Tag: patrick
The David of Coca versus the Goliath of International Prohibition
This week Bolivia’s Ambassador to the United Nations signaled his country’s withdrawal from the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. Bolivia’s president Evo Morales instructed the withdrawal after months of lobbying at the UN in pursuit of an exclusion to the Convention for the criminalization of coca-leaf chewing, which is seen as an ancestral right by the Andean country’s indigenous
SSDP in Colombia Celebrates Milestone and Activities
The SSDP chapter at the National University of Colombia (SSDP UN), the first in a Latin American, Spanish-speaking country, celebrates sixteen months of activities since its foundation. To mark this milestone, the chapter members want to tell the organization of our participation in a number of activities. Under the category of “Student Working Groups,” the chapter has received support from
Vigil in Mexico City
17 June 2011 Where: Kiosco de Coyoacan, Coyoacan Centro When: 19:00 distribution of candles; 20:00 lighting of candles Please click on the image to view the invitation. patrick@ssdp.org
The Case of Mexico
You know the context in Mexico by now. If not, you can read about a protest SSDP-University of Oregon organized to coincide with Cinco de Mayo. This group used 36 people in a fall-down protest to signal, 1,000 for each person, the number of fatalities in the Mexican-US drug war since 2006. And follow this sequence of events: Felipe Calderon comes
Better to Live
The last few months have seen bodies heaped upon bodies in Mexico. In some cases, the heaping is quite literal: drug graves have been opened up in the northern Gulf state of Tamaulipas, the largest contained almost two hundred people. Authorities sent cadavers to Mexico City for identification by forensic specialists. Though killed by drug gangs, investigators in Tamaulipas suggest
UN Discusses Legal Rights of Child
YouthRISE and the International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA) have partnered to produce a document on Human Rights and Harm Reduction from a child’s legal perspective. A focus on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) gives the authors opportunity to discuss what children’s rights may be violated when states attempt to protect them from illicit drug use. The authors identify that Article
Petition to retain Hungary's Evidence Drug Policy
The European Union continues to register deep divisions in drug policy. On the one hand there’s Portugal, scion of the progressive movement, a country that offers treatment over incarceration for small amounts of possession. And on the other hand there’s Hungary, where years of progressive organizing around drug issues may have just evaporated, returning instead to the bete noire of prohibition. Hungary’s
What does the International Liaison Do?
My job makes me feel privileged. I’m the first International Liaison for Students for Sensible Drug Policy. My job enables me to travel outside the US, working with students and youth in other countries to set up SSDP chapters. It’s a great task which requires patience and perspicacity to find out what issues and ideas represent the interests of students
The Mawkish and the Macabre
It’s a private museum housed in the Secretary of Defense in Mexico City. It’s a museum filled with objects and information about the drug war but collected by the military. Its keepers say that it’s a museum with a message, and an explicit training purpose for public officials about the lives, lifestyles, deaths, and activities of the drug trafficking organizations, especially so
