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April 05 TRANSFORM NEWS "Prohibition is the problem, not the solution" Greetings and welcome to Transform's April Newsletter. There is disappointing news this month; the ill thought out Drugs Bill has passed through the final stages of its parliamentary scrutiny, been enacted and received Royal Assent - despite the best efforts of Transform (and an informal alliance of concerned NGOs) to make parliament reconsider. Find out more about the implications of this below. Beyond our Parliamentary activities there have been some major developments in Transform's website, most prominently the opening of the Transform forum - a webspace to discuss and debate drug policy development - so sign up and get posting. Elsewhere we've been busying with plans for engaging the new Government, grinding our teeth at the miserably low quality of the drug debate during the election campaigns, and trying to inject a dose of common sense into discussion of drugs issues. Please keep your comments and ideas coming Thanks for reading - till May!
CONTENTS 2. International News 3.TDPF 4.What you can do 1. UK NEWS * Election & Drugs bill * The final stages of the Bill's scrutiny have been shockingly inadequate. The second reading debate in the Lords was announced late and was generally not expected to take place as it was timetabled for the evening of April 4th - the day of the expected General Election announcement. The Pope's death, however, delayed this announcement by a day, enabling the debate to take place and for the Bill to continue to committee stage and its third reading As a result many of the NGO briefings - outlining objections to the Bill - were not circulated to Peers. Following the announcement of the General Election all outstanding bills are given the remainder of the week to be decided upon. They will either be enacted or will fall - and have to be re-introduced in the next parliament, if at all. This so called 'wash up' week is the scene of many backroom deals, one of which was struck between the three major parties over the Drugs Bill. Whilst there was considerable objections to the Bill from the opposition (the Conservatives that it was to soft, and the Lib Dems that it was too harsh) and many individual MPs and Peers, none of the parties stood in the way of the Bill's passing, presumably because they did not want to pick a fight on the highly sensitive and contentious drugs issue in the run up to the election. The committee stage of the Bill and its third and final Lords reading were squeezed together in the overcrowded 'wash up' week agenda (the Bill was never actually scrutinised in Lords committee). A number of Peers, including Lord Rae and Lord Mancroft, indicated their strong objections to the undue haste in which the Bill was being pushed through the Lords without due scrutiny. This was not, it was noted, an urgent piece of legislation and should be reintroduced in the Autumn to allow proper scrutiny in committee and debate. Lords Mancroft (Con) and Cobbold (cross bench) tabled a number of amendments, all but one of which were ultimately withdrawn. Only the amendment to withdraw the clause (21) concerning magic mushrooms was put to a vote, on which it was roundly defeated (remember that the party whips would have instructed peers how to vote as a result of the deal that had been struck with the Government). So despite the valiant attempts by Transform, Justice, Liberty, Release, DrugScope, Turning Point, the Law Society, and numerous parliamentarians to highlight the serious problems (legal, practical and ethical) with the Bill, it has been rushed through the Lords and has become law - without having had the detailed scrutiny in the Lords that it clearly warrants. The various clauses in the Bill are now subject to commencement orders and many of them will have consultations on how they will function in practice. Some of the clauses may never come into law, and there is considerable scope remaining to ensure that some of the clauses are modified or repealed - as has happened with the reforms to Section 8 of the Misuse of Drugs Act (see the Transform Drugs Bill briefing for details). Due to external events (the Pope's death, the Royal wedding and the election) this has happened with virtually no media coverage whatsoever. The enactment of this Bill means (among other things): "According to the British Home Office, the criminalisation of mushrooms should be in place in time for June's annual Glastonbury Festival".(BBC online) "This bill was conceived in prejudice, written in ignorance and is being enacted with incompetence," Paul Flynn MP For more details see, including a clause by clause briefing: *Scottish prisons are to scrap mandatory drugs tests *Useful sources of UK drug news: 2.INTERNATIONAL NEWS * Anti-Drug initiatives in Colombia have failed to reduce drug production *
* Positive developments in European drug policy * Read the report here: * Man to be executed in Singapore this Friday (13th) for importing 1 kg of cannabis *
International Links - Drug Policy Alliance - http://www.drugpolicy.org/homepage.cfm - the leadingUS drug policy reform organisation - Liafax - International Anti-Prohibitionist League: http://www.antiprohibitionist.org/index.html They also have a weekly e-mail bulletin. Subscribe here: 3. TRANSFORM DRUG POLICY FOUNDATION NEWS The web-forum is open! Please check out our forum and make a contribution to the discussions! Media Log *Steve was interviewed on BBC Radio Belfast *One of our volunteers was on BBC Radio 4's Women's Hour. Listen again : http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2005_16_tue_03.shtml For help with raising awareness through the media see below and the 'What you can do page' on the TDPF site here; For more advice please call the Transform office on 0117 941 5810. Send in your media tips, warnings, successes and failures - we'll include them here. In the last month Transform have been contacted by people in North Korea, Bulgaria and New Zealand. We recently gained our first African volunteer, based in Cameroon! Brilliant. *Website · The FORUM! http://forum.tdpf.org.uk/forum · New essay by Mike Jay on the history of cocaine *Charities Aid Foundation Online Giving service: *PUBLICATIONS Recommended. By the same author "Emperors of Dreams, Drugs in the Nineteenth Century" by Mike Jay - recently reprinted by Dedalus Books. A fascinating read about drug culture in the pre-prohibition era (Mike is one of our trustees) After the War on Drugs - Options for Control For printed copies please contact info@tdpf.org.uk **This report has recently been translated into Spanish and Portuguese (which will soon be available on line), and we have had offers for translation Bulgarian!