Drug Decriminalization Vs. Legalization — Here’s The Difference
There are some subtle differences between decriminalization and legalization. What are they? The devil is in the details.
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Long before Pablo Escobar’s Medellín cartel got rich supplying Americans with cocaine in the 1980s, Colombia was already the United States’ main source of illicit drugs – specifically, marijuana. That’s the takeaway of my new book “Marijuana Boom.”
This debunks the popular notion of Escobar as the pioneer of Colombian drug trafficking. Rather, it was some of Colombia’s most marginalized people who changed the course of their nation.
Back in the 1970s, peasant farmers from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta – a remote and mountainous region of Colombia’s Caribbean coast – began shifting from banana, cotton and coffee production to marijuana cultivation. When this population again pivoted to growing coca leaf for processing into cocaine in the 1980s, they set Colombia on a course to become the illicit drug capital of the Americas.
This research upends other old tropes about the drug trade, including the idea that it’s inherently violent.
Colombia’s marijuana economy operated relatively peacefully until the Colombian and U.S. governments in 1978 launched a militarized campaign to eradicate marijuana crops and increase drug interdictions. Traffickers retaliated, giving rise to the now familiar “war on drugs”-style dynamic of escalating conflict.
My research also disproves the long-held academic consensus that illegal drug markets emerge in remote areas where the state has insufficient presence.
I find Colombia’s marijuana boom was actually an unintended consequence of state-led efforts to economically develop Colombia. Throughout the 20th century, Colombia worked to build its banana export sector, create a cotton belt to supply Colombian textile factories and to redistribute land. By the 1970s, Colombia was expanding international trade, particularly with the U.S.
These changes made some rural Colombians rich but, my research shows, impoverished peasant farmers in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. People who’d grown legal commodity crops saw opportunity in exporting an illegal one to the United States: marijuana.
My book recounts how and why people in northern Colombia used their farming experience to grow and export marijuana. But it doesn’t detail their next transition, from marijuana to cocaine.
In southern Colombia, academics have documented how Pablo Escobar’s generation of traffickers financed new settlers to grow coca leaf, the base ingredient in cocaine, in the 1980s. We just don’t know how cocaine simultaneously supplanted marijuana as the staple drug crop of the peasant economy up north.
This began as a personal quest to understand the country of my childhood. My father is from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta area, where marijuana once boomed.
Some of my research was archival, conducted in Colombia and the U.S. But much of it was done on the ground. I began collecting testimonials in northern Colombia in the early 2000s, during Colombia’s 52-year armed conflict. Paramilitary forces controlled the area. The war ended in 2016. But armed groups, including cartels, still operate there.
To stay safe while studying an industry that uses cash and violence to keep its affairs clandestine, I relied on friends and family, who helped me establish contacts and identify information sources. I also kept my questions focused on the defunct marijuana business – not the active cocaine trade.
This focus helped me avoid reproducing what historian Luis Astorga calls “the mythology of the narcotrafficker.” There are no Pablo Escobars in my book – just everyday Colombians who seized on their country’s growing commercial ties to the world’s largest drug market – the United States – to launch a global business.
By Lina Britto, Assistant Professor of History, Northwestern University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Featured image by Gina Coleman/Weedmaps
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Cannabis stocks have spiked up since the election results were called.
Here’s Why You Have To Trust Your Dispensary
You and your budtender should venture beyond the usual dialogue of “How do you want to feel?” and “What terpenes do you like?”
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How To Wake And Bake Successfully
Need a hit first thing in the morning? Here’s how to do it without ruining the rest of your day.
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Nearly seven in 10 Americans now support legalizing marijuana nationwide, according to a Gallup poll released on Monday.
Overall, 68 percent of respondents said they favor legalizing cannabis for adult use, which is “Gallup’s highest reading” since the firm started polling voters on the issue, it said. Last year, the survey found 66 percent support for legalization.
GallupIn 1969, only 12 percent of Americans favored legalizing marijuana. Today’s level of support is double what it was in 2000.
