a novelty. But if you have to buy two and pay for three, for anything, you’ll return to the black market.'
https://www.newyorker.com/news/as-told-to/whither-the-weed-dealer-one-care-provider-on-what-legalization-might-do-to-the-black-market

'Broad marijuana legalization arrived in California at the start of the year. From the beginning, there was concern the legal market would be undercut by the massive black market that has existed for decades. And that’s what’s happening. Nowhere is it a bigger problem than in the state’s biggest legal local marijuana market: Los Angeles County. Outlaw dispensaries there greatly outnumber about 150 licensed storefront retailers.'
https://apnews.com/b01a7a001b294b3da5bf45aaf653bc2d

'A behavioral economics analysis published in the journal Addiction offers more evidence that legalizing and regulating cannabis sales can “disrupt and potentially reduce illegal purchases.”'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/legal-marijuana-access-disrupts-the-illicit-market-study-finds/

Legalize ganja in India so that ganja peddlers can become legal retailers and contribute to the economy by paying taxes on revenue earned. Legalize it so that they need not stoop to desperate measures like selling to underage youth and selling other dangerous drugs. Legalize it so that the thousands of jobs that exist in the black market as growers, middlemen and peddlers of ganja can be converted to legal employment. Legalize it so that growers, distributors and retailers can use technology, logistics and share best practices to gain greater market access and everybody including the consumer can benefit.

Regulatory barriers keeping traders in the black market need to be reduced through innovative and inclusive thinking. How about removing or reducing cost of license based retail, random sample product testing and tax rebates to encourage retailers to declare income through sales?

'As the law stands, all legal marijuana available recreationally must be grown in-state. Not surprisingly, the nascent industry in Massachusetts cannot keep up with demand as yet. In come the black-market dealers with plentiful, cheaper weed, using the legalization laws as cover.

Billerica Deputy Police Chief Roy Frost said last week that the illicit market is “as vibrant or more so” than before as a result of the expensive cost of buying legal marijuana during this slow legal rollout. “When large amounts of marijuana is in play, there’s usually a large amount of cash, there’s usually weapons and potential for all types of crime,” Frost said. “It brings a lot of violence.”'
https://www.bostonherald.com/2019/04/09/pot-supply-problem-must-be-addressed/

'The whole reason that this market is successful is because of the controlled substance status of cannabis and THC otherwise I don't think that this would even exist as a shadow of what it currently is'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLD3AKoyV5Q

"The Department of Safety and Homeland Security reported that legalization would reduce the dangerous criminal market. We are excited about this very serious and necessary conversation taking place. Progress is definitely being made and we are one step closer to legalization, and it seems that the state is finally recognizing the complete and utter failure that cannabis prohibition is, and are now having the necessary conversations to repeal this failed, costly policy and keep our state economically competitive."

Looks like the higher THC craze exists everywhere...the risk of good strains getting lost in the obsession with THC is a global problem...

'The drug has a higher tetrahydrocannabinol content, a psychoactive compound, than that of ‘Neelachadayan,’ a home-grown variety (of ganja) cultivated in the forests of Idukki district.

It is smuggled in large quantities into the State by rail and road, including on inter-State trucks and buses carrying courier parcels.'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-kerala/sheelavathi-reigns-over-marijuana-market/article3571530.ece

The health conscious pusher...

'Interestingly, it is this obsessive health consciousness that made them stay away from synthetic drugs like cocaine MD and heroine, which they fed their clients. Instead, they used organic drugs like marijuana, which they consider safer than synthetic drugs, the official said. “They believe marijuana is a herb and is not hazardous like synthetic drugs. Secondly, it increases appetite and the local drug comes cheap,” the official said. They got their regular supply of marijuana from local peddlers in exchange for the synthetic drug, the official said.'
https://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/health-conscious-men-held-in-mumbai-for-selling-cocaine-themselves-preferred-ganja-ate-organic/story-ECGeuWE0FJQPlXH0HtIQ8L.html

Legalize marijuana India for inter-state trade of a plant of great medicinal, agricultural and economic value...

'Initial investigation of police has hinted that people from outside the State had financed and promoted this illegal marijuana cultivation. As per the findings these persons were from Kerala, who through some local landlords had motivated the poor locals to take up marijuana cultivation.'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-otherstates/kerala-drug-mafia-promoting-marijuana-cultivation/article5476993.ece

'An internal government memo says federal officials see no “strong pull factors” for organized crime to invest in legal cannabis over any other industry — despite allegations shady money is already tainting the business.

The government notes say public-safety and health officials do not see criminal infiltration of the booming business as a major threat.'
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/cannabis/article-government-memos-suggest-legal-cannabis-doesnt-have-a-strong-pull/

Legalize the ganja Odisha, Andhra Pradesh...ban the gun Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh...legalize the ganja India..it's high time (pun intended)...

