[Ignore Previous Email] Will Federal Law Sink ACT Decrim Efforts? | Aussie Psychedelic Trials Ramping Up | Senate Candidate Releases Blunt Viral Ad
All the drug policy and related news from the past week in one place.
Hello!
Happy Friday and welcome to issue #71 of Drugs Wrap, a weekly compilation of the top stories in drug policy from across Australia and around the world.
Managed to send a draft version of the wrap this morning instead of the finished version. Here it is in it’s entirety and apologies for the double email.
I try and keep the wrap more news based than opinion or features, telling us much of what we already know; drug policy is bad and doing bad things. However, this week, there has been some brilliant writing that I could help but include so if you’ve got a bit of time, it’s well worth clicking through to a few of these.
Don’t miss Cannabiz’ analysis of the new TGA medicinal cannabis list and the piece on CBD as COVID treatment. There’s also a good piece on cannabis exceptionalism in Rolling Stone.
In the psychedelic space, Seattle has this week legalised the personal use of the drugs and Shayla Love, as always, has a great piece on the future of psychedelic research.
If you’re enjoying the wrap, feel free to pass it on to friends or colleagues and give it a follow on Twitter. You can also follow me for inane musings and throw a few dollars my way to help keep the wrap going.
You can also follow the Drugs Wrap Psychedelia playlist on Spotify for new ‘psychedelic’ music caught in the email filter.
Let’s get to it.
ACT Drug Decriminalisation Push Hits Cul-de-Sac - Or Does it?
Drug Free Australia’s Gary Christian believes the decriminalisation push in the ACT is dead in the water due to its collision course with federal law.
Christian is research director at Drug Free Australia, who are steadfastly opposed to the bill introduced by Labor’s Michael Pettersson. He has said that a previous letter from Prime Minister Scott Morrison clearly outlined that wherever ACT law clashes with Federal law, federal law takes precedence.
He also said that when the Bill was reviewed by a Legislative Assembly Inquiry committee of three, two recommended progress while the third recommended against it, due in part to the clash with federal law.
Federal Health Minister, Greg Hunt also informed the International Narcotics Control Board of the Federal-Territory relationship in a letter dated 1 November 2019. An article in The Australian at that time noted that use of these drugs would remain a capital crime with the ACT using Federal Police as their police force.
It’s a point that has been made from the start, however the same laws apply in the case of cannabis decrimnialisation and, thus far, no one has been arrested or charged under federal law. The ACT have said that they are willing to defend their laws in court if a challenge ever arose.
‘The time for that has come and gone,’ Pettersson has said previously.
‘There was a lot of sabre-rattling at the time, but ultimately it came to nothing.’
Aussie Companies Ramp Up MDMA, Magic Mushroom Trials Despite TGA
Managed to miss the big announcement at the start of the year about the new $14.8 million grant from the federal government to fund research into psychedelics and CBD when the wrap was on holiday.
Still, this article from the AFR gives a good overview of what’s going on in the psychedelic space in Australia, with a raft of new studies and trials set to get underway.
Emyria has this week partnered with the University of Western Australia to explore its library of more than 100 novel MDMA analogues.
$3.8 million was awarded to a team at the University of Melbourne for a trial that uses MDMA to help treat social anxiety in young adults with autism.
Other trials will use psilocybin for anorexia, depression and alcohol use; MDMA for alcoholism and post-traumatic stress disorder; CBD for anxiety disorders in youth; and DMT for major depression and alcohol use.
Police Could Expand Roadside Drug Testing to Include Cocaine in QLD and VIC
This one’s a bit weak as both articles with information on this are behind News Corp paywalls which I refuse to purchase access to. If anyone has access I’d love to read it.
As far I can tell from the limited info in the preview, police in both Victoria and Queensland are pushing to expand their roadside drug testing capabilities to include cocaine. In these states, only cannabis, methamphetamine, and MDMA is tested for, whereas NSW also test for cocaine.
A “crash expert” quoted in the Herald Sun piece says the drug is “as dangerous as meth” as Victorian police seek to undertake a “roadside drug blitz.”
The Courier Mail piece says that use of cocaine is increasing in Queensland and that police “may soon” start testing motorists for the drug.
The fact that this story isn’t covered elsewhere should also indicate how large of a grain of salt this should be taken with.
This Week in Weed
What the TGA’s Medicinal Cannabis List Really Tells Us
Malta is on the Right Path With Cannabis
CBD and COVID: Researchers Push for More Trials Amid Promising Study Results
Why I Believe Cannabis Exceptionalism Hurts the Drug Reform Movement
CBD Oil is Having a Moment. What’s it For and What’s Behind All the Hype?
After One Year As President, Biden’s Marijuana Promises Remain Unfulfilled
Flaws in Federal Cannabis Bills Threaten the Legal Market
Researchers Find Most Cannabis Videos on TikTok Focus on the Positives
Despite Restrictions, Recreational Cannabis Companies Use Marketing that Appeals to Adolescents
Using Cannabis Does Impair Your Brain
Amazon Endorses Bill to Reform Federal Cannabis Laws
Around the World
Treating Addiction as a Crime Doesn’t Work. What Oregon Is Doing Just Might.
Maia Szalavitz has written on the impact of Oregon’s decriminalisation policies in The New York Times, saying:
‘By decriminalizing personal-use drug possession, Oregon has become the first state to acknowledge that it is impossible to treat addiction as a disease and a crime simultaneously’.
‘This kind of model is urgently needed in the United States, where street fentanyl is the leading cause of death among people ages 18 to 45, and where sending people to jail for using drugs has failed to prevent the worst addiction and overdose crisis in American history’.
