The Beckley Foundation is a charitable trust that promotes the scientific investigation of consciousness and its modulation from a multidisciplinary perspective. We also seek to change global drugs policy to reflect a more rational, evidence-based approach, shifting the emphasis from criminalisation to health.
The recent 2012 Summit of the Americas in Cartagena opened up positive avenues for progress in drug policy reform. President Santos’s welcome call for the establishment of an expert taskforce to assess how current drug control regimes can be improved to create more effective, cheaper alternatives is fully in line with the Beckley Foundation’s work [...]
12 May 2012 ALEKSANDER KWASNIEWSKI, PRESIDENT OF POLAND 1995-2005 Powerful op-ed: Former Polish President explains his journey from authorizing ‘one of Europe’s most conservative laws on drug policy’ in 2000, to becoming the first former premier to serve from Eastern Europe on the Global Commission on Drug Policy. Read the original article in the New [...]
14 May 2012, REUTERS — KABUL Jack Kimball Read original text here Afghan government drug chief announces stepped-up security forces in effort to eradicate opium production. But warns: resulting higher prices will mean more violence. To cash-strapped Afghan farmers, the opium trade is lucrative. The more the security forces attempt to stamp out production, the more attractive [...]
By ALEKSANDER KWASNIEWSKI Published: May 10, 2012 WARSAW — In the year 2000, as the president of Poland, I signed one of Europe’s most conservative laws on drug possession. Any amount of illicit substances a person possessed meant they were eligible for up to three years in prison. Our hope was that this would help [...]
The United States is isolated from Latin American leaders calling for drug reform. Beckley Foundation public letter signatory Noam Chomsky on how US policy on drugs isolates it from its Central and South American neighbours, who bear must bear the effects. This, Chomsky argues, was the real scandal of Cartagena, and not the secret [...]
By Nicholas Delaunay 8 May 2012 THE HAGUE-A week after a contentious rollout of a new Dutch law to stub out cannabis sales to foreigners, enforcement is in disarray as some police and Drug tourists are simply dodging the “cannabis card” law by heading elsewhere in the country for their fix, since the rule has entered into force [...]
If the present trend is any indication the prices of poppy seeds in the international and Indian market are destined to soar given the short supply of the commodity of which the country is a major consumer. According to upcountry dealers “poppy seeds markets are very firm with international prices zooming to $4,600 a tonne. [...]
Minority House of Representatives Leader Nancy Pelosi Condemns Obama Medical Marijuana Crackdown original article viastopthedrugwar.org Nancy Pelosi had Obama’s ear after he won the White House in 2008. Will he listen to her now? “I have strong concerns about the recent actions by the federal government that threaten the safe access of medicinal marijuana to [...]
original article via Helsingin Sanomat A rare study of drug experts, conducted in Finland, has produced a forecast for drug use in Finland in 2020. The study was conducted by the Police College of Finland. It may also outline the future for drug use in similar political systems. More than half those surveyed predicted there [...]
President of World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), John Fahey, raises the possibility of amendment to international drug code to ban cannabis only in sports where it is proven to enhance performance. Cannabis doping offences currently carry a two-year sanction. original article from The Guardian
