The newly sworn-in president of Bolivia, Luis Arce, will face a number of pressing security challenges as he works to bring stability back to the country — but none is as important as setting a clear drug policy. Arce’s landslide election win at the end of October marked a return to power for the Movement to Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo — MAS) party, which was led by former President Evo Morales before he was ousted and forced into exile after a contentious 2019 election.

A state-sanctioned crackdown on the opposition and widespread human rights abuses — including the killing of 10 coca farmers when troops opened fire on protesters decrying Morales’ departure — in large part defined the 12-month tenure of the interim government of Jeanine Áñez.

Now, Arce is tasked with not only restoring calm to the Andean nation, but also grappling with rising drug flights leaving the northern department of Beni and allegations that Brazil’s First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital — PCC) may now be sourcing most of its cocaine supply from Bolivia, among other things.

Bolivia has been known for thinking progressively in terms of drug policy, including creating a legal, domestic coca market. But Áñez’s interim government quickly swung Bolivia’s anti-drug approach back to hard-line measures focused on the lofty goal of creating a country “free of drugs.”

Under Morales, the government took a different approach to drug policy and invested in a “community coca control” program. This focused on working with coca growers directly to maintain the quota on legal production — which stands at 22,000 hectares — “rather than to recklessly eradicate the plant,” according to an Open Society Foundations report.

Bolivia’s new president faces complex drug scenario

An investigation by El Espectador revealed the existence of a corruption network within the asset forfeiture unit of the Attorney General’s Office involving high-ranking judicial officials, as well as lawyers of well-known drug traffickers and US federal agents.

According to inspections conducted by the Attorney General’s Office, lawyer Luis Valero, along with prosecutor Mónica Valencia and agents from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), offered a number of benefits to Colombian drug trafficker Javier García Rojas, alias “Maracuyá,” in exchange for 10 percent of his seized assets. These included a get-out-of-jail-free card from the Clinton List, which bars any US individuals or entities from doing business with him.

One of the assets taken from García Rojas was a large piece of land inside the Marmonal industrial zone in Cartagena reportedly valued at 419 billion Colombian pesos ($108 million) and that had pre-existing approval for a port to be built there.

Maracuyá’s main business partner, José Bayron Piedrahíta Ceballos, a drug trafficker who was arrested in Argentina in 2017, also confirmed the existence of benefit packages that several US officials and agents offered to suspects.

Maracuyá’s case was just one of several corruption cases within the asset forfeiture unit of the Attorney General’s Office. The El Espectador investigation also revealed that the former director of the unit, Andrea Malagón, was linked to corruption within the Meritage real estate project in the city of Medellín.

Colombia continues to bungle assets seized from drug traffickers

While the results of the 2020 US election may have been hotly disputed, one outcome that was crystal clear was the win for progressive drug policy. From New Jersey to Arizona, voters in their millions chose to decriminalise the use of drugs at an unprecedented scale with Oregon even introducing a historic first by legalising magic mushrooms for therapeutic use.

That’s all well and good for the US but, you may be wondering, what does that have to do with our lived reality on Britain’s shores?

Earlier this month, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), the world’s leading non-profit psychedelic research organisation, began fundraising in the UK to support clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among wounded army veterans.

In fact, the PTSD study is just one of dozens currently taking place in the UK that seek to explore the impact that psychedelic substances can have on mental health.

From MDMA, to psilocybin (magic mushrooms), Ayahuasca and beyond, a whole host of mind-altering substances which were traditionally used in recreational settings are being explored for their therapeutic benefits. So, given the historic racial disparities in mental health outcomes and the known lack of culturally competent mental health provision for our communities, just who is advocating for Black people’s needs within this newly emerging field?

Here’s why Black people in the UK are turning to psychedelics

By Wilbert L. Cooper and Christie Thompson of the Marshall Project, The Guardian

From the Pacific Northwest to the deep south, drug legalization won big nationwide on election day in the United States.

Under the first state law of its kind, people in Oregon soon won’t be arrested for possessing small amounts of drugs including heroin, meth and cocaine. In New Jersey, Arizona, South Dakota and Montana, voters joined 11 other states and the District of Columbia in legalizing recreational marijuana. Washington DC passed an initiative to make mushrooms and other natural psychedelics the lowest possible enforcement priority. Even Mississippi legalized medical marijuana.

