'There is a lot of wreckage in the fast lane these days. Not even the rich feel safe from it, and people are looking for reasons. The smart say they can't understand it, and the dumb snort cocaine in rich discos and stomp to a feverish beat. Which is heard all over the country, or at least felt. The stomping of the rich is not a noise to be ignored in troubled times. It usually says they are feeling anxious or confused about something, and when the rich feel anxious and confused, they act like wild animals.'
- Hunter S. Thompson
'Worldwide, drug use is more widespread in developed countries than in developing countries. Drugs such as cocaine are even more firmly associated with the wealthier parts of the world. Likewise, within countries, the wealthier sectors of society have a higher prevalence of drug use.'
- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report
2020,
'In recent years, we have seen synthetic opioids, such as illicitly manufactured fentanyl, drive many overdose deaths with cocaine- and methamphetamine-related deaths also increasing at alarming rates.'
- The White House
''"I am damn proud of my son who overcame being addicted and he did it and he's doing it and he's in good shape, thank God," said Biden of his son Hunter.'
- CNN
'Mr Johnson himself has said that he attempted to snort "a white substance" while at university, but claimed that none of it went up his nose and said he did not know whether or not it was cocaine.'
- The Independent
The story of cocaine is in many ways a parallel to the story of cannabis. There are many similarities, but there are also differences.
The coca plant, endemic to South and Central America, was used for thousands of years by the indigenous communities of these regions. Coca leaves and paste have been consumed by the indigenous peoples of South America for centuries in beverages, food and traditional medicine. The stimulating effects of the plant in its natural form are not as toxic or harmful as synthesized cocaine. People chew coca leaves to relieve hunger and fatigue and to enhance physical performance. Coca extracts are used for stimulating stomach function, causing sedation, and treating asthma, colds, and other ailments. Coca tea is used for altitude sickness in the Peruvian Andes and elsewhere. When the Europeans discovered the coca plant, they very quickly found out ways to synthesize it so that they could make cocaine. Cocaine became immensely popular in Europe and North America among the white settlers. People like Sigmund Freud played significant roles in making cocaine a popular drug. Soon cocaine was much in demand among the rich and famous all over Europe and North America. The demand for cocaine and the lucrative prices it commanded, led the whites to bring about increasing regulation of its cultivation, and eventually its prohibition. With this, the traditional coca plant was taken out of the hands of the indigenous communities of South and Central America to whom it belonged, and placed under the control of the wealthy upper classes - both white and native - who ruled these regions. The poor, and the indigenous communities in these regions, work effectively as slaves for the rich upper classes, cultivating the coca plant clandestinely, processing it and delivering it to the rich. UNODC's World Drug Report 2020, states that 'Globally, an estimated 19 million people were past year 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).' For their efforts the poor and indigenous communities are jailed or killed, and forced to remain in abject poverty. UNODC's World Drug Report 2020, states that 'Cocaine-related offences are particularly prevalent in the Americas, reflecting the extent of cocaine supply and trafficking in the region. Among those brought into contact with the criminal justice system for drug trafficking in the Americas, cocaine accounts for about 40 per cent, with similar proportions of men and women.'
This runs on similar lines to what happened with the cannabis plant in India. There are differences as well, however.
For example, the rich are proud of their cocaine use, and even flaunt it as one of the privileges of wealth, never shying away from showing their association with cocaine. With cannabis however, the image created was that it was the drug of the lowest classes, the browns and the blacks, and the criminals, laborers and prostitutes. Hence, cannabis is shunned in public by the rich and famous, as something that is demeaning, even though it is used clandestinely and discretely by a few who would be loathe to admit the same in public. The equivalent of being associated with cannabis for the rich would be getting caught with their pants down in one of the poorest brothels in town. What would everybody think? What about the social status and the social image? Globally, according to official estimates, there are about 250+ million cannabis users despite its illegal status, as compared to the 19 million or so cocaine users. The cannabis users are mostly from the poorer and lower classes, while the cocaine users are from the elite and upper classes.
The demand for cocaine in North America, Europe and Oceania has led to the formation of the world's biggest drug cartels in Colombia and Mexico. The US is the world's biggest cocaine consumer. Brazil is South America's biggest consumer. While officials and politicians put on the charade of fighting the war on drugs on one side, on another they work in cohorts with the drug cartels ensuring that the affluent get their cocaine delivered at their doorsteps. To show progress in the war on drugs, cannabis is routinely seized and a big noise is made about it for the benefit of the public. The heads of government in the US, UK, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia work together to ensure that any threats to this set up, especially through efforts such as the legalization of cannabis, is kept to a minimum. When certain routes appear to be blocked, mainly through uncooperative heads of state and drug cartels, new routes are created. While Mexico was the primary route of cocaine flow into North America from Colombia, Brazil and Uruguay appear to be the routes through which cocaine flow out to the rest of the world, mostly Europe and Oceania. UNODC's World Drug Report 2020 states that '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'
Besides the rich obtaining their cocaine from illegal sources, they also manufacture, import and export cocaine under the cloak of legality. INCB, in its 2019 Report says that 'The main manufacturing country [for cocaine] was the United Kingdom (122.8 kg, or 79.8 per cent of global manufacture), followed by the United States (31.1 kg, or 20.2 per cent). The main exporting country in 2018 was Peru (330 kg, or 77.4 per cent of global exports), followed by the United Kingdom (71.5 kg, or 16.8 per cent) and the Netherlands (16.4 kg, or 3.8 per cent). Switzerland, Germany and the United States each exported cocaine in quantities of more than 1 kg. The United Kingdom was the main importing country in 2018 (330.3 kg), accounting for 77.7 per cent of global imports of cocaine; it was followed by the Netherlands (40.3 kg, or 9.5 per cent), Canada (15.2 kg, or 3.6 per cent), Belgium (9.5 kg, or 2.2 per cent), Germany (6.1 kg, or 1.4 per cent) and Australia (5.0 kg, or 1.2 per cent).'
