Thoughts from the void: Cannabis and Austria

'At the global level, Germany was the second largest consumer of opioid pain relievers, with an estimated 28,862 S-DDD per million population per day for medical use in 2017, followed by Austria, Belgium and Switzerland. In Germany, the number of pharmaceutical opioids overall and the number of people receiving opioid treatment have increased over the past few decades; in most instances, prescriptions were given for non-chronic cancer pain. A review of scientific literature from Germany published between 1985 and 2016 showed that out of the 12 studies reviewed, 6 studies reported a prevalence for patients with medical use of any opioid for long-term treatment of non-cancer chronic pain ranging from 0.54 to 5.7 per cent, while four studies reported a prevalence for patients with medical use of opioids at 0.057 to 1.39 per cent of the population' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_4.pdf

'If it does happen that patriotism takes possession of the crowd, as has now occurred in Paris, it only happens when the masses are subjected to intensive hypnotism by the governments and ruling classes, and such patriotism is only maintained among the people as long as that hypnotic influence is maintained.

So for instance in Russia, where patriotism, in the form of love and devotion to the Faith, the Tsar, and the Fatherland, is grafted onto the Russian people with extraordinary intensity by every instrument in the hands of the government: the Church, the schools, the Press, and all kinds of ceremonies - the Russian working-class, the hundred-million Russian people, despite the undeserved reputation bestowed on them as being particularly devoted to the Faith, Tsar, and Fatherland, are the in fact the freest of all people from the deception of patriotism and from devotion to Faith, Tsar, and Fatherland. For the most part, the Russian peasant knows nothing about the Faith - that Orthodox State faith to which he is supposed to be devoted - and as soon as he recognizes it he rejects it and becomes a rationalist, that is, he adopts a belief which can neither be attacked nor defended. And towards his Tsar (in spite of incessant, intensive attempts to instill a feeling of devotion) his attitude is the same as to all authorities employing violence, that is one if not of condemnation then of complete indifference. While as to his Fatherland (unless one understands it to mean his own village or his own district) he is either completely ignorant of it or, if he knows it, he makes no distinction between it and other countries. Russians now settle quite indifferently in Russia or outside it, in Turkey or in China, just as they formerly emigrated to Austria or to Turkey.'

Leo Tolstoy - The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays

Legalize the ganja for recreational use world wide...

'The document was presented during the 62nd session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Austria, and concludes that, “to reduce the consequences of the drug problem, especially in our most vulnerable populations, countries must adopt policies that take into account the gender perspective and that are based on a public health approach focused on the well-being of the individual and a clear respect for human rights.”'
http://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-014%2F19

'The Vienna-based member states’ bodies, the CND, and the convention-mandated International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) have been central in promoting the global narrative of “drugs as threat” which has underpinned “war on drugs” policies around the world. The influence of these multilateral bodies is substantial. The CND is the central drug policy-making body within the UN; UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) is the operational agency implementing the mandated role of the UN Secretary-General; and the INCB the semi-judicial body ensuring countries’ compliance with the conventions. However, UN mandates and responses to organized crime cut across the system, with seventy percent or more of UN departments having some mandate or initiative related to organized crime (see figure 4). Despite this, there is no strategic framework or inter-departmental coordination body on organized crime within the UN system as there is, for example, on terrorism.'
https://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/FINAL-EN_2020report_web.pdf

'There are also signs of increasing non-medical use of pharmaceutical opioids in Western and Central Europe, as reflected in the increasing proportion of treatment admissions for the use of those substances in recent years. In 2017, users of pharmaceutical opioids, including misused methadone, buprenorphine, fentanyl, codeine, morphine, tramadol and oxycodone, accounted for 22 per cent of all clients entering drug treatment in the subregion for opioid use disorders (as their primary drug).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf

'The type and form of amphetamines used vary considerably between regions and subregions. In North America, the non-medical use of pharmaceutical stimulants and methamphetamine is most prevalent; in East and South-East Asia and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand), it is methamphetamine; and in Western and Central Europe and the Near and Middle East, it is amphetamine. In the latter subregion, amphetamine is commonly known as “captagon”. In many countries in South and Central America, especially those that have reported recent survey data, the non-medical use of pharmaceutical stimulants is more common than the use of other amphetamines. The non-medical use of weight loss pills is reportedly more prevalent among women than among men, with pills such as sibutramine hydrochloride monohydrate (sold under the brand names Aderan and Ipomex) and phentermine (sold under the brand names Duromine and Suprenza), along with methylphenidate and amphetamine, reported to be the most commonly misused pharmaceutical stimulants in those subregions' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf

