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Deschutes Voters Set Inmates Loose ('The Oregonian' Makes It Seem Like
Nobody Is Locked Up For Consensual Crimes In Rural Deschutes County,
Oregon, Where Voters Rejected An Operating Levy - More Than Two Dozen
Of About 44 People Who Work At The Jail Are Expected To Be Laid Off
And More Than 100 Of 160-Plus Inmates Will Be Let Go July 31)
The Oregonian
letters to editor:
letters@news.oregonian.com
1320 SW Broadway
Portland, OR 97201
Web: http://www.oregonlive.com/
5-31-98
Deschutes voters set inmates loose
* The defeat of an operating levy means cuts in the sheriff's department
that will force the release of about 100 prisoners
By Gordon Gregory
Correspondent, The Oregonian
BEND -- A year ago this week, petty thief Bryan Owen risked his life by
scaling a 20-foot-tall wall and squirming through a seam in the wire roof of
a recreation court at the Deschutes County Jail.
But Owen, 38 at the time, was captured the same day and slapped with an
additional four-month jail sentence and a felony escape conviction for his
trouble.
Such antics will not be necessary this year for most of the jail's 160-plus
prisoners.
When Deschutes County voters last month rejected an operations levy for the
sheriff's department, they effectively signed a slew of get-out-of-jail-free
cards.
Layoffs forced by the levy's defeat mean the jail must operate with a
skeleton crew, which can safely oversee only a fraction of the inmate
population. Come July 31 when the sheriff's department's money runs out, the
electronic doors will snap open and most of the incarcerated will go free.
"We'll be kicking out over 100 inmates," Capt. Gary Giersdorf, jail
director, said.
The loss of the five-year levy, which would have raised about $41 million,
also is forcing the sheriff's department to cut about 100 employees,
eliminate most patrol service and close its substations in communities such
as La Pine and Redmond.
Just as the criminal ranks in Central Oregon will swell because of the
massive inmate release, sheriff's services will become nearly invisible.
Deschutes County Sheriff Greg Brown said he intends to go back to voters in
September with another levy request. If it passes, he said the cuts will be
restored almost immediately.
But nothing will prevent most jail inmates from having their own
independence day celebrations at the end of July.
Giersdorf said the more violent criminals, particularly those charged with
Measure 11 crimes such as murder, rape and assault, will not be released.
It's the burglars, drug dealers, car thieves, parole violators and fraud
artists who will.
"This is a terribly hard thing to do, to pick and choose who should stay and
who should go," he said.
Although authorities know they must release the nonviolent inmates in order
to keep the most dangerous ones off the streets, property criminals
generally commit the most offenses.
"It's the burglars, the repeat offenders who are going to affect the most
people,"' Sgt. Nina Ladd, a 16-year jail employee, said.
"We know these guys. We know that the prisoners we release will go out and
commit new crimes.
"There's a lot of pending victims out there."
In 1989, Ladd was on duty at the old county jail when a lawsuit forced the
county to release 25 inmates to reduce overcrowding. She was a supervisor at
the time and had to decide who stayed behind bars and who would be released.
She knew that a bad decision could have disastrous consequences.
That was a low spot in her career, one Ladd hoped and expected she never
would experience again.
"All of our training is geared toward keeping these people in jail," she said.
Opening the jail doors could have a cascade of effects, including the
disintegration of a well-trained jail staff, the absence of a credible
deterrent to people on probation and parole, and a severe limitation on
sentencing options for judges.
Circuit Judge Stephen Tiktin said the lack of jail space will ripple
throughout the local law enforcement community.
"The criminal justice system doesn't run properly without adequate jail
space," Tiktin said.
"We have to have a place to put pre-trial detainees who are dangerous or who
are a flight risk. . . . We have to have jail to encourage probationers and
parolees to comply with conditions of supervision."
And judges must be able to sentence some criminals to confinement, he said.
"It's a sense of great frustration to the judiciary as well as to the
police," he said.
For jail managers, letting good employees go also is painful.
More than two dozen of about 44 people who work at the jail are expected to
be laid off.
Cody Standiford, 22, is one of those. As a husband and a father of a
14-month-old son, he cannot afford to do without the $2,000 monthly gross
pay he receives as a jailer.
"I'm looking at serious financial difficulty," he said. "I've got to find a
job."
Giersdorf understands that Standiford and other jail staff won't be able to
wait until September and gamble that voters will approve a levy then. One of
his concerns is that he permanently will lose many members of what he
considers to be the best overall jail staff he's worked with in his 28-year
career.
Ladd also is dreading the breakup of her team, which has learned to work
well together.
She knows that the inmates who remain will be the most dangerous of the lot
and that they will understand how understaffed the jail will be.
"It's certainly going to be more hazardous," she said.
So July 31 will be a joyous day for inmates who had expected to spend this
summer behind bars, but it will seem like a day of reckoning for many others.
"I think on that day it's going to be hard not to cry," Ladd said.
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Gates Hide Lives Of Drug Abuse ('Los Angeles Daily News' Item
In 'The San Jose Mercury News' Says Police In Encino, California,
Have Learned That Phil Hartman's Wife Was Suffering
From Long-Term Cocaine Abuse)
Date: Wed, 03 Jun 1998 02:01:15 -0400
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
Subject: MN: US CA: Gates Hide Lives Of Drug Abuse
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: Marcus-Mermelstein Family and David.Hadorn@vuw.ac.nz
Pubdate: Sun, 31 Jun 1998
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Contact: letters@sjmercury.com
Website: http://www.sjmercury.com/
GATES HIDE LIVES OF DRUG ABUSE
Los Angeles Daily News
LOS ANGELES -- John Belushi's death by drug overdose 16 years ago at the
Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood was a wake-up call to Hollywood's flagrant
use of cocaine and other hard drugs.
But Hollywood's insatiable appetite has continued to play havoc with the
careers, reputations and lives of many prominent stars -- River Phoenix,
Chris Farley, Robert Downey Jr., Kelsey Grammer and, just last week, Charlie
Sheen, to name just a few.
And now in the deaths of comic actor Phil Hartman and his wife, Brynn, the
link between celebrity and drugs has once again surfaced. Police say Brynn
Hartman, reportedly suffering from a long-term cocaine abuse problem, killed
her husband and then herself last Thursday morning in their Encino home.
Some industry observers said the incident indicates Hollywood hasn't shaken
its old habits. Rather, like the rest of American society, it has simply
transferred them from the hedonistic party scene of 15 and 20 years ago to a
more private, socially acceptable -- or at least invisible -- environment.
``Where drug use persists, the problem is really the same problem, whether
the drugs are being consumed and enjoyed in a nightclub, or whether they're
being consumed in Encino,'' said Charles Fleming, author of ``High
Concept,'' a just-published account of the fast times and rapid downfall of
the late Hollywood mogul Don Simpson.
Substance abuse remains common, according to therapists who treat
celebrities with addictions. And while such highly publicized deaths as
those of Belushi and Phoenix have brought more attention to drug abuse, it
also has driven addicts into hiding, making treatment more difficult.
``They didn't clean up their act -- drug use went underground,'' said Carolyn
Perry, owner of the Tri City Institute, a methadone clinic frequented by
many entertainers.
Hollywood isn't serious about stamping out drug abuse, said Dr. Drew Pinsky,
director of chemical dependency at Las Encinas Medical Center in nearby
Pasadena. ``It's a lot of posturing,'' he said.
Law enforcement officials say drug abuse among celebrities is indicative of
the larger society's widespread addictions. The only difference, they say,
is that the rich and famous have more cash to satisfy their illegal appetites.
``It's a peculiarity of the industry that a certain kind of person at a
certain level of power can design a life that is free of most of the
negative consequences of drug abuse,'' Fleming said. ``They can afford a
staff, they can afford assistants. They're sometimes allowed to go farther
in their abusive lifestyles.
``Unfortunately, these performers are surrounded by people who, as long as
they're doing their work, support them in everything else.''