Cocaine is a stimulant. It gives you a such a lift that you keep wanting to getting lifted. William S Burroughs, writes in his book, Junk - 'Coke is pure kick. It lifts you straight up, a mechanical lift that starts leaving you as soon as you feel it. I don't know anything like C[ocaine] for a lift, but the lift lasts only ten minutes or so. Then you want another shot. You can't stop shooting C - as long as it is there you shoot it.' On cocaine, a person can do superhuman things because of the energy. This could be anything from pounding your partner for long hours for pleasure, or pounding the enemy for long hours for pain. The energy is just what the rich need in their relentless pursuit of material wealth and power. The problem is that the lift subsides as quickly as it comes, leaving a very strong desire for another lift. William S Burroughs, writes in his book, Junk - 'When you take a shot of junk [opium] you are satisfied, just like you ate a big meal. You don't want another shot right away. But using C[ocaine] you want another shot as soon as the effect wears off. If you have C in the house, you will not go out to a movie or go out at all until the C is all gone. One shot creates an urgent desire for another shot to maintain the high.' This means that one must have continuous supplies of cocaine to keep the energy levels up. It is obvious that the rich have no problems with their supplies of cocaine. UNODC's World Drug Report 2020 says '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.' All one needs to do is look at the state of the world today, and the ever widening gap between the rich and the poor.
The coca plant's unprocessed raw products is sufficient to provide the energy to fuel the people who work for the rich to ensure that their supply of cocaine is uninterrupted. UNODC's World Drug Report 2020 says that 'In South America, 2.8 million people, or almost 1 per cent of the population aged 15–64, were estimated to be past-year cocaine users in 2018. With nearly 1.5 million past-year cocaine and “crack” cocaine users, Brazil is the largest cocaine market in South America. The use of cocaine base paste, which was previously confined to countries where cocaine is manufactured, has spread to many countries in South America. However, such use is difficult to estimate since people who use cocaine base paste are usually from socially marginalized groups that are not well captured by household surveys.'
But what about the energy that is needed by those who do not have access to the coca plant's raw products, and who must work for the rich? Well, alcohol is one source. Recently, methamphetamine and other amphetamine like substances (ATS) have been found to be a good alternative fuel to be supplied to the poor to ensure that they work for the rich. Increasingly, it has been found that where cocaine supply is becoming scarce, methamphetamine is stepping up to fill the gap. UNODC's World Drug Report 2020 states that 'The stimulant scene is dominated by cocaine and methamphetamine, and use of both substances is rising in their main markets. Some 19 million people used cocaine in 2018, fueled by the drug’s popularity in North America and Western Europe. Roughly 27 million people used amphetamines that same year, methamphetamine being the most used ATS [amphetamine type substance] in South-East Asia. Use of methamphetamine in these two subregions has been expanding for two decades, according to most available indicators. Cocaine and methamphetamine can coexist in some markets by acting as substitutes for each other, so that use of one drug rises when the other goes down, or by feeding the same market with parallel increases and declines.' Methamphetamine can be manufactured almost anywhere and sold to the poor by the rich so that the poor do not start poaching on the rich's supplies of precious cocaine. The meth will provide the energy for the poor, make the rich richer, and the cocaine is saved. Its a win-win for all. UNODC, in its World Drug Report 2020, reports that - '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.' In another place, in its WDR 2020, UNODC says that '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.' As a further example, the UNODC report states - '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.'
One of the main health issues with regard to cocaine use has been found to be the increased risk of heart attacks. This is to be expected, as it is a very strong stimulant. This is further amplified when cocaine is mixed with other drugs, especially alcohol. William S Burroughs writes in Junk - 'When you are shooting C[ocaine], you shoot more M[orphine] to level the C kick and smooth out the rough edges. Without M, C makes you too nervous, and M is an antidote for an overdose. There is no tolerance with C, and not much margin between a regular and a toxic dose. Several times I got too much and everything went black and my heart began turning over. Luckily I always had plenty of M on hand, and a shot of M fixed me right up.' Cocaine acts on the dopamine receptors of the brain and has also been found to cause brain damage from prolonged use. Crack cocaine has been associated with suicidal tendencies. NCBI carries a paper that states that - 'In Brazil, crack-cocaine use and suicidal behavior are public health problems. A recently large-scale study with a representative sample of Brazilians found rates of suicidal attempts and deaths in the general population of 9.9 and 5.4%, respectively. In crack-cocaine users these rates were significantly higher, 40.0 and 20.8%, respectively. Previous studies have shown that 47% of crack-cocaine users had a current suicide risk, and a prevalence of suicidal behaviors of 30% in crack-cocaine addicts, in Brazil.'
There is an almost as unmistakable link between cocaine and violence as there is between alcohol and violence. The stimulant nature of cocaine appears to lead to the release of aggression and violence. Both perpetrator and victim appear to be associated with cocaine in the case of domestic violence. UNODC, in its World Drug Report 2020, says - 'The association between domestic violence, including male perpetrated intimate partner violence against women, and psychoactive substance use has been investigated extensively. While it is not possible to ascertain a causal relationship between these phenomena, evidence shows that women who were injured by a male intimate partner are two to three times more likely to abuse alcohol and to have used cocaine than those who were not injured' Not only is this violence personal, as in terms of the user and victim, it is also social, with criminal networks and organizations perpetrating massive violence to protect their interests, often in cohorts with law and drug enforcement. The success of the Colombian and Mexican drug cartels is clear evidence of this fact. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, in its World Drug Report 2020, says 'Drug use is associated to a degree with homicidal violence, but at a much lower rate than alcohol use. However, there is also evidence of synergistic effects of alcohol used in combination with drugs, cocaine in particular as it can potentiate violent thoughts and threats. In addition, it has been shown, for example, that during the “crack” cocaine epidemic which started in the United States in 1984, the sharp increase in the number of homicides in many cities could be attributed to the use of “crack” cocaine, but also, and to a much greater degree, to systemic violence, mostly resulting from territorial disputes. However, some have argued that the greatest effect of drug use on violence may be indirect, by creating a demand for the illicit production and distribution of drugs. In addition, for a variety of reasons, illegal markets can sometimes and in some places generate enormous violence.'