The new poll shows majority backing for the policy change across all age demographics for the first time. However, support among Republicans dipped slightly compared to last year, from 51 to 48 percent.
Meanwhile, 83 percent of Democrats and 72 percent of independents said they back legalization, which Gallup says is the highest level of support it has ever recorded for those political groups.
GallupThe release of the survey results comes one week after voters in five states approved initiatives to legalize cannabis for medical or recreational purposes. That includes reform wins in traditionally conservative states such as Montana and South Dakota.
“Majorities of most demographic subgroups of Americans support legalizing marijuana, including by gender, age, education and household income,” Gallup, which conducted the survey of 1,035 adults from September 30 to October 15, said.
gallupDespite the overwhelming support for the policy change among Democrats, President-elect Joe Biden has so far only backed more modest reforms such as decriminalizing possession and expunging prior cannabis convictions.
Meanwhile, it’s not clear why there was a small reduction in support from those who identify as Republican following years of increases. That said, Democratic lawmakers have increasingly attempted to own the issue, which could help explain why fewer conservatives are willing to openly back the policy.
There’s also a margin of error of +/- four percentage points in the survey, which could account for the small amount of movement reported among the political demographic.
“Since 2012, when Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize recreational marijuana, there has been a slow trickle of states that have followed suit,” Gallup said. “Over that period, Americans’ support for marijuana legalization has risen 20 points to a record-high 68 percent.”
The firm also referenced a separate survey it conducted earlier this year that showed that about 70 percent of Americans view smoking cannabis to be a morally acceptable activity. That’s higher than their views on the morality of issues such as gay relationships, medical testing of animals, the death penalty and abortion.
That said, the new poll found that Americans who more regularly attend religious services are less likely to support legalizing marijuana.
Gallup“The trajectory of the public’s support for the legalization of marijuana has coincided with an increasing number of states approving it,” Gallup said. “It is not entirely clear whether the shift in public opinion has caused the change in many state laws or vice versa. Given recent trends, more states are likely to legalize recreational marijuana in the future. Considering the high level of public support for such a measure, a change in federal policy could even occur.”
Lawmakers and advocates have similarly made the case that the 2020 election results for cannabis reform will bolster federal reform efforts, regardless of the political makeup of Congress or the presidency.
“This is what voters want. They’re not partisan issues, it’s an opportunity for Republicans to be able to make progress in their red states and bring people together at a time of division,” Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) told Marijuana Moment on Thursday. “I think you’re going to watch people understand what just happened last night, and it is a continuation of progress that’s been going on since 1996. I think it’s going to be much easier [to pass reform] in the new Congress, with Republicans and Democrats, both in the House and Senate.”
This article has been republished from Marijuana Moment under a content-sharing agreement. Read the original article here.
Featured image by Gina Coleman/Weedmaps
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At Stack Up, a nonprofit serving U.S. veterans across the country and the world, playing games is part of the firm’s mission. Founded in 2015 by Stephen “Shanghai Six” Machuga, a former Army Infantry/Military Intelligence Officer and Airborne Ranger, he served in Iraq with the 2nd Infantry Division for 13 months. What helped him get through that “seemingly endless” time was video games.
After leaving the service in 2006, Machuga worked in Washington DC as a government counterterrorism analyst and also did charity on the weekends. That charity work is where he found his calling: creating an organization that helps US and Allied military members get through deployments to combat zones and recover from traumatic physical and emotional injuries with the power of video games.
Since its founding in 2015, Director of Communications Brian Snyder, the self-confessed “only civilian in the bunch,” says that the organization has served approximately 33,000 former and current veterans with meaningful services such as the Stack Up Overwatch Program (StOP) which provides 24/7 peer-to-peer mental health support; the Supply Crate program which sends video gaming consoles to deployed veterans; Air Assaults, which are all-expense paid trips for veterans to attend gaming conventions; and the Stacks, comprised of local volunteers who use gaming and other activities to make meaningful connections to the veterans in their communities.
