-------------------------------------------------------------------
Mother Blows Whistle On Wild Mazatlan Trip ('The Oregonian'
Says A Eugene, Oregon Mother Who Was Perfectly Happy To Have Her 18-Year-Old
Daughter Celebrate Her Graduation From High School By Joining Other Revelers
On A 'Booze Cruise' To Mexico, Where She Could Drink Alcohol Legally,
Is Raising A Ruckus With The FAA Over The Way Flight Personnel Promoted
A Wet T-Shirt Contest - Illustrating How The Justice System Works In Oregon,
The Woman Told The Tour Company, 'You Messed With The Wrong Mom -
I Personally Know My Congressman And I Personally Know My US Senator,
And You Guys Are Toast')
The Oregonian
letters to editor:
letters@news.oregonian.com
1320 SW Broadway
Portland, OR 97201
Web: http://www.oregonlive.com/
Mother blows whistle on wild Mazatlan trip
* Vicki Walker of Eugene prompts an investigation after she hears stories such
as that of a wet T-shirt contest on the graduation celebration flight
Monday, July 13 1998
By Peter Farrell
of The Oregonian staff
If everybody in the cockpit was judging students in a wet T-shirt contest,
who was flying the plane carrying Vicki Walker's daughter and 149 other
Northwest high school graduates to Mazatlan, Mexico?
And if, as the company wrote to its travelers, too much alcohol increases
the danger of injury or death, why did the "booze cruise" tour, as officials
dubbed it, include the threat that any of the teen-agers who didn't have a
drink in each hand would have tequila sprayed down their throats?
Walker of Eugene has a lot of questions about a chartered flight that left
Portland on June 11 with recent high school graduates, most of them from
Eugene or Springfield.
Since Walker went to work, everyone from the Federal Aviation Administration
to TV's "Inside Edition" is on the case. Cerkvenik-Anderson Travel Inc., a
Phoenix company, arranged the "Grad Blowout '98" trip to the Mexican seaside
resort under the name Student Tours.
Cerkvenik-Anderson Travel representatives were not available for comment
Sunday night. Emilio Dirube, chairman and president of Falcon Air, which
operates most charter flights for the travel company, refused to comment.
"I've interviewed almost 40 students and parents, and they are all telling
the same story," said Walker, a court reporter who had some of the students
sign affidavits to assist the FAA investigation.
The trip is the second Oregon high school graduation celebration to raise
questions in recent weeks. International Student Tours of Seattle took
students from Grant High School in Portland and 211 other Northwest high
schools to Mazatlan. Participants later talked about unchaperoned overindulging.
In Eugene, Walker said witnesses agreed that a wet T-shirt contest near the
end of the flight was announced on the intercom. A flight attendant urged
the young women to take part, saying, "We're not going to land this plane
until you girls get wet."
The winner was promised $50.
"Nobody was going to do it," she said. But the flight attendant kept
cajoling the girls to get wet. "Then the boys started throwing out names,
and they would just pull them up.
"One girl was in the cockpit for about five minutes by herself with the
doors shut. Only two of the girls seemed like willing participants. The
other three were just sort of pulled up out of their seats. And there was a
lot of peer pressure involved."
Walker said the young women were called to the cockpit for judging. "The
girls were instructed to come back into the cockpit and dance and wiggle and
twirl for the pilot so the pilot and crew can judge them," she said. "You
think they're flying the airplane? No, they're watching these girls."
At another point, the male flight attendants shone flashlights on their
crotches and made jokes, she said.
Walker said students on her daughter's flight came from North Eugene, South
Eugene, Churchill, Willamette, Sheldon, Springfield, North Medford, Bend and
Kalama, Wash., high schools. Such tours typically involve a charter airline,
a land packager, a travel service and perhaps others. Students who sell
other students on the trips can travel free. Schools generally are not
involved in the trips; some even recommend against them.
Sara Walker, a Sheldon graduate, told her mother about the flight to Mexico
in a phone call from Mazatlan. She did not want to return home on the same
plane until her mother had verified with the FAA that it had been recently
inspected.
Walker met the plane June 18 at Portland International Airport with handouts
for the vacationers, telling them to give the material to their parents and
to call her with any complaints.
"I told the company, 'You messed with the wrong mom. I personally know my
congressman and I personally know my U.S. senator, and you guys are toast.' "
It was not an empty threat -- she said both U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden and U.S.
Rep. Peter DeFazio called the FAA to make sure her complaints were heard.
The FAA assigned two investigators to the case. Possible flight-crew
violations, according to FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen, include giving
passengers access to the cockpit during flight, encouraging dangerous
passenger behavior and permitting smoking during the flight.
The investigators asked Walker to gather as much evidence as she could.
They probably did not expect she would haul out her court reporting
equipment and take statements to become notarized affidavits, but she did.
She talked students out of incriminating photos they had taken. And she
found that an 18-year-old graduate of another high school had made a
videotape that showed, among other things, the girls going into the cockpit.
Once word of the wild ride to Mexico got out, the video became a hot item.
Brandon Beemer of Willamette High School ended up with representatives of
"Inside Edition," "Hard Copy" and "Extra" in his living room, watching the
tape of his vacation and bidding on it.
Beemer told the The Register-Guard of Eugene that "Inside Edition" paid
$10,000 for the tape. The television show would not confirm the amount, the
newspaper said in an article about the trip Sunday.
When Walker learned another student had sold snapshots to "Extra" for
$1,500, she felt obliged to return pictures a third student had given to her
for evidence. "I told her it was against my better judgment, but maybe she
could sell them. She did. She got $1,000."
She said those pictures showed a male flight attendant doing a striptease
parody, pulling up his shirt.
Walker said while some of the end-of-school travelers will make money on the
story, her daughter won't. "She got nothing out of it except a bad vacation
and a lot of harassment."
Air safety issues are at the top of Walker's list, but she has other
complaints about Sara's $876 one-week trip to Mazatlan. Her daughter paid an
added $160 for a bracelet, sold after the travelers left home, that
supposedly allowed free entry to various nightspots, unlimited drinks and 14
free meals.
Cerkvenik-Anderson Travel has told parents who have complained about other
trips that it does not advertise that the trips are chaperoned, only that
staff members are available if needed.
The Register-Guard reported that in 1989, an 18-year-old Arizona student
died during a Student Tours trip to Mazatlan, tumbling off the balcony of
his fifth-floor hotel room after a night of drinking. The same year, another
18-year-old on a Student Tours trip to Mexico died after falling off a
train, the Guard said.
No uptight parent, Walker said she knew the drinking age in Mexico is 18,
and she expected her daughter to be going to nightspots as part of her vacation.
"But she expected to have a vacation, too. You know, parasailing and the beach."
Vicki Walker said she saw such activities in the videotape the company uses
to promote the trip. But she found out the company uses two videotapes.
The second one is for students only and shows much more of the drinking and
sexual activity, she said.
Walker said she is furious at the company. "Parents were promised it would
be supervised and safe, and it was far from that," she said of the trip.
"Some kids still feel that they had fun, and this will ruin it for everybody
in the future," Walker said. "But some of them, even if they thought it was
fun at the time, now agree that it was dangerous to do some of those things."
The Associated Press and Steve Suo and Gail Hulden of The Oregonian staff
contributed to this story.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Serious Probes Needed ('Sacramento Bee' Columnist Dan Walters
Says Allegations In 'The Los Angeles Times' On Sunday That Governor
Pete Wilson, Attorney General Dan Lungren And The California Department
Of Justice Had Stymied, Perhaps Whitewashed An Investigation Into Abuses
Of Inmates By Guards Have Generated Plans For Investigations
By The State Senate's Two Committees That Deal With Prisons - Plus A List
Subscriber's Commentary By On The Power Of California's Prison-Guard Union)
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 18:08:40 EDT
Errors-To: manager@drcnet.org
Reply-To: gsutliff@dnai.com
Originator: drctalk@drcnet.org
Sender: drctalk@drcnet.org
From: Gerald Sutliff (gsutliff@dnai.com)
To: Multiple recipients of list (drctalk@drcnet.org)
Subject: Prisons and upcoming CA elections
Sacramento Bee and Oakland Tribune (7-13-98)
Serious probes needed
by Dan Walters of Sacramento Bee
CALIFORNIA legislators are supposed to be enjoying a month-long summer
vacation recess in July, but the state budget stalemate is keeping them in
Sacramento.