If the world was serious about tackling cocaine as a menace, then it would look seriously at the legalization of cannabis. Cannabis also has stimulant properties. It also has a number of other medicinal properties that make it far superior to cocaine. The legalization of cannabis would mean that it can be grown everywhere and can meet, complement or replace the market demand for cocaine in various parts of the world. This would sharply cut down the illegal trafficking of cocaine, and hence the drug cartels involved in it. It would enable the indigenous coca growing communities to go back to cultivating coca for their recreational, religious and medical properties. So, essentially we are talking about a two-pronged strategy -
- Legalizing coca cultivation as a natural crop so that the indigenous communities of South and Central America get back their plant to cultivate, grow and process as they wish, and to benefit commercially from the same. We hear much talk about how the indigenous communities must be dissuaded from cultivating coca. For example, LA Times reports that - 'Mathiasen said the increase in coca crops also has much to do with the lack of economic alternatives for 119,000 farm families estimated to be growing the illicit crop, and he urged international assistance to help Colombia bear the high cost of such alternatives. The U.N. has long held that crop substitution is the only effective method of combating coca farming.' But the problem is not the cultivation of coca by the indigenous communities. This is their tradition and culture and they have been doing this for centuries. The problem is with the rich having misused and abused the coca plant, making the poor appear responsible for their own lack of self control. In Colombia attempts to legalize and regulate coca leaf have been in the news in recent times. LA Times reports that a bill was being tabled through which 'farmworkers would sell their coca harvests to the national government, which would keep tabs on illicit market rates in hopes of preventing sales to traffickers for a higher profit. Then the government would control cocaine distribution through its health network. Adults would be limited to one gram of cocaine per week. Additionally, some Indigenous groups have used the coca crop for millennia, most often chewed raw for energy and to treat ailments, the proposed legislation would permit the production for ancestral purposes. The pharmaceutical and nonpsychoactive use of coca, such as in food products, would also be allowed.' The US President Joe Biden recently issued a memo through the White House that stated - '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.' What the memo did not acknowledge, however, was that the US was the leading cause for the global cocaine problem, being the largest global market for cocaine, as well as the strongest opponent to cannabis legalization from a federal perspective.
- Legalizing cannabis globally so that it can be cultivated and sold everywhere, thus blunting the global demand for cocaine and methamphetamine. The equating of cannabis with cocaine and methamphetamine has been one of the strategies used to keep it illegal, along with these much more dangerous drugs, in national and international drug laws. For example, in the US, cannabis is in the most restricted Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act, whereas cocaine and methamphetamine are in Schedule II. Not just heads of state, but scientific and medical organizations have been responsible for this amplification of evils associated with cannabis, thus making it all the more difficult to use it as a harm reduction alternative to cocaine use. For example, Nature reports that - 'In our view, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s stance on the country’s addiction problems is too simplistic to counter the scale of the challenge. A national survey indicates that 1.3 million citizens were addicted to marijuana and 2.6 million were using crack cocaine last year.'
There are many benefits of cannabis legalization. Its ability to completely upend the global illegal drug trafficking of cocaine and methamphetamine is just one. It has the potential to change for the better the entire global landscape of medicine, industry, agriculture, business and economics. Its benefits in treating problems of cocaine abuse are increasingly being reported. Science Direct published a paper that said - 'Without altering cocaine distribution across the brain, cannabinoids significantly suppress cocaine-exaggerated neuronal excitability in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus by rehabilitating extra-synaptic GlyR [glycine receptor] function. Microinjection of cannabinoids into the PFC and hippocampus restores cocaine-puzzled neural activity and alleviates CISs [cocaine-induced seizures]. These findings suggest that using GlyR-hypersensitive cannabinoids may represent a potential therapeutic strategy for treating CISs.' Mariuana Moment says that - '“The evidence described in the present systematic review indicates that CBD is a promising adjunct therapy for the treatment of cocaine dependence due to its effect on cocaine consumption, brain reward, anxiety, related contextual memories, neuroadaptations and hepatic protection as well as its anticonvulsant effect and safety,” the study authors concluded. “The clinical administration of CBD leads to a reduction in the self-administration of cocaine and, consequently, the amount of the drug consumed. Moreover, the reward induced by cocaine is blunted by CBD treatment.”' Nature reported that 'CBD may exert anti-inflammatory effects in individuals with CUD[cocaine use disorder].'
But there is a crucial downside, if you belong to the rich, that is. It will make the gap between the rich and the poor smaller. It will enable more people to become sustainable and less dependent on the rich, thus cutting down the inflow of wealth for today's rich classes who thrive on industries such as cocaine, opium, alcohol, tobacco, petrochemicals and synthetic pharmaceuticals that have grown colossal in the absence of cannabis. It could also make the rich start to wonder why they need all this wealth, and whether they can find better things to do with their time, such as living in the moment and connecting with nature.
Coca being mainly endemic to South America, its availability in natural form may not sufficiently meet the global demand for natural stimulants. This is where cannabis as a stimulant comes into the picture. Cannabis grows in nearly all countries of the world. Its stimulant properties are as effective as well as potentially much more harmless and beneficial than the natural coca"s stimulant properties. The fact that many musicians, sports persons, and other persons performing physically and creatively demanding work enjoy cannabis regularly is testimony to its stimulant properties. The Indian Hemp Drugs Commission, in its report of 1895, says - '470. The use of these [hemp]drugs to give staying-power under severe exertion or exposure or to alleviate fatigue is very largely in evidence. Here it is ganja especially which is credited with these beneficial effects. For ganja is far more extensively used than bhang by the labouring classes. The latter is mainly used by persons like the Chaubes of Mathra, who are very frequently referred to, and professional wrestlers. Gymnasts, wrestlers and musicians, palki-bearers and porters, divers and postal runners, are examples of the classes who use the hemp drugs on occasions of especially severe exertion. Fishermen and boatmen, singhara cultivators working in tanks, dhobis and night watchmen, mendicants and pilgrims, are named as among those who use them under severe exposure. All classes of labourers, especially such as blacksmiths, miners, and coolies, are said more or less generally to use the drugs as a rule in moderation to alleviate fatigue.' Regarding its stimulating effects, the Commission reports that - 'As a result of several experiments on pupils at the Medical College, Calcutta, [Dr. William] O'Shaughnessy observes: "The result of several trials was that in as small doses as 1/4 of a grain the pulse was increased in fulness and frequency; the surface of the body glowed; the appetite became extraordinary; vivid ideas crowded the brain; unusual loquacity occurred.' Quoting another witness, the Commission writes that - 'Dr. Russell (Bengal witness No. 105), in his note