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Drugs Behind Youth Crimes, Senator Says ('Associated Press' Item
In 'The Los Angeles Times' Says Senator Christopher S. Bond Of Missouri
Gave The Weekly GOP Radio Address Saturday, And Blamed Illegal Drugs
On What He Alleged Were Increasing Incidents Of Juveniles
Arrested For Murder, Rape And Armed Robbery)
Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 23:24:53 -0400
To: DrugSense News Service
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
Subject: MN: US: Drugs Behind Youth Crimes, Senator Says
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: Jim Rosenfield
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Author: Associated Press
Contact: letters@latimes.com
Fax: 213-237-4712
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Pubdate: May 31, 1998
DRUGS BEHIND YOUTH CRIMES, SENATOR SAYS
WASHINGTON--Drugs are at the root of many of the problems facing young
people, said a Republican senator who is pushing legislation to strengthen
penalties for law-breaking juveniles.
"Without question, illegal drugs are a terrible influence on our young
people today," Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) said in the weekly GOP
radio address Saturday.
He cited increasing incidents of juveniles arrested for murder, rape and
armed robbery.
"We need to ask ourselves why young people now are committing crimes that
were once the province only of disturbed adults," Bond said. "Something has
crept into the psyches of our children. Too often they have become
desensitized to violence and have learned to devalue human life."
He called on Congress to pass laws ensuring more than a slap on the wrist
for violent juveniles.
One such measure, the Violent and Repeat Juvenile Offender Act, would allow
teenagers, ages 14 and up, to be tried as adults for the most serious
federal crimes, such as murder, rape and armed robbery, Bond said.
Under the proposal, juveniles tried as adults receive adult records, which
would be available to law enforcement officers, judges, prosecutors and
school officials.
Copyright Los Angeles Times
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Study - Internet 'Addicts' Often Show Other Psychiatric Disorders,
Treatment May Help ('The Associated Press' Says Psychiatrist Nathan Shapira
Of The University Of Cincinnati College Of Medicine Will Present A Study
Monday At The Annual Meeting Of The American Psychiatric Association
In Toronto In Which 14 People Who Spent Too Much Time Online Were Found
To Have A High Incidence Of Manic-Depression And Other Disorders)
From: creator@islandnet.com (Matt Elrod)
To: mattalk@listserv.islandnet.com
Subject: Net addicts show signs of disorders
Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 16:50:32 -0700
Lines: 83
Sunday, May 31, 1998
Study: Internet 'addicts' often show other psychiatric disorders, treatment
may help
(AP) -- People who seem addicted to the Internet often show a bumper
crop of psychiatric disorders like manic-depression, and treating
those other conditions might help them rein in their urge to be
online, a study suggests.
On average, Internet "addicts" in the study reported having five
psychiatric disorders at some point in their lives, a finding that "just
blew me away," said psychiatrist Nathan Shapira of the University of
Cincinnati College of Medicine.
It's unclear whether the Internet problem should be considered a disorder
or just a symptom of something else, or whether certain disorders promote
the excessive online use, he said.
Shapira is scheduled to present the study Monday at the annual meeting of
the American Psychiatric Association in Toronto.
He and colleagues studied 14 people who'd spent so much time online that
they were facing problems like broken relationships, job loss and dropping
out of school.
One 31-year-old man was online more than 100 hours a week, ignoring family
and friends and stopping only to sleep. A 21-year-old man flunked out of
college after he stopped going to class. When he disappeared for a week,
campus police found him in the university computer lab, where he'd spent
seven days straight online.
The study participants, whose average age was 35, were interviewed for
three to five hours with standard questions to look for psychiatric
disorders.
Being hooked on the Internet is not a recognized disorder. But Shapira
said the excessive online use by the study participants would qualify as a
disorder of impulse control, in the same category as kleptomania or
compulsive shopping. In fact, he suggested the Internet problem be called
"Internetomania" or "Netomania," rather than an addiction.
But the striking thing, Shapira said, was the other psychiatric problems
that turned up:
-- Nine of the 14 had manic-depression at the time of the interview, and
11 had it at some point in their lives.
-- Half had an anxiety disorder such as "social phobia," which is a
persisting and unreasonable fear of being embarrassed in public, at the
time of the interview.
-- Three suffered from bulimia or binge eating, and six had an eating
disorder at some time in their lives.
-- Four had conditions involving uncontrollable bursts of anger or buying
sprees, and half reported such impulse-control conditions during their
lives.
-- Eight had abused alcohol or some other substance at some time in their
lives.
The participants said medications for some of these conditions helped them
gain control over Internet use. That happened nine of the 14 times they
tried mood-stabilizing medications and four of 11 times they tried
antidepressants.
They still used the Internet too much, Shapira said, but "the difference
between three days straight online and spending two to four hours a day
... is an important move in the right direction."
Kimberly Young, a University of Pittsburgh psychologist, said she has
found a similar pattern of prior psychiatric problems in most people
hooked on the Internet. Some people who'd abused alcohol or other
substances told her they were using the Internet as a safer substitute
addiction.
But she said many people with no prior sign of psychiatric trouble have
gotten hooked on the Internet too.
They may be dealing with other life circumstances like stale marriages or
job burnout, she said.
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Border Patrol Beefs Up Staff In War On Drugs, Illegals
('The Orange County Register' Says The US Border Patrol,
Authorized To Hire 1,000 New Agents Annually For Five Years
Through The End Of 2001, Has A New Priority In Addition To
Ending Human Rights Abuses And Widespread Corruption
Along The Mexican Border - Ensuring That The Agency
Hasn't 'Lowered Standards')
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: "MN" (mapnews@mapinc.org)
Subject: MN: Mexico: Border Patrol Beefs Up Staff In War On Drugs, Illegals
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 23:16:13 -0500
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: John W.Black
Pubdate: 5-31-98
Source: Orange County Register (CA)
Contact: letters@link.freedom.com
Website: http://www.ocregister.com/
Author: Nancy San Martin
BORDER PATROL BEEFS UP STAFF IN WAR ON DRUGS,ILLEGALS
Standards agency is looking for quality and integrity in new hires for the
checkpoints along the Mexico border.
Las Cruces,N.M.-"America's front line fighting the war on drugs," proclaims
a sign off Interstate 25 in Las Cruces. "Thank you for your assistance in
the apprehension of Alien Removals: 2,908; Narcotics: 6,970 pounds; Value:
6,454,360."
Produced by the U.S. Border Patrol, the accounting offers a glimpse into
what the agency confronts. The numbers are not achieved without muscle amid
an unprecedented rush to hire more agents.
With 35 checkpoints along the U.S. southern border - many busier than the
Las Cruces one - agency officials have set another priority: to ensure that
they haven't lowered standards as they undertake their massive recruiting
effort.
"Ensuring the integrity of the Border Patrol is high on our list," said
Eyleen Schmidt, a spokeswoman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service
in Washington. "We're going through tremendous growth, and we want to ensure
that every agent we hire is the best person for the job."
Federal legislation approved in 1996 authorized the hiring of 1,000 new
agents annually for five years through the end of 2001. So far this year,
667 new agents have filled posts along the U.S. Mexico border. There are
7,700 Border Patrol agents nationwide. An additional 500 will be hired by
Sept. 30, Schmidt said.
Since the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1996, the
agency's budget has nearly doubled to $877.1 million from $441.7 million at
the end of 1995.
The new hires will be assigned to one of 78 Border Patrol stations in
California, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. They will be charged with trying
to seal the southern frontier, the preferred entry point of smugglers and
undocumented immigrants.
The same frontier also has served as a magnet for agents gone bad. From
1993-1997, the agency investigated 65 cases of Border Patrol agents accused
of involvement in corruption, including bribery and extortion, immigrant
smuggling, or selling or improperly issuing INS documents.