'European wastewater analysis confirms the patterns of use of amphetamines reported in household survey data, which point to an overall prevalence of amphetamine use in Europe that is higher than that of methamphetamine, as methamphetamine use is predominant in only a few countries. Wastewater analyses, conducted in 140 cities in 33 countries across Europe, suggest that the quantity of amphetamine consumed per capita over the period 2011–2019 was 1.7 times larger in 2019. In most of the cities included in the analysis, amphetamine was the most consumed substance of the amphetamines group in 2019 (or the latest year available)' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf

'Globally, an estimated 19 million people were pastyear users of cocaine in 2018, corresponding to 0.4 per cent of the global population aged 15–64. The main cocaine markets continue to be North America and Western and Central Europe, with a prevalence of use of 2.1 per cent and 1.4 per cent, respectively, while the highest prevalence of past-year cocaine use is in Australia and New Zealand, at 2.2 per cent of the population aged 15–64. Cocaine use is also higher than the global average in Central America (0.7 per cent) and South America (1.0 per cent).' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.pdf

'The largest total quantity of heroin and morphine seized in a region outside Asia is that reported for Europe (22 per cent of the global total in 2018), which is an important market for the consumption of heroin. Heroin and morphine seized in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe continued to account for the bulk (66 per cent) of all such quantities seized in Europe in 2018, with most of the heroin and morphine seized in the region continuing to be reported by Turkey (62 per cent), followed by Western and Central Europe (31 per cent) and Eastern Europe (3 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

'While the strongest increase in the quantities of heroin and morphine seized in 2017 was reported in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe (the same year as the bumper opium harvest reported in Afghanistan), the strongest increase in 2018 was reported in Western and Central Europe (89 per cent). This suggests that it may take a year from when opium is harvested in Afghanistan until it is manufactured into the heroin that ends up on the streets of Western and Central Europe. There were increases in heroin and morphine seizures in Europe in the countries along the Balkan route in 2018, although most of the increase was due to an increase in the quantities of heroin and morphine seized in Belgium and, to a lesser extent, in France and Italy.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_3.pdf

'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

'The world’s single largest heroin trafficking route continues to be the so-called “Balkan route”, along which opiates from Afghanistan are shipped to Iran (Islamic Republic of), Turkey, the Balkan countries and to various destinations in Western and Central Europe. Not counting seizures made in Afghanistan itself, countries along the Balkan route accounted for 58 per cent of the global quantities of heroin and morphine seized in 2018. A further 8 per cent of those global seizures were reported by countries in Western and Central Europe, whose markets are supplied to a great degree by heroin and morphine that is trafficked along the Balkan route' - 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 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

'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

The rot runs deep but the walls will fall...

'While the critical review of marijuana itself has been postponed, the committee’s recommendations for its international scheduling are still expected to go up for a vote in the CND in March. If the committee does decide to recommend that cannabis be removed from international control, that would have wide-ranging implications for the reform efforts around the world.

In the U.S., the federal government has routinely cited obligations under international treaties to which it is a party as reasons to continue to ban marijuana and its derivatives. For instance, the Food and Drug Administration said in May that CBD doesn’t meet the criteria for federal scheduling at all, but that international treaties obliged it to recommend rescheduling to Schedule V.'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/un-committee-unexpectedly-withholds-marijuana-scheduling-recommendations/

Overzealous bureaucrats standing against positive change come what may and insisting on implementing outdated and backward policies which have been rejected by the creators of the policies themselves. Like soldiers who don't want to leave the battlefield even though the war is over and the death count has been devastating on all sides..

'The INCB’s president, Dr. Viroj Sumyai, noted in the foreword to the report that the conventions allow only for the medical and scientific use of cannabis, noting:

“The legalization of the use of cannabis for nonmedical purposes in some countries represents a challenge to the universal implementation of the treaties, a challenge to public health and well-being, particularly among young people, and a challenge to the parties to the treaties.”'
https://mjbizdaily.com/incb-medical-cannabis-violate-treaties/

'@CND_tweets unanimously adopts procedural decision to postpone the consideration of @WHO cannabis-related recommendations, to provide MS with more time to consider the recommendations @UNODC @UN_Vienna #CND2019 #CND62'
https://twitter.com/CND_tweets/status/1107957581673385985

'The document was presented during the 62nd session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Austria, and concludes that, “to reduce the consequences of the drug problem, especially in our most vulnerable populations, countries must adopt policies that take into account the gender perspective and that are based on a public health approach focused on the well-being of the individual and a clear respect for human rights.”'
http://www.oas.org/en/media_center/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-014%2F19