Lawmakers are pretending to work, but they're really waiting for Gov. Pete
Wilson and legislative leaders to make a deal on the budget.
As long as they're in session anyway, legislators should be doing something
constructive. And serious and honest inquiries into two looming political
scandals would be worthwhile work.
One involves the California Department of Corrections and the state
attorney general's office, both under Republican control. and the other is
in the state Department of Education under Superintendent of Public
Instruction Delaine Eastin, a Democrat in an officially non-partisan office.
For months, there have been revelations in newspaper articles about
shameful conduct by guards, and perhaps their supervisors, inside Corcoran
State Prison. The capper appeared in the Los Angeles Times Sunday,
allegations that Gov. Pete Wilson's office and the state Department of
Justice had stymied, perhaps whitewashed, an investigation into abuses of
inmates by guards.
State prison investigators, the Times said, complain that the politically
powerful California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the prison
guards union, quashed the investigation, using its influence with the
governor's office.
The allegations not only threaten to sully Wilson's governorship, but
affect state Attorney General Dan Lungren, the Republican candidate to
succeed him. Both Wilson and Lungren have flatly denied that any whitewash
or cover-up occurred.
The Times articles have generated plans for investigations by the state
Senate's two committees that deal with prisons, one headed by Sen. Ruben
Ayala, D-Chino, the other by Sen. Richard Polanco, D-Los Angeles.
Legislative leaders should intercede with a more carefully drawn
investigation Into these very serious allegations of political
interference. What's needed is a bipartisan, two-house committee composed
of senior legislators with reputations for fairness and integrity. Ayala
-who will be leaving the Legislature this year because of term limits -
fits that description. Polanco does not.
Polanco is a slashing partisan who clearly sees the Times allegations as an
opportunity to bash Wilson and Lungren. He is the Legislature's leading
proponent of putting inmates into private prisons being built by private
corporations, and the prison guards union is the chief impediment to those
plans.
Ironically, Polanco himself could be drawn into the other investigation
that the Legislature should be conducting, this one into allegations of
political interference in the transfer of federal funds into English and
citizenship classes conducted by immigrant rights organizations in Southern
California.
The federal government is gathering data about the transfer of money, which
was approved by Department of Education officials even though their own
investigators thought the actions might be illegal. Newly released
documents allege that Latino legislators - including Polanco - pressured
the department to release the funds to the organizations.
ONE of the groups was Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, from which the
department is now demanding the return of millions of dollars. Polanco has
denied any undue political infinence on his part.
It's another situation with political overtones, because Eastin is running
for re-election this year. Thus, it needs an even-handed, but thorough,
legislative examination.
If the Democrats who control the Legislature sanction an election-year
assault on Wilson and Lungren over the Corcoran prison investigation but
ignore the equally important Department of Education case, their partisan
agenda will be evident.
Dan Walters is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee. His E-mail address is
dwalters@sac-bee. corn.
***
[The ensuing commentary originally preceded the column above. The editor
could find no article from 'The Los Angeles Times' for Sunday, July 5 or 12,
dealing with California state prison guard abuses. Apparently Walters is
referring to an article that ran Monday, July 6. - ed]
Dear Talkers,
This item --at the end of this overly long soliloquy-- was published in the
Sacramento Bee, the Oakland Tribune and no doubt other CA newspapers (Also
I posted it to DrugNewsDigest.) The California Correctional Peace Officers
Association represents the "interest group" that is probably California's
"most invested" in keeping the War on Drugs going full steam ahead.
It is technically a union like organization but behaves more like a
lobbying organization. It is Pete Wilson's greatest single source for past
campaign funds. Its spokes-persons has testified against 215 and other
legislative efforts to ease up on the drug war.
Its single minded effort in Pete Wilson's behalf has paid off handsomely. A
couple of years back during a tight budget year the correctional officers
were the only state employees who received substantial raises. Not only
that, Pete Wilson bragged about giving them a raise. Correctly they have
the highest starting pay of all the California Peace officers organizations.
This most powerful of California organizations doesn't's want private
prisons here but what they want even less is for the number of prisoners to
stop growing, level off or worse, drop off.
At the same time coming down the track are needs of thousands and thousands
of new grammar and high school students who need decent educations.
Politically their interests are represented by the education establishments
(who also represent their own interests as well).
This year the electoral battle for the California State House, the State
Senate and the Assembly will be over whether California becomes a even
bigger prison farm or a place committed to educational excellence.
At present the GOP are on the side of the prisons and lawnorder while the
Demos are supporting education interests.
The outcome here will have huge national consequences that have to do with
the electoral college and implications for 2001 and, even more so in 2005.
IMHO California will be the vortex of election power workings during the
next four months. (Unless the prison spending and building issues come the
forebrain of the voters, the drug war will not be at issue.)
All the above is a primer for to following:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Tobacco Maker Runs Anti-Anti-Smoking Ads (A 'Baltimore Sun' Article
In 'The Seattle Times' Notes The RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company
Has Launched New Advertisements For Their Much-Vilified Cigarettes,
Challenging Anti-Smoking Activists As Killjoys And Prudes Who Deserve
Defiance And Ridicule, And Complicating The Job Of Public-Health Officials
Who, It Might Be Said, Brought It On Themselves)
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 16:32:12 -0800
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
Subject: MN: US: Tobacco Maker Runs Anti-Anti-Smoking Ads
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: John Smith
Pubdate: Mon, 13 Jul 1998
Source: Seattle-Times (WA)
Contact: opinion@seatimes.com
Website: http://seattletimes.com/
Author: Scott Shane, The Baltimore Sun
TOBACCO MAKER RUNS ANTI-ANTI-SMOKING ADS
Go ahead, light up a cigarette. Why? Because a bunch of just-say-no health
cops as old as your parents don't want you to!
In a notable shift of marketing strategy, the No. 2 U.S. tobacco company
has launched new advertisements for their much-vilified cigarettes that
challenge anti-smoking activists as killjoys and prudes who deserve
defiance and ridicule.
The new approach to selling cigarettes could complicate the task of
public-health officials in trying to persuade young people not to smoke.
The latest ads seek to enhance smoking's image as a forbidden fruit, and
could make heavy-handed anti-smoking propaganda rebound to the tobacco
industry's advantage, some public-health experts say.
A new advertising campaign for Camel and a successful, year-old campaign
for Winston - both brands of No. 2 manufacturer R.J. Reynolds Tobacco -
have taken the gloves off in attacking what the ads suggest are
puritanical, prohibitionist attitudes of tobacco foes.
The new Camel advertisements feature mock warnings headlined "Viewer
Discretion Advised," which appear along with the legally required health
warning. "At least you can still smoke in your own car," declares one
billboard for Winston's so-called "No Bull" campaign. "Judge me all you
want, just keep the verdict to yourself," says another.
A colorful, three-page Camel ad introduced in national magazines last month
shows a shotgun-wielding farmer chasing from his house a young man whom he
clearly has just caught in bed with his beautiful daughter. The shapely,
blond daughter, draped in a bedsheet, is smoking a cigarette; her attitude
is titillatingly described as: "Satisfied smoking."
The furious farmer, a comic figure in his floppy-eared hat, might be
interpreted as standing for the anti-smoking forces.
"That's me," Robert Kline, director of the Tobacco Control Legal Clinic at
the Northeastern University School of Law, says ruefully. "They're poking
fun, which is an effective advertising technique."
Public-health advocates seem particularly disturbed by Camel's
pseudo-warnings, which not only echo the health warning but resemble the
ratings that rank movies and television shows as inappropriate for children.
"Implicitly, this mocks the campaign to keep children from smoking," Dr.