The most recent corruption case involved an agent in San Diego, indicted
Feb. 26 on drug smuggling charges. Thomas A. Bair, 28, is accused of
possession of a controlled substance with intent to distribute. The
indictment specifies he was caught with 600 pounds of marijuana stuffed in
several duffel bags in his Border Patrol van on Aug. 5, 1997.
Bair, who had been with the agency for less than two years, remains in
federal custody.
The Border Patrol also has come under fire from Amnesty International, which
accuses agents of brutalizing immigrants. The agency denies the charge.
At the Las Cruces checkpoint, as many as 6,000 vehicles pass daily.
The sign went up eight months ago as a public relations tool.
"We're trying everything we can to improve the image," said agent Ramiro
Garcia, a 10-year veteran.
Wearing a bulletproof vest, black leather gloves and dark sunglasses, agent
Edy Lujan recently entered a private commercial bus filled with passengers
at the Las Cruces checkpoint. Most were Mexicans on their way to Denver to
visit relatives.
Lujan inspected documents, sifted through overhead luggage compartments and
scanned the faces of passengers looking for signs of deception.
"I make almost double the amount of money with less stress", said Lujan, 25,
formerly with the El Paso sheriff's office. "But this job is still very
dangerous. That's why I like it. It gets my adrenaline going."
Lujan is exactly the kind of person the agency targets in its recruitment
efforts: young, aggressive, with law enforcement experience. The agency also
is interested in people formerly with the military or with college degrees
in criminal justice.
As the federal agency races to hire agents or risk losing its allocation,
officials said they have erected safeguards to ensure the force is a good
one.
Of the 30,000 people who took the Border Patrol exam in 1997, for example,
one-third passed. Of those, only 1,800 made it through the academy, Schmidt
said.
"There is a benchmark," she said. "We know the number of people we need to
target and the number of people taking our test, so we're comfortable with
who we hire."
In just two months in the field, Lujan has come across about 10 suspected
organized immigrant smuggling cases and 20 involving narcotics. The Border
Patrol Academy shows new recruits films about the drug busts and the loads
of cash attached to it. But it doesn't really address the potential for
corruption.
"I think it comes down to the individual's morals, and they do a pretty good
job of detecting that," Lujan said.
New recruits must pass an extensive background criminal investigation, which
is repeated every five years throughout their careers. They also must pass
drug and medical exams.
Even after graduation from the academy, agents remain on probation for 10
months. During that time, they endure weekly quizzes and an in-depth final
exam at the end of the probation period.
"That's where the extensive weeding out takes place," Garcia said.
Lujan was among 48 of 56 applicants in his class who graduated from the
academy. Eight didn't make it for various reasons, including language
barriers, physical ineptness or attitude.
The average age of the new hires is 27. Most are from California, Texas, and
New York. About 25 percent have at least a bachelor's degree, up from prior
years' 10 to 15 percent, Schmidt said.
"The requirements haven't changed," said Garcia.
In its recruitment pamphlet, the agency describes the job as for those who
"love the outdoors, can work independently and who can think on their feet
and act decisively in highly critical situations."
That description is illustrated in the number of drug seizures agents make.
Along the U.S.-Mexico border, they have more than doubled, from 55,242
pounds of marijuana in 1994, for example, to 129,828 last year.
"The Border Academy prepared us for this. Now it's up to us to get the
experience," said new agent Amanda Ramirez, 30. "Like with any other job,
you learn as you go."
Garcia said that while agents eventually work alone, there is always another
one nearby to serve as a backup and to monitor conduct. The agency also
routinely changes time schedules and shuffles duty sites, for both agents
and supervisors, hoping to eliminate the ability of smugglers to establish
relationships with agents.
"We want to make sure the temptation is not there," Garcia said. "It also
protects the agent ...I've been in situations where I've caught $25 million
worth of seizures, and I wouldn't want to be alone with that much money
either.
"The way the system is set up, there is always something or someone around.
The more agents, the more witnesses, right?"
In the end, new and veteran agents agree, the decision to stay clean is
personal.
"I wouldn't be able to go on with my job if I took anything from anyone,"
Ramirez said. "They gave me a job, and they trusted me with a badge and a
gun. They should be able to trust me with the encounters."
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Mexico's Unquenchable Fires (According To The 'Washington Post,'
Out-Of-Control Forest Fires In Mexico Previously Blamed
On Marijuana Cultivators Now Are Caused By More Complex Factors,
And Are Burning Where The Sun Doesn't Shine Anyway)
Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 18:09:39 -0400
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
Subject: MN: Mexico: Mexico's Unquenchable Fires
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: Jim Galasyn
Source: Washington Post
Contact: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Pubdate: 31 May 1998
Author: Molly Moore, Washington Post Foreign Service
Editor's Comment: See also http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n365.a04.html
MEXICO'S UNQUENCHABLE FIRES
Ecological Disaster Unfolds as Ancient Forest Burns On
SAN ANTONIO, Mexico-Antonio Juarez is a foot soldier on the front lines of
firefighter hell. His weapons against southern Mexico's worst fires in a
century are a machete and five gallons of water in a rubber backpack. The
peasant farmer, 51, charges into burning rubble clad in sandals, a straw
cowboy hat and a tattered bandanna.
His futile mission: to help hold back the raging wildfires that are
gobbling Mexico's last remaining virgin cloud forest, torching the trees
that are home to nesting toucans and quetzals, charring tens of thousands
of acres of hunting territory of endangered jaguars and pumas, and creeping
beneath the thick blankets of lichen and mosses on the forest floor to
consume the roots of rare flora.
"It's so tragic," said Miguel Angel Garcia of the People of the Southwest
Woods, one of the most prominent environmental watchdog groups in southern
Mexico. "You can replant a burned pine forest; you can't replace a tropical
cloud forest that's taken two thousand years to form."
The fires ravaging this mystical forest, called the Chimalapas, which has
been the physical and spiritual reserve of Indians who have lived on its
fringes for centuries, are so massive and so remote that until last week
Mexican authorities couldn't even count all the blazes. Smoke from these
fires in the southwestern state of Oaxaca, the largest and most
uncontrolled in Mexico, has drifted as far north as Wisconsin and South
Dakota and across the U.S. Gulf Coast to Georgia.
The blazes of the Chimalapas -- a mountainous subtropical area where under
normal conditions clouds continually linger -- have not only sent jungle
cats, monkeys and birds fleeing for their lives but have reignited
long-smoldering feuds between the Mexican government and environmentalists,
between rich landowners and indigenous peasants, and between isolated
mountain villages that have been waging agrarian wars for decades.
The causes of the blazes, as well as the inability to curb them, involve
tales of revenge, government indifference and a national pride that may
have led to waiting too long to seek help.
But for even the most advanced firefighters, these are no ordinary fires.
They burn as no other forest fire. Much of the flame is subterranean, with
smoke seeping from cracks and crevices, disguising the true location of the
underground conflagration. When the fires do burst into the open, they
often are obscured by the jungle's thick canopy. That same canopy has
prevented water dumped by small helicopters from reaching the flames.
"It's a lot worse than what I had envisioned," said Paul Weeden, who is
coordinating the more than 30 U.S. firefighting experts dispatched last
week to assist Mexican authorities. "I didn't realize there were so many
large fires burning -- that the areas were so remote, so inaccessible."
Many of the fires in the Chimalapas are now virtually unreachable. They are
a 10-hour hike into a forest so obscured by smoke that Mexican
reconnaissance aircraft have been unable to fly near them since the fires
began three weeks ago. It was only last week, when the U.S. government
provided a King Air plane equipped with sensitive infrared sensors that can
detect heat beneath the thick veil of smoke, that firefighters discovered
the extent of the fires.
Because the cloud forest is such a unique environment -- with 22 ecosystems
and 62 varieties of reptiles -- firefighters have been unable to employ
many of the most effective methods of combating wildfires. There is no
"back burning," setting controlled fires that consume potential fuel around
the wildfire; no "herding" of smaller fires into one large blaze that burns
itself out; and no bulldozers and tractors for building fire breaks.
