Drugz, part I
West Africa has growing cannabis production:
Farmers in West Africa are turning to cannabis as a quick cash crop, feeding the biggest illegal drug market in the world. UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) director for West Africa, Antonio Mazzitelli, told IRIN clandestine farmers are lured by quick earnings: “Faced with the choice of cannabis or cassava, some choose easy money.”
[...] Jalloh said cannabis farmers must be prosecuted. “These farmers could have planted things our country actually needs, like coffee, rice or pineapple. We don’t have enough food for our people and they go and plant marijuana because of greed. Rice takes work. It is not easy money. But at least it can feed people, rather than an underground economy.”
Once again, instead of reducing the incentive to grow cannabis by making it sell for much less (which regulation and control would achieve), a government ignores human nature and microeconomics and blame farmers for not wanting to be poor. Granted, these farmers appear to have guns, but regulation and control would mean they wouldn’t have to use them, since not only would the crop they’re growing be legal, but it would also be worth a hell of a lot less.
Caught in the crossfire: Laywer jailed for drug dealing
A LEEDS lawyer[, Dr. Roger Lowe] has been jailed after he supplied cocaine to undercover police in a nightclub sting.
Richard Reed, for Lowe, said Lowe had lost his job and he had only used the drug, which he did not supply for profit, to give himself a lift due to stress and long working hours.
Once again, we enforce health measures through the criminal justice system; this guy obviously needs help dealing with stress in less harmful ways, not being jailed for non-profit activity.
Policing drugs means that the US gets to police the world: Bolivia halts US anti-drugs work
President Evo Morales has announced he is suspending “indefinitely” the operations of the US Drug Enforcement Administration in Bolivia. Mr Morales accused the agency of having encouraged anti-government protests in the country in September.
[...] Last month President George W Bush himself put the Andean country on an anti-narcotics blacklist that cuts trade preferences.
According to Wikipedia, “Morales, [once] a leader among coca-growers, has said his government will try to interdict drugs, but he wants to preserve the legal market for coca-leaves and promote export of legal coca-products.” Whilst Morales’ term thus far hasn’t been free from problems, this is an instance of the US using drugs to hurt countries it doesn’t like.
