3 APRIL

Malware at Mar-a-Lago

Secret Service agents arrested a Chinese woman after she bypassed security and gained access to the reception area of President Trump’s Florida resort on the weekend. According to court documents, she was found carrying two passports and a thumb drive containing malicious software.

Prosecutors say the woman, Yujing Zhang, first approached a Mar-a-Lago security checkpoint on Saturday shortly after noon and told security officials she was there to go to the swimming pool.

The incident has renewed concerns about security at Trump's club, which stays open for its members and their guests when the president is there. The president was golfing in South Florida the afternoon of the incident, but there is no indication he saw or interacted with the woman.

NEWS WRAP

The pitfalls of presidential obsession

• Former Republican congresswoman Mia Love has made her debut in The Weekend Australian as part of her new role as a non-resident senior fellow at the USSC. Her first op-ed for an Australian audience looks at the pitfalls of the presidential obsession for both US political parties and the prospects for President Trump in 2020. READ MORE HERE.
   

• The Wall Street Journal's Philip Bobbit has taken an in-depth look at a new book co-authored by USSC senior fellow Charles Edel and Johns Hopkins' Hal Brand. The Lessons of Tragedy: Statecraft and World Order argues that, following World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, American leaders and their publics shared a tragic sensibility that shaped the postwar foreign-policy consensus. The authors contend that we are now losing that sensibility to our imminent and immense cost. READ MORE HERE.
   
• So, how can these lessons of tragedy be applied by those in the White House today – or those in the race for it in the 2020 election? Charles Edel joined the 2020Vision podcast this week to discuss that very question and delve further into the themes of his book. LISTEN HERE.
   

• Former US Vice President Joe Biden, who has yet to formally announce that he's seeking the 2020 Democratic nomination for president, is facing uncomfortable questions about his treatment of women. Two women came forward overnight with accusations of inappropriate touching by Biden, adding their voices to two other complaints about inappropriate physical contact. None of the women have accused Biden of sexual harassment or assault, and Biden denied the accusations in a statement Sunday. READ MORE HERE.
   

• Economic aides to President Trump are trying to convince him that his threat to shut down the US border with Mexico would hammer the economy. Republican leaders expressed their own dismay at the threats, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell called potentially “catastrophic". READ MORE HERE.
   

• President Trump has backed off plans to introduce a Republican replacement for Obamacare. Reversing himself in the face of Republican consternation, the president said his party would not produce a healthcare plan of its own, as he had promised, until after the 2020 elections. READ MORE HERE.

This is just a preliminary analysis, but our team’s initial report shows we raised over $7 million dollars in Q1 of this year. We are out-performing expectations at every turn

Potential Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg on his first quarter donations
1 April 2019

ANALYSIS

The future of US drug policy: the trip ahead

Maxwell Carver
USSC Internship Program

In the 1960s, the United States faced a crisis when psychedelic drugs became central to the counterculture. Terrified of the consequences of widespread use, the federal government, in 1968, banned these substances. This made research nearly impossible in the following decades and cemented pervasive ignorance about psychedelics. However, there’s now a great deal of interest in a special type of fungi.

Psilocybin is the psychoactive compound in ‘magic mushrooms’. Consumption of psilocybin-containing mushrooms has been traced back to at least 7000BCE, but the compound is illegal in an overwhelming majority of the world today. In the United States, psilocybin is a Schedule I substance – the most restricted class, which also includes heroin – meaning it has “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse”. This may soon change.

In September 2018, Johns Hopkins University (JHU) researchers recommended moving psilocybin from Schedule I to IV – the same class as Xanax and Ambien. Psilocybin is not only the least harmful ‘drug’, but has several medicinal applications. It can even benefit healthy adults. In 2016, JHU found psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy to be an effective treatment for depression. Another 2016 JHU study found that a single psilocybin treatment has potential to reduce cancer-related anxiety. In 2013, researchers from the University of South Florida revealed the possibility of psilocybin being a treatment for PTSD.

Psilocybin is proving to be a valid treatment for harmful addictions, such as alcoholism and nicotine-addiction. It’s also thought to be a cognitive enhancer – increasing memory and creativity. For healthy individuals, it can produce positive effects long after the single experience: when surveyed 14 months later, 64 per cent of subjects claimed it “increased their sense of well-being or life satisfaction moderately or very much”.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently gave UK-based health care company COMPASS Pathways’ treatment-resistant depression psilocybin therapy designation as ‘Breakthrough Therapy’. This will likely help speed up the FDA’s review on potential approval.

After such success in American-based studies, Australia is following suit. In April 2019, St Vincent's Hospital in Melbourne will be administering psilocybin to terminally-ill patients with death-related anxiety – the first trial in Australia. Given Australia’s tough past stance on drugs, this trial is notable. 

Historically, Australian drug policy and culture have shifted alongside American influence. During the Vietnam War, American soldiers on leave influenced a ‘significant increase in drug consumption in Australia’. The US banned MDMA in 1985; Australia began to seize the drug in 1986. Following the trend of a majority of US states – in which 33 have legalised marijuana in some capacity – South Australia, the Northern Territory, and the ACT have recently decriminalised small amounts of marijuana, and there is a push for recreational legalisation in the ACT.

As for the United States, the research is there – but law and policy are not. Consistent with all political matters, money remains an issue. To become legal, drugs and treatments must go through several rounds of trials, which can be very expensive. Since the future of psychedelics and patent law is unclear, there’s hesitation from pharmaceutical companies to fund trials. This commercial uncertainty emphasises the importance of advocacy groups like MAPS, a non-profit research and educational organisation that accepts donations from the public to help fund studies.

It’s a matter of carefully implementing the ‘drug’ into medical contexts. Just as it took decades to change the stereotypes around ‘cannabis culture’ and to reach the point of medical legalisation, psilocybin faces the same hurdle: stigma.

DIARY

The week ahead

• Wednesday, 3 April: Last Australian Senate sitting day until the federal election.
   

• Wednesday, 3 April: US Senate Armed Services Committee hearings to examine missile defence policies and the Future Years Defense Program.
   

• Thursday, 4 April: G7 Interior Ministerial Meeting begins in Paris, France.
   

• Friday, 5 April: President Trump is scheduled to travel to Calexico, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.

EVENT

Film screening | Etched in Bone

VIDEO

Microsoft President Brad Smith's address to the United States Studies Centre

THE WEEK IN TWEETS

#PuertoRico

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University of Sydney NSW 2006

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