John Slade, a veteran anti-tobacco activist at the Robert Wood Johnson
Medical Center in New Jersey, says of Camel's campaign. "The industry is,
in effect, toying with us."
Not so, says Fran Creighton, Reynolds' marketing vice president for Camel.
"We would never make fun of the cigarette health warning," she says. "This
is maybe more about the PC (politically correct) world we live in. The
world has an authoritarian view on everything."
"It's a lot easier to sell rebellion than to sell nonrebellion," says Bill
Novelli, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. "They'll always
score with something that has fatalism, edge, gallows humor."
Reynolds' anti-anti-smoking slogans follow a change of strategy last year
by top tobacco executives, who for the first time publicly acknowledged
that smoking causes deadly illness. While previously industry spokesmen
would admit only a "statistical association" between smoking and disease,
Leary said, "It's been known for decades that smoking cigarettes is
dangerous."
The shift of stance liberates marketers, who now can use the danger of
smoking in their pitches. One new Winston ad associates cigarettes with
fried food, another target of health advocates.
Reynolds spokesmen, wary of the accusations of targeting children that
dogged the company for years, use the phrase "adult smoker" in almost every
sentence. They point out that the new Camel ads have run in such magazines
as Vanity Fair, GQ, Esquire and Car & Driver, by no means children's
publications. The edgiest of the Winston ads have run in alternative
weeklies, whose readers are youthful but mostly over 18.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
MAP Focus Alert No. 71 - PDFA Ad Campaign (The Media Awareness Project
Asks You To Write A Quick Letter On Behalf Of Drug Policy Reform, Protesting
The US Government's New $2 Billion Advertising Campaign Based On Unproven
And Possibly Counterproductive Assumptions, Benefiting The Partnership
For A Drug Free America)
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 17:55:27 -0700
To: mgreer@mapinc.org
From: Mark Greer (MGreer@mapinc.org)
Subject: FOCUS Alert No. 71 PDFA ad campaign
FOCUS Alert #71 Partnership for a Drug Free America/ONDCP Ad campaign
As you are likely aware, the Partnership for a Drug Free America (PDFA) and
the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and most of Washington
including Clinton and Gingrich have teemed up to waste $200 million of your
tax dollars this year and $2 billion over the next 5 years on a monstrous
ad campaign aimed at reducing teen drug use. Many people feel that this is
at the very least unproven and ill advised and is destined to become the
latest failure of these organizations which may be the ultimate examples of
failure in the nations history.
In this Focus Alert we ask you to take the initiative to write to your
local papers and express your views about this rehash and escalation of a
policy and campaign that has already been tried and failed.
In order to find an email address for your local paper(s) please visit our
"Media E-mail finder" at
http://www.mapinc.org/resource/email.htm
Here we have archived the vast majority of Email addresses for all papers
that offer them.
Alternately or additionally please respond to the USA Today piece below.
WRITE A LETTER TODAY- LIVE IN A FREER WORLD TOMORROW
Just DO it!
***
PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OR TELL US WHAT YOU DID ( Letter,
Phone, fax etc.)
Please post your letters or report your action to the MAPTalk list if you
are subscribed, or return a copy to this address by simply hitting
REPLY to this FOCUS Alert or E-mailing to MGreer@mapinc.org
***
CONTACT INFO
USA TODAY
1000 Wilson Blvd
Arlington
VA 22209-3901
ph 703-276-3400
FAX 703-558-3901
Source: USA Today ( US)
Email: editor@usatoday.com
Website: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nfront.htm
Author: Associated Press
Or See:
http://www.mapinc.org/resource/email.htm
to find the email address of your local paper(s)
***
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
US: White House Unveils Anti-Drug Ad Blitz
Newshawk: Paul Lewin
Pubdate: Fri, 11 Jul 1998
Source: USA Today ( US)
Contact: editor@usatoday.com
Website: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nfront.htm
Author: Associated Press
WHITE HOUSE UNVEILS ANTI-DRUG AD BLITZ
ATLANTA - Remember that old fried egg ad with its warning, "This is your
brain on drugs"? It's going big time this year, with the federal government
spending $195 million - rivaling the advertising campaigns of American
Express, Nike or Sprint - to plaster the airwaves with anti-drug messages.
The ad campaign, a five-year project being given a bipartisan send-off
Thursday in Atlanta by President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich,
could turn into a $1 billion government investment in stopping teen drug use.
"This is an effort to talk to a generation that started to get the wrong
message, "said retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who heads Clinton's drug
control policy office. In a 1997 national survey, half of high school
seniors and nearly one-third of eighth-graders reported using illegal drugs
at least once.
Thursday's unveiling promised a brief cease-fire in the sharp election-year
squabbling between Clinton and Republican leaders on everything from drugs
to foreign policy. Gingrich, R-Ga., who rearranged his schedule to be at
the president's side on his own Atlanta turf, said congressional
Republicans were committed to funding the campaign for its full five-year run.
"It's important first of all to send a signal to young people that whether
you're a Republican or a Democrat, you're committed to getting across the
message that drugs are dangerous. This is a national message, not a
political message," the speaker said in an interview Wednesday.
"The level of support among Republicans in the Congress is strong and
growing. ... We want to break the back of the drug culture over the next
five years," he said.
Politics would be on only a temporary hold. From Thursday's ceremonies in
the Georgia World Congress Center, Gingrich was headed to a Republican
fund-raiser in New York, Clinton to Democratic events in Atlanta and Miami
that would raise $1.3 million for the effort to oust the GOP from control
of Congress. The president also was stopping in Daytona Beach, Fla., to
meet with those who have been fighting the state's raging wildfires.
Beginning Thursday in 75 major newspapers and on the four major TV networks
tonight, parents and a target youth audience between the ages of 9 and 18
will be bombarded by provocative anti-drug ads produced gratis by some of
Madison Avenue's premiere ad agencies. The goal is to hit the average
family least four times a week either through TV, radio, newspapers,
billboards or the Internet.
One of the spots is a spin-off of the fried egg ad popularized during the
Partnership for a Drug-Free America's 11-year campaign, with its Reagan-era
slogan "Just Say No." The updated version, meant to dramatize the effects
of heroin use, shows a Winona Ryder look-alike bust up an egg and her whole
kitchen with a frying pan.
That ad already has been running in 12 test cities where it generated a
300% increase in calls to a national clearinghouse of information on drug
use, McCaffrey said.
The nationwide government campaign is the 15th-largest single-brand ad
project, larger than the media buys of American Express, Nike and Sprint,
said Steve Dnistrian, senior vice president of the Partnership for a
Drug-Free America.
McCaffrey's Office of National Drug Control Policy will spend at least
$150million of the appropriation solely on air time.
Advertising Age figures for 1997 show that for single-brand ads, Sprint
spent$149 million for air time, American Express financial services $136
million, and Nike $118 million. Chevrolet was No. 1 with a $321 million
campaign.
But federal funding will be vulnerable to Capitol Hill's annual
appropriations process, which is why all sides strived to keep Thursday's
unveiling bipartisan.
A one-year campaign is worthless, Dnistrian said. "Coke and Pepsi don't
run an ad campaign for a year and then walk away. To maintain market share
you have to be out there constantly reminding them."
The Lindesmith Center, a research project of philanthropist George Soros,
who supports free clean needles for intravenous drug users and legalized
marijuana for medical use, issued a statement saying the money would be
better spent on after-school programs and drug treatment.
For more than a decade, Dnistrian's PDFA has rounded up help from the
advertising industry and media outlets - who pitched in as much as $3
billion in free air time - to put out anti-drug ads primarily aimed at
young people.
But since 1991, with the explosion of new competition that cable channels
brought, prime time has been squeezed by network promotions, consigning
public service announcements to the wee hours even as drug use by teens
skyrocketed.
As part of the new ad initiative, the government will ask media outlets to
match the taxpayers' investment dollar for dollar. And McCaffrey hoped the
campaign would live well beyond five years to keep up with successive crops
of young people.
