Sierre Leone grapples with kush crisis as
synthetic drug wreaks havoc
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Earlier this year, Sierra Leone declared a national emergency on substance abuse, amid rising numbers of people addicted to a synthetic drug called kush. Sold for as little as 20 cents per hit, kush is wreaking havoc among young people. The drug, which is made from a mixture of cannabis and other psychoactive substances like fentanyl and tramadol, can lead to serious mental illness and death. Our regional correspondents report.
Brazilian Supreme Court votes to decriminalize
personal use of marijuana
June 26 (UPI) -- Brazil's highest court voted Tuesday to decriminalize the possession of marijuana for personal use after nearly 10 years of deliberating, but more decisions still need to be made.
The 11-person Brazilian Supreme Court, which began its deliberation on cannabis decriminalization in 2015, decriminalized use of the plant for up to 40 grams.
"The position is clear that no user of any drug can be considered a criminal," Justice Dias Toffoli, the sixth judge, said as reported by multiple news outlets.
Tuesday's ruling attempts to make clearer a vague 2006 federal law aimed at reducing the country's high prison population in Brazil, which left open for interpretation what defines drug trafficking versus personal use as it was suggested that most "drug trafficking" arrests in Brazil are people carrying small quantities quite possibly intended only for personal use.
Neighboring Argentina decriminalized personal use in 2009 in a regional trend that included the likes of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, while Uruguay fully legalized in 2013. Meanwhile, Brazil still has restrictive medical cannabis use policies.
But while it still technically remains illegal, it has yet to be determined what constitutes "personal use" in a decision the supreme court judge's could make as early as Wednesday as the Congress works on tightening laws on drugs which have the possibility to conflict with the Supreme Court's Tuesday ruling.
"Let it be clear to the entire population that marijuana consumption continues to be considered illicit because this is the will of the legislature," Supreme Court President Justice Luís Roberto Barros clarified Tuesday, stating his belief that legalization is not within the Supreme Court's purview but should instead be addressed by Brazil's Congress.
Drug trafficking crimes make up 28% of Brazil's prison population, representing more people in jail for "trafficking" than for any other crime. After the United States and China, Brazil has the world's third-highest prison population.
"An advance in drug policy in Brazil! This is a public health issue, not safety and incarceration!" Chico Alencar, a Brazilian lawmaker, posted on X Tuesday after the ruling.
It took a local Brazilian judge in 2018 to rule that the parents of a 4-year old child who suffered from cerebral palsy and West Syndrome could grow enough marijuana to produce medicine from the plant to help their child with needed medical treatments.
Judge Antonio Jose Pecego, a criminal court jurist in Uberlandia, the second largest municipality in the state of Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil, justified the decision at the time by characterizing it as a protection of the rights to life, dignity and health.
However, on Tuesday, the country's Senate president was critical of the supreme court ruling, claiming that the justice's were "overstepping the authority" of the Brazilian Congress.
"I disagree with the Supreme Court's decision," Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco, 47, a Socialist Democratic Party member, told reporters in the country's capital, Brasilia. "There is a logic that, in my opinion, cannot be overturned by a court decision that decriminalizes a certain narcotic substance, encroaching on the legislative authority that belongs to Congress."
The country's former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a Socialist Democratic Party member, in 2009 joined the ex-presidents of Mexico and Colombia calling for marijuana decriminalization for personal use and a change in tactics on the so-called "war on drugs," Cardoso, now 93, saying at the time, "You have to start somewhere."
"There is an appropriate path for this discussion to move forward and that is the legislative process," Pacheco said about the process of establishing the South American nations' drug policy. "It is something that, obviously, arouses broad discussion and it is a subject of preoccupation for Congress."
And the idea of legalization is likely to stay in the hands of Brazil's legislative process as the country's current President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a Worker's Party member on his second stint in the presidency, has remained largely mum on the issue.
Previously, Lula da Silva, 78, had said his administration would be "prepared with society and allies and delivered on the date set by the Superior Electoral Court."