A great piece, well worth a read.
Also in the US, Louisiana Senate candiate Gary Chambers has released a now-viral campaign ad ripping into the racial impact of cannabis prohibition in his state while hitting a blunt.
Chambers has stated that he supports legalising cannabis and wants to ‘forgive those who were arrested’. He is running for the seat currently held by Republican Senator John Kennedy, who was first elected in 2016, and is seeking reelection for a second six-year term.
NZ: New Drug Harm Index, New Problems
Journalist Russell Brown has written a brilliant analysis of the recently published New Zealand Drug Harm Index 2020.
‘It contains some startling claims. Not the least of them, that cannabis is New Zealand’s most harmful drug – accounting for $626 million in “community harm” every year’.
‘Would you be surprised if I told you more than a third of that was lost GST?
Well, it is: the authors of the index estimate the public purse loses $224 million a year because tax can’t be paid on revenue or personal income from producing or selling cannabis. It’s nearly all of the foregone tax estimated for illicit drugs in general. If only there was something we could do about that!’
Why is British Drug Policy so Disjointed?
Dr Matt Bishop has written a great investigation into the intricacies of British drug policy and it’s chaotic nature off the back of the London Mayor’s attempt to ‘decriminalise’ certain drugs. He writes:
‘How can two arms of the state, which are operating in the same spaces, pursue divergent approaches to essentially the same problem? Perhaps they are not actually that distinct, since both rest firmly within the boundaries of prohibitionism: despite some overly optimistic pronouncements predicated on hopeful misunderstandings of the important distinctions between diversion, depenalisation, decriminalisation and legalisation, Khan’s experiment, like all incremental reform, falls well short of substantive change’.
‘But the intended direction of travel is obviously very different: the Mayor’s tinkering may be timid, but it is unquestionably predicated on harm reduction principles and carries enormously positive consequences for those that do benefit from it, in the sense of not being arrested, criminalised, potentially even imprisoned, and having their lives ruined. By the same token, the Met’s action points in the other direction: the very worst and most hollow posturing that has always been at the heart of policy based on enforcement’.
‘This disjuncture is all the more puzzling, both because the Mayor’s Office plays a key role in choosing the Commissioner and shaping the Met’s approach, and, like many other forces, it has – whether overtly or more tacitly – depenalised and diverted drug users for years anyway. This builds on the brilliant work undertaken by the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and its Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) which, like its counterparts elsewhere in the UK, has done as much as it can within fairly tightly constrained parameters to embed harm reduction and public health principles in its programmes’.
‘In general, though, contemporary British drug policy has little coherent direction: like many agendas under this tired and bungling government, it is a fantastical mishmash of expertise-denying dogma and anachronistic ideology in which unicorns range free impervious to evidence of their inexistence’.
Brazilian D.A.R.E. Programme is A Failure. We Need Real Drug Education
Previous studies conducted in other Brazilian states—as well as in other parts of South America and the world —have reached the same conclusion: the Drug Abuse Resistance Education programme fails to prevent drug use among children and teenagers.
Two recent studies published in the International Journal of Drug Policy and in Prevention Science show that PROERD – Caindo na REAL, the Brazilian version of ‘D.A.R.E. keeping it REAL’ Programme, has failed in preventing children and teenagers from using banned drugs.
The research conducted in 30 schools in the city of São Paulo shows that attendance to the programme, which is conducted by the Brazilian Military Police, does not have a positive impact in reducing the use of alcohol, tobacco, and controlled substances among pupils. Moreover, the study concludes, attending the programme might actually foster greater curiosity and risk-taking among pupils, leading them to try the very substances that PROERD tries hard to demonise.
The programme has been offered in São Paulo for almost 3 decades, and was made mandatory in state schools in 2019 by the right-wing governor João Doria.
Bhutan Repeals Failed Tobacco ban
The sale, purchase, possession and transportation of tobacco are now permitted in Bhutan. The new tobacco law, passed by the assembly on June 25, put an end to nearly 17 years of tobacco prohibition in the small state on the eastern flank of the Himalayas.
The legalisation of tobacco has been justified by the authorities due to the scale, described as endemic, of illegal trafficking from India in the context of the spread of COVID.
‘Tobacco smuggling is the greatest risk of COVID transmission due to the sheer volume, number of people involved and lack of adherence to health protocol," said Colonel Phub Gyeltshen of the Royal Bhutan Police.
Prohibition in the country has proved not to decrease use of tobacco, rates of which have actually increase, and has given rise to a vast criminal network that profits off of the policy.
The Psychedelic Selection
2022 Shaping Up To Be The Year Of Psychedelic Legalisation
Seattle Legalizes Psychedelics
Increased Psychedelic Use During Pandemic Prompts New Research
Here's What Happens When Psychedelics Meets AI
The Future of Psychedelic Medicine Will Be Drugs You’ve Never Heard Of
Health Canada Finally Restores Access to Psychedelics
I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and pay my respects to elders past and present. Sovereignty was never ceded.
Thanks for reading, have a great weekend, and I look forward to sharing all the latest with you next Friday.
Have a story you would like to share in next week’s wrap? Get in touch.
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I think the main issue with the ACTs private members decriminalistion bill is more that following the tabling of the inquiry report a motion was moved and accepted in the Assembly that fixing the mental health system was a priority and the decriminalisation bill was to be put on hold until a report on mental health issues was forthcoming in May. This was mainly due to submissions of some parents who had children suffering from co-morbidity issues and for whom treatment was appauling or non existent. I don’t think it has anything to do with DFA even though they might like to think so. However, for some, anything to delay decriminalisation. It will be interesting to see what happens in May.