"We'll always have to start over with a new generation of eighth-graders,"
he said. "Some people like to call this a war on drugs. ... It's a war
on ignorance."
By The Associated Press
***
Sample Letter (SENT 7/13 to USA Today and the Porterville Recorder)
Dear Editor:
Drug Czar McCaffrey and the Partnership for a Drug Free America are at it
again. In their latest multi-billion dollar boondoggle they intend to
inundate the country with TV ads which will show housewives breaking up the
kitchen and smashing eggs with a frying pan. I suppose this is the same
frying pan once held fried eggs that our kids were told their brains would
turn into if they used drugs.
It is amazing to think that people who are in favor of sensible reform of
our drug laws were referred to by McCaffrey recently as "a kind of a fringe
group" . This ad campaign seems as weird and far out as any sixties long
hair to me. While most drug policy reformers are all for effective efforts
to reduce teen drug use, few believe that another ad campaign rife with
inaccuracies, half truths and outright fabrications will have even a
minimal impact on teen drug use.
I fervently hope those American citizens who haven't already realized that
the drug war is responsible for monumental waste and increased teen drug
use will wise up after this latest failed and expensive effort has run its
course.
I also hope that our young people can avoid the real danger of busting a
gut in uncontrolled fits of laughter while watching these ridiculous ads.
They will also be laughing at an adult population that thinks we can
convince them of the dangers of uncontrolled drug use by smashing dishes.
Mark Greer
Executive Director
DrugSense
WRITE AWAY!
***
Mark Greer
Media Awareness Project (MAP) inc.
d/b/a DrugSense
MGreer@mapinc.org
http://www.DrugSense.org/
http://www.mapinc.org
-------------------------------------------------------------------
EZ-Bake Oven (A Hilariously Pointed Staff Editorial In 'Suck.Com'
About The US Drug Czar, General Barry McCaffrey, Testifying
Before A Senate Committee Last Month 'Without Benefit Of A Pair
Of Steel Balls To Roll In His Hand,' That There Is A Carefully-Camouflaged,
Exorbitantly-Funded, Well-Heeled, Elitist Group Whose Ultimate Goal
Is To Legalize Drug Use In The United States)
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 16:00:03 -0400
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
Subject: MN: US: Editorial: Ez-Bake Oven
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: MMcNamara@bridge.com (McNamara, Mark P.)
Pubdate: Mon, 13 Jul 1998
Source: Suck
Contact: sucksters@suck.com
Website: http://www.suck.com/
Author: Ambrose Beers (beers@suck.com)
Editor's Note: Suck is a satirical website with the slogan "A Fish, a
Barrel, and a Smoking Gun". It's updated daily.
EZ-BAKE OVEN
Barry McCaffrey, an old Cold Warrior, has gone on to a new battlefield. And
he's getting colder.
Speaking before a Senate committee last month without benefit of a pair of
steel balls to roll in his hand, the retired Army general said one of those
out-there things that would get most of us taken in for observation. Shortly
after discussing the threat caused to America's youth by the movie
Half-Baked (a wonderful detail that doesn't seem to have made it into any of
the news accounts of McCaffrey's testimony), the Clinton administration's
so-called drug czar got down to fighting the real enemy. See how many errors
in reasoning you can spot:
"There is an carefully-camouflaged, exorbitantly-funded, well-heeled,
elitist group whose ultimate goal is to legalize drug use in the United
States. However, because the impacts of legalization - heroin being sold at
the corner store to children with false identifications, the driver of an
eighteen-wheeler high on methamphetamines traveling alongside the family
minivan, skyrocketing numbers of addicts draining society of its
productivity - are so horrifying to the average American, the legalizers are
compelled to conceal their real objectives behind various subterfuges.
(Currently, 87 percent of Americans reject legalization on its face.)
Through a slick misinformation propaganda campaign these individuals
perpetuate a fraud on the American people -- a fraud so devious that
evensome of the nation's mostrespected newspapers and sophisticated media
are capable of echoing their falsehoods."
Pretty goddamned entertaining, huh? We like to picture him clenching his jaw
and making a squinty-eye at the panel while he speaks, maybe with a stub of
slobbery cigar between his teeth. "We got dopers in our wire, gentlemen!"
McCaffrey was coy, but The New York Times filled in the blanks the next day.
"While McCaffrey named no names," wrote Times reporter Christopher Wren, "he
was clearly referring to a coalition of advocacy groups little-known to the
public that argues the global war on drugs has cost society more than drug
abuse itself. Some of those advocates attracted attention last week with an
open letter to the UN secretary-general as the General Assembly opened a
three-day special session on drugs."
This would be the cabal of secret legalizers. There's no reference to
"legalization" in their letter, but remember that they're a sneaky sack of
bastards. And just who are they? Well, George Schultz signed the letter. You
may remember George from the notoriously subversive, pro-drug Reagan
administration, for which he served as secretary of state. Then there were
Alan Cranston and Claiborne Pell, former colleagues of the very senators
McCaffrey was addressing. George Soros, who is rich and gives money to
influence political discussion, like Richard Mellon Scaife, is scary and
bad. And so is Javier Perez de Cuellar, a former secretary-general of the
United Nations and a known foreigner. Plus 495 others.
In fact, the suggestion floated by Schultz and company is simply that the
longstanding hit-with-stick throw-in-cage approach to drug use isn't
working, while the consequences of both US drug use and the effort to
suppress it are making life in other countries - Colombia, to name one
example among many - kind of unpleasant. They go on to wonder if, without
making drugs legal, it might be possible to simply moderate the
law-and-order approach. Alternatives go by the names "medicalization" - long
favored by lunatic outsiders like Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke - and harm
reduction. (Different advocates define the term medicalization differently.
To some, it means offering a limited menu of drugs - marijuana, really - for
the treatment of pain and chemotherapy-induced nausea, with a doctor's
prescription. To others - Schmoke among them - it means viewing addiction as
a treatable illness, rather than as a crime, within limits.)
And, yes, quite a few groups involved in that coalition favor the
legalization of marijuana. Horror of horrors. It leads straight to children
buying heroin at the corner store.
Whatever.
McCaffrey needn't worry, since there's precisely no danger at all that the
dope-loving anarchists are going to be heard over all the screaming. The
current US government budget allocates more money than ever to federal
anti-drug efforts. If the Clinton administration's plan to hire 1,000 new
border-patrol agents - plus 100 new DEA agents, which should fix this drug
thing PDQ - seemed like a bit much. Note that some of the people in a
position to do something about it thought it wasn't enough. House Speaker
Newt Gingrich, who has called for the death penalty for people repeatedly
caught smuggling drugs over the border, called the US$17 billion
Clinton-McCaffrey anti-drug plan, "a hodgepodge of half-steps and
half-truths." Which is half a truth too much for the ol' Newtster.
So, why bother to squawk like a squashed rooster over some letter that
offers precisely no threat at all? Well, because you're the nation's leading
anti-drug official, and it's hard to make sense when you've been assigned
the task of selling a dubious product. The tendency is to overstate things
in fairly predictable ways. Like the announcement of a plan "that will
subject all suspicious cargo and vehicles to non-intrusive inspections" in
an effort to make the US-Mexico border "open to trade, but impermeable to
drugs." You try to say any of this with a straight face. If you can pull it
off, there may be a job in law enforcement with your name on it.
One nicely entertaining example of the profound silliness that arises out of
trying to fight an obviously unwinnable war as though it meant something is
the press release sent out back in November by McCaffrey's agency, the White
House Office of Drug Control Policy: "A new study released by Barry R.
McCaffrey, Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy, found that in 1995, Americans spent $57.3 billion on illegal drugs."
The release went on to quote McCaffrey as pointing out that $57.3 billion
could have paid for such I-love-mommy-and-America niceties as "22 billion
gallons of milk to feed undernourished infants ... or a year's worth of
child care for 14 million kids." Children born to drug addicts
unquestionably suffer horrifying deprivation, but to toss that monthly $20
marijuana purchase (yes, we do know your personal habits - we're Suck) into
the starving baby bin is a bit of a stretch, huh?