furnished to Dr. Prain, gives the following effects of "doses pushed to produce a decided effect": "Mental effects appear in from three to five minutes; exhilaration and excitement of a pleasing nature: the subject talkative and merry; laughs and gesticulates; plays on imaginary musical instruments and sings; converses with imaginary persons; illusions and delusions, usually of a pleasing nature; objective of these very responsive to external impressions and suggestions; rarely quarrelsome or combative'. Finally, in its summary on the immediate effects of cannabis usage, the Commission wrote that - '485. Judging from the replies of several witnesses, the immediate effect of the moderate use of any of the hemp drugs on the habitual consumer is refreshing and stimulating, and alleviates fatigue, giving rise to pleasurable sensations all over the nervous system, so that the consumer is "at peace with everybody"—in a grand waking dream. He is able to concentrate his thoughts on one subject: it affords him pleasure, vigour, ready wit, capacity for hard work, and sharpness for business; it has a quieting effect on the nervous system, and removes restlessness and induces forgetfulness of mental troubles; all sorts of grotesque ideas rapidly pass through the mind, with a tendency to talk; it brightens the eyes, and, like a good cigar, gives content; the man feels jolly, sings songs, and tells good stories; it causes bravery in the brave and cowardice in the timid, and, like alcohol, brings out the real character of the man'
To be globally rich, to stay rich, and to become richer, one must ensure that the majority of the world's people - its poor - remain enslaved to the rich. To keep the poor chained, one must ensure that they do not have access to their cannabis. The coca plant is endemic only to South and Central America, but cannabis grows everywhere. If cannabis is legalized everywhere, the poor who cultivate, process and deliver the cocaine to the rich may well decide that they do not want to do so anymore. They may decide to grow and smoke the cannabis. They may even start to get ideas like one can live with a lot less and still be happy, and that the rich are not really that great as aspirational role models. The combined actions of legalizing coca in its natural form in South America and cannabis globally will bring down drastically the demand for cocaine and methamphetamine (all amphetamines, actually). This will help to curb the illicit market for these harmful synthetic drugs as well as provide small farmers, indigenous communities and the people of the world, in general, with much more wholesome, natural, medicinal stimulants that they can enjoy, instead of the synthetic poisons that they are fed as a society by unscrupulous business men and governments in the name of protecting public health.
I came across the concepts of positive and negative urgency in one of my
readings. Positive urgency is a state of mind that makes one do the
things that are most necessary and essential for self-preservation,
which entails the preservation of whole of this existence, bringing about positive change. Negative
urgency is said to be a psychiatric problem. It is the state of mind
that makes one restless when one should not be so, making one do things with the sole purpose of self-gratification. This negative
urgency is at the root of the problem of the rich amassing material
wealth and power at the cost of all other beings on earth, enslaving the
world and its people to work for the rich. Cocaine appears to be a fuel
for negative urgency, and cannabis a fuel for positive energy. For a positive change to happen in this world, the rich need to acknowledge that they have a drug
problem, that their obsession with cocaine is not helping. They need to
free the coca plant, and free the cannabis plant, so that the people
linked to these plants become free. When the plants and their people
become free, then the healing of the global psyche will begin. The
persons who wish to use the coca plant in its natural form can use it,
the persons who wish to use cannabis in its natural form can use it. The
rich, who feel the need to differentiate themselves from the others,
can always pay that extra premium to obtain their cocaine and feel
richer, without having to cause suffering to the entire world.
Related articles
Listed below are a set of articles and information related to the above topic. Words in italics are my thoughts at the time of reading the article.
'The police are no problem in Palm Beach. We own then and they know it. They work for us, like any other servant, and most of them seem to like it. When we run out of gas in this town, we call the police and they bring it, because it is boring to run out of gas.
The rich have special problems, and running out of gas on Ocean Boulevard on the way to an orgy at six o'clock on Sunday morning is one of them. Nobody needs that. Not with naked women and huge bags of cocaine in the car. The rich love music, and we don't want it interrupted.
A state trooper was recently arrested in Miami for trying to fuck a drunk woman on the highway, in exchange for dropping all charges. But that would not happen in Palm Beach. Drunk women roam free in this town, and they cause a lot of trouble - but one thing they don't have to worry about, thank God, is the menace of getting pulled over and getting fondled by armed white trash wearing uniforms. We don't pay these people much, but we pay them every week, and if they occasionally forget who really pays their salaries, we have ways of reminding them.
The whole west coast of Florida is full of people who get fired from responsible jobs in Palm Beach, if only because they failed to understand the nature of the Social Contract.'
- A Dog Took My Place, July 21, 1983, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson
The 17-year-old was arrested and given a life sentence without parole, due to Michigan’s notoriously cruel 650-Lifer Law.
In 1998, that law was revised. As the years went by, the extent to which Wershe was exploited by the FBI and local police came to light. The legend of White Boy Rick began to travel far beyond the confines of Detroit. In 2017, the Netflix documentary White Boy told his story, and the following year the feature film White Boy Rick put his life up on the big screen—while he still languished in prison.
In July 2020, Rick Wershe was finally released. After serving 32 years for a nonviolent drug offense, he got out and found a country that was not only in the midst of a national reckoning with police violence and corruption, but one that had also evolved its attitude towards drugs, especially marijuana.'
https://www.leafly.com/news/industry/white-boy-rick-comes-out-swinging-for-cannabis-and-the-8th-amendment
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/09/15/a-memorandum-for-the-secretary-of-state-on-presidential-determination-on-major-drug-transit-or-major-illicit-drug-producing-countries-for-fiscal-year-2022/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/08/27/a-proclamation-on-overdose-awareness-week-2021/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41386-021-01098-z
"We don't have nearly enough people involved in mental health and drug addiction services," continued Biden. "...We shouldn't be sending people to jail for use. We should be sending them to mandatory rehabilitation... they should be getting treatment while they are in jail."
"We have to deal with the idea of addiction by providing for what we all know: it's a disease of the brain... and has to be treated as such," he said.'
https://edition.cnn.com/politics/live-news/biden-town-hall-cincinnati-07-21-21/h_ac525d76de3b3aa3b23ba86c64b7afaa
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278584621001494
Apr 30, 2021 4:56:58pm
'If the bill were enacted, farmworkers would sell their coca harvests to the national government, which would keep tabs on illicit market rates in hopes of preventing sales to traffickers for a higher profit. Then the government would control cocaine distribution through its health network. Adults would be limited to one gram of cocaine per week.
Additionally, because some Indigenous groups have used the coca crop for millennia, most often chewed raw for energy and to treat ailments, the proposed legislation would permit the production for ancestral purposes. The pharmaceutical and nonpsychoactive use of coca, such as in food products, would also be allowed.'