"We're in an environment that's unique to the world," said Mike Conrad, a
supervisor from the U.S. Forest Service. "We don't want to lose any more of
this than we have to."
Already an estimated 16,800 acres have burned.
The arrival of U.S. experts has not been without problems. Mexican military
officials were suspicious of the infrared heat detection system that would
be mapping every square mile of the army's most sensitive area -- the
southern state of Chiapas, adjacent to Oaxaca, where Mexico has deployed
tens of thousands of troops since the 1994 rebel Zapatista uprising.
After landing at a Chiapas airfield last week, U.S. authorities decided to
move the airplane to a more secure airport in a neighboring state for fear
that drug traffickers -- who favor King Airs -- might try to steal it.
Environmentalists report more than 230 fires are now raging across Mexico,
49 in the Chimalapas. Since January, Mexico has reported 10,000 blazes
nationwide that have devoured an estimated 700,000 acres, an area larger
than Rhode Island.
"This is the biggest ecological disaster of this century in Mexico," said
Homero Aridjis, one of the nation's most prominent environmental activists.
"The government can't control this number of fires."
There are nearly as many accusations over the outbreaks as there are fires.
Unquestionably, it has been an unusually hot, dry year across Latin
America, from Brazil's Amazon to Mexico's northern deserts.
While virtually every state in Mexico is suffering its worst fires in seven
decades, environmentalists say the blazes are far worse in the normally
humid jungles of Oaxaca and Chiapas, where fires like these haven't been
seen in at least a century.
Government officials have laid the blame for most of the fires on peasants
who use slash-and-burn techniques to clear their land for the planting season.
But the farmers and many environmentalists say the fires are the byproduct
of years of government neglect of its poor and indigenous populations.
"They have been abandoned by the government," said environmentalist Miguel
Angel Garcia. "That's why they're obligated to use these agricultural
techniques in the year 2000."
The region flanking the west side of the Chimalapas has been the site of
decades, if not centuries, of conflict. The Zoque Indians have claimed the
virgin forest region as their reserve since before the Spanish
conquistadors arrived five centuries ago.
But in the past 30 years, the Mexican government has promoted a policy of
colonizing less populous areas to relieve overcrowded areas. As a result,
entire villages of Mayan Indians -- many of them converted to evangelical
Christianity -- and mixed-blood Mexicans have settled on the fringes of the
forest. And each year, ranchers, farmers, loggers and, more recently, drug
traffickers have inched deeper into the cloud forest, setting off vicious
land disputes.
To aggravate matters, Oaxaca and Chiapas can't even agree on where their
border slices through the Chimalapas.
Some villages are now accusing rival communities of setting fires to
expropriate more of the jungle, or as revenge against neighbors.
In one of the more sinister scenarios, many environmentalists believe
developers may have set fires intentionally to help bolster their efforts
to complete a trans-regional highway through the forest, a project long
fought by environmentalists.
Meanwhile, villagers like Leonardo Hernandez, 64, continue to trek daily
into the burning fires, spraying water on flames and embers with backpack
pumps that must be refilled every 10 minutes.
From distant hillsides, the village volunteers and the army troops on
firefighting duty appear as little more than ants scurrying at the edges of
a vast, blackened wasteland.
"It's not that we don't know what to do," Hernandez said. "We just don't
have the equipment."
As for when the fires will subside, "many people are praying to the Virgin
of Guadalupe for miracles," said environmentalist Aridjis. "But the saints
haven't answered."
(c) Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company
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Drug Fears Behind Man's Burning ('Halifax Daily News' Says A Woman
Whose 15-Year-Old Son Had Allegedly Overdosed On Crack Cocaine,
And Her Sister Have Both Been Charged With Attempted Murder,
Breaking And Entering, And Arson After A Glace Bay, Nova Scotia Man
Was Set On Fire For Allegedly Selling Drugs To Children)
Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 23:55:56 -0400
To: DrugSense News Service
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
Subject: MN: Canada: Drug Fears Behind Man's Burning
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: creator@mapinc.org
Source: Halifax Daily News
Contact: letterstoeditor@hfxnews.southam.ca
Pubdate: Sun, 31 May 1998
Authors: Chris Lambie & Brendan Elliott -- The Daily News
DRUG FEARS BEHIND MAN'S BURNING
Accused's Son Had Overdosed; She Believed Local Dealer Was Supplying The Drugs
A Glace Bay man was set on fire because people in the neighborhood believed
he was selling drugs to young children, police sources say.
Terrence Fiore is in serious condition at the QEII Health Sciences Centre
in Halifax.
A police source said the 46-year-old was being investigated for selling
crack cocaine when he was doused with gasoline and set ablaze May 23.
Caroline Beth McNeil, 34, and her sister Cheryl Arlene McNeil, 35, have
both been charged with attempted murder, break and enter, and arson in the
attack.
Caroline McNeil's 15-year-old son Robert has overdosed on drugs three
times, most recently in March, his paternal grandmother, Colleen Frison,
said in an interview yesterday.
"He was in the hospital for three days in a coma," said Frison, her words
interrupted by tears.
"He's lucky he's a big boy."
Police arrested Caroline McNeil Tuesday as she was getting ready to take
her only son to a detoxification clinic in Halifax, said Colleen Frison.
The sister was arrested separately.
Friends are taking care of the boy. His father, Robert Frison, is in
Halifax visiting Caroline McNeil, his common-law wife.
She and her sister are undergoing psychiatric assessment at the Nova Scotia
Hospital.
Caroline McNeil suffers from colitis and Cheryl has epilepsy, the
grandmother said.
Drugs are a common problem in the Glace Bay area.
"Robert wasn't the only kid," Colleen Frison said. "I guess other kids
around the school were getting them, too."
Cheryl McNeil has a nine-year-old son.
Caroline McNeil had been to Cape Breton regional police with complaints
about a drug dealer she believed was supplying her son's habit, Frison said.
"The mother reported him I don't know how many times to the police, and
they didn't do anything about it," she said.
"If it was your kid, what would you do?"
The attack on Fiore occurred at about 3 p.m. last Saturday at 3 Arthur St.,
in the Sterling district of Glace Bay.
It was the second violent crime on the block in three weeks. A man was
beaten to death April 24.
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Narc Cop Had Teens All Fooled ('The Toronto Sun' Gives A One-Sided Account
Of The Undercover Drug Sting By Halton Regional Police
At General Wolfe High School, Which Led To The Arrests Of 14 Teens,
Including Some Non-Students)
From: creator@islandnet.com (Matt Elrod)
To: mattalk@listserv.islandnet.com
Subject: Canada: Narc cop had teens all fooled
Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 08:23:50 -0700
Lines: 114
Newshawk: creator@mapinc.org
Source: Toronto Sun
Contact: editor@sunpub.com
Pubdate: May 31, 1998
Author: MICHELE MANDEL -- Toronto Sun
Narc cop had teens all fooled
OAKVILLE -- He looks like your typical teenager.
His brown hair is bleached a brassy yellow blond, a gold hoop hangs
from each ear, and a multi-colored tattoo decorates one upper arm.
His Airwalk runners are fashionably untied. He's never without his
smokes or his portable CD player blasting gangsta rapper Busta Rhymes.
He looks like a teen. Except that he's a cop.
For two months, Halton Regional Police Const. Rui Freitas, 27, had
them all fooled at General Wolfe High School. Principal Tom Adam was
in the know, but to his fellow classmates and his teachers, Freitas
was just another 19-year-old former dropout, back to finish up the
last two credits he needed in small engines and food preparation to
complete his high school diploma.
They were unaware that all the while he was befriending them and
partying with them, he was working as a high school narc, an
undercover cop taking notes and preparing charges against those
willing to sell him marijuana, hashish and magic mushrooms. In all, 14
teens, including some non-students, were charged.
