Library Updates

President Otto Pérez Molina: War on Drugs has Failed

July 3, 2012 Global Policy News

At the launch of the Beckley Foundation Guatemala, President Otto Pérez Molina becomes the first incumbent Head of Government to sign the Beckley Foundation Public Letter.

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Cannabis in Pain and Palliative Care – Donald Abrams

December 19, 2011 Cannabis

Cannabis in Pain and Palliative Care

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The Science of Addiction – Drugs, Brains and Behaviours

June 15, 2011 Drug Policy Library

Throughout much of the last century, scientists studying drug abuse labored in the shadows of powerful myths and misconceptions about the nature of addiction. When science began to study addictive behavior in the 1930s, people addicted to drugs were thought tobe morally flawed and lacking in willpower. Those views shaped society’s responses to drug abuse, [...]

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Drug and Chemical Control

June 15, 2011 Drug Policy Library

Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Chemicals play two essential roles in the production of illegal drugs: as starting chemical inputs for the production of synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxmethamphetamine more commonly known under the name of ecstasy); and as refining agents and solvents for processing plant-based materials such as [...]

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Effect of drug law enforcement on drug market violence: A systematic review

June 15, 2011 Drug Policy Library

Violence is amongst the primary concerns of communities around the world and research has demonstrated links between violence and the illicit drug trade, particularly in urban settings. Given the growing emphasis on evidence-based policy-making, and the ongoing severe drug market violence in Mexico and other settings, we conducted a systematic review to examine the impacts [...]

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Ecstasy Does Not Wreck the Mind

February 21, 2011 Featured Slider

The drug known as ecstasy has been used by 12 million people in the United States alone and millions more worldwide.  Past research has suggested that ecstasy users perform worse than non-users on some tests of mental ability.  But there are concerns that the methods used to conduct that research were flawed, and the experiments [...]

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Innocent Bystanders: Developing Countries and the War on Drugs

February 16, 2011 Drug Policy Library

Drug use/abuse is one of the most difficult challenges facing the contemporary world. If it is true that there has always been consumption of different types of drugs in different societies—although not in all of them—it is no less true that it generally took place in restricted, socially regulated realms, especially in ritualistic ceremonies. This [...]

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Cannabis Use and Earlier Onset of Psychosis

February 16, 2011 Cannabis

Cannabis is the most widely used addictive substance after tobacco and alcohol. The 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that more than 16 million Americans use cannabis on a regular basis, most of whom started using cannabis and other drugs during their teenage years. There is little doubt about the existence of an association [...]

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From the Mountaintops: What The World Can Learn from Drug Policy Change in Switzerland

February 11, 2011 Drug Policy Library

Switzerland, a country renowned for its solid conservatism, was shaken by seeing its cities become the point of convergence of thousands of drug users and counterculture activists, culminating in large open drug scenes in the late 1980s. The country was hit hard by HIV, which was strongly linked—both in the public mind and in reality—to [...]

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Effects of Cannabidiol on Schizophrenia-like Symptoms in People Who use Cannabis

February 11, 2011 Cannabis

Convergent evidence suggests a link between cannabis use and psychosis. However, cannabis comprises a combination of cannabinoids and these different constituents may have distinct effects, not all of which are detrimental to mental health. The main component of smoked cannabis is D9-tetrahydrocannabinol (D9-THC), which is thought to be responsible for the majority of the psychotomimetic [...]

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