'“Recent arrests show that ganja smuggling has become pan-Indian. In such a scenario, the formation of a nexus of Maoists, ganja smugglers and arms dealers is possible, said deputy excise commissioner M. Satyanarayana.Though the CPI (Maoist) opposes ganja cultivation by tribal communities, it has not entirely put it down. According to one SIB officer, Maoists have been depending on ganja traders for logistic support such as supply of rations, batteries, wires and tarpaulin sheets.'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/maoists-getting-arms-from-ganja-traders/article7563428.ece

Legalize marijuana Kerala..

'Armed Maoist irregulars could be abetting guerrilla cultivation of marijuana in their pockets of influence in forests in north Kerala, according to State police and Excise intelligence officials.'
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/maoists-find-a-profit-patch-in-marijuana-farms/article7340355.ece

Legalize marijuana Chennai..

'“The widening drug distribution scene in the city is the root cause of many crimes, including murders committed under the influence of narcotics. These days, many parents and even school managements approach us for advice on weaning their wards from the drug habit,” says a senior police officer, admitting the drugs scene in Chennai has turned alarming.'
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/chen-crime/trade-of-narcotics-in-chennai/article7028874.ece

Legalize ganja nationwide in India to reduce the black market and provide sustainable livelihood for cultivators and retailers and access to good quality ganja for the public. It is quite obvious that the demand for the plant and its consumption is widespread across the country. It has been so for thousands of years and will continue to be so. It is not a new phenomenon as the report seems to suggest.

'Until last year, the trade in marijuana originating from the Agency areas used to be Tamil Nadu bound. But this year the Excise Department has arrested six persons from Rajasthan, five from Uttar Pradesh and three from Delhi and about 10 from Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand. All this points to a spread of the trade Indiawide.'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/a-relay-race-controlled-by-shadow-men/article7653007.ece

'According to Cassidy, data also show there are 42,000 Illinoisans with cards under the state’s medical marijuana program.

“With that in mind, we know there are a lot of people who are acquiring this product from street-level dealers who are unregulated, who don’t card their customers and who don’t test their product for dangerous additives,” Cassidy said. That means people using the product today are purchasing it illegally and “funding cartels and streets gangs.”'
https://farmweeknow.com/story-prohibition-hasnt-worked-cassidy-pushes-legalize-marijuana-illinois-3-182848

'The evident pattern has given credence to the police theory that armed Left-wing extremist groups could be profiting hugely from the street sale of the drug in Kerala.

Narcotic enforcers say that ganja bought for Rs.1, 500 a kg accrues many times its value when retailed in the State. The profit margin was high and a whole network, from cultivators to smugglers to street-level peddlers stood to gain hugely.'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-kerala/probe-on-into-odisha-ap-connection/article8428497.ece

'Excise officials manning the porous border from a shabby roadside check-post on the congested inter-State highway say that ganja has overtaken illicit spirit as the preferred contraband this year.

Ganja seizures have mounted significantly since January 2017, while spirit smuggling has correspondingly dwindled or shifted to other avenues.'
https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/kerala/ganja-overtakes-illicit-spirit/article19992996.ece

Legalize the ganja so that it can be enjoyed locally and internationally through legitimate purchase without drawing individuals to dark worlds that foster much more dangerous crime?

'It’s hardly a secret that marijuana’s quite easy to get nowadays. Cigarette shop owners, paanwaalas, and otherwise innocuous dealers of innocuous goods hide their stash just out of sight of the unaware. Rustom Juneja is just another marijuana-smoking adult in one of India’s biggest cities. He used to get his ‘stuff’ from local dealers. Till he “got bored of Indian produce,” as he says.

So, in 2015, he decided to go to the dark web.“I brought strains of marijuana from the U.S. and Canada, from a marketplace on the dark web,” Juneja says. The packages were shipped from their respective countries, they traversed borders, bypassed stringent security and checks, crossed continents, and landed at Juneja’s doorstep.'
https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/internet/sex-drugs-and-the-dark-web/article19818872.ece

Legalize it to create jobs and end funding of crime...

'Marijuana smuggled into Kerala often came first to Madurai from Anakapalle in Andhra Pradesh, usually hidden in jaggery consignments.

The ganja, which cost less than Rs 2,000 per kg at the source, accrued in value manifold when peddled on the street in Kerala where a small 5-gm packet cost Rs 500 and above. A carrier earned around Rs 2000 for a successful run. The chunk of the earnings went to the big league of shadowy drug smugglers who controlled their inter-State racket on credit, trust and hired thugs.'
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Thiruvananthapuram/massive-ganja-haul-by-city-police/article26219263.ece

'The Narcotics Control Bureau, Hyderabad sub-zone, on Wednesday recovered 1,020 kilograms of ganja from a truck in Rajendra Nagar here.