Freitas runs his fingers through his dyed hair. It's a few days after
his first undercover operation has ended and he's suffering from
adrenalin withdrawal and hair worries. The affable copper would like
to keep it blond but he has a feeling that once he's back in uniform
today, his superiors are going to want it toned down. The earrings
will definitely have to go while he's on duty, but then there's always
his navel ring, which he's keeping from view under a loose T-shirt.
The high school sting, says Sgt. Bruce Mitchell, was conceived to
address community concerns about drugs and Freitas was chosen for his
youthful looks and rapport with teens. He was so believable that they
don't want him photographed in case he's used again.
It was, Freitas says, exciting, but gruelling. "It meant acting all
day. It takes its toll. I was ready to come out after the two months."
High school hasn't changed much since he was there last. When he
first arrived, everyone's first question was whether he smoked
marijuana. "Pretty well everybody did, except the jocks," he says. He
saw them smoke before classes, between classes, skipping classes,
hanging out in the baseball bleachers outside or taking a walk into
the nearby ravine. The terminology, though, had changed since he went
to high school. Pot was called "smoke" when he was a real teen, now he
had to make sure to call it "hydro" or "blunt."
Usually, he says, one would buy the joint for $10 and his friends
would pay him $1 each for a couple of puffs of the drug. Besides pot,
there were magic mushrooms and LSD at $5 a hit. On the weekends, many
teens came back from raves in Toronto with ecstacy. Crack and heroin,
though, were virtually unknown. "These kids don't have the money," he
says.
For two months, he gained their friendship and relived his teen
years. He got into trouble with his teachers for smoking on school
property and cutting classes -- although he did finish with an 87% in
small engines. He hung out with his friends at the mall, skipped
school and looked for summer jobs with them, even went out and bought
Super Soaker water guns during the spring heat wave and started a
massive water fight at school.
"Yeah, that was cool," Freitas recalls with a smile.
But even then, he was working. "I was never relaxed. I'd go over
things three or four times in my head so I could write it down later
in my notebook and advise my handlers of what was going on."
In the end, he had enough to charge one of the school's major pot
dealers and many more small-time sellers. It was certainly a success
if the object was to scare these teens into going weedless for a
while. Less certain is whether it is right or fair. One local paper
has already taken the police to task for spending $6,000 on an
operation that seized only $1,000 worth of illicit soft drugs while
violating students' rights and privacy.
'NECESSARY'
"Are they saying that schools should be sanctuaries for drug users?"
Mitchell asks. "It's a necessary part of policing. We have information
now on robberies, drugs heading to Maplehurst Correctional, what's
happening in the community ... "
To concerns about violating student privacy, Halton police spokesman
Sgt. Frank Phillips has little patience. Halton's drug stings, like
their use of drug-sniffing dogs, are a necessary deterrent, he
insists. "Students who don't use drugs have the right to go to school
in a drug-free environment."
But Toronto, with an arguably greater drug problem, generally doesn't
believe in undercover stings or drug dogs in high schools, says Det.
Court Booth of the Central Drug Information Unit. "We're trying to
build bridges with kids. We don't want them to think we're going into
schools and investigating them covertly."
It's a tough call, one even the nice undercover cop admits he had
some qualms about. "It was a real bad feeling at the end, when they'd
been arrested and I went to see them. I felt bad for them and almost
ashamed. They were really nice kids. It almost felt like I was
stabbing them in the back. I mean, one guy wanted me to be his best
man. It was hard ... "
His boss gives him a troubled look and his voice trails off. "Oh, but
I do think it was a good idea."
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US-Panama Drug Center Falls Through (According To 'The Associated Press,'
Panama President Ernesto Perez Balladares Said Thursday The Anti-Drug Center
Would Amount To A Continued US Military Presence In Panama,
Despite His Previous Insistence It Would Not)
Date: Mon, 01 Jun 1998 00:55:38 -0400
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
Subject: MN: Panama: Wire: US-Panama Drug Center Falls Through
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: ED Denson
Pubdate: Sun, 31 May 1998
Source: Associated Press
Author: Juan Zamorano, Associated Press Writer
US-PANAMA DRUG CENTER FALLS THROUGH
PANAMA CITY, Panama (AP) -- Five months after the United States and Panama
announced they would build a multinational anti-drug center on the rolling
grounds of a U.S military base, the deal appears to have fallen through.
President Ernesto Perez Balladares said Thursday the anti-drug center would
amount to a continued U.S. military presence in Panama, despite his previous
insistence it would not.
The two countries began discussions in 1995 about a center to monitor
anti-drug operations throughout the Americas, and negotiations formally
began last year.
The center would be built on the grounds of Howard Air Force Base, which the
United States must abandon in 1999 under 1977 treaties signed by
then-President Jimmy Carter and Panamanian strongman Gen. Omar Torrijos.
Since 1992, the United States has monitored anti-drug operations from a
small building on Howard.
The announcement in December that the two sides had reached an agreement
sparked strong opposition from many Panamanians who want U.S. soldiers out
in 1999, and considered the center to be an extension of the nine-decade
U.S. military presence in Panama.
Perez Balladares assured his critics that the center wouldn't amount to a
U.S. military presence. But he told a group of students on Thursday that
Washington was trying to get a military base without paying for it after 1999.
Some analysts believe Perez Balladares is trying to quiet critics in advance
of an Aug. 30 referendum on whether to change the constitution to allow his
re-election next year.
Despite the shift, Foreign Minister Ricardo Arias said: ``We continue to
explore the possibility of a center.''
U.S. Ambassador William Hughes said the United States isn't seeking to
maintain troops in Panama.
``We can, and we do, project our power in the entire world without these
bases,'' Hughes said.
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Drug Traffickers Return To Old Route ('New York Times' Article
Reprinted In 'The Seattle Times' Says Colombians In The Illegal Drug Industry
Are Returning To The Familiar Routes Between The Bahamas And Florida
After Concentrating On Other Routes In The 1980s And 1990s -
Drug Enforcement Administration Officials Say They Seized More Cocaine
In The First Three Months Of 1998 In The Bahamas
Than In The Previous Three Years Combined)
Date: Mon, 01 Jun 1998 00:03:22 -0400
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
Subject: MN: US FL: Drug Traffickers Return to Old Route
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: John Smith
Pubdate: Sun, 31 May 1998
Source: Seattle-Times (WA)
Contact: opinion@seatimes.com
Website: http://seattletimes.com/
Author: Mireya Navarro, The New York Times
DRUG TRAFFICKERS RETURN TO OLD ROUTE
MIAMI - Last week, federal officials in South Florida scored what they
believed was their biggest cocaine seizure from a pleasure boat: 4,000
pounds, with a street value of $34 million, aboard a 62-foot-long luxury yacht.
The significance, however, was not so much the amount but rather its
discovery on a boat making a run from the Bahamian island of Bimini to a
private dock in Fort Lauderdale.
To federal officials here, the seizure was another indication that after
concentrating on other routes in the 1980s and 1990s, Colombian traffickers
are returning to the familiar routes between the Bahamas and Florida.
Drug Enforcement Administration officials say they seized more cocaine in
the first three months of 1998 in the Bahamas than in the previous three
years combined.
"They're coming back to the roots that they know," said Raphael Lopez, the
U.S. Customs Service's special agent in charge in Miami. "The infrastructure
is here. They've got the people, the smuggling and transportation routes,
the businesses to hide their smuggling and money laundering. And the
commanding control is here."
Although smuggling through the Bahamas and Florida has never stopped,
officials say, aggressive law enforcement in that corridor moved much of the
drug trafficking to Puerto Rico and the border with Mexico. Drug-enforcement
officials believe most cocaine coming into the United States passes through
the Southwest border, but a resurgence of heavy smuggling in the Atlantic
Ocean indicates the trade is being chased back by interdiction efforts and
tensions between the Colombian traffickers and their Mexican distributors.
