Legislation that decriminalizes the possession of all illegal drugs in Oregon is now in effect.
Approved by voters in November, the measure says the state will fine offenders and offer addiction treatment instead of prison time. By addressing drug use as a public health issue rather than a crime, this historic change takes “a sledgehammer to the war on drugs,” says Kassandra Frederique, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance.
Drug users need help, not punishment, she says, yet drug possession is the most common reason for arrest in the U.S. This legislation disrupts the relationship between getting help and getting in trouble.
“As someone who was a social worker, I recognize that people make different choices when they want to make those choices,” she says. “Punishing people has never been an effective deterrent when it’s come to complex human behavior.”
People dealing with addiction have limited treatment options in jail or prison, she says, whereas remaining part of their community helps folks maintain dignity and sovereignty to make better choices.
Under Oregon’s new legislation, decriminalizing all drugs includes substances such as heroin, cocaine and meth. Opponents argue that by removing a major disincentive to do drugs, the law could fuel more drug use.
With more Americans dying from drug overdoses than ever before, Frederique says treatment and community resources need to be funded. Decriminalizing drugs sends a message to Oregonians that help is available, she says.
“There’s been so much cognitive dissonance about what the message is. Is it tough love or is it love?” she says. “And what I say is love is not supposed to hurt.”
And Oregon isn’t alone: Vermont, Colorado, Washington, California and Virginia are also looking into decriminalizing drugs.
“I think more people are looking at this than people realize because everyone recognizes that we cannot arrest our way out of this problem,” she says. “So let’s stop investing in that and let’s actually start investing in community well-being.”
A cocaine consumer shows a bag of the drug. (Juan Manuel Barrero/AFP/Getty Images)
Tan bon punt la columna de protestants ha arribat a l’altura del carrer de Bosch, la tensió entre Mossos d’Esquadra i els manifestants s’ha incrementat fins al punt que hi ha hagut barricades, crema de contenidors i vehicles i llançament d’objectes contundents contra la policia. Els agents de la policia catalana hi han respost disparant bales de foam. Enmig dels incidents, dues persones han resultat ferides, una a l’ull.
The arrest of rapper Pablo Hasél at the University of Lleida this Tuesday morning has led to the call for numerous demonstrations in protest against his imprisonment. In Barcelona, the rally will take place this afternoon at 7 pm in Plaça de Lesseps.
Apart from Barcelona, there are mobilizations called at the same time in many Catalan cities, such as Tarragona, Girona, Sabadell, Lleida, Tortosa and Vic. Also in Madrid there is a protest called at the Puerta del Sol.
LATEST LIST OF DEMOS THIS EVENING IN SPANISH STATE
Spain does not respect fundamental rights and it is a European problem!
Margaret Flowers Popular Resistance A long-brewing crisis in Haiti, created through intervention by the United States, United Nations and allied western imperialist countries, has now come to a head. The Biden administration is openly backing a violent, corrupt and fraudulent leader, Jovenel Moïse, and maintaining the policies of previous presidents, including Donald Trump, in Haiti. […]
Pablo Hasel is locked in the rectory of the University of Lleida to avoid arrest
The rapper from Lleida, who has to serve almost three years in prison, has occupiedwith members of his support group Pablo Hasel
The rapper Pablo Hasel is entrenched with a support group for the rectory of the University of Lleida. With this action, he wants to avoid his arrest and imprisonment for two sentences totaling almost three years. “Everyone Come to the rectory,” the support group appealed.
🔴 ATENCIÓ, MOLT IMPORTANT: ENS TANQUEM AL RECTORAT PER EVITAR L'EMPRESONAMENT DE PABLO HASÉL ❗❗
Amnesty International considers it “unfair and disproportionate” for Pablo Hasel to go to prison
Last Friday, the deadline for the Spanish High Court for the rapper to voluntarily go to prison expired.
“I am locked up with a lot of solidarity at the University of Lleida, they will have to break in to arrest and imprison me,” tweeted Hasel from inside the rectory.