But it gets better. Inspired to act by the barrage of bullshit, we called
the Macebearer office and got a copy of the complete 109-page report
described in the press release. And, yes, we did have to ask several times.
The Associated Press story on the report played it straight, but we were
wondering how on earth a government agency could possibly know how much
money its constituents spend breaking the law. The answer is: They can't.
Page 5: "First, the secretive nature of drug-crop production and
manufacturing prevents accurate assessments of drug production. Second, with
some exceptions, drug dealers and their customers transact business away
from public view. Finally, drug users often misrepresent their drug use when
interviewed. Thus estimates of retail expenditures must be based on
incomplete, inaccurate, and often inconsistent data, as well as assumptions
that occasionally lack strong justification."
No kidding, no kidding, no kidding, and no kidding. But it's good to hear it
straight from the mouth of the milk-'n'-babies source. Especially since the
press release didn't make any mention of all those maybes.
Similarly amusing language appears throughout the report, by the way. On
page 31, an estimate of cocaine shipped into the United States puts that
figure at "372 to 458 metric tons" in 1994 and "421 to 513 metric tons" the
following year.
This much - plus or minus a hundred metric tons. Close enough for government
work, guys.
And plenty good enough for the war on drugs, where sober thinking pretty
clearly misses the point.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
1998 NORML Conference In Washington, DC (An Announcement
From The National Organization For The Reform Of Marijuana Laws
About An Open Conference For All Reformers November 12-14 -
A Long List Of Scheduled Speakers Includes Cannabis Researcher
Dr. Leo Hollister Of Stanford University, Richard Brookheiser
Of The Conservative 'National Review,' Ramsey Clark, Former US
Attorney General, And Gonzo Journalist Hunter S. Thompson)
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 12:46:53 EDT
Errors-To: manager@drcnet.org
Reply-To: RKSTROUP@aol.com
Originator: drctalk@drcnet.org
Sender: drctalk@drcnet.org
From: (RKSTROUP@aol.com)
To: Multiple recipients of list (drctalk@drcnet.org)
Subject: Announcement: 1998 NORML Conference in Washington, DC
1998 NORML Conference
"Marijuana: Here For Good"
November 12-14, 1998
Washington, D.C.
The 1998 NORML conference will focus on all aspects
of marijuana policy - medical use, recreational use,
and industrial hemp. We will examine current policies,
review the latest research, hear from some victims,
analyze the results of several state reform initiatives
on the ballot this fall, and discuss strategies for
moving reform efforts forward. You'll have the chance
to meet reform leaders from across the country
and network with colleagues who share your opposition
to marijuana prohibition.
It's time to put to rest the myth that marijuana smoking
is a fringe or deviant activity. In reality, marijuana
smoking is extremely common, and marijuana is the
recreational drug of choice for millions of hard-working,
middle class Americans.
Join us in Washington, DC, and help us build a mainstream
political constituency that our elected officials can no
longer ignore. Let's send a strong message that it is time
to stop arresting marijuana smokers, and to grant amnesty
to those thousands of nonviolent marijuana offenders
who are currently in prison.
See you in Washington, DC!
November 12-14, 1998
For more information, a complete conference brochure is
on the NORML web site (www.norml.org) or contact NORML
at (202) 483-5500 or e-mail natlnorml@aol.com.
SPEAKERS
(Partial List)
David Boaz
Executive Vice President, Cato Institute
Richard Brookheiser
Senior Editor, National Review
Ramsey Clark, Esq.
Former U.S. Attorney General
Chris Conrad
Author and hemp activist
Ann Druyan
Secretary, Federation of American Scientists
Barbara Ehrenreich
Author and Journalist
Paul Flynn
Member of the British Parliament
Meg Foster
Wife of imprisoned medical user, Will Foster
Ira Glasser
Executive Director, ACLU
Gerald Goldstein, Esq.
Chair, NORML Legal Committee
Lester Grinspoon, M.D.
Harvard Medical School
Jack Herer
Author and hemp activist
Leo Hollister, M.D.
Prof. Emeritus, Stanford University
Sher Horosko
Drug Policy Foundation
Michael Kennedy, Esq.
High Times and Hemp Times
Louis Lasagna, M.D.
Tufts University
Ethan Nadelmann
The Lindesmith Center
John P. Morgan, M.D.
CUNY Medical School
Todd McCormick
Medical marijuana defendant
Irv Rosenfeld
Legal marijuana user
Keith Stroup, Esq.
Executive Director, NORML
Allen St. Pierre
Executive Director, NORML Foundation
Kevin Zeese, Esq.
Common Sense for Drug Policy
Lynn Zimmer, Ph.D.
Queens College
Bill Zimmerman
Americans for Medical Rights
SPECIAL GUEST
Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
Author & Gonzo Journalist
SESSIONS
Thursday - Saturday at 9:00 AM
From Tomatoes to Taxes: The Many Varieties of Legalization
Taking A More Aggressive Political Posture: The British Model
Industrial Hemp: Is This A Separate Political Issue and Will It Impact
Smokers?
The War On Marijuana Smokers & The Constitution
Marijuana and Kids: How Big A Problem Is It, and How To Deal With It
Politically
Marijuana Smoking and Its Impact on Health
Medical Users Tell Their Own Stories
Medical Use of Marijuana: A Review of the Science
Moving Reform Forward In Today's Political Climate
Political Organizing At The State and Local Level
The Uses of Demonization
Where Do We Go From Here? An Analysis of Various State Initiatives and
Referenda
Why Rescheduling Marijuana Will Never Work: Outright Legalization Is
Needed
Campus Organizing
Reefer Music: A Review of Some Classical Marijuana Blues and Jazz Music
and Lore
Opening Reception sponsored by
High Times Magazine
Hotel Accommodations
The Renaissance Washington, DC Hotel
999 9th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
http://www.renaissancehotels.com
The Renaissance Washington, DC Hotel is conveniently located
on the corner of 9th Street and New York Avenue,
2 blocks from a Metro subway stop and 10 minutes from
National Airport. The hotel has 800 guest rooms,
several restaurants, and a fully equipped health club
and fitness center.
Reservations
1-800-228-9290
(To receive special conference rates, reservations must
be made by October 16, 1998. Please indicate you are
with the NORML Conference.)
Room rates for the NORML conference:
$125 per night, single or double
Club Tower rooms are $145 single, $155 double
Internet rooms are $162 single, $182 double
REGISTRATION
Registration fees: $135 per person
Special rate for undergraduate students: $85
The registration fee includes the seminar and seminar
materials, continental breakfasts and refreshment breaks,
the opening reception on Thursday, and box luncheon
on Saturday. The seminar fee does not include
travel or accommodations.
To register, print registration form from web site or
call NORML to receive a brochure in the mail. Then complete and mail the
registration form with payment to:
NORML
1001 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 710
Washington, DC 20036
Or fax it to: (202) 483-0057.
On-line registration via NORML's secure server will
be available soon.
If you have questions, contact NORML by phone at (202) 483-5500 or
e-mail natlnorml@aol.com.
Exhibitors are invited to contact NORML for details.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Drug Czar Bashes Dutch Policy On Eve Of Visit ('Reuters'
Chronicles The Weird Saga Of The Lying White House Drug Czar,
General Barry McCaffrey, Whose Recent Statements On CNN
Have Already Prompted A Protest From The Dutch Ambassador - Plus
Commentary From List Subscribers)
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 20:47:41 EDT
Errors-To: manager@drcnet.org
Reply-To: amr@lainet.com
Originator: drctalk@drcnet.org
Sender: drctalk@drcnet.org
From: Dave Fratello (amr@lainet.com)
To: Multiple recipients of list (drctalk@drcnet.org)
Subject: McCaffrey proud of Dutch lies, adds more
Well, well well -- it turns out McCaffrey *wants* to fight about the
Netherlands...
Diplomatic protest? He's proud of it -- his staff handed out copies of the
complaint letter from the Dutch ambassador at a press conference in
Stockholm (described below).