After months of global protests over racism in policing, advocates behind many of these campaigns focused their messaging on racial disparities in drug-law enforcement. In New Jersey, a social media ad explaining how a marijuana arrest could ruin someone’s life centered images of young Black men and women. Activists in Oregon pointed to a statewide study that found drug convictions for Black and Native people would drop by nearly 95% under the state’s decriminalization law.

Yet despite these electoral successes, it remains unclear what effect the new measures will have for communities of color, who have long been disproportionately targeted in the war on drugs. Even as many states move toward legalization, drug-related violations remain the most frequent cause for arrest in the US. Nearly 40% of those arrests are for marijuana possession alone, according to federal data from 2018. Black people make up 27% of drug arrests, but only 13% of the country.

How will drug legalization affect America's communities of color?

Argentina on Thursday authorized people to grow marijuana at home for medicinal use, delighting supporters of cannabis who have fought for years to make it widely available to patients suffering from a broad range of ailments.

A decree issued by President Alberto Fernández also allows pharmacies to sell cannabis-derived oils, creams and other products, and it orders public and private insurance systems to cover these medications for patients who obtain a prescription.

The president’s move significantly expanded the reach of a 2017 law that legalized medical marijuana. Supporters of medicinal cannabis say Mr. Fernández’s predecessor, Mauricio Macri, established restrictions so strict that it effectively made the drug inaccessible to patients.

The measure is the latest step softening drug laws in Latin America. In 2017, Uruguay legalized recreational marijuana, which is sold in pharmacies, and Colombia established a licensing system to grow cannabis for medicinal use. Home growers in Argentina will need a license based on medical needs.

Argentina to allow medicinal marijuana to be grown at home

Transgender Day of Remembrance is an annual day to mourn and honour transgender people who’s lives have been lost the hands of anti-trans violence. Transmisogyny is very much alive as a mainstream idea, transmysoginistic views are often casually expressed by public figures, politicians, and “good-faith” actors describing themselves as being “gender critical” and painting a picture that they are simply asking honest questions.

However, these views do represent and contribute more sinister and violent forms of transmisogyny. It seems every passing year goes on record as being the most violent year for transgender people, in particular in the United States, where many organizations including Human Rights Campaign collect data. In Germany, where I live, while data on transgender people specifically is difficult to find, reported attacks on LGBTQ+ people have been following a similar upward trend. Per Transgender Europe (TGEU), between October 2019 and September 2020 there have been 350 murders of transgender and gender-diverse people worldwide – a figure which does not account for a massive amount of unreported murders and a figure which is rising year-on-year.

This threat of violence and passive discrimination experienced push transgender people to unsuitable living situations and prevent their access to significant sections of society, all of which could be described as forms of institutional violence leading to harms and to deaths not accounted for in these violent murder statistics.

Youth RISE's statement on Transgender Day of Remembrance

The film ‘Targets’ is a story about the women in Ukraine who are branded as “drug addicts” and who are being destroyed by the state today. These women are targets, and a real war is being waged against them. The film is an attempt to understand why this is happening and what needs to be done to stop these deaths.

On the one hand, the state finances a program of substitution maintenance therapy (SMT), which is a method of treating drug addiction with proven effectiveness. Many women in Ukraine receive this therapy. This gives them the opportunity to restore health and social ties, find work, devote time to family and children, etc.

However, on the other hand, as soon as a woman begins to receive this treatment, she is immediately diagnosed with drug addiction. At this moment, as a result of being given this status, she loses all her rights. In practice, this is very often used by social services, which can take children from such women and deprive them of parental rights.

 ‘Targets’ - A film on the impact of prohibition of women who use drugs in Ukraine

By Alexei Koseff / San Francisco Chronicle

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, plans to introduce a decriminalization bill in the Legislature next year. He was working on it with Assembly members Evan Low, D-Campbell, and Sydney Kamlager, D-Los Angeles.

“Any substance can be harmful, so I’m not suggesting that anything is like nirvana,” Wiener — who said he doesn’t personally take psychedelics — told the San Francisco Chronicle. “But we know that psychedelics can be used safely. We know they appear to have significant medicinal uses.”

Magic mushrooms, touted as a consciousness-expanding drug in the 1960s, have been used in religious or spiritual practices in some cultures for centuries and possibly thousands of years. The mushrooms contain psilocybin, which is responsible for their psychedelic effect. Some researchers believe psilocybin and other drugs show promise in treating depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

“The war on drugs has been a disaster, in terms of bloating law enforcement, tearing apart communities, criminalizing addiction and spending enormous amounts of money on prisons,” Wiener said. “We need to end the war on drugs. Possession of drugs should just not be a crime.”

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