Motley Magazine - Volume X Issue Four - December 2016

C A N N A B I S
I N N U M B 3 R S
TERRORISM
#IN_NUMB3RS
A STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF TERRORISM IN 2016
BY CURRENT AFFAIRS EDITOR HASSAN BAKER.
“The debate now is
about trying to get
this Bill passed and
getting people access
to medicinal cannabis
products without being
criminalised.”
This is the case for a variety
of prohibited substances.
Prohibition is ineffective
in preventing the use and
abuse of drugs, and it has
detrimental effects on those
who are drug-dependent.
In July of this year there
was general agreement in the
Seanad that alternatives to
criminal sanctions should
be considered in these cases.
Kenny stated that slowly but surely TDs may be taking a
new approach: “Some TDs get it, the prohibition approach
is simply not working. We have to look at it completely
differently. The Portuguese model is not perfect. But
when you look at the criminals making a lot of money
from the drug trade, it’s clear that something’s got to be
better than what is in place.” Kenny also pointed to the
resources used on police time to prevent drug use, a goal
which has largely not been achieved. Illegal or not, drugs
are readily available and in demand in Ireland, both inside
and outside of prison.
Is there a future for regulation of general cannabis use
in Ireland? “I think looking at the Portuguese model we
eventually will get to that stage. Most parts of the world
are going on that spectrum. The war on drugs is lost, you
can’t win it. You’re better off having a mature debate saying
people do take drugs for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s
completely detrimental to them and absolutely detrimental
to their communities, but we have to have a mature
conversation in Ireland about liberalisation of drug laws.
“Cannabis should be decriminalised across the field.
Hopefully that could be a future debate. But the debate
today is medicinal use. The debate now is about trying to
get this Bill passed and getting people access to medicinal
cannabis products without being criminalised.”
The Aims of the Bill
Policy reform organisations
Help Not Harm and Students
for Sensible Drug Policy
Ireland advised TD Kenny
on the content of the Bill.
Founding member of both
organisations, Graham
De Barra, advocates a
prescription-based model
under the Drugs Payment
Scheme, which would be
subsidised through tax: “The Bill will allow patients
access to medicine for free. This approach will ensure high
quality cannabis-based medicines available under doctor’s
recommendation.”
Regarding consumption of medicinal cannabis products,
De Barra says: “There are many forms of cannabis medicine
and people need to learn about the benefits of this plant.
It’s not only smoked in a joint. I’d love to see it available in
a tincture, capsule or rubbing cream.” De Barra maintains
that medicinal cannabis patients should not have to rely on
the criminal market for their medicine.
On the 1st of December the Bill will be debated in
Dáil Éireann. In the run-up to this, plans are underway in
Dublin for a press conference with Help Not Harm on the
28th of November and a protest on the 1st of December
- check the Help Not Harm Facebook page for details
over the next few weeks. Here in UCC, the Students for
Sensible Drug Policy society will be hosting Vera Twomey
and other policy reform advocates for a public discussion
evening on the 28th of November. Keep an eye on the
UCC SSDP Facebook page for further information.
If you would like to show your support for Vera and her
daughter, Ava, go to change.org and search ‘Ava Barry’ to
sign their petition.
The news is a constant bombardment of
death counts, mostly credited to terrorism.
The question that’s rarely asked is: What is
terrorism? The United States Department
of Defense defines terrorism as “The
calculated use of unlawful violence or
threat of unlawful violence to inculcate
fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate
governments or societies in the pursuit of
goals that are generally political, religious,
or ideological.” Taking this definition, it is
easy to freely label acts of terrorism.
Universal Terrorism
In 2016, there has been a total of 1,412
recorded incidents that are universally
agreed on to be terrorist attacks; the attacks
that are coordinated by groups such as ISIS
and Boko Haram. That rounds down to
approximately 141 incidents per month.
Taking the minimum amount of reported
deaths by terrorist attacks if this nature,
there have been a total of 11,817 deaths
resulting from these incidents, which is
approximately 1,182 per month. This
results in an average of 8.37 deaths per
incident.
A more interesting perspective is to look at
the rates of incidents and the rates of death.
The average rate of incidents per month in
2016 is 2.375 incidents. This means that
although the graph is trending downwards,
there is an average net increase of 2.375
incidents per month. Comparing this with
the average rate of deaths per month in
2016, a rather interesting result is found.
There is a decline of 74.75 deaths. Meaning
that on average, although incidents are
increasing throughout the year, the death
toll is going down. To backup and confirm
this figure, the average rate of deaths per
incident was taken, which resulted in -7.155,
implying that in 2016, we are getting an
average 7.155 less deaths on every incident
of terrorism every month.
The data acquired for these statistics was acquired from the
monthly index of terrorist attacks listed on Wikipedia.
US Mass Shootings
Although mass shootings in the United
States are rarely classified as acts of
terrorism (unless there is a direct relation
to Islamic beliefs), these shootings very
much fit the definition. There has been a
total of 379 incidents of mass shootings
in the United States in 2016 alone, that’s
a mean of 37.9 incidents per month, which
is more than one a day. There is a total of
490 deaths in 2016, which averages out at
about 49 deaths per month. This all results
at 1.29 deaths per incident.
The average rate of incidents per month is
3, meaning on average, there is an increase
of 3 incidents per month, while the rate of
deaths per month is 2.5. The data accounted
for in this analysis actually has an outlier,
the shooting of the gay nightclub on the
12 of June, which resulted in the death of
50 civilians, bringing the total of deaths in
June to 104. Adjusting for the outlier, the
average rate of deaths per incident in 2016
is -0.51, which means deaths per incident is
decreasing every month.
The data acquired for these statistics was acquired from
the monthly index of terrorist attacks listed on www.
massshootingtracker.org.
Drone Data
In regards to the definition of terrorism,
drone strikes also seem to fit the bill. An
argument may be made that they are
“authorized”, but the fact of the matter
is, anyone killed in a drone strike is not
put through any legal process where they
have a right to defend themselves in a
court of law, hence, they are unlawful and
unauthorized.
Drone strike data is a lot harder to acquire,
so the data used here is in regards to drone
strikes between 2009 up until 2016, only
in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Libya.
There are two different data sources for this
set, the US government’s and The Bureau
of Investigative Journalism’s data. Both
give minimum and maximum counts, but
for accuracy only minimums were taken
in these calculations. The total amount of
strikes in those 6 years is reported to be 473.
Which works out at about 6.57 strikes per
month. A comparison between both sets of
data show that they match very well when
it comes to combatant deaths, but not very
well when it comes to civilian deaths.
Conclusion
Terrorism is a real threat, but by definition,
any fatal threat can be labelled as terrorism.
Matching these incidents to map
coordinates, we would see that the threat is
pretty much minimal in Europe compared
to the threat in the Middle East, Africa,
and even the States.
ISSUE N
18 ISSUE N o 4 DECEMBER 2016 o 4 DECEMBER 2016 19
103
1334
71
1024
INCIDENTS OF TERROISM
110
777
153
200
234
CASUALTIES
1030
1598
1933
191
1664
140
1149
127
736
83
572
18
35
30
SHOOTING INCIDENTS
41
37
52
59
50
42
15
Data US Gov. BOIJ
Civillian Deaths 64 380
Millitant Deaths 2372 2373
Total Deaths 2436 2753
Civilian Deaths/Month 0.889 5.278
Militant Deaths/Month 32.94 32.95
Total Deaths/Month 33.83 38.24