*******
Why is Pablo Hásel going to go to prison?: Gag Law, Tweets, a song and Telling Truth to Power
Pablo Hasel in the land of Gag Laws By Carlos Escaño in AI Published on Feb 13, 2021
It seemed like it would never come, but that day finally came. Perhaps we are witnessing the last days of that coup to our rights and freedoms in 2015 that was carried out with the reforms of the Penal Code and the Law for the Protection of Citizen Security. Some reforms, which for that reason to summarize in two words and focus on their impact on freedom of expression, were dubbed by civil society as Gag Laws.
After six years marked by dozens of convictions and hundreds of thousands of fines for exercising freedom of expression, assembly and information, it seems that this time the gags can be ended, or at least in part. Last Monday the government announced a reform of the Penal Code (el gobierno anunció una reforma del Código Penal), specifically the crimes of insults to the Crown or outrages to the Spanish flag, and those that deal with the glorification of terrorism. And just over a week ago, the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies voted against an initiative of the popular group that sought to stop the reform of the Citizen Security law.
Public pressure of course is essential. In these days dozens of mobilizations, ( decenas de movilizaciones,) hundreds of artists and thousands of messages on networks have denounced that the Spanish State has come to head the list of countries that have retaliated the most artists. Although it is not a reason for joy that the trigger had to be new bad news: the conviction and imprisonment of rapper Pablo Hasel for what he says in a song and some tweets.
The sentence has been for the crimes of glorifying terrorism, insults against the Crown and against State institutions. After the cases such as those of the Puppeteers, Casandra or Cesar Strawberry,, the institutions of the Spanish State are starring in a new international show with the case of Pablo Hasel, who could be one of the first rappers in Europe to go to jail for saying so. what do you think.
Hasel’s imprisonment for his artistic expressions is unfair and disproportionate (injusto y desproporcionado )and highlights the need to eliminate the articles of the Penal Code that violate the right to freedom of expression. The crimes of exalting terrorism, insults against the crown and the institutions of the State and offense against religious sentiments must disappear from the Penal Code….
‘ On Friday 12th Feb at 8:00 p.m. the deadline for voluntarily entering prison ends. It would be an unworthy humiliation to go voluntarily after such an unjust sentence. They will have to come to kidnap me. Solidarity is still lacking to stop this serious attack on our freedoms.”
note: It is now late Monday and no news of Pablo being arrested yet. Hundreds of supporters are blocking the barricaded doors. A LAST MINUTE APPEAL TO THE HIGH COURT HAS BEEN REJECTED. The rector has given permission to the ‘Catalan’ riot police to attack, not that they needed it.
It had been hoped that the once radical left Podemos Party who hold the balance of power, would pressure for a compromise, but it seems no one will back down!
There are calls for a riot if and when Paablo is kidnapped and activists are already enraged after a severe beating of a couple by drunken cops in Linares and repression of a following protest with live fire injuring several.
On top of all that a straight nazi demonstration was given permission to march around Madrid with huge police protection!
Pablo Hasél had already announced that he has no desire to spend time behind bars and would not hand himself in.
The rapper, whose real name is Pablo Rivadulla Duró, is condemned for exalting terrorism and insulting the Monarchy in 64 tweets and a song that ridicules Juan Carlos I, the retired king in exile in Abu Dha.
However, his reply to the courts is clear and shows in a crystal clear way that he does not regret: the same day his term to enter prison expires, the Lleida man has released a new song in which he harshly charges against the current monarch, Felipe VI.
To understand the sentence against the young people of Altsasu, the imprisoned Catalan leaders and Pablo Hasel, it would be necessary to resort to the Aznar Doctrine, which would have the ultimate objective “to criminalize groups and entities that are unruly and refractory to the message of the dominant establishment of the Spanish State.”
The subject begins with an intervention by the King in which he defends -this week- freedom of expression and, after dedicating it to the “so misnamed progressive government” (for almost half a minute of the four it lasts, Hasél spits out a “initial to the Monarch and begins his rhyming diatribe, his” republican cry “.” I hate the oppressive reign, let your family eat from the rubbish bins “, he insists during a recording made in the capital of Segrià.