Then he compares *crime* stats between the countries, not drug numbers.
Noting some higher Dutch rates, he says, "That's drugs." No need for
further explanation... (Nor any note about some important demographic
differences, like the percentage of urban/rural populations between the
countries. That'd be too fair.)
Then McCaffrey takes swipes at the Swiss before visiting Zurich later in
his trip. The Swiss have a high addiction rate, he notes, suggesting it's
the fault of the policy -- not the reason for trying something new to stem
the damage.
This is going to be some friendly trip...
dave fratello
***
MN: Wire: Drug Czar Bashes Dutch Policy on Eve of Visit
Reuters, Monday, 13 Jul 1998
U.S. DRUG CZAR BASHES DUTCH POLICY ON EVE OF VISIT
Author: Abigail Schmelz
STOCKHOLM, July 13 (Reuters) - A top U.S. policy official attacked tolerant
Dutch drugs laws on Monday, blaming them for much higher rates of murder
and other crime than in the United States.
``The murder rate in Holland is double that in the United States. The per
capita crime rates are much higher than the United States,'' General Barry
McCaffrey, the White House drugs policy chief, told a press briefing in
Stockholm.
McCaffrey said the United States had 8.22 murders per 100,000 people in
1995 compared to 17.58 in The Netherlands. Overall per capita crime rates
in the United States totalled 5,278 per 100,000 compared to 7,928 in the
Netherlands, he said.
``The overall crime rate in Holland is probably 40 percent higher than the
United States. That's drugs,'' McCaffrey said.
McCaffrey was in Sweden as part of a seven-country European tour which will
include the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland. While Dutch crime rates
were on the rise, those in the United States were falling, he said.
He said U.S. drug-related murders were down by one-third and crime rates
had fallen sharply because of a reduction in drug abuse rates, especially
of cocaine and stimulants.
McCaffrey said the Swiss addiction rate was much higher than that of the
United States or anywhere else in Europe.
``Why is it they're happy about what they're doing? I'll go and try to
listen to why they think they should go this route and what evidence they
have that it's working.''
He praised Sweden's policy, where no differentiation is made between softer
drugs, such as marijuana, and cocaine and heroin.
Similarly, the French government last month rejected mounting calls to
decriminalise soft drugs following an official report which concluded
drinking was far more of a health hazard than smoking cannabis.
``We've found we have a lot in common,'' Swedish Health and Social Affairs
Minister Margot Wallstrom told Reuters.
``We have a brave goal -- a goal of a drug-free society. We're eager to see
arguments towards drug legalisation stopped within the European Union,''
she said after meeting McCaffrey.
In Sweden, where the government keeps a tight rein on alcohol and sales are
only allowed through a state-run monopoly, both possesion and use of drugs
are illegal. Alcohol is heavily taxed and blamed for many of the country's
social ills.
The Netherlands, a front runner in drugs tolerance, recently started giving
free heroin to hard-core addicts through a health ministry project in a
pilot programme.
Dutch officials said its programme differed from a similar one in
Switzerland to give heroin to addicts because the Dutch scheme involved
people under medical supervision.
McCaffrey said Amsterdam was probably Europe's chief drug market and was
now exporting synthetic drugs such as Ecstasy to Britain and the United
States.
The government of the Netherlands has already rebuked McCaffrey for
comments on a U.S. television show where he called Dutch policy a
``disaster.'' It said this was unhelpful and called into question the
source of the facts and figures he was quoting.
``I must say that I find the timing of your remarks, six days before your
planned visit to the Netherlands with a view to gaining first-hand
knowledge about Dutch drugs policy and its results, rather astonishing,''
Joris Vos, Dutch ambassador to the United States, said in a letter to
McCaffrey.
U.S. officials made a copy of the letter available to reporters.
***
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 22:00:05 EDT
Errors-To: manager@drcnet.org
Reply-To: joewein@pobox.com
Originator: drctalk@drcnet.org
Sender: drctalk@drcnet.org
From: Joe Wein (joewein@pobox.com)
To: Multiple recipients of list (drctalk@drcnet.org)
Subject: RE: McCaffrey proud of Dutch lies, adds more
Dave Fratello[SMTP:amr@lainet.com] wrote:
>Well, well well -- it turns out McCaffrey _wants_ to fight about the
>Netherlands...
Hi Dave,
this is great! Nothing is going to do more damage to the international
drug war than the US going ballistic. Directly and publicly attacking the
Dutch is only going to draw attention to their superior record in many areas,
such as their much lower drug related death rate or the fact that the
Netherlands are rated the most competitive economy in Europe (No. 4
internationally). Instead of taking on private individuals McCaffrey is
picking a fight with an enemy as resourceful as another national
government. Wonderful!
It is Sweden and not the Netherlands which increasingly looks out of line
amongst European countries. Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Belgium
and some states in Germany have been quietly scaling down the WoD, for
example by decriminalising smale scale possession of cannabis. Even the
Swedish alcohol policy mentioned in the article is under fire in Brussels and
its state monopoly for sales is being legally challenged. While French
president Chirac is sympathetic towards the Swedish narco-nazis, things
have started to look rather different in France after the right wing parties
lost their majority in parliament. The upcoming federal election in Germany
is likely to end in defeat of Kohl's coalition parties, with a strong
possibility of a new coalition involving the pro-legalisation Green Party.
According to the local grapevine, even the German conservative coalition
is considering copying the Swiss heroin trial if it were to survive the
election.
I have forwarded a copy of your e-mail to a friend of mine at the
Dutch embassy in Tokyo...
Best regards
Joe Wein
***
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 1998 23:16:16 EDT
Errors-To: manager@drcnet.org
Reply-To: gsutliff@dnai.com
Originator: drctalk@drcnet.org
Sender: drctalk@drcnet.org
From: Gerald Sutliff (gsutliff@dnai.com)
To: Multiple recipients of list (drctalk@drcnet.org)
Subject: RE: McCaffrey proud of Dutch lies, adds more
At 10:00 PM 7/13/98 EDT, Joe Wein wrote:
>Dave Fratello[SMTP:amr@lainet.com] wrote:
>Well, well well -- it turns out McCaffrey *wants* to fight about the
>Netherlands...
This is great! Nothing is going to do more damage to the international
drug war than the US going ballistic. Directly and publicly attacking the
Dutch is only going to draw attention to their superior record in many
areas, such as their much lower drug related death rate or the fact that
the Netherlands are rated the most competitive economy in Europe (#4
internationally). Instead of taking on private individuals McCaffrey is
picking a fight with an enemy as resourceful as another national
government. Wonderful!
McC's remark had nothing to do about "international relations" and
every-thing to do with the domestic WoD. Before we know it America's drug
use will be blamed on those "foreign devils."
vty, jerry sutliff
***
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 07:12:25 EDT
Errors-To: manager@drcnet.org
Reply-To: joewein@pobox.com
Originator: drctalk@drcnet.org
Sender: drctalk@drcnet.org
From: Joe Wein (joewein@pobox.com)
To: Multiple recipients of list (drctalk@drcnet.org)
Subject: RE: McCaffrey proud of Dutch lies, adds more
>McCaffrey said the United States had 8.22 murders per 100,000 people in
>1995 compared to 17.58 in The Netherlands. Overall per capita crime rates
>in the United States totaled 5,278 per 100,000 compared to 7,928 in the
>Netherlands, he said.
Let's take the murder rates, the only ones for which I could quickly find
non-US figures:
Murder rate (per 100,000 people, 1991 figures):
United States 8.40
Canada 5.45
Denmark 5.17
Germany 4.20
Norway 1.99
United Kingdom 1.97
Sweden 1.73
Japan 1.20
Finland 0.70
Unfortunately, no Dutch figures. But one would assume the figures would be
somewhere around either the UK, German or Swedish ones. Interestingly,
General McCuster's figures per 100,000 Dutch are almost the same as for
1,000,000 Britons. Does that make you suspicious?
