U.N. drug watchdog blasts pot ballot measures

Marijuana is weighed and packaged for sale at the Northwest Patient Resource Center medical marijuana dispensary in Seattle Oct. 10, 2012. / AP Photo

VIENNA The head of the U.N. drug watchdog agency is urging U.S. federal officials to challenge ballot measures in Colorado and Washington that decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana for adults 21 and over.

Raymond Yans says the approvals send "a wrong message to the rest of the nation and it sends a wrong message abroad."

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Yans heads the International Narcotics Control Board. He told The Associated Press on Tuesday he hopes Attorney General Eric Holder "will take all the necessary measures" to ensure that marijuana possession and use remains illegal throughout the U.S.

Both states are holding off on plans to regulate and tax the drug while waiting to see whether the Justice Department will assert federal authority over drug law.

The INCB has no enforcement ability.

[Freepress1111]

Maybe the head of the INCB should take the time to learn something about the drugs he's so concerned about. Pot is not and never has been a dangerous drug and should never have been made illegal in the first place. What 'sends the wrong message' is that it's acceptable in a free society to incarcerate people for an activity that is not harmful to others or even to themselves.

[nojoy01]

"The INCB has no enforcement ability."
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I am a firm believer that the UN should not have any supra-national police powers/authority. My reasoning is that national governments (such as ours or, say, The Peoples Democratic Republic of China) would have to surrender some or all of their sovereignty to allow this to happen. In addition, I'm not at all interested in having someone investigating a possible "crime" whose legal precedents are grounded in sharia law.

Having said that, it seems to me that a "narcotics control board" w/o enforcement powers is nothing other than a debating society that's probably overpriced for the results.