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-09-21/colombia-bill-legalize-regulate-coca-leaf
'Mr Johnson himself has said that he attempted to snort "a white substance" while at university, but claimed that none of it went up his nose and said he did not know whether or not it was cocaine.'
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/drug-tests-ministers-government-shaun-bailey-london-a9685411.html
'Disparities remain in HIV viral load (VL) suppression between people living with HIV (PLWH) who use cocaine and those who do not. It is not known how cannabis use affects VL suppression in PLWH who use cocaine. We evaluated the relationship between cannabis use and VL suppression among PLWH who use cocaine. We conducted a secondary data analysis of 119 baseline interviews from a randomized controlled trial in the Bronx, NY (6/2012 to 1/2017). Participants were adult PLWH prescribed antiretrovirals for =16 weeks, who endorsed imperfect antiretroviral adherence and used cocaine in the past 30-days. In bivariate and multivariable regression analyses, we examined how cannabis use, is associated with VL suppression among PLWH who use cocaine. Participants were a mean age of 50 years; most were male (64%) and non-Hispanic black (55%). Participants with VL suppression used cocaine less frequently than those with no VL suppression (p<0.01); cannabis use was not significantly different. In regression analysis, compared with no use, daily/near-daily cannabis use was associated with VL suppression (aOR=4.2, 95% CI: 1.1–16.6, p<0.05). Less-frequent cannabis use was not associated with VL suppression. Further investigation is needed to understand how cannabis use impacts HIV outcomes among PLWH who use cocaine.'
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09540121.2020.1799922?journalCode=caic20
- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020,
https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_6.pdf
- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020,
https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_6.pdf
- United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020,
https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_6.pdf
'C[ocaine] is hard to find in Mexico. I had never used any good coke before. Coke is pure kick. It lifts you straight up, a mechanical lift that starts leaving you as soon as you feel it. I don't know anything like C for a lift, but the lift lasts only ten minutes or so. Then you want another shot. You can't stop shooting C - as long as it is there you shoot it. When you are shooting C, you shoot more M[orphine] to level the C kick and smooth out the rough edges. Without M, C makes you too nervous, and M is an antidote for an overdose. There is no tolerance with C, and not much margin between a regular and a toxic dose. Several times I got too much and everything went black and my heart began turning over. Luckily I always had plenty of M on hand, and a shot of M fixed me right up.' - Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
'Junk is a biological necessity when you have a habit, an invisible mouth. When you take a shot of junk you are satisfied, just like you ate a big meal. You don't want another shot right away. But using C[ocaine] you want another shot as soon as the effect wears off. If you have C in the house, you will not go out to a movie or go out at all until the C is all gone. One shot creates an urgent desire for another shot to maintain the high. But once the C is out of your system, you forget about it. There is no habit to C.'
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
Officially sponsored myth 1 -'"All drugs are more or less similar and all are habit forming." This myth lumps cocaine, marijuana and junk together. Marijuana is not at all habit forming and its action is almost the direct opposite from junk action. There is no habit to cocaine. You can develop a tremendous craving for cocaine, but you won't be sick if you can't get it. When you have a junk habit, on the other hand, you live in a state of chronic poisoning for which junk itself is the specific antidote. If you don't get the antidote at eight-hour intervals, and enough of it, you develop symptoms of allergic poisoning: yawning, sneezing, watering of the eyes and nose, cramps, vomiting and diarrhea, hot and cold flushes, loss of appetite, insomnia, restlessness and weakness, in some cases circulatory collapse and death from allergic shock....When I say "habit-forming drug" I mean a drug that alters the endocrinal balance of the body in such a way that the body requires that drug in order to function. So far as I know, junk is the only habit forming drug according to this definition.'
- Junky, William S Burroughs, 1977, originally published in 1953
Cannabis meets all these criteria plus it it naturally growing worldwide and has been used for tens of thousands of years...no need for a new drug, we just need to bring it back..reefer madness had clouded even Huxley's mind at the time that this was written...
'What is needed is a new drug which will relieve and console our suffering species without doing more harm in the long run than it does good in the short. Such a drug must be potent in minute doses and synthesizable. If it does not possess these qualities, its production, like that of wine, beer, spirits and tobacco will interfere with the raising of indispensible food and fibres. It must be less toxic than opium or cocaine, less likely to produce undesirable social consequences than alcohol or the barbiturates, less inimical to the heart and lungs than the tars and nicotine of cigarettes. And, on the positive side, it should produce changes in consciousness more interesting, more intrinsically valuable than mere sedation or dreaminess, delusions of impotence or release from inhibition.' - The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley, 1954.
Huxley misses a point or two here..no drug will be universally perfect for all. There will always be a minority (better that than a majority) for whom any drug will be incompatible given different mental and physical constitutions. Also his obsession and faith in the Western system of synthesizing something that can be had in measured doses like pills or alcohol is unnecessary for natural intoxicants where margins are much larger and safer..cannabis is the ideal...peyote and psilocybin too, where it is available, but not to the extent of cannabis...nature has done the work already, no need for pharmacologists and neurologists to re-invent the wheel...
'Although obviously superior to cocaine, opium, alcohol and tobacco, mescalin is not yet the ideal drug. Along with the happily transfigured majority of mescalin takers there is a minority that finds in the drug only hell or purgatory. Moreover, for a drug that is to be used, like alcohol, for general consumption, its effects last for an inconveniently long time. But chemistry and physiology are capable nowadays of practically anything. If the psychologists and sociologists will define the ideal, the neurologists and pharmacologists can be relied upon to discover the means whereby that ideal can be realized or at least (for this kind of ideal can never, in the very nature of things, be fully realized) more nearly approached than in the wine-bibbing past, the whisky-drinking, marijuana- smoking and barbiturate-swallowing present.' - The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley, 1954.
Ganja in the Indian sub-continent...
'The urge to transcend self-conscious selfhood is, as I have said, a principal appetite of the soul. When, for whatever reason, men and women fail to transcend themselves by means of worhip, good works and spiritual exercises, they are apt to resort to religion's chemical surrogates - alcohol and 'goof-pills' in the modern West, alcohol and opium in the East, hashish in the Mohameddan world, alcohol and marijuana in Central America, alcohol and coca in the Andes, alcohol and the barbiturates in the more up-to-date regions of South America.' - The Doors of Perception, Aldous Huxley, 1954.
