I can't believe I graduated from college so long ago

I'm largely against music festivals. For whatever reason, people feel as though festivals give them the freedom to go absolutely buck-wild. And who could blame them? When you put thousands of people in one field, limit them to consuming only hot dogs and cheap beer for hours, chaos is bound to ensue.

And so it was against my better judgment that I found myself at Donauinselfest on Saturday. Donauinselfest is a free, open-air festival in Vienna - a festival which I've heard called the "biggest in Europe." This should have been the first warning sign.

I saw Snow Patrol, a band I last saw in college. This marked the first time in my life I've said, "This reminds me of college!" - something I heard my parents say growing up when Simon and Garfunkel came on the radio. I've never felt so old. Things only got worse when I realized that my friends and I were surrounded by drunk teenagers who, when not throwing beer on one another, sang along with the band in a unintelligible combination of German and English (Gerglish?). There was also a couple standing directly in front of us who made out for the entire set.

Drugs!

I knew you wouldn't read any post about my thesis unless I tricked you into it. Got ya!

On Friday, a few lucky interns got to tour the UNODC's drug lab. Although I'm in the counter-terrorism division, the very top floor of our building houses a laboratory where UNODC chemists assist law enforcement officials with determining whether suspected drugs are, in fact, drugs. Example: Developing country X may not be sure if a package it has intercepted is cocaine. The country then sends a sample to UNODC for testing.

The tour was pretty much like every field trip you took in elementary school, but amped up 15 levels. Remember those visits to the aquarium where you got to play with urchins and sea stars in a touch tank? The UNODC drug lab has something similar. Here are just a few of the high-profile items I was allowed to get my hands on: an opium pipe, a block of opium resin, some LSD tablets, dried poppies, hemp seeds, mescaline, and a package of hallucinogenic mushrooms.

While I should have had the time of my life on the drug tour, I nearly had a panic attack halfway through. Unlike some hard-working Fletcherites, I haven't devoted much time to thinking about my thesis since beginning my internship - a decision I'm sure I'll come to deeply regret. As most of Fletcher knows, my main academic and professional interests are in all things drug-related. So, at the very least, I've stayed up narco news even if I haven't actually written a damn thing.

Here's one exciting piece of news: The US recently announced that it's going to try a new anti-drug strategy in Afghanistan that focuses on interdiction and alternative crop development instead of eradication. Based on what the representative from the UNODC office in Afghanistan said when he was in town a few weeks ago, alternative crop development is fairly effective (see smiling child below) - although the US shouldn't count on the strategy to completely eliminate the opium market. What's interesting for me is that the one US official with whom I've talked views the US change of strategy in Afghanistan positively because it's getting closer to the Plan Colombia model. However, Plan Colombia focused heavily on aerial eradication of coca fields and, at least in the early years, military aid. Is this really what the US is doing in Afghanistan?

I decided sometime in the spring that I'd like to focus my thesis on US counternarcotics efforts globally. Maybe comparing Plan Colombia with current efforts in Afghanistan could be one way to go...

Yes, Mom. I'm alive.

Due to some kind of horrible viral infection, I've been AWOL for the past few days. According to one of the doctors at the UN, I have a throat infection. I've never swallowed burning hot coals before, but I imagine that this is how it feels.

Austrian doctors aren't nearly as good with bedside manner as what I'm used to at the Tufts University Health Center. At Tufts, you come in with a slight cough and the nurses practically carry you to an examination room and shower you with free cans of Ginger Ale and hugs. Not the same in Austria. Here's an excerpt of the conversation I had with the doctor this morning:

UN doctor: I bet it feels like you want to rip your throat out, yes?
Me: Uh, yes. That's one way to describe the pain.
UN doctor: Well, I'm going to give you a prescription for (mumbles something in German). Take it and you should be fine in, say, a week or two.
Me: A week? Or two? What do I have?
UN doctor: A throat infection. It's very severe on one side. Don't worry, though. It's not cancer or anything.

Full disclosure: I tried a lot of home remedies this weekend to deal with the pain - a few of which may or may not have been counterproductive. For instance, two of my magical self-created remedies included eating the spiciest curry I could find on Friday and knocking back four tequila shots on Saturday. I take full responsibility for this illness.

A Croatian Gift 4 U

I forgot to post this gem from my Croatian album.

It's June 26. You know what that means.

Happy International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking.

The UNODC put out a public service announcement that yours truly got to screen yesterday. I even got to help decide which version of the PSA to use! After sitting through years of hokey D.A.R.E. classes, this commercial was a welcome change. The focus group I sat in yesterday was a little confused as to why there's a graphic close-up of one of the addicts' cold sores, but if that keeps the kids from shooting up, it works for me.

Update: UNODC/the 2009 World Drug Report got a Gawker shout-out. Well, sort of. (Thanks, Neeraja!)

Just what you've been waiting for!

Yes, the day has finally come: the 2009 UN World Drug report has just been released. Maybe it doesn't have the same meaning to you as it does to me. My roommates will recall that the 2008 edition of the UN World Drug Report sat in our living room for a good three months while I was writing my final paper for Terrorism/Counter-Terrorism. It made a wonderful conversation piece and coaster. I didn't open the report until a week before the paper was due, which was a terrible mistake - tons of quantitative data on drug use and production everywhere in the world. Even better? The report is written in non-UN English so it's very readable.

And getting back to the point: why should you care about the 2009 UN World Drug Report? Because it's scandalicious, that's why. Antonio Maria Costa,* the Secretary-General for UNODC, now advocates for the decriminalization of narcotics based on the results seen from Portugal's experience with decriminalization. Bam! That's a big change from the UNODC's traditional stance on global drug policy. I'm fairly ambivalent about the issue but in general I'm against any policy that could contribute to the growth of ultimate frisbee players and/or jam bands.

*Sidenote: Earlier this week, I was in the same elevator as Costa. He travels with an entourage. Amazing.

A different side of Croatia

Unlike every other good Fletcher student, I can't name drop war zones or post-conflict societies I've visited. Maybe I could count Mexico given drug violence in the country, but that would be a stretch: my college Mexico trips were a lot more Señor Frog's than narcotraficantes.

The weekend, however, provided me with my first glimpse at the aftermath of war. Driving through Croatia, I was struck by how many cities and towns, particularly in the north of the country, still had visible scars from the country's war for independence.

Passing through one town on the way to Zadar, we turned to see a make-shift war memorial -- the remnants of two demolished buildings, bullet-ridden homes and businesses, a destroyed fighter jet, a dozen tanks, and barricades used by UN peacekeepers.