Head of U.N. drug agency wants U.S. to fight new marijuana laws

[cali]

VIENNA -- The head of the U.N. drug watchdog agency is urging U.S. officials to challenge ballot measures in Colorado and Washington state that decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana for adults 21 and over.

Raymond Yans said the approvals send "a wrong message to the rest of the nation and it sends a wrong message abroad."

Yans heads the International Narcotics Control Board. He told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he hopes Attorney General Eric Holder "will take all the necessary measures" to ensure that marijuana possession and use remain illegal throughout the U.S.

Both states are holding off on plans to regulate and tax the drug while waiting to see whether the Justice Department will assert federal authority. The U.N. agency has no enforcement ability.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/11/21/4431930/head-of-un-drug-agency-wants-us.html#storylink=cpy

VIENNA, AUSTRIA — The president of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) Thursday voiced “grave concern” about the votes legalizing marijuana in the US states of Colorado and Washington, as well as in the Michigan cities of Detroit and Flint. INCB head Raymond Yans also warned that allowing for the legal, non-medical sale of marijuana would violate the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.

INCB President Raymond Yans (incb.org)

The INCB is a quasi-judicial body charged with monitoring compliance with the Single Convention and associated treaties. It hectors governments that step outside its interpretation of what the treaties allow, although in practical terms, its ability to enforce its will is mainly rhetorical. INCB criticism of Australia and Canada over the establishment of safe injection sites, for example, has not moved those governments to end the practice, nor has its criticism of Bolivia over allowing coca cultivation resulted in a shift of policy in Bolivia.

Yans was inspired to speak out by the victories of Amendment 64 in Colorado and Initiative 502 in Washington state, both of which envisage legal, state-regulated commercial marijuana cultivation and distribution regimes and both of which will result in the possession of small amounts by adults being legal by early next year. The INCB also alluded to the votes in the Michigan cities of Detroit and Flint to legalize the possession of up to an ounce by adults on private property.

“These developments are in violation of the international drug control treaties, and pose a great threat to public health and the well-being of society far beyond those states,” Yans said in a Thursday statement. “Legalization of cannabis within these states would send wrong and confusing signals to youth and society in general, giving the false impression that drug abuse might be considered normal and even, most disturbingly, safe. Such a development could result in the expansion of drug abuse, especially among young people, and we must remember that all young people have a right to be protected from drug abuse and drug dependency.”

This isn’t your father’s marijuana, Yans warned.

<snip>

http://www.thedailychronic.net/2012/13303/un-drug-watchdog-concerned-with-marijuana-legalization-votes/

[jberryhill]

1. "This isn’t your father’s marijuana"

Well I better not find my kids smoking that!

[Voice for Peace]

3. I wish my father could have had his own, it might have helped him cheer up

and not drink himself to death.

[Uncle Joe]

2. Good, the U.N. I.N.C.B. coming out strongly against this should help the cannabis legalization

movement gain strength in the conservative South; where they're already paranoid about the U.N.s power to usurp or warp domestic policy and grassroots democracy.

Those Drug Treaties need to be updated or renegotiated anyway, they're totally out of date. and have long since outlived their usefulness, the "War Against Drugs" having caused far more damage to society than the drugs themselves.

Thanks for the thread, cali.

[RedCappedBandit]

4. I wonder if he drinks.

[xfundy]

5. A plant indigenous to much of the south and southwest

is a danger HOW?

Meanwhile, I've heard little to no rallying against another indigenous plant, tobacco. Don't they realize they can make money off pot, too?