The contraband was concealed beneath 18 metric tonnes of coal powder, a press release said. The officials used an excavator to remove the coal powder. '
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/1020-kg-of-marijuana-seized-by-ncb/article26333756.ece

'Three persons were on Wednesday caught red-handed by the Mico Layout police while attempting to sell drugs to college students and software engineers. The police seized 12 kg of marijuana from them'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/12-kg-of-marijuana-seized/article25511817.ece

'Legal cannabis supply has been growing for several quarters as producers built inventory in preparation for legalization in October.

Household final expenditure on legal cannabis products was $307 million at current prices in the fourth quarter, while spending on illegal products was $1.2 billion. Thus illegal cannabis represented an estimated 79% of the market, down from 90% in the third quarter. '
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/13-605-x/2019001/article/00003-eng.htm

'If the measure becomes law, as expected by industry observers, the new ordinance would empower the city’s Department of Water and Power to disconnect both electricity and water utilities at locations that have been identified as unlicensed MJ shops by both the L.A. Department of Cannabis Regulation (DCR) and either the police department or another city agency.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/l-a-cutting-off-utilities-for-illegal-marijuana-shops/

Legalize ganja to prevent the exploitation of financially disadvantaged women and to provide women with alternate opportunities for employment in the areas of cultivation, distribution and retailing of ganja.

'Although women arrested for smuggling ganja make up a little over 5% of the total arrested in cases of ganja smuggling, their role in the trade cannot be ignored. Moreover, women, especially from the financially disadvantaged families, from parts of Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and Tamil Nadu, are the ones ones being deployed.'
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/visakhapatnam/ganja-smugglers-using-women-as-mules/articleshow/67966208.cms

'“During interrogation, the accused said they would sell weed near colleges, schools, metro stations and several other places in Noida and Greater Noida. We are investigating the spots and a raid will be conducted soon,” Pant said.'
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/noida/4-of-gang-held-with-ganja-worth-rs-10l-2-on-the-run/articleshow/67169609.cms

Legalize ganja in Australia and worldwide to reduce the illegal trade of narcotics and to provide people with the legal option ofa natural medicinal recreational drug.

'The Australian Border Force deals with a particularly unique problem in contrast to the rest of the world; attempting to intercept drugs that arrive into Australia internationally, from an internal dark web drug market that relies almost entirely on those very same international shipments. Last year the Australian Border Force made nearly 50,000 drug detections. We embed with them as they find the drugs concealed in packages and envelopes being sent by Dark Web dealers from all over the world.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYlnpn4b9SY

'Latin American countries frustrated by the United States’ refusal to change its drug war strategy are pushing the U.S. government to look at alternatives to a fight that has killed tens of thousands in a region beset by drug cartels.'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-international/alternatives-sought-to-us-war-on-drugs/article4786564.ece

'Decriminalization will not, however, reduce the risks associated with a criminal market providing captive consumers with more and more addictive and dangerous products. This is why the control of drugs should shift from unregulated criminal markets to government, with regulation similar to that for other risky products, including alcohol, tobacco, and some legal drugs.'
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2018/09/24/doctors-support-regulated-markets-illicit-drugs/

Legalize it?

'Armed Left-wing extremist groups operating in Naxalite-affected States in South India are possibly benefitting from the street sale of marijuana in Kerala, say Excise Department enforcers and intelligence officials.'
https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/Ganja-trail-leads-to-Naxalite-belt/article16143014.ece

'Los Angeles prosecutors have filed misdemeanor charges against 515 people in a clampdown on 105 illegal marijuana businesses in the city – a move that could benefit legal MJ companies by helping to eliminate black-market rivals.'
https://mjbizdaily.com/l-a-crackdown-105-unlicensed-cannabis-firms-500-plus-people-targeted/

'When whole nations have sometimes submitted to a new religious creed, and become Christians or Mohammedans, these conversions have been accomplished not because men wielding power rendered them compulsory by violence (on the contrary, violence has more often acted in the contrary direction) but because public opinion made such a change inevitable. Nations forced by violence to accept the faith of their conquerors have always remained antagonistic to it.

Cannabis and the Medical Industry

https://ravingkoshy.blogspot.com/2020/11/cannabis-and-medical-industry.html

With no scientific basis global drug laws are invalid
https://ravingkoshy.blogspot.com/2020/06/with-no-scientific-basis-global-drug.html

A Look At The NDPS Act 1985 From A Cannabis Perspective
https://ravingkoshy.blogspot.com/2020/08/a-look-at-ndps-act-1985-from-cannabis.html

Thoughts from the void

Pages

Top Three Popular Posts

Thursday 25 April 2019

Cannabis and the Black Market

No comments:

Post a Comment

Followers

Total Pageviews

Report Abuse