“The Civil Guard examines what I feel / I’m going to say like Corinna: ‘Guillotine!’”, Proclaims Hasél, evoking Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein and before recalling the machine that executed the death sentences in the French Revolution.
Warnings that without escorts “fear will come to the palace” are repeated in a rosary of darts to the Zarzuela, only interrupted by the pounding chorus: “There is no one who can take this away from me or Felipe VI / I show the truth in the return address of my text “. In addition, characters such as Princess Leonor, her mother Letizia Ortiz (whom he accuses of using being unhinged by botox), Joan Manuel Serrat (stressing that she has asked for her freedom)
Pablo Hasél, in Lleida, last Tuesday. Interview Pablo Hasél: “I will never ask for pardon because that would be repentance”
The video, which has more than ten thousand views on YouTube, assures that “this rap will sound like stones against Vox”, and in it Hásel affirms that he will never be “in the prison of fear” and that his microphone “will continue being uncomfortable. ” In fact, Hasél calls them “Franco’s sons” those who have condemned him for “being frank.”
If Hasél wields his poetry to emphasize that he will not go to prison gates voluntarily, he has also insisted on his determination through prose. “They will have to come to kidnap me,” he said on Twitter, the social network that has caused him so much pain.
He has a deadline to enter prison until 8:00 p.m. this Friday, but he will not go: “It would be an unworthy humiliation to go on my own feet before such an unfair sentence. “Solidarity is still lacking to stop this serious attack on our freedoms,” he said.
‘‘Today at 8:00 p.m. the deadline for voluntarily entering prison ends. It would be an unworthy humiliation to go on my own feet before such an unjust sentence. They will have to come to kidnap me. Solidarity is still lacking to stop this serious attack on our freedoms.”
Some of the Twitter Messages… (ROUGH translation, you need to explain the context and history!)
50 police officers injured? These shitty mercenaries bite their tongues hitting hosts and say they’re wounded. (23/03/2014)
Now the riot police are crying when they have always beaten and tortured thousands and thousands of people, they have evicted them with blows, etc. (03/25/2014)
the Spanish Royal Family…barricada gráfica
They try to hide that many people have come out today to demand the end of the fascist monarchy and even beat journalists. (03/30/2014)
Nazi-onal police torturing even in front of the cameras. (03/30/2014)
Do you kill a policeman? They look for you even under the stones. Does the police kill you? Nor is it well investigated. (04/04/2014)
The Bourbon mafioso partying with the Saudi monarchy, among those who finance ISIS, everything remains. (02/12/2014)
Faced with State terrorism, the organized neighborhood (12/29/2015)
They want to exterminate him like his comrade [la grapo] Isabel Aparicio. Let him know. (01/20/2016)
One of CUP speaking clearly against the monarchy while IU is giggling with this in the Zarzuela. (01/21/2016)
Policemen who imprisoned with Franco and are now incarcerated as judges of the Nazi-onal Court. (07/02/2016)
[The ETA member] Joseba Arregi murdered by the police torturing him. (02/14/2016)
Ada Colau will not call the King a criminal for selling arms to Saudi Arabia or living in luxury at the cost of misery, she criminalizes the strike. (02/21/2016)
And so it was, they ended up exterminating her. [Attach an image with a text by Isabel Aparicio grapo]. (04/01/2016)
Info from various sources translations thefreeonline
The ”new Democratic” regime under Biden has announced it will continue its terrorist sanctions and blockade against Venezuela. Thus thousands more will die for lack of basic foods and medicines, while all suffer severe poverty for the ‘crime’ of living an a State Socialist country.
But despite hardship and a repressive police state most Venezuelans survive, due to social solidarity, cheap or free health, education and housing (when available due to the blockade) and a genuine bottom up movement of large production and consumption Communes, hardly ever mentioned in western reporting.
Dr Andrew Hill of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Liverpool (UK) is currently performing a WHO-sponsored review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials of ivermectin against covid.
In the following 12-minute video, Dr Hill is presenting his preliminary results, which indicate a highly significant 83% reduction […]
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The Free 