What I figures did find were more specific, for a population group that
includes age groups with some of the highest percentages of drug users:
Murder rate for males age 15-24 (per 100,000 people, 1991 figures):
United States 24.4
Canada 2.6
Sweden 2.3
Norway 2.3
Finland 2.3
Denmark 2.2
United Kingdom 2.0
Netherlands 1.2
Germany 0.9
Japan 0.5
In this section of the population the US murder rate is an astounding 20
times higher than in the Netherlands. Now, General McCuster wouldn't have
compared murders per 100,000 Americans vs. murders per 1,000,000 Dutch,
would he? We'll soon find out!
In the meantime I've contacted the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek in
the Netherlands. Let's see what they say. For the record, the Dutch Ministry
of Health, Welfare and Sport reckons that no more than 10-20% of crime in
the Netherlands is "drug related", which includes all hard drug dealing that
is still illegal under the country's Opium act, plus drug violations
involving tourists and smugglers from other countries.
Best regards
Joe Wein
-------------------------------------------------------------------
McCaffrey Lauds Sweden Drug Efforts ('The Associated Press'
Says The US Drug Czar, General Barry McCaffrey, Arrived In Stockholm Monday
And Praised Sweden's Repressive Drug Policies, And That They Make
Far More Sense Than Liberalized Policies Such As Those In The Netherlands -
Plus Commentary From List Subscribers)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 08:49:04 EDT
Errors-To: manager@drcnet.org
Reply-To: GDaurer@aol.com
Originator: drctalk@drcnet.org
Sender: drctalk@drcnet.org
From: (GDaurer@aol.com)
To: Multiple recipients of list (drctalk@drcnet.org)
Subject: McCaffrey Lauds Sweden Drug Efforts
July 13, 1998
McCaffrey Lauds Sweden Drug Efforts
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey on Monday praised
Sweden's drug policies, saying they make far more sense than liberalized
policies such as those in the Netherlands.
McCaffrey, who's beginning a European fact-finding tour, sparked Dutch ire
last week by saying the country's policy of letting its citizens use marijuana
and other soft drugs for therapeutic and recreational purposes was ``an
unmitigated disaster.''
The trip comes as the U.S. government launches a $1 billion, five-year ad
campaign aimed at steering young people away from trying drugs.
``We are sure that the most important inoculation for a society is to convince
your own young people to reject the abuse of drugs ... that includes alcohol
and cigarettes. And I think Sweden by the evidence that's available has done a
better job at that than almost any society in Europe and certainly better than
the United States,'' McCaffrey told a news conference.
Sweden, which discourages alcohol and tobacco use through high taxes, and
which keeps a tight watch on other drug use, has created a ``national
consensus'' against drugs, he said.
Statistics compiled from various sources by McCaffrey's Office of National
Drug Control Policy show that about 3 percent of Swedish teen-agers report
having used cannabis, compared with 9.1 percent in the United States and 30.2
percent in the Netherlands.
McCaffrey, however, cautioned countries with low drug-use rates that they may
come under increasing pressure as U.S. drug use declines and sellers look for
new markets.
``The United States is probably in the end phases of an epidemic; it's
possible that Europe is in the beginning phases of an epidemic,'' he said.
Despite his criticism of Dutch drug policy, McCaffrey will travel this week to
the Netherlands ``to learn from them and listen to their own viewpoint.
The Netherlands ``does have a drug abuse problem in general that is enormous
and growing, not getting better ... Their prison population has doubled, their
murder rate is much higher than it used to be,'' he said.
***
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 20:52:59 EDT
Errors-To: manager@drcnet.org
Reply-To: cpconrad@twow.com
Originator: drctalk@drcnet.org
Sender: drctalk@drcnet.org
From: "Charles P. Conrad" (cpconrad@twow.com)
To: Multiple recipients of list (drctalk@drcnet.org)
Subject: Re: McCaffrey Lauds Sweden Drug Efforts
I find it really hard to believe only 9.1% have tried cannabis.
***
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 23:42:35 EDT
Errors-To: manager@drcnet.org
Reply-To: joewein@pobox.com
Originator: drctalk@drcnet.org
Sender: drctalk@drcnet.org
From: Joe Wein (joewein@pobox.com)
To: Multiple recipients of list (drctalk@drcnet.org)
Subject: RE: McCaffrey Lauds Sweden Drug Efforts
Charles P. Conrad[SMTP:cpconrad@twow.com] wrote:
>On 14 Jul 98, at 8:49, GDaurer@aol.com wrote:
>
> I find it really hard to believe only 9.1% have tried cannabis.
Hi Charles,
according to the "Monitoring the Future" Study by NIDA, in 1996
the following percentages of various grades in the US had ever
tried cannabis:
8th gradeers: 23.1%
10th graders: 39.8%
12th graders: 44.9%
see http://www.nida.nih.gov/NIDACapsules/NCMTF91-95.html
The Swedish figure is questionable too. In a strongly prohibitionist
country it would not always be wise to admit to using drugs, even
in a supposedly anonymous questionnaire. This figure is almost
certainly due to underreporting. Still, it would be worth checking
out if it is considered "official". According to an article by John
Yates (http://www.drugtext.nl/articles/sweden3.html ), the Swedish
National Health Institute estimates that "20% of Swedish young
people in the major cities use drugs, mostly cannabis."
A study group from the Netherlands that visited Sweden in 1996
to take a look at the Swedish approach was surprised when told
that abuse of paint thinner was very common in Sweden, since it
was virtually unknown in the Netherlands (that very interesting
report used to be online on Mario Lap's website but I don't have
the current URL).
Sweden makes no distinction between cannabis and heroin.
According to the party line, cannabis frequently leads to
schizophrenia or suicide. The tough line on cannabis ensures
that many kids will seek thrills on other, more harmful but more
readily available substances, such as solvents or amphetamines,
which are very common in Sweden. Indeed, because of high
alcohol prices in Sweden and ready supplies of illegal hard
drugs (mostly from the Baltics), amphetamines are said to be
cheaper than booze in Sweden.
Best regards
Joe Wein
***
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 11:50:42 EDT
Errors-To: manager@drcnet.org
Reply-To: vignes@monaco.mc
Originator: drctalk@drcnet.org
Sender: drctalk@drcnet.org
From: Peter Webster (vignes@monaco.mc)
To: Multiple recipients of list (drctalk@drcnet.org)
Subject: RE: McCaffrey Lauds Sweden Drug Efforts
A recent book about Swedish drug policy and its effects, published by CEDRO
in Amsterdam is reviewed in the next issue of International Journal of Drug
Policy, readers may find some interesting facts:
Anatomy of a Fiasco
The Swedish Drug Control System : An in-depth review and analysis
Tim Boekhout van Solinge, copyright 1997 ISBN 90 5330 211 5
Uitgeverij Jan Mets, CEDRO - Centre for Drug Research,
University of Amsterdam
This book may be ordered at the World Wide Web site of CEDRO at
http://www.frw.uva.nl/cedro/order/18.html
a review by Peter Webster
"There is probably one thing, and one thing only, on which the leaders of
all modern states agree; on which Catholics, Protestants, Jews,
Mohammedans, and atheists agree; on which Democrats, Republicans,
Socialists, Communists, Liberals, and Conservatives agree; on which medical
and scientific authorities throughout the world agree; and on which the
views, as expressed through opinion polls and voting records, of the large
majority of individuals in all civilized countries agree. That thing is the
"scientific fact" that certain substances which people like to ingest or
inject are "dangerous" both to those who use them and to others; and that
the use of such substances constitutes "drug abuse" or "drug addiction"- a
disease whose control and eradication are the duty of the combined forces
of the medical profession and the state." - Thomas Szasz, Ceremonial Chemistry
Since Dr. Szasz composed those lines more than two decades ago, the
occasional analyst of human folly has speculated how such unprecedented
agreement might exist in our modern world, for it is a plain fact of life
that such pandemic universality of opinion is not only exceedingly rare,
but must indicate far more than mere consensus: Such a phenomenon exposes
the very seam of civilization, it presents an opportunity for inspecting
intimate aspects of the collective psychology of a people, the underlying
and well-hidden cultural paradigms both constructive and destructive which
give society its form and direction. Modern societies have shown very
little agreement on anything whatever, even when the evidence has been
overwhelming, so the existence of a near universal certainty should not
only arouse profound suspicions, but provide observers with the most
powerful of analytical tools.
