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Why a New Direction in the War on Drugs?
(Drug Policy Alliance, February 17, 2005)
Bush's proposed 2006 federal budget is out and it has some interesting implications for the drug war. For starters, Bush wants to eliminate more than a billon dollars in federal law-enforcement grants to the states, including the problematic Byrne grant program. These grants subsidized the largest prison expansion in American history. Without them, it's doubtful that states could afford to continue to pursue draconian "lock 'em up" approaches to drugs. Bush also wants to completely eliminate the federal Safe and Drug Free Schools Program, which among other things helps states fund DARE and other over-the-top anti-drug programs. He is also recommending level funding for the government’s anti-drug media campaign, which adjusted for inflation would mean essentially a slight cut to the program. At the same time Bush is cutting these programs, he is trying to double -- and in some cases triple -- the amount of money going to drug treatment programs, most notably his novel Access to Recovery program which gives vouchers to people needing access to drug treatment. . . . At a Congressional hearing last week, Drug Czar John Walters defended the Bush budget from hostile members of Congress and said it's time to eliminate anti-drug programs that don’t work and increase funding for programs that do work. Walters went on to say that the federal government should stop focusing so many resources on low-level offenders . . . "It could be a more powerful tool if it's moved and integrated, remains satate and local focused, and part of a consolidated effort…to break the businesses that are the drug trade. Otherwise, you are chasing primarily small people, putting them in jail, year after year, generation after generation. Break the business. Don't break generation after generation . . . of young men, especially poor, minority young men in our cities, and [put] them in jail." . . . There is, however, plenty in the Bush budget to criticize – especially Bush's proposal to give states $25 million a year to enact random student drug testing. Bush is also proposing to give more money to the DEA, which already wastes too much money arresting medical marijuana patients and their caregivers. Still, it’s good to hear White House officials talk about the need to eliminate drug war programs that don’t work. It’s even better to hear them admit that the drug war is wasting too many lives, costing too much money, and perpetuating racial disparities. We couldn’t have said it better.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 3:27 PM

 

Psychedelic research
(Menaka Fernando, UCLA Daily Bruin, 4 Feb 2005)
Grob, who is currently conducting a study of the effects of psilocybin (the chemical found in "magic mushrooms") on terminally ill cancer patients, said he observed the hallucinating Brazilian congregation's heightened receptiveness to accepting the maestre's (priest) sermon of leading a moral and responsible life. Many of these congregants had "risen from being at the bottom of society and reformed their lives" after attending the ceremonies, Grob said, leading him to be confident in the potential benefits of psychedelic drugs. . . . Grob said the scene illustrates the importance of subjects' states of mind and the external environment when administering psychedelic drugs on patients - a philosophy that Grob uses in his 2004 study of psychedelics on cancer patients nearing death. . . . Grob's study has attracted new attention as a predecessor to a Harvard Medical School study approved in December by the Food and Drug Administration that will test the effects of the psychedelic drug MDMA also on terminally ill cancer patients. MDMA is better known as the mind-altering drug ecstasy. . . . The research having taken a hiatus for over 20 years, the last decade has seen a slow resurgence of psychedelic research exciting the few psychiatrists that believe in hallucinogen-induced therapy across the country. . . . In Grob's case, finding suitable patients has been challenging because of the strict screening process and reluctance on the patients' part to undergo a study that acknowledges their unfortunate situations. . . . On the patient's end : When a patient comes in to participate in Grob's study, they are taken to a Harbor-UCLA hospital room adorned with pink and lace curtains and purple tie-dye decorations to create a comforting atmosphere in which the hallucinogenic psychotherapy can occur. . . . Grob emphasizes that the aim of the treatment is in no way a physical cure to the disease. It is aimed more at easing feelings of depression and anxiety as patients get closer to death, he says. . . . Many in UCLA's psychiatry community also believe in the value of the study. . . . "We are all going to die. A lot of people are sufficiently afraid of dying so that the prospects of death are stressful," said Mark Kleiman, director of the Drug Policy Analysis Program at UCLA. "This is an unusually good time to think about things that could be done to give people an easier and mindful time of it as they are dying," Kleiman said, referring to the baby boomer generation reaching old age. . . . A patient participating in Grob's study undergoes two sessions of drug administration - taking a capsule of psilocybin during one session and a placebo in a second session. . . . A similar study conducted by Dr. Francisco Moreno at the University of Arizona tested the effects of psilocybin psychotherapy on patients with obsessive compulsive disorder. The study was completed in December and Moreno hopes to have the data analyzed and published shortly, he wrote in an e-mail. . . . A "sleeping giant" emerges . . . There was a time when psychiatric therapy was at "the cutting edge" of scientific research, Grob says, but had all but vanished from the medical community's radar for the last 25 years. . . . With its roots in Shamanistic traditions and dating all the way back to antiquity, psychedelic drugs were discovered by Western scientists in the 1940s - centuries after European conquerors repressed their use due to fears of pagan influence, all according to an article written by Grob. . . . But this widespread research experienced a blow in the 1960s and '70s when hallucinogen use spread rampantly among the youth of the time and law officials began to curb scientific uses of the substances. . . . With the force of law against them, many researchers were encouraged to stop their work until it eventually faded as a legitimate science. . . . "As the sleeping giant of hallucigonogen research emerges ..., it will perceive that the world of psychiatry has vastly changed from when it was put to rest," Grob wrote in 1998. . . . Most psychedelic researchers agree that with the methodology and technology available today, hallucinogenic therapy has the potential to be grounded on sounder evidence than in the past. . . . "I think the time is long overdue," said Dr. David Nichols, president of the Heffter Research Institute, which sponsors Grob's study. . . . "Why should psychedelics have no medical utility?" he asks. "The question is where and how we should use it." . . . Overall, most in academia are not opposed to the learning opportunity psychedelic research provides. . . . "No body knows whether it is a good or not until the research is done," Kleiman said.

. . . Read more!


posted by LoZo 7:30 AM