'“The evidence described in the present systematic review indicates that CBD is a promising adjunct therapy for the treatment of cocaine dependence due to its effect on cocaine consumption, brain reward, anxiety, related contextual memories, neuroadaptations and hepatic protection as well as its anticonvulsant effect and safety,” the study authors concluded.
“The clinical administration of CBD leads to a reduction in the self-administration of cocaine and, consequently, the amount of the drug consumed. Moreover, the reward induced by cocaine is blunted by CBD treatment.”'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/cbd-is-a-promising-therapy-in-treating-cocaine-misuse-meta-study-finds/
'In the end it was basically a cocaine trial, which it had looked to be from the start. There was no real money at stake: Peter Pulitzer ended up paying more money to lawyers, accountants, "expert witnesses," and other trial-related bozos than Roxanne would have happily settled for if the case had never gone to court in the first place. A few of the reporters covering the trial sat around a gray Formica table in the Alibi Lounge during the lunch breaks and figured out that the trial had cost Pulitzer about a half-million dollars in real money and perhaps a million more down the line, for no good reason at all. Here was a man who normally earned $700,000 a year just by answering his phone a few hours a day and paying a secretary to open his mail - something like $60,000 a month just to mind his own store, as it were - who somehow got himself whopped into such a public frenzy that he didn't even have a bed to sleep in except on his boat for at least a year, and he was spending his time raving crazily at his own lawyers at $150 an hour instead of taking care of his business, which was naturally going to pieces, because all the people who worked for him, from his accountants and psychiatrists all the way down to his gardeners and deckhands, were going made from fear and confusion and constant legal harassment by vicious lawyers and always worried about saying something by accident that might get them either fired or locked up for perjury, and in the midst of all that he let one of his hired dingbats come into court with a financial statement so careless and flagrant that the simple fact of his filing it would have been cause for public outrage almost anywhere else in America except in Palm Beach County. There are a lot of people in this country who spend $1 million a year, and some of them pay no income tax at all. Nelson Rockefeller was one of them, for at least one year in the late Sixties or early Seventies, and there were to other years around that time when he paid less than I did...'
- A Dog Took My Place, July 21, 1983, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson
'Drug overdose deaths involving selected drug categories are identified by specific multiple cause-of-death codes. Drug categories presented include: heroin (T40.1); natural opioid analgesics, including morphine and codeine, and semisynthetic opioids, including drugs such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, hydromorphone, and oxymorphone (T40.2); methadone, a synthetic opioid (T40.3); synthetic opioid analgesics other than methadone, including drugs such as fentanyl and tramadol (T40.4); cocaine (T40.5); and psychostimulants with abuse potential, which includes methamphetamine (T43.6). Opioid overdose deaths are identified by the presence of any of the following MCOD codes: opium (T40.0); heroin (T40.1); natural opioid analgesics (T40.2); methadone (T40.3); synthetic opioid analgesics other than methadone (T40.4); or other and unspecified narcotics (T40.6).'
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm
'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
'Long after the Pulitzer divorce case was finally over - after the verdict was in and there were no more headlines, and the honor of Palm Beach had been salvaged by running Roxanne out of town; after all the lawyers had been paid off and the disloyal servants had been punished and reporters who covered the trial were finally coming down from the long-running high that the story had been for so long that some of them suffered withdrawal symptoms when it ended...Long after this, I was still brooding darkly on the case, still trying to make a higher kind of sense of it.
I have a fatal compulsion to find a higher kind of sense in things that make no sense at all. We are talking about hubris, delusions of wisdom and prowess that can only lead to trouble.
Or maybe we are talking about cocaine. That thought occurred to me more than once in the course of the Pulitzer divorce trial. Cocaine is the closest thing to instant hubris in the market these days, and there is plenty of it around. Any fool with an extra $100-bill in his pocket can whip a gram of cocaine into his head and make sense of just about anything.
Ah, yes. Wonderful. Thank you very much. I see it all very clearly now. These bastards have been lying to me all along. I should never have trusted them in the first place. Stand aside. Let the big dog eat.
Take my word for it, folks. I know how these things work.'
- A Dog Took My Place, July 21, 1983, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson
'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
'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
'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
'I shrugged and went back to fondling the goods on the shirt rack. The concept of victimless crime is well understood in Palm Beach, and the logic is hard to argue. No harm, no crime. If a pretty girl from Atlanta can sleep late in the morning, have lunch at the Everglades Club, and make $50,000 tax free a year fucking dogs in rich people's bedrooms on weekends, why should she fear the police? What is the difference between bestiality and common sodomy? Is it better to fuck swine at the Holiday Inn or donkeys in a penthouse on Tarpon Island? And what's wrong with incest, anyway? It takes two hundred years of careful inbreeding to produce a line of beautiful daughters, and only a madman would turn them out to strangers. Feed them cocaine and teach them to love their stepsisters - or even their fathers and brothers, if that's what it takes to keep ugliness out of the family.
Look at the servants. They have warts and fat ankles. Their children are too dumb to learn and too mean to live, and there is no sense of family continuity. There is a lot more to breeding than teaching children good table manners, and a lot more to being rich than just spending money on wearing alligator shirts. The real difference between the Rich and the Others is not just that "they have more money," as Hemingway noted, but that money is not a governing factor in their lives, as it is with people who work for a living. The truly rich are born free, like dolphins, they will never feel hungry, and their credit will never be questioned. Their daughters will be debutantes and their sons will go to prep schools, and if their cousins are junkies and lesbians, so what? The breeding of humans is still an imperfect art, even with all the advantages.
Where are the Aryan thoroughbreds that Hitler bred so carefully in the early days of the Third Reich? Where are the best and brightest children of Bel Air and Palm Beach?
These are awkward questions in some circles, and the answers can be disturbing. Why do the finest flowers of the American Dream so often turn up in asylums, divorce courts, and other grey hallways of the living doomed? What is it about being born free and rich beyond worry that makes people crazy?'