The same dynamics have made Caribbean countries like the Dominican Republic
and Haiti major transfer points for cocaine destined for the U.S. market.
This ebb and flow of drug trafficking patterns underscores what officials
call the balloon effect: squeezing on one place only to have the drug
activity bulge in another.
But the deterioration of the Medellin and Cali cartels has fragmented the
drug trade, giving way to dozens of smaller trafficking groups that, while
not as big or efficient as the cartels, require more manpower and better
intelligence gathering to combat, some experts on international drug
trafficking said.
The traffickers have also grown more sophisticated and use new technology to
complement their home advantage in the 700-island archipelago strewn over an
area the size of California.
They use cellular telephones and 800 numbers. Airplanes and speedboats
rendezvous on schedule for airdrops of cocaine, thanks to state-of-the-art
navigation systems that pinpoint a meeting place.
The boats themselves are faster than ever, outfitted with three and four
outboard engines for extra horsepower and customized to carry up to 2,200
pounds of cocaine for delivery to Bahamian Islands like Bimini and
ultimately ports and marinas along Florida's east coast, from Palm Beach
County down to the Florida Keys.
The traffickers have also altered their lifestyle. In Florida, where drug
planes once landed on expressways and shootouts were so common traffickers
earned the moniker "cocaine cowboys," flamboyance is out. Increasingly,
officials said, drug-trade operators aim to blend in.
When Yolene and Savil Dessaint, a couple in their 40s, were arrested in
December on cocaine trafficking charges, they lived in an affluent Fort
Lauderdale suburb and their two children attended local schools.
But some things have never changed. When large loads of cocaine are received
in Los Angeles, federal officials said, directions on distribution come from
Colombian traffickers in Miami.
It is an indication of how little the flow of drugs has been disrupted over
time that cocaine prices have remained stable and even dropped in the last
15 years. In the Miami area, a kilo of cocaine, or 2.2 pounds, that sold for
up to $38,000 in 1984 sold for as little as $12,000 to $15,000 in 1988 and
for $12,500 to $18,000 this year, DEA figures show.
One DEA special agent puts it this way:
"They figure out a way to do it, we figure out a way to stop them," he said.
"They figure out a way to do it again. It's like a big chess game."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Drug Traffickers Returning To Bahamas-Florida Route
Original 'New York Times' Version, Slightly Different)
Date: Mon, 01 Jun 1998 00:00:40 -0400
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
Subject: MN: US FL: Drug Traffickers Returning to Bahamas-Florida Route
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: emr@javanet.com (Dick Evans)
Pubdate: Sun, 31 May 1998
Source: New York Times (NY)
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Author: Mireya Navarro
DRUG TRAFFICKERS RETURNING TO BAHAMAS-FLORIDA ROUTE
MIAMI -- Last week, federal officials in South Florida scored what they
believed was their biggest cocaine seizure from a pleasure boat: 4,000
pounds, with a street value of $34 million, found in hidden compartments
aboard a 62-foot-long luxury yacht.
The significance of the news, however, was not so much the amount of the
stash -- more cocaine gets into Florida in cargo containers and freighters,
for example -- but that it was found on a boat making a run from the
Bahamian island of Bimini to a private dock in Fort Lauderdale. To U.S.
Customs Service and Drug Enforcement Administration officials here, the
seizure was another indication that after concentrating on other routes in
the 1980s and 1990s, Colombian traffickers are returning with renewed
intensity to the familiar routes between the Bahamas and Florida. DEA
officials say they seized more cocaine in the first three months of 1998 in
the Bahamas than in the previous three years combined. "They're coming back
to the roots that they know," said Raphael Lopez, the U.S. Customs Service's
special agent in charge in Miami. "The infrastructure is here. They've got
the people, the smuggling and transportation routes, the businesses to hide
their smuggling and money laundering. And the commanding control is here."
Although smuggling through the Bahamas and Florida has never stopped,
officials say, aggressive law enforcement on that corridor moved much of the
drug trafficking to Puerto Rico and the border with Mexico. Drug enforcement
officials believe most cocaine coming into the United States passes through
the southwest border, but a resurgence of heavy smuggling in the Atlantic
Ocean indicates the trade is being chased back by interdiction efforts and
tensions between the Colombian traffickers and their Mexican distributors,
who have turned into competitors by setting up their own cocaine business.
The same dynamics have made Caribbean countries like the Dominican Republic
and Haiti major transfer points for cocaine destined for the American
market. This ebb and flow of drug trafficking patterns underscores what
officials call the balloon effect: squeezing on one place only to have the
drug activity bulge in another. But the resurgence of the drug trade in the
Bahamas is in a different setting than in the route's heyday in the late
1970s and 1980s.
The big cartels have been virtually dismantled, and law-enforcement agencies
say they are more experienced and better coordinated for this second round.
In Florida, for instance, federal and local officials routinely work
together to target violent drug organizations, the officials say. The
Bahamas, where there was widespread evidence of drug-related corruption in
the prime minister's Cabinet and among the police in the 1980s, now stands
firmly behind the war against drugs, with new weapons like a 100-member
police drug-enforcement unit and laws against money laundering. "We've come
a long way," said Marvin Dames, drug-enforcement commander for the Royal
Bahamas Police and liaison to an American anti-drug mission in the Bahamas
and Turks and Caicos consisting of 120 DEA, Coast Guard and Army personnel.
But the decimation of the Medellin and Cali cartels has fragmented the drug
trade, giving way to dozens of smaller trafficking groups that, while not as
big or efficient as the cartels, require more manpower and better
intelligence gathering to combat, some experts on international drug
trafficking said.
The traffickers have also grown more sophisticated and use new technology to
complement their home advantage in the 700-island archipelago strewn over an
area the size of California.
They use cellular telephones and 800 numbers. Airplanes and speedboats
rendezvous on schedule for airdrops of cocaine, thanks to state-of-the-art
navigation systems that pinpoint a meeting place.
The boats themselves are faster than ever, outfitted with three and four
outboard engines for extra horsepower and customized to carry up to 2,200
pounds of cocaine for delivery to Bahamian Islands like Bimini and
ultimately ports and marinas along Florida's east coast, from Palm Beach
County down to the Florida Keys.
Their operators wear night vision goggles. "Before it was much more
half-haphazard," said Louis Weiss Jr., a DEA special agent who has worked in
South Florida and the Bahamas for 13 years. "They're much more organized."
The traffickers have also altered their lifestyle. In Florida, where drug
planes once landed on expressways and shoot-outs were so common traffickers
earned the moniker "cocaine cowboys," flamboyance is out. Increasingly,
federal officials said, the drug trade operators aim to blend in. When
Yolene and Savil Dessaint, a couple in their 40s, were arrested in December
on cocaine trafficking charges, they lived in an affluent Fort Lauderdale
suburb and their two children attended local schools. No flashy cars, no
appearance of great wealth. They say they ran an import-export business, but
prosecutors contend that their business really consisted of smuggling
cocaine from Colombia through Haiti and into the Miami River and
distributing about 440 pounds a month in three South Florida counties.
"They're not buying Rolex watches, but they invest in land and stocks and
bonds," William Mitchell, the DEA's special agent in charge in Miami, said
of the new breed of trafficker.
But some things about the Bahamas-Florida route have never changed. Federal
officials say the operations headquarters for Colombian traffickers remains
well-entrenched in South Florida; when large loads of cocaine are received
in Los Angeles, they said, directions on distribution come from Miami. And
the balloon effect notwithstanding, drug smuggling through the Bahamas and
Florida has been a constant, with an increase in trafficking in Colombian
heroin in the last five years adding to cocaine smuggling. It is an
indication of how little the flow of drugs has been disrupted over time that
cocaine prices have remained stable and even dropped in the last 15 years.
In the Miami area, a kilo of cocaine, or 2.2 pounds, that sold for up to
$38,000 in 1984 sold for as little as $12,000 to $15,000 in 1988 and for
$12,500 to $18,000 this year, DEA figures show.