** 4. WHAT YOU CAN DO - Go to the Cannabis Education March & Rally in London on 15th May. How much impact these marches have is difficult to gauge, but they are usually good fun and an opportunity to meet with like minded people. Transform will have a speaker at the Trafalgar square rally. Find out more here: - Sign the 'Angel Declaration' http://www.angeldeclaration.com - This public declaration seeks the repeal of drugs prohibition and its replacement by a comprehensive system of public licensing, harm reduction, education and treatment. - Write to your new MP/councillor and ask them their views on the current drug policy. Ask their opinion on the war on drugs, the fact that it isn't working and what they think should be done. They have a duty to reply, and then you can begin a dialogue. Remember always to be polite however much you may disagree with them! Get to work on your new MP. Book a visit to their surgery - you can meet with them and discuss any issue that you fancy. -Visit online discussion & news forums and get involved in debates - post links to Transform web resources - this has a secondary benefit of raising our profile on search sites like Google. If you find online discussion forums where people are discussing drug policy - send us the links and we will include them in the next newsletter.
Please pass this onto your friends - subscribers can join by visiting: For other ideas and more details on what you can do see :
For all these stories and more see: http://www.tdpf.org.uk Transform Drug Policy Foundation is a registered charity no: 1100518 The organisations, agencies, and information linked from www.tdpf.org.uk represent a variety of viewpoints from across the drug policy field. Transform is not responsible for the contents of sites linked on this newsletter, and does not automatically endorse linked information. Any suggested additions or corrections please email info@tdpf.org.uk If you have received this mail in error, or if would like to unsubscribe from the list, just click reply/e-mail info@tdpf.org.uk with 'unsubscribe me' as the subject. If you know anyone who might enjoy this newsletter please pass it on. New subscribers can join by visiting http://www.tdpf.org.uk/Contact.htm
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL APPEAL: SINGAPORE Shanmugam s/o Murugesu was sentenced to death under the Misuse of Drugs Act, which carries a mandatory death sentence for anyone found guilty of trafficking in more than 500 grams of cannabis. In January 2005 the Court of Appeal rejected his appeal against the death sentence. He has no previous criminal record, has reportedly expressed deep regret for his actions and has asked for the opportunity to be rehabilitated. There is very little public debate about the death penalty in Singapore due to controls imposed by the government on the press and civil society organizations. However, on 16 April 2005, local activists organized a rare public forum to highlight Shanmugam's case. Participants at the forum described the cruel and inhuman nature of the death penalty and its impact on the families of those on death row. They also described the risk of miscarriages of justice and expressed serious concerns about the Singapore government's justification of the death penalty as an effective deterrent against drug trafficking and other crimes. An Amnesty International representative who attended the forum was refused permission by the authorities to address the meeting. Local activists plan to hold a vigil for Shanmugam on 6 May. BACKGROUND INFORMATION The Misuse of Drugs Act provides for a mandatory death sentence for at least 20 different offences and contains a series of presumptions which shift the burden of proof from the prosecution to the accused. Such presumptions erode the right to a fair trial, increasing the risk that an innocent person may be executed, and conflicting with the universally guaranteed right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Prisoners facing execution may be granted clemency by the President, on the advice of the Cabinet, but it is extremely rare for clemency to be given. Amnesty International opposes the death penalty worldwide in all cases as a violation of one of the most fundamental of human rights: the right to life. .It is the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and is imposed disproportionately on the poorest, least educated and most vulnerable members of society. It takes the lives of offenders who might otherwise have been rehabilitated. There is no escaping the risk of error which can lead to the execution of an innocent person. In April 2005 the UN Commission on Human Rights renewed calls upon all states which still maintain the death penalty to abolish it completely and, in the meantime, to establish a moratorium on executions. RECOMMENDED ACTION: - urging the authorities to reconsider the decision to refuse clemency in the case of Shanmugam s/o Murugesu and urging them to commute his death sentence; urging the authorities to impose a moratorium on executions, with a view to complete abolition, in line with the April 2005 UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) resolution on the question of the death penalty; noting that the UNCHR has urged states which still maintain the death penalty not to impose it as a mandatory sentence, or for crimes without lethal or extremely grave consequences. APPEALS TO (Time difference = GMT + 8 hrs / BST + 7 hrs): Attorney General Chief Justice PLEASE SEND COPIES OF YOUR APPEALS TO: His Excellency Mr Michael Eng Cheng Teo, PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY Thank you.
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