- A Dog Took My Place, July 21, 1983, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson
'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
'Cannabinoids are reported to rescue cocaine-induced seizures (CISs), a severe complication in cocaine users. However, the molecular targets for cannabinoid therapy of CISs remain unclear. Here, we report that the systemic administration of cannabinoids alleviates CISs in a CB1/CB2-receptor-independent manner. In HEK293 cells and cortical neurons, cocaine-induced dysfunction of the glycine receptor (GlyR) is restored by cannabinoids. Such restoration is blocked by GlyRa1S296A mutation. Consistently, the therapeutic effects of cannabinoids on CISs are also eliminated in GlyRa1S296A mutant mice. Based on molecular dynamic simulation, the hydrogen-bonding interaction between cocaine and the GlyR is weakened by cannabinoid docking. Without altering cocaine distribution across the brain, cannabinoids significantly suppress cocaine-exaggerated neuronal excitability in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and hippocampus by rehabilitating extra-synaptic GlyR function. Microinjection of cannabinoids into the PFC and hippocampus restores cocaine-puzzled neural activity and alleviates CISs. These findings suggest that using GlyR-hypersensitive cannabinoids may represent a potential therapeutic strategy for treating CISs'
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211124720302874
Cocaine too?
'The main manufacturing country was the United Kingdom (122.8 kg, or 79.8 per cent of global manufacture), followed by the United States (31.1 kg, or 20.2 per cent). The main exporting country in 2018 was Peru (330 kg, or 77.4 per cent of global exports), followed by the United Kingdom (71.5 kg, or 16.8 per cent) and the Netherlands (16.4 kg, or 3.8 per cent). Switzerland, Germany and the United States each exported cocaine in quantities of more than 1 kg. The United Kingdom was the main importing country in 2018 (330.3 kg), accounting for 77.7 per cent of global imports of cocaine; it was followed by the Netherlands (40.3 kg, or 9.5 per cent), Canada (15.2 kg, or 3.6 per cent), Belgium (9.5 kg, or 2.2 per cent), Germany (6.1 kg, or 1.4 per cent) and Australia (5.0 kg, or 1.2 per cent).'
https://www.incb.org/documents/Narcotic-Drugs/Technical-Publications/2019/Narcotic_Drugs_Technical_Publication_2019_web.pdf
'In Brazil, crack-cocaine use and suicidal behavior are public health problems. A recently large-scale study with a representative sample of Brazilians found rates of suicidal attempts and deaths in the general population of 9.9 and 5.4%, respectively. In crack-cocaine users these rates were significantly higher, 40.0 and 20.8%, respectively. Previous studies have shown that 47% of crack-cocaine users had a current suicide risk, and a prevalence of suicidal behaviors of 30% in crack-cocaine addicts, in Brazil. The subject of suicide has been the focus of studies in psychiatry in the last decades, but the understanding about this behavior remains insufficient. Moreover, the predictive factors in this vulnerable population were not well explored yet. These individuals present multiple psychosocial vulnerabilities, high rates of clinical and psychiatric comorbidities, and low adherence to treatment, which may have a significant impact on suicidal behavior. Furthermore, crack and cocaine are the illicit drugs that most lead to demand for detoxification treatment in psychiatric facilities, generating considerable cost to the public health system.'
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7197800/
'There was, however, one item which begged for attention. The figure was $441,000, and the column was "miscellaneous and unknown."
Right. Miscellaneous and unknown: $441,000. And nobody in the courtroom even blinked. Here were two coke fiends who came into court because their marriage didn't seem to be working and the children were getting nervous.
And the servants were turning weird and on some nights there were naked people running around on the lawn and throwing rocks at the upstairs bedroom windows and people with white foam in their mouths were jacking off like apes in the hallways...people screeching frantically on the telephone at four in the morning about volcanic eruptions in the Pacific that were changing the temperature of the ocean forever and causing the jet stream to move south, which would bring on a new ice age - and that's why neither one of us could get any sleep for two years, your Honor, and the sky was full of vultures so we called a plastic surgeon because her tits were starting to sag and my eyes didn't look right anymore and then we drove halfway to Miami at 100 miles an hour before we realized it was Sunday and the hospital wouldn't be open so we checked into the Holiday Inn with Jim's wife and ye gods, your Honor, this woman is a whore and I can't really tell you what it means because the children are in danger and we're afraid they might freeze in their sleep and I can't trust you anyway but what else can I do. I'm desperate - and, by the way, we spent $441,000 last year on things I can't remember.
Welcome to cocaine country. White Line Fever. Bad craziness. What is a judge to make of two coke fiends who spent $441,000 last year on "miscellaneous and unknown"? The figure for the previous year was only $99,000, at a time when the Pulitzers' cocaine use was admittedly getting out of hand. They said that they were holding it down to just a few grams a week, at that point, a relatively moderate figure among the Brotherhood of the Bindle, but the evidence suggests a genuinely awesome rate of consumption - something like thirteen grams a day - by the time they finally staggered into divorce court and went public with the whole wretched saga.
The numbers are staggering, even in the context of Palm Beach. Thirteen grams a day would kill a whole family of polar bears.'
- A Dog Took My Place, July 21, 1983, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson
'Worldwide, drug use is more widespread in developed countries than in developing countries. Drugs such as cocaine are even more firmly associated with the wealthier parts of the world. Likewise, within countries, the wealthier sectors of society have a higher prevalence of drug use.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf
'The stimulant scene is dominated by cocaine and methamphetamine, and use of both substances is rising in their main markets. Some 19 million people used cocaine in 2018, fueled by the drug’s popularity in North America and Western Europe. Roughly 27 million people used amphetamines that same year, methamphetamine being the most used ATS [amphetamine type substance] in South-East Asia. Use of methamphetamine in these two subregions has been expanding for two decades, according to most available indicators. Cocaine and methamphetamine can coexist in some markets by acting as substitutes for each other, so that use of one drug rises when the other goes down, or by feeding the same market with parallel increases and declines.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_BOOKLET_1.pdf
'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
'Globally, an estimated 19 million people were past year 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
'In South America, 2.8 million people, or almost 1 per cent of the population aged 15–64, were estimated to be past-year cocaine users in 2018. With nearly 1.5 million past-year cocaine and “crack” cocaine users, Brazil is the largest cocaine market in South America. The use of cocaine base paste, which was previously confined to countries where cocaine is manufactured, has spread to many countries in South America. However, such use is difficult to estimate since people who use cocaine base paste are usually from socially marginalized groups that are not well captured by household surveys.' - United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, World Drug Report 2020, https://wdr.unodc.org/wdr2020/field/WDR20_Booklet_2.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
'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
'In our view, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s stance on the country’s addiction problems is too simplistic to counter the scale of the challenge. A national survey indicates that 1.3 million citizens were addicted to marijuana and 2.6 million were using crack cocaine last year (see go.nature.com/2qbhqks).