DEA officials say the recent increase in cocaine seizures -- about 15,000
pounds of the drug were seized in the Bahamas in the first three months of
1998, compared with about 11,500 pounds in the previous three years combined
-- is not attributable to better law enforcement. They also point to the
higher frequency of trafficking standbys like airplane-to-boat drops of
cocaine and the use of "stash houses," storing 440 pounds, as evidence that
the Bahamas-Florida route is hot again. A year ago, Mitchell said, the drug
agency estimated that 70 percent of the cocaine entering the United States
came through the southwestern border and 30 percent through other routes;
six months later, the trafficking along the Mexican border was estimated to
have dropped to 53 percent. Such figures are only rough estimates involving
guesswork on factors like the amount of cocaine being produced and
processed. And as traffickers shift routes to elude law enforcement, "what
may be true this week might not be true next week," Mitchell said.
Weiss, the DEA special agent, puts it another way. "They figure out a way to
do it, we figure out a way to stop them," he said. "They figure out a way to
do it again. It's like a big chess game." As traffickers look for the path
of least resistance, the resources to fight them follow. In Congress, the
House has passed a bill earmarking more than $1 billion next year for 1,700
additional Customs Service inspectors and new drug interdiction technology
for the nation's borders. The DEA's Miami field division is already adding
40 more agents, for a total of 400. The Senate is considering a similar bill.
But some note that as long as drug demand drives the supply, the best that
can be hoped for is to prevent the re-emergence of huge trafficking
organizations and to reduce shipments over a long enough period to make
cocaine more expensive and price out some users, particularly the young.
There is uncertainty only about where drug smuggling will go next. "The
displacement can't be avoided," said Bruce Bagley, a University of Miami
expert on drug trafficking. "The balloon effect is inevitable as long as
there are incentives for people to produce and ship cocaine."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Amid Problems, Colombia Facing Crucial Vote ('Dallas Morning News'
Article In 'The San Jose Mercury News' Says That, As Colombia Confronts
A Deepening Civil War, Corruption, And International Disrepute
As A Drug-Trafficking Haven, Many Colombian Voters Are Openly Doubtful
About The Ability Of Any Candidate In Today's Election To Lead Their Nation
Out Of Its Current Morass)
Date: Wed, 03 Jun 1998 21:14:08 -0400
To: DrugSense News Service
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
Subject: MN: Columbia: Amid Problems, Colombia Facing Crucial Vote
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: Marcus-Mermelstein Family
Source: San Jose Mercury News
Author: Tod Robberson, Dallas Morning News
Contact: letters@sjmercury.com
Website: http://www.sjmercury.com/
Pubdate: 31 May 1998
AMID PROBLEMS, COLOMBIA FACING CRUCIAL VOTE
Weak Candidates Don't Inspire Nation
BOGOTA, Colombia -- As Colombia confronts deepening civil war, corruption
and international disrepute as a drug-trafficking haven, the ballot in
today's presidential elections may offer the best snapshot of this nation's
limited options for the future.
Voters can choose among the three main candidates, each offering similar
proposals of moderate change, promises of peace and assurances that
Colombia's plight will ease under their leadership. Or voters can select a
final option at the bottom of the ballot: an empty, white square that
effectively sends the message ``none of the above.''
After four years of scandal-tainted leadership under President Ernesto
Samper, many Colombian voters are openly doubtful about any candidate's
ability to lead their nation out of its current morass.
``What we are facing is a problem of leadership,'' said independent
Congress member Ingrid Betancourt. ``This is an absolutely vital election
for Colombia, given all of our problems . . . but it's obvious that nobody
is offering any revolutionary proposals to save the country.''
Competing against the none-of-the-above vote are conservative front-runner
Andr=E9s Pastrana, independent Noemi Sanin, and ruling Liberal Party
candidate Horacio Serpa, a close political ally of Samper's who served as
interior minister until January.
The stakes have never been higher in a Colombian election, internationally
as well as domestically, observers said.
Since Samper took office in 1994, the nation's 34-year-old leftist
insurgency has swollen to unprecedented strength, both militarily and
financially, thanks largely to an alliance with Colombia's cocaine- and
heroin-trafficking organizations.
Washington is warning that unless something is done to curb the rebels'
expansion, Colombian democracy might not survive.
While the United States is maintaining neutrality in the elections,
officials have made clear they hope Colombia's next president will be a
full partner in the war on drugs, curb human rights abuses by the military,
and take an aggressive approach toward ending the insurgency.
Billions of dollars in foreign investment, loans, development assistance
and U.S. anti-narcotics aid hang in the balance.
In addition, Washington hopes that the next administration will be able to
restore legitimacy to a presidency tainted under Samper by persistent
allegations that his 1994 campaign received more than $6 million in
contributions from drug lords.
The domestic challenge is equally tough. Unemployment hovers near 15
percent, foreign investment is plummeting and the Colombian currency has
lost nearly 30 percent of its value over the past 18 months.
Two weeks ago, leaders of the nation's largest guerrilla group, the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, offered to initiate peace
talks with the winner of Sunday's election, even while FARC mobilized
forces to block voters from going to the polls.
In the highly conflictive southern state of Putumayo, Gov. Jorge Devia
Murcia warned Samper last week that he would request formal abolishment of
his state unless something was done to curb growing lawlessness, drug
production and attacks by guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups.
With so many crucial factors at play, however, candidates have fallen short
of convincing Colombia's 21 million voters that a solution to the nation's
ills is at hand, said Elizabeth Ungar, a political scientist at the
University of the Andes.
``Voters do not perceive the candidates as offering dramatically different
proposals, so they don't feel they have much to base their vote on. Instead
of voting on the candidates' ideas and proposals, they're being forced to
vote on images and personalities,'' she said.
The national political magazine Semana concurred, noting in an
issue-by-issue analysis last week that ``the differences among the
electoral proposals of the . . . principal candidates are so subtle that
voters need a magnifying glass'' to make a distinction.
All three major candidates have received endorsements from prominent
Colombians. Pastrana, who already enjoys broad support from the nation's
business community, recently won the backing of Nobel Prize-winning author
Gabriel Garc(acu)a Erquez. Former President Alfonso Michelsen broke ranks
with his own Liberal Party to endorse Sanin. Serpa recently won the
endorsement of the nation's largest and most influential newspaper, El Tiempo.
But another prominent figure, independent politician Gloria Isabel Cuartas,
formally endorsed ``none of the above'' in a newspaper column published
Wednesday. She argued that marking the empty white square is a way
Colombians can exercise their democratic rights while registering their
``rejection of the way in which politics are run, the incapacity of
programs'' being offered by the candidates.
Polls show Pastrana holding a comfortable lead while Serpa is struggling
against Sanin for a highly valued second-place showing that will almost
certainly force a runoff election in mid-June.
Under Colombian law, a runoff is required between the top two contenders if
no candidate garners more than 50 percent of the vote.
Given Colombia's long history of alternating rule between the Liberal and
Conservative parties, political analysts said they are astonished at the
prospect that Sanin could wind up in the runoff. It would mark a first, not
only for a woman in Colombia, but also for any independent candidate this
century.
``Serpa is suffering from his close association with Samper,'' said
political scientist Ungar.
U.S. officials have quietly expressed glee over Serpa's campaign
misfortunes, with one Clinton administration source warning that relations
between the two countries were to win.
U.S. diplomats have alleged that as a director of Samper's 1994 campaign,
Serpa was directly involved in handling the $6 million in contributions
from drug lords, even though both Samper and Serpa have been cleared of
wrongdoing.
