[Science] Suppressed WHO cocaine report

[endless psych]

From Transform.

The largest ever study of cocaine use around the globe was carried out in the early 90's[/ by the UN World Health Organisation (WHO) and funded by the UN Inter-regional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI), but under pressure from the US its publication was suppressed when it became clear the report's findings were in direct conflict with the myths, stereotypes and propaganda that prop up the war on drugs

The WHO-UNICRI cocaine Study

In a classic example of what happens when public health pragmatism collides with criminal justice dogma, just two months later, at the 48th World Health Assembly, the US representative to the WHO threatened to withdraw US funding for WHO research projects unless they 'would dissociate itself from the conclusions of the study'

Can we has technocracy now?

[endless psych]

Where are all the conspiracy types when theres an actual conspiracy about?

[katinacooker]

tl;dr

[Campestral]

we need folk to be daft, else we'll look stupid

[endless psych]

Originally Posted by katinacooker

tl;dr

Summary:- War on drugs and phrohibition wrong.

legalisation also cheaper

[Campestral]

this is amazing, it's the connection between body and mind, he must've practised every day for years just to meet his guy

YouTube - Horowitz highlights: Chopin, Ballade...

[sjonit]

Just jumped straight to the conclusion.

"One of the clearest findings of the WHO/UNICRI Cocaine project is that it is not possible to describe an "average cocaine user".".

DUH, obv due to the different type of ingestion methods, injecting crack to snorting powder..

[AWESOMEUS MAXIMUS]

lulz at the government getting caught for that.
Wonder if WHO will mysteryiously "fold", under pressure.

[endless psych]

Originally Posted by AWESOMEUS MAXIMUS

Wonder if WHO will mysteryiously "fold", under pressure.

Fold? As in cease to exist? Highly, Highly doubtful.

[AWESOMEUS MAXIMUS]

Obviously not 'over-night', but one must wonder how much of their work was previously funded/subsidised by the state and where the boodle will be coming from if they are now going to withdraw it....

[endless psych]

Well given that the main source of the WHO's funding is from members governments of the United Nations...

Pretty much all of it. Also no one is withdrawing funding the US administration threatened to do so and the report was spiked - hence controversy. All it highlights is that the WHO isn't an "independent" body.

[AWESOMEUS MAXIMUS]

That's all it highlights to us.
It's obviously information they (US) did not want to get out...
There will obv be repercussions...like funding cuts etc from the US, IMO, although you may not necessarily hear about it.

[endless psych]

The WHO is already an underfunded organisation. Also the information is already "out there" the only thing the WHO report did was bring it together in an official report.

It's not as if the WHO discovered some super secret stuff about cocaine it was just going to publish stuff already known in an official WHO report. Said Stuff contradicts US war on drugs, US throws toys from pram threatens already underfunded organisation and report is buried for a decade.

I mean the actions of the US are despicable enough without needing an extra layer of intrigue and the usual bullshit no?

[AWESOMEUS MAXIMUS]

Originally Posted by endless psych

The WHO is already an underfunded organisation. Also the information is already "out there" the only thing the WHO report did was bring it together in an official report.

It's not as if the WHO discovered some super secret stuff about cocaine it was just going to publish stuff already known in an official WHO report. Said Stuff contradicts US war on drugs, US throws toys from pram threatens already underfunded organisation and report is buried for a decade.

Aye, I'm well aware - but giving it a stamp of officialness means folk actually "believe it" - which is why the US didn't want it getting an official stamp of approval, as it would make it hard to argue contrary to their "war on drugs" - i.e. they didn't want coke getting a better name...so threatened and got the report buried as you say.

After threatening to pull their funding to an already underfunded organisation if it was "officialised" (now it is), then surely there is a threat that they might pull funding all together now they've been made a cunt of?

I mean the actions of the US are despicable enough without needing an extra layer of intrigue and the usual bullshit no?

I don't think they know any bounds, personally speaking.

[erithromycin]

Ah, but, see, the thing about the War on Drugs and the War On Women's Control Of Their Reproduction is that they don't threaten the world view of autodidactic cretins, and as such are propogated by, rather than railed against, by conspiracy theorists.

The War On Drugs is pointless. Prohibition doesn't work. There's too much vested in it, however, to allow it to fail. Legalising (and taxing) cannabis, and growing it in the UK could probably fix the deficit or the pension shortfall (but is unlikely to fix both). More maturity about opium would let us fix the world codeine shortage while offering amazingly useful export dollars to Afghanistan. Prescribed heroin rather than methodone would put us in the same position as Holland, where junkies are basically all of retirement age. It's the illegality that makes marijuana a gateway drug - once it's accepted that you're willing to break the law for intoxicant purposes, it isn't much of a gap from one to the other. That, of course, and common supply.

Picture it though! Fair-trade cocaine! Domestic cannabis! We'd grow fat on tourist money from the western world. Think how perfectly placed Scotland is to capitalise on a new generation of dope tourists - we could build our socialist utopia on the fat of the land. In the kingdom of the stoned, the munchy box is king.

Prison-industrial complex aside, a large part of it is classist and racist oppression. "Wine is fine but pot is not", and so on.