Bolsonaro has declared he will strengthen efforts against drug-trading organizations and to penalize them for any increases in drug-related violence. We are concerned that this merely reiterates the old ‘War on Drugs’ policy — namely, heavy repression of drug trafficking, punishment for users, racial discrimination, mass incarceration and limited access to treatment (see, for example, K. S. Fornili J. Addict. Nurs. 29, 65–72; 2018). The evidence against the efficacy of this outdated approach is compelling (see, for example, go.nature.com/2d7cqmr).
What is needed now is urgent reform of Brazil’s public-health system and new funding policies that will improve the structural and human resources necessary to tackle this nationwide problem.'
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00154-5
'He draws his inspiration from President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, whose hard-line approach has led to over 12,000 deaths of people for alleged involvement with drugs. Bolsonaro has said that Duterte “did the right thing for his country”.
Currently, the Brazilian military is involved in targeting drug cartels, but Bolsonaro wants to further integrate soldiers’ role into drug law enforcement; “in the streets, in the schools even, the bandidos [bandits] sell drugs and smoke marijuana openly” he asserts, “for that reason, it would be good to have military in the schools”.
Bolsonaro has opposed cannabis legalisation, claiming it would “[benefit] traffickers, rapists and hostage takers". He has also claimed that drug use causes people to become gay, in a bizarre homophobic tirade.'
https://www.talkingdrugs.org/drug-policies-brazil-haddad-bolsonaro
'A key Senate committee in Brazil approved a bill to allow the use and cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes on Wednesday.
The measure, which was brought about in response to an online citizen-led petition that received about 119,000 votes, would remove criminal penalties for growing, possessing and consuming cannabis for patients who receive prescriptions from doctors.
The Senate’s Social Affairs Committee signed off on the legislation, but before the full Senate gets to vote, it will also have to pass in the Commission on Constitution and Justice. Then, if the Senate does approve the bill, it must be reviewed by the Chamber of Deputies.
Of course, even if the bill does make its way past all legislative hurdles, it could face another hurdle: Brazil’s president-elect, Jair Bolsonaro, who is against legalization and has pledged to enforce harsh anti-drug laws.'
https://www.marijuanamoment.net/brazilian-lawmakers-approve-medical-marijuana-bill/
'Mathiasen said the increase in coca crops also has much to do with the lack of economic alternatives for 119,000 farm families estimated to be growing the illicit crop, and he urged international assistance to help Colombia bear the high cost of such alternatives. The U.N. has long held that crop substitution is the only effective method of combating coca farming.'
http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-colombia-coca-20180919-story.html
'In Colombia, cultivation of coca, the main ingredient of cocaine, has nearly tripled over the past five years. As part of the 2016 peace agreement between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country has embarked on a unique experiment to try to end coca farming and production, but freeing Colombia from its cocaine problem is proving difficult. Charlet Duboc travels to the remote towns where coca farming is a way of life to examine the struggle for a cocaine-free Colombia.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJzdrdVOfW0
'Colombian president Iván Duque recently signed a decree that allows the national police to confiscate any quantity of drugs found in public. However, according to experts, this measure will not achieve its public health goal of reducing consumption, and will also negatively impact the medicinal use of cannabis.'
https://panampost.com/felipe-fernandez/2018/10/03/colombia-duque-administrations-new-drug-policy-jeopardizes-medical-marijuana/
Legalize marijuana for recreational purposes Colombia...it's been five years since Uruguay legalized it...
With the US-led “war on drugs” being seen as a failed strategy by most countries in the region, the FARC has proposed 10-point plan to de-criminalise the drug usage and focus on the socioeconomic and cultural aspects of the drug trade.
Only last week, Uruguay became the first country to legalise marijuana use, a move likely to be replicated in several other South American nations.'
https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/the-beginning-of-an-end-to-war-on-drugs/article5460444.ece
'That's the way it was last fall at the start of Pulitzer v. Pulitzer, and not even the worst winter rains in forty years could explain why the town was so empty of locals when Palm Beach had a world-class spectacle to fill the dull days of the off-season.
The Miami Herald called it the nastiest divorce trial in Palm Beach history, a scandal so foul and far reaching that half the town fled to France or Majorca for fear of being dragged into it. People who normally stay at home in the fall to have all their bedrooms redecorated or to put a new roof on the boathouse found reasons to visit Brazil. The hammer of Palm Beach justice was coming down on young Roxanne Pulitzer, a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who had married the town's most eligible bachelor a few years back and was now in the throes of divorce.
The trial was making ugly headlines all over the world, and nobody wanted to testify. Divorce is routine in Palm Beach, but this one had a very different and dangerous look to it. The whole lifestyle of the town was suddenly on trial, and prominent people were being accused of things that were not fashionable.
Some of the first families of Palm Beach society will bear permanent scars from the Pulitzer v. Pulitzer proceedings, a maze of wild charges and countercharges ranging from public incest and orgies to witchcraft, craziness, child abuse, and hopeless cocaine addiction.
The Filthy Rich in America were depicted as genuinely filthy, a tribe of wild sots and sodomites run amok on their private island and crazed all day and night on cocaine. The very name Palm Beach, long synonymous with old wealth and aristocratic style, was coming to be associated with berserk sleaziness, a place where price tags mean nothing, and the rich are always in heat, where pampered animals are openly worshiped in church and naked millionaires gnaw brassieres off the chest of their own daughters in public.'
- A Dog Took My Place, July 21, 1983, Fear and Loathing at the Rolling Stone, The Essential Writing of Hunter S. Thompson
'Riot police have broken up a pro-marijuana demonstration in Colombia’s capital city, as the South American country takes a harder stance on drugs.'
https://www.apnews.com/6c5c8b8b0bfd43339d53e5ebb4096f15/Riot-police-break-up-marijuana-'smoke-a-thon'-in-Colombia
'The former President of Colombia’s Constitutional Court said Monday that a decree by President Ivan Duque to persecute marijuana users “goes against the constitution.”'
https://colombiareports.com/is-colombias-renewed-ban-on-marijuana-possession-even-constitutional/
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