An all-expense paid trip to gaming conventions seemed too good to be true to Lance “Opti_kun” Gillenwater, a former medical laboratory technician for the US Air Force. After a fellow veteran recommended Stack Up, Gillenwater reached out but was skeptical when he was informed he was to be picked up for an Air Assault trip. “I was very skeptical, but I wanted to be around video games,” Gillenwater told Weedmaps News via email. It turned out not to be too good to be true, but just what he needed. “I was so nervous and scared when I went to PAX EAST at the beginning of the year, but they were amazingly warm, understanding, and patient.” The trip, where Gillenwater met some of his idols in the gaming community, changed his life. He even became an employee as influencer coordinator. “I honestly haven’t felt more useful and appreciated since my deployment.”
It’s in the Air Assaults program that Stack Up and Weedmaps make an important connection. “We had a trip in 2017 to Seattle, and I had taken some veterans to a gaming convention called Pax Prime,” said Snyder. “When we go to these events, it’s outside of [the veterans] comfort zones to be surrounded by so many people. The vets are worried about traveling with [cannabis], then worried if they would be able to use cannabis to take care of themselves while they’re away from home.”
On that Seattle trip, Snyder received a phone call from his veterans coordinator who said that one of the veterans on the trip needed to quickly find a dispensary. He suggested that the coordinator use the Weedmaps dispensary finder. “We use Weedmaps to say, ‘do you need a strain, do you need a cartridge, do you need CBD?’ And we go to Weedmaps wherever we are to find it.”
“Weedmaps is very useful when travelling,” Gillenwater wrote. “Especially for work when you need to get your cannabis outside of your usually prescribed route.”
A 2014 study found that nearly 1 in 4 active duty military personnel showed signs of a mental health condition. Some mental health challenges that veterans often face are PTSD, depression, and traumatic brain injury. Snyder said that Stack Up works often with veterans who have faced these same challenges, some of whom have replaced opioids with cannabis, and others who consume cannabis as a way to manage mental health and anxiety.
“When I first got to the Air Assault trip, [Brian] was very open and asked if anyone needed to make a THC run,” Gillenwater said. “That was so generous and just blew my mind when I was there. Up to that point, I had not worked or been a part of something that was accepting of my new lifestyle.”
Snyder thinks that cannabis and video gaming make for an intuitive pairing, “weed and video games make for a good evening. You say, ‘let’s go back to the airbnb, smoke a joint, and play some games!’”
On a more serious note, he believes that gaming makes a perfect match for veterans because of the presence and attention that video games demand, as well as the escapism they provide. “I’ll never forget, I heard someone say, ‘when you have those quiet times, when you’re by yourself, they’re not quiet times for me,” he recounted. “That’s when my brain starts thinking about all those things that happened over there. But I’m playing the game. Engaged with fantasy, and I don’t have time for that other stuff. A game doesn’t move unless you do something. It requires that visceral connection from you to not think about this other stuff for a while.”
Gillenwater says he’s been using cannabis to help his PTSD for years. “I use both video games as therapy and cannabis as medication, which I am legally prescribed through Florida,” Gillenwater wrote. “Cannabis alleviates these feelings and places me on a different thought pattern so I can enjoy what I am doing instead of being PTSD about it.”
Stack Up is hosting a virtual gala on November 14 to raise funds for their ongoing work. You can follow along live by connecting with the nonprofit and the veteran gaming community on their Twitch channel.
Featured image courtesy of Stack Up.
To learn more about how Stack Up supports veterans, visit its website at www.stackup.org
The post How a nonprofit helps veterans with cannabis and video games appeared first on Weedmaps News.
68% of Americans say that they’re in favor of legalizing cannabis.
Al Harrington: Marijuana’s Path To Legalization Is Plagued By ‘One Major Issue’
Many cannabis pros, including NBA star and cannabis entrepreneur Al Harrington. rejoiced last Tuesday after marijuana legalization initiatives passed in five states.
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Does cannabis have the potential to combat alcohol use disorder?