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Long Arm Of The Drugs Law (Britain's 'Independent On Sunday'
Notes The US Immigration Office Has Told A 42-Year-Old Woman
She Will Be Deported Back To England From Her Los Angeles Home
In September And Must Leave Her Three Children, Her Husband
And Her Job When Her Current 'Humanitarian' Visa Runs Out,
Because 22 Years Ago She Was Convicted In A British Court
Of Possessing 54.4 Grams Of Hash)
Date: Sun, 31 May 1998 23:56:05 -0400
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
Subject: MN: UK: Long Arm Of The Drugs Law
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: Martin Cooke
Pubdate: Sun, 31 May 1998
Source: Independent on Sunday, The (UK)
Contact: sundayletters@independent.co.uk
Website: http://www.independent.co.uk/
LONG ARM OF THE DRUGS LAW
Twenty-two years ago Deborah Aaron was arrested and charged with possession
of 54.4g of cannabis resin. The offending lump was found inside a leather
pouch lying on the stairs in her house and, Mrs Aaron still claims, it
belonged to her boyfriend and not to her, writes Vanessa Thorpe.
As a result of her subsequent conviction in a British court, she now faces
deportation from her Los Angeles home in September. The US immigration
office has told her that she must leave her three children, her husband and
her job and return to England when her current humanitarian visa runs out.
"I just find it absurd that this is happening to me," she told the
Independent on Sunday this weekend. The arrest and my treatment at the time
were bad enough, but the fact that this incident is still threatening to
ruin my life is just so terrible."
Now 42, Mrs Aaron works for a non-profit-making organisation which offers
aid to the poorest members of the Jewish community across America, and her
husband, David, works in a furniture store. Her lifestyle since the drugs
conviction, she argues, has been almost exemplary. She can see no reason why
she should not be allowed to continue working in Los Angeles and living with
her family, who are all American citizens.
"Since 1976, I think I have had a couple of speeding tickets and a parking
ticket," she added wryly. "So, I suppose I am quite obnoxious really."
Mrs Aaron's lawyer, Jessica Croxton, who runs a small practice in Santa
Monica, is battling to keep the family together. "I plan to make a federal
court challenge to prevent her deportation by making constitutional
argument, and then I hope to persuade the British authorities that the case
was mishandled in the first place," she said.
When 20-year-old Deborah Gabbay, as she then was, was first arrested, Ms
Croxton believes she was denied important rights. She claims she was not
permitted to make a phone call to a friend or a solicitor and she was kept
in a cell for nine hours. "She appears to have had an initial confession
coerced from her and when she did have legal advice this was not dealt with
properly," said Ms Croxton.
"I wanted to plead not guilty," Mrs Aaron explained, "but my lawyer told me
it would be better to go along with my initial confession that I had once
smoked cannabis, and come away with a 10 pound fine. That is what I did and
that is what is now causing me such a problem." If Mrs Aaron succeeds in
persuading governments on either side of the Atlantic to alter their view,
it will be the first time that the case law on cannabis convictions and US
citizenship has changed since John Lennon secured his Green Card because of
his exceptional status and because of the small amount of drugs involved in
his British conviction.
Mrs Aaron's plight has come to a head now because of a new law introduced by
the US government in April last year. The Illegal Immigration Reform and
Immigrant Responsibility Act, known as IRAIRA, means that her humanitarian
waiver is now only available in cases where it can be shown to be in the
national interest for an immigrant with a criminal record to stay in America.
e-mail your comments to cannabis@independent.co.uk
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Mothers-To-Be Who Drink Face Detention (Britain's 'Daily Telegraph'
Notes The Latest Prohibitionist Fad In The United States)
Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 11:27:23 -0300 (ADT)
Sender: Chris Donald (ai256@chebucto.ns.ca)
To: mattalk@listserv.islandnet.com
Subject: US: Mothers-To-Be Who Drink Face Detention (fwd)
Here's a glimpse of the future. Notably, this was carried in a Brit paper.
I think the small wire story that made the US papers did not draw the same
conclusions, or even come right out and state the implications:
Subj: US: Mothers-To-Be Who Drink Face Detention
Source: Daily Telegraph (UK)
Contact: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
Website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Pubdate: Sunday 31 May 1998
Author: James Langton in New York
MOTHERS-TO-BE WHO DRINK FACE DETENTION
WOMEN who drink alcohol while pregnant can be legally detained until the
baby is born, under the first of America's tough new foetal protection laws.
Courts in the Mid-Western state of South Dakota can order expectant mothers
to be held in a treatment centre if a judge rules that they are drinking
too much. A similar law has also recently been passed in Wisconsin, with a
dozen other states, from California to Massachusetts, also preparing to
lock up "addicted" women for the good of their unborn babies.
In South Dakota, which will enforce the new legislation from July 1, the
amount of alcohol considered excessive will be left to the discretion of
the courts. Most medical authorities in America strongly oppose any
drinking during pregnancy, with bottles of wine and cans of beer carrying
health warnings for expectant mothers similar to those on cigarette packets.
The locking up of pregnant women signals a big victory for the pro-life
movement, which argues that life begins at the moment of conception. Both
Wisconsin and South Dakota will exercise their new powers by making unborn
children wards of a juvenile court, effectively abolishing the distinction
between a foetus and a baby.
Attempts to detain pregnant women using existing legislation have all
failed under challenges from civil rights and pro-abortion groups. Four
years ago, the Florida Supreme Court refused to "pit woman against foetus"
in the case of a pregnant cocaine user who eventually was released. Courts
in America have by convention accepted that the rights of a woman override
those of an unborn child. Giving a foetus legal rights represents a direct
challenge to the landmark Roe Vs Wade ruling by the Supreme Court a quarter
of a century ago which allowed abortion virtually on demand.
Many ordinary Americans, however, increasingly sympathise with Scott
Eccarius, the senator who pushed for the South Dakota laws and says of
drinking and drug-taking, that "no woman has the right to do that to a
child." Government health officials last year estimated that 140,000
American women were having at least one alcoholic drink a day, classifying
them as frequent drinkers and at a substantially higher risk of "foetal
alcohol syndrome" which can cause retarded growth, facial abnormalities and
learning problems.
The rate in South Dakota is 20 times the national average, largely because
of heavy drinking among Sioux Indians on the state's large tribal
reservations. Because state and federal law does not extend to Indian
lands, tribal elders have passed similar "liquor legislation", which also
bans the sale of alcohol to pregnant women. An Indian woman who drinks can
also be charged with child abuse and sent to prison for one year.
The state's Republican Governor, William Janklow, says that foetal alcohol
syndrome is "something that God doesn't do to children. It's something
mothers do to children. None of us as adults has the right to abuse a child
before they are born." South Dakota law now gives relatives or friends of a
pregnant woman caught drinking the power to commit her to an emergency
detoxification clinic for up to two days. If necessary, judges can confine
them for the full nine months of a pregnancy. Wisconsin also gives courts
the power to detain pregnant women for drug or alcohol abuse.
The legislation followed the case of a 24-year-old cocaine addict who was
held in hospital for three weeks until her baby boy was born. The State
Supreme Court later ruled that the sheriff's department had exceeded its
powers. The woman was not charged with possessing or using drugs.
Civil rights groups have vigorously opposed what they see as punishing
pregnant women for the problems of addiction. They also point out that,
unlike drugs, drinking alcohol is not against the law. Priscilla Smith, a
lawyer for the Centre for Reproductive Law and Policy, calls legal
detention for drinking. She said: "One of the biggest issues in
reproductive law."
With the American Civil Liberties Union, the centre is preparing to
challenge through the United States Supreme Court an eight-year sentence on
Cornelia Whitner who was convicted of child neglect in South Carolina for
smoking crack cocaine while pregnant. South Carolina law accepts that a
foetus becomes a viable life during the third trimester of pregnancy and
should be given the same protection as a child. Doctors and drug agencies
have been ordered to report any woman who tests positive for drugs.
Opponents argue that the law will drive addicted women away from seeking
proper treatment for their babies. However the assistant deputy
attorney-general responsible for prosecutions says South Carolina's
position is: "We're here to say there is a consequence for your behavior.
There comes a point when the state must intervene."
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[End]
to 1998 Daily News index for May 28-June 3