ERNESTO BENAVIDES, - Agence France-Presse (France)
Stephan: This is what happens when sanity returns to discussions of mind altering substances, and rational policies result. This is hard data; it should help penetrate the fact-free fantasy world in which this subject usually dwells. But there will continue to be great resistance. Significant parts of our economy depend on the drug war for the bulk of their budgets.
Health experts in Portugal said Friday that Portugal’s decision 10 years ago to decriminalise drug use and treat addicts rather than punishing them is an experiment that has worked.
‘There is no doubt that the phenomenon of addiction is in decline in Portugal,’ said Joao Goulao, President of the Institute of Drugs and Drugs Addiction, a press conference to mark the 10th anniversary of the law.
The number of addicts considered ‘problematic’ — those who repeatedly use ‘hard’ drugs and intravenous users — had fallen by half since the early 1990s, when the figure was estimated at around 100,000 people, Goulao said.
Other factors had also played their part however, Goulao, a medical doctor added.
‘This development can not only be attributed to decriminalisation but to a confluence of treatment and risk reduction policies.’
Portugal’s holistic approach had also led to a ‘spectacular’ reduction in the number of infections among intravenous users and a significant drop in drug-related crimes, he added.
A law that became active on July 1, 2001 did not legalise drug use, but forced users caught with banned substances to appear in front of special addiction panels rather than in a criminal court.
The panels composed of psychologists, judges and social workers recommended action […]
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Thursday, July 21st, 2011
MICHAEL SPENCE, Nobel Laureate Economist - Project Syndicate
Stephan: This essay spells out very well what is happening in the U.S. as well as some insight into what is happening.
Michael Spence, a Nobel laureate in economics, is Professor of Economics at New York University's Stern School of Business, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. His latest book is The Next Convergence - The Future of Economic Growth in a Multispeed World (www.thenextconvergence.com).
MILAN — In rapidly growing emerging markets, a combination of internal economic forces, supportive policies, and the shifting nature of the global economy drive high-speed and far-reaching change. The transformation of economic structures occurs so quickly that it is virtually impossible not to notice – though the complexity of the change is, at times, bewildering.
In this fluid environment, mistakes are frequently made. Arguably the most damaging is to stick to a successful growth strategy (a combination of comparative advantage and supportive policies) for too long. In the economy’s tradable sector, comparative advantage always shifts, causing structural change and creative destruction. Countries undergoing a ‘middle-income transition
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Thursday, July 21st, 2011
RHONDA HAYES, Contributing Writer - Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Stephan: I believe individual, family, and community gardens are going to be a key in getting through the perfect storm of transition we are heading into.
Gardening styles and philosophies can collide in any neighborhood where manicured lawns clash with wildflower plots, so you’d think that community gardeners tending plots shoulder to shoulder would run into trouble. But community gardeners seem to put as much emphasis on community as they do gardening.
Ingrid Phillips, a gardener at Sabathani Community Center, said that all the gardeners at the extensive site in Minneapolis show respect for one another, often lending a hand or offering advice to newbies.
From the suburbs to the city, most community gardens typically post a few basic rules governing behavior at these popular hubs of horticulture. But here are 10 rules to follow to keep the peas — I mean, the peace — in any shared garden.
MIND YOUR PLOT
Plots need to be planted by a certain date and regularly maintained. One of the biggest gripes among community gardeners is plots that are untended and weedy. If you, or a fellow gardener, get behind, consider asking the community for help.
KEEP PATHS CLEAR
Gardeners need to be able to negotiate between plots with watering cans and wheelbarrows. Keep the area around your plot clean and consider using wood chips or mesh cloth on pathways.
HONOR THE BOUNDARIES
Good […]
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Thursday, July 21st, 2011
SCOTT HARPER, - Virginian-Pilot
Stephan: This is how grotesquely bloated the American military budget has become -- two times as large as all the military budgets of all the nations in the world. This is right up there with losing $18 billion in cash which drained into somebody's pocket, or more likely pockets, in the first year of the Iraq occupation. Think of how many $100 bills it takes to equal $18 billion, just the physical mass of paper.
Think about how many elderly people could have eaten with the money squandered in this two events, the ships and the pallets of money. Think about how many children could have been fed and decently housed. It is obscene, and I found the story only in a Norfolk, Virginia paper.
They are the two ships no one wanted, almost constantly embroiled in one dispute or another for the past 25 years. The two Navy behemoths have never gone on a mission, were never even completed, yet they cost taxpayers at least $300 million.
Now the vessels, the Benjamin Isherwood and the Henry Eckford, are destined to leave Virginia waters for good and be scrapped at a Texas salvage yard, with no money coming back to the U.S. Treasury.
The Isherwood, stretching more than 660 feet, began its final journey this week, unceremoniously towed Tuesday from its mooring spot in the James River Reserve Fleet, also known as the ‘ghost fleet,’ near Fort Eus-tis in Newport News.
Its destination: International Shipbreaking Limited in Brownsville, Texas, just above the Mexico border. There, the vessel will be cut up, its innards removed and disposed of, and its steel and other metals sold as recycled products.
The Eckford, of equal size, is scheduled to follow next Tuesday, leaving behind fewer than 20 junk ships in the ghost fleet, the smallest number since its inception during World War I.
Once the two Navy oilers have departed, ‘it will close one of the saddest chapters in American shipbuilding and for that […]
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Thursday, July 21st, 2011
CHRISTINE SHEARER, - Earth Island Journal
Stephan: Think of this as the canary in the coal mine.
This is an extract from Christine Shearer's new book: Kivalina: A Climate Change Story. Shearer is a postdoctoral scholar in science, technology, and society studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a researcher for CoalSwarm, part of SourceWatch. Her work has appeared in Race Gender & Class, Conservation Letters, the Huffington Post, and Truthout. This is her first book
For the Inupiat people of Kivalina in the Arctic of Alaska, the price of further climate change denial could be the complete devastation of their lives and culture. Their crumbling village must be relocated to survive. But neither the government, nor the fossil fuel giants who have helped speed up the destruction of their village seem to willing to take responsibility.
In her compelling new book Kivalina: A Climate Change Story, Christine Shearer traces the history of corporate greed and government compliance and connects it to the plight of this ancient Eskimo community by the Chukchi Sea coast. A grim forewarning of what could soon be the plight of coastal communities across the world if we don’t wake up and act right now.
We bring you the introduction to her book as Journal web exclusive.
IN February 2008, a tiny Alaska Native village named Kivalina filed suit against twenty-four fossil fuel companies for contributing to the village’s erosion through large greenhouse gas emissions, and for creating a false debate around climate change. The lawsuit was filed in conjunction with environmental justice and indigenous rights organizations as one of several steps in a broader push for climate justice, aiming to help Kivalina residents draw […]
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