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Pot Decriminalization Advances in US, Former World Leaders Call for End to Failed War on Drugs

September 10th 2014 at 11:56 am

https://www.freespeech.org/video/pot-decriminalization-advances-us-former-world-leaders-call-end-failed-war-drugs

Pot Decriminalization Advances in US, Former World Leaders Call for End to Failed War on Drugs

On Monday, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter said he would sign a bill that would make Philadelphia the largest city in the country to decriminalize marijuana possession. Just two weeks ago, the City Council in Santa Fe voted to decriminalize marijuana. Earlier this year, District of Columbia Mayor Vincent Gray signed a bill to decriminalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana in the U.S. capital. Ballot initiatives on legalization of marijuana will go before voters in Oregon, Florida and Alaska in November. This comes two years after voter initiatives in Colorado and Washington state legalized recreational marijuana. Meanwhile, a group of former presidents and United Nations leaders gathered in New York Tuesday to call for an end to the criminalization and incarceration of drug users. Known as the Global Commission on Drug Policy, the panel includes the former presidents of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Poland, Portugal and Switzerland. The commission first made headlines in 2011 when it declared the war on drugs to be a failure. Full episodes of Democracy Now! can be viewed at the link: https://www.freespeech.org/collection/democracy-now






http://cannabis.hawaiinewsdaily.com/2014/09/09/huge-story-global-commission-calls-for-decriminalization-regulation-and-legalization/
The full commission includes:

Aleksander Kwasniewski
Former President of Poland

Asma Jahangir
Human rights activist, former UN Special Rapporteur on Arbitrary, Extrajudicial and Summary Executions, Pakistan

Carlos Fuentes
Writer and public intellectual, Mexico – in memoriam

César Gaviria
Former President of Colômbia

Ernesto Zedillo
Former President of Mexico

Fernando Henrique Cardoso
Former President of Brazil (chair)

George Papandreou
Former Prime Minister of Greece

George Shultz
Former Secretary of State, United States (honorary chair)

Javier Solana
Former European Union High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Spain

John Whitehead
Banker and civil servant, chair of the World Trade Center Memorial, United States

Jorge Sampaio
Former President of Portugal

Kofi Annan
Former Secretary General of the United Nations, Ghana

Louise Arbour
Former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, president of the International Crisis Group, Canada

Maria Cattaui
Former Secretary-General of the International Chamber of Commerce, Switzerland

Mario Vargas Llosa
Writer and public intellectual, Peru

Michel Kazatchkine
Professor of medicine, former Executive director of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria

Paul Volcker
Former Chairman of the US Federal Reserve and of the Economic Recovery Board, US

Pavel Bém
Former Mayor of Prague, member of the Parliament, Czech Republic

Ricardo Lagos
Former president of Chile

Richard Branson
Entrepreneur, advocate for social causes, founder of the Virgin Group, cofounder of The Elders, United Kingdom

Ruth Dreifuss
Former President of Switzerland and Minister of Home Affairs

Thorvald Stoltenberg
Former Minister of Foreign Affairs and UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Norway

This is truly an impressive set of recommendations that have the potential to really shake up the status quo of international drug policy.