Ex-Honduran president gets 45 years in U.S. prison for aiding drug traffickers
A defiant former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was sentenced in New York Wednesday to 45 years in prison for teaming up with some bribe-paying drug traffickers for over a decade to ensure over 400 tons of cocaine made it to the United States.
Judge P. Kevin Castel sentenced Hernández to 45 years in a U.S. prison and fined him $8 million, saying that the penalty should serve as a warning to “well educated, well dressed” individuals who gain power and think their status insulates them from justice when they do wrong.
A jury convicted him in March in Manhattan federal court after a two-week trial, which was closely followed in his home country.
“I am innocent,” Hernández said through an interpreter at his sentencing. “I was wrongly and unjustly accused.”
In a lengthy extemporaneous statement interrupted several times by the judge who repeatedly reminded him that this was not a time to relitigate the trial, Hernández portrayed himself as a hero of the anti-drug trafficking movement who teamed up with American authorities under three U.S. presidential administrations to reduce drug imports.
But the judge said trial evidence proved the opposite and that Hernández employed “considerable acting skills” to make it seem that he was an anti-drug trafficking crusader while he deployed his nation’s police and military, when necessary, to protect the drug trade.
Castel called Hernández a “two-faced politician hungry for power” who protected a select group of traffickers.
As the sentence was announced, the bespectacled Hernández in a dull green prison uniform stood next to his lawyer in front of two U.S. marshals. After shaking hands with his lawyer and turning to nod toward the packed spectator section, Hernández hobbled out of court with the help of a cane and a brace on one foot.
Prosecutors had sought a sentence of life in prison, plus 30 years, the same as the recommendation from the court’s probation officers.
Hernández, 55, served two terms as the leader of the Central American nation of roughly 10 million people.
He was arrested at his home in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, three months after leaving office in 2022 and was extradited to the U.S. in April of that year.
U.S. prosecutors say Hernández worked with drug traffickers as long ago as 2004, taking millions of dollars in bribes as he rose from rural congressman to president of the National Congress and then to the country’s highest office.
Hernández acknowledged in trial testimony that drug money was paid to virtually all political parties in Honduras, but he denied accepting bribes himself.
Hernández insisted in his lengthy statement Wednesday that his trial was unjust because he was not allowed to include evidence that would have caused the jury to find him not guilty. He said he was being persecuted by politicians and drug traffickers.
“It’s as if I had been thrown into a deep river with my hands bound,” he said.
In Honduras Wednesday, U.S. Ambassador Laura Dogu called the sentencing an important step in combating the social consequences of drug trafficking.
“Here in Honduras and in the United States, we cannot forget that the actions of Juan Orlando have made the people suffer,” Dogu said.
Luis Romero, a Honduran criminal lawyer and analyst, said the sentence was a surprise to many people in Honduras who believed he would receive a life sentence.
Trial witnesses included traffickers who admitted responsibility for dozens of murders and said Hernández was an enthusiastic protector of some of the world’s most powerful cocaine dealers, including notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who is serving a life prison term in the U.S.
During his remarks, the judge noted that Guzman had given a $1 million bribe in 2013 directly to Hernández’s brother, Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández, a former Honduran congressman who was sentenced to life in a U.S. prison in 2021 in New York for his own conviction on drug charges.
Hernández shook his head when he heard Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacob Gutwillig tell the judge that he chose to “commit evil.”
“No one, not even the former president of a country, is above the law,” Gutwillig said.
As he announced the sentence, Castel spoke at length about the ways Hernández had received a fair trial and described much of the key evidence that emerged at trial to prove guilt.
Castel described the number of killings linked to the drug trade during Hernández’s political career as “staggering,” saying one drug trafficking witness admitted at the trial that he aided 56 killings and another said he was involved in 78 murders before he began cooperating with U.S. authorities.
He noted that Hernández only helped the drug traffickers who aided his political ambitions, and not all the time.
“No, he was too smart for that,” Castel said. The judge said Hernández aided traffickers whenever he could.
“His No. 1 goal was his own political survival,” Castel said.
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