Editorial
Sean Hocking
Consultant Legal Publishing Content Knowledge & Biz Development. Owner Cannabis Law Report, House of Butter, MP Records
Cannabis, Instruments of Power & The War On Drugs
For most observers of the world of drugs and drug enforcement it can't have gone unnoticed that the past fortnight has had more than faint echoes of the Reagan era.
Executive power in the US is being clumsily wielded to try to stop imagined and real imports of illegal compounds into the US, in the main for political purpose, rather than any particular desire to improve health and safety outcomes for the country's citizens.
The sixty-eighth session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) concluded? Friday last and they were all rubbing their hands with glee as they managed to add six more substances to their control list, including hemp for human consumption. I'll return to that in a moment.
Thus, with the stroke of a pen creating six new highly profitable global black markets that will be up and running on hyperspeed as of next month.
They've also managed to preserve their own budgets in the process.
So, all in all, a great week of work for the drug chatteratti.
If that wasn't enought for the INCB (International Narcotics Control Board) they also had the temerity to wave this legal instrument of misery, death & destruction at Australia warning the country that democracy be damned.
The board has noted with concern proposed changes in New South Wales to laws affecting the legal status of cannabis for non-medical purposes that would legalise the home cultivation of up to six plants for personal use, the gifting of cannabis and the possession of up to 50 grams of the drug
The board has communicated to the government of Australia that this measure is inconsistent with the country’s international legal obligations as a state party to the 1961 convention as amended and the 1988 convention.
The board will continue its dialogue with the government of Australia and counts on the country’s continued support and cooperation.”
I don't know about you but that looks to me as though an unelected body is demanding that Australian citizens may not exercise their democratic right to determine whether they grow and possess small amounts of cannabis outside of an economic system. Yet it is fine for the private sector to trade and profit from "medicinal" cannabis.
Answers on a postcard to.....
Hemp for human consumption has been rounded upon by "experts" and governments who have read and watched far too much US fear media and rather than thinking a little longer and working ways to regulate these compounds sensibly, they have instead, decided to go down the ban it entirely route.
Not smart.
A health and human rights disaster in the making.
Criminal syndicates the world over will now be googling how to make HHC, Delta 9 and any other Delta we can think of and the best thing is they don't even need to create a demand it is already there and ready to be exploited.
Also by ensuring that people can't get hold of well priced, sensibly taxed, non pesticide cannabis consumers will be driven towards the cheaper synthetic products produced by the black market.
I can be pretty sure you'll be able to buy hemp gummies branded thus at a local store near you very soon.
Out of the blue in the same week the South African government announced a ban on hemp or hemp derivates in food. Nobody really knows what this means yet and I'm not sure the minister in question does either. Some say it's preparation for a full adult use market. It might well have been a UN political play and don't rule out SA's political spat with the US at the moment having an influence on the decision. More to come I'd guess.
And which country was the only one to abstain from the hemp vote?
Yep you guessed it, the dear old US of A.
Although not, I fear, out of any particular love for hemp and hemp derivatives probably they just forgot to turn up. Too busy at the Vienna Tesla showroom buying up stock to please the boss before those gnarly Europeans burn it down. I admit, an unlikely scenario in Austria but a delicious thought nevertheless.
I also love to follow drug enforcement press releases and associatied media and there has been more than just a small uptick on that front over the last six weeks with a lot more politics than usual being thrown into the mix.
All these not so subtle messages tell me that there's going to be a lot more capital both political and $'s, which let's be honest is the same thing, thrown at the war on drugs for the forseeable future. The spiral will now spiral at an ever increasing rate and the question is where does that leave cannabis?
In the US state's rights will protect it for a while yet and we may even see more realatively sensible regulation as taxation is needed as a tool to help prop up state budgets. Although Newsweek and others are happy to give plenty of airtime and SEO to the forces organising themselves against cannabis with articles like this
An increasingly authoritarian adminstration in the US will also further embolden these forces.
Many in the legal medical market around probably just don't care about all of the above, it is a market after all and thankyou very much we're making pretty good money at the moment. They are busy jumping on and off planes, pitching the pitch at this and that conference, pushing out opaque revenue press releases and of course caring about medical patients ( you know i've got a cousin / granny who's life was saved by cannabis) and elevating our experiences etc etc.
My sense is that many still think that instruments of power and the war on drugs are faint hangovers from the 20th century, not so, they are powerful tools that certain institutional powers know exactly how to wield and wield they will. In a conversation I had last week with Julian Buchanan at Harm Reduction Aotearoa NZ for the Karma Koala Podcast he quite rightly reminded naive old me that change doesn't come from the established power structures but from the grassroots and everything that's happened in the only the 7 days and nights since the last issue of this newsletter bears that out.
It may be rather trite to use the "First they came for" quote and i'm hestitant to do so but it's sadly applicable to most political discourse once again. Quite honestly I don't see why a list that starts with fentanyl and cocaine doesn't by default end up with cannabis because, of course, the type of people who use cannabis aren't our people.
The idea that anyone can use drugs and escape a horrible fate is anathema to these idiots. I predict in the near future right-wingers will use drug hysteria as a pretext to set up an international police apparatus.
William S. Burroughs
Until next week
Sean Hocking Editor & Founder Cannabis Law Report
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