But among the authors and theory-makers who have tried, none, in my
opinion, has completely succeeded in explaining why it is, on this one very
emotional and often hysterically-expressed issue, there is such general
agreement. The inquiring and open mind, which on the subject of substance
prohibition is evidently a rare species, has either fallen short of its
potential, or simply been drowned out by the din of drug warrior propaganda
heard in media of a diversity ranging from the National Enquirer and
Reader's Digest to the most prestigious of scientific journals.
Szasz himself came closest perhaps, with his parallels and comparisons to
the ancient rite of scapegoating, or the medieval Inquisition; certainly
few have dared write such an uncompromising condemnation of substance
prohibition as he. With precision and wit, the first section of his book
Ceremonial Chemistry: The ritual persecution of drugs, addicts and pushers,
illustrates our vain repetition of the ancient rite of the pharmakos, the
scapegoat, in ancient Greece originally a ceremony of human sacrifice whose
aim was the ritual purification and protection of society from plagues,
famines, devils and perils of every description. But the Greeks recognized
the rite for what it was, a ceremony. Today, shows Dr. Szasz, we are dead
serious.
As with the understanding of crowd madnesses and ritual persecutions of
old, a satisfactory and general theory of our great modern Prohibitionist
folly will probably have to await not only the final demise of the madness,
but an intervening period of normalization and healing recuperation lasting
perhaps several generations. From the perspective of the distant future,
historians may well conclude that the centuries-long phenomenon of
Substance Prohibition, attempted for everything from tea and tobacco to
toads and tipple, reached its dizzying peak in the late 20th Century as a
climactic exaggeration ad absurdum of a long-enduring collective delusion
and paranoia. But even if we could, by virtue of a time machine, read such
a theory today, the continued existence of the crowd madness in our midst
would certainly preclude any general recognition or acceptance of its
validity.
Thus, although there now exist a few obscure essays which may someday be
seen as harbingers of that still-distant revelation, they will probably
have minimal influence on the immediate course of events and we can today
do little more than study local details of the Prohibitionist phenomenon
and force society to look at the ugly and counterproductive results of its
obsession in the ongoing attempt at curing the malady by stages. There
seems absolutely no possibility that a great and general truth about
Prohibition, no matter how brilliantly expressed, could today awaken
Western Civilization from its present nightmare. But in the meanwhile, to
assist the growing number of individuals who can see the inevitable if
distant dawn of a new rationality, a wealth of excellent literature exists
and continues to grow at a gratifying pace. Such literature deals with the
"local details" of the Prohibitionist phenomenon in ways which both
illustrate its illogic and destructiveness to society, and suggests
practical if only provisional tactics and strategy for limiting the ravages
of Prohibition and tackling the difficult task of awakening the general
public to its complicity and participation in a crowd madness of major
proportions.
An interesting possibility for practical action in stemming drug
prohibition madness is suggested by the volume under review here, and in
general by the excellent work and publications of the Centre for Drug
Research in Amsterdam (CEDRO). That possibility is a differential analysis
of Prohibition as it now exists in various nations and cultures with the
aim of magnifying for examination the absurdities and purported benefits
that result from the diverse policies and national viewpoints concerning
"illicit substances." By observing and describing the specific and
particularly the most irrational aspects of policy in each nation-state,
making cross-comparisons of policies and results with other countries, and
extrapolating these tendencies to their logical, often horrible
conclusions, we may play off one particular set of absurdities against
another. In this way, individual nations may be forced to re-examine their
popular if counterproductive policies in ways which merely local politics
and sociological analysis would ignore.
For instance, we may attempt to show how the arrest and incarceration rate
in the U.S., which thanks to the Drug War has attained levels beyond the
wildest dreams of apartheid fanatics or former Russian secret police, will
be a natural if eventual outcome of Substance Prohibition in any nation
following the U.S. lead in the War on Drugs. Such heroic attempts to
imprison a large segment of a citizenry, when approached in slow stages as
has been done in the U.S., can evidently enjoy widespread support, yet if
it were today suggested in Britain or France that such incarceration rates
and prison-building be undertaken forthwith as a drug-war measure, many
diverse groups and most policy-makers as well would certainly resist such
folly. One is reminded of the result of slowly heating a frog in a pot of
water: frog's legs sans resistance. Tossing the same frog directly into hot
water ineluctably mobilizes his objections.
In The Swedish Drug Control System, we are treated to a panorama of
Prohibition in Sweden, a detailed survey which provides precisely the
material needed for the differential analysis technique: The drugs
(remarkably, the most abused drug in Sweden is amphetamine), the cultural
antecedents and economic and social conditions in 20th Century Sweden, the
important role of the welfare state in the evolution of drug policy and the
balance between repression and treatment; we meet the Prohibitionist
demagogues such as Nils Bejerot (a good buddy of that drug pseudoscientist
of repute, Gabriel Nahas), examine the propaganda and the history of drug
scapegoating since the more liberal 1960s and 70s, meet the press, the
popular organizations and politicians, and view the uneasy interaction of
Sweden with other European nations in the ongoing European Union. There are
facts and figures, tables of data and critical analysis of same, and for
the most part well-thought-out conclusions concerning Swedish drug policy
and its grave faults and limitations. Especially interesting to see is an
accurate analysis of the famous Legal Prescription Experiment of 1965-1967
which has been constantly denounced as a miserable failure, hence the
repressive Narcotics Drugs Act of 1968 and the still current insistence in
Sweden that legal prescribing of drugs simply can't work. The book shows
how flimsy was the evidence, how badly performed the "experiment," and why
such non-information and unsupported conclusions as the experiment provided
are nevertheless clung to like a raft in a flood.
The book begins, in part, with a discussion of several puzzling questions
about public opinion and drug policy in Sweden and Holland. Tim Boekhout
van Solinge expresses what must seem a curious paradox: in both Holland and
Sweden there exists a wide consensus that the country's drug policies are a
great success, yet the two approaches are as radically opposed as any in
the West today. Holland takes, of course, the most liberal and permissive
of approaches to drugs and drug use, while Sweden's policies are in some
respects even more Draconian than those in the United States. But "both
think they are on the right track and they see themselves as being 'ahead'
of the other countries; and it is only a matter of time before the other
countries will adopt their policy." One would think that such a conflict
indicates either that one country is "right," the other completely
"deluded," or rather that even within the narrow confines of modern Europe,
cultures are so radically different that completely antagonistic policies
may successfully apply.
Given my speculations above, a rather different conclusion ensues. The
Swedish Drug Control System shows us the highly monolithic nature of policy
and public opinion in Sweden, but by contrast, in Holland we find plenty of
would-be-Calvinists and staunch Neo-Prohibitionists, and even many sincere
if misinformed citizens clamoring to reverse the liberal approach now
favored by a not overwhelming but significant majority. While it may be
said that in Holland the practical and favorable results of its liberal
approach are able to maintain majority support, the pluralistic nature of
opinion in Holland would further indicate that a healthy situation exists
which tends to favor the "survival of the fittest" policies and public
perceptions. In Sweden, if we are to believe the portrait painted by Mr.
Boekhout van Solinge, evolution has taken a dead-end street towards a
uniformity of opinion that indicates something more like a collective
pathology than a healthy marketplace for ideas. And whereas the monolithic
imperative of belief in Sweden may look at Holland and conclude that the
lack of universal agreement on the "evils of drugs" indicates that the
Dutch policy is faulty and a mere patchwork of ad hoc measures that must
soon come adrift, the speculations here about pandemic agreement indicate,
on the contrary, that it is Sweden which is in the grip of a national crowd
madness.
Mr. Boekhout van Solinge informs us that the Netherlands and Sweden have
decided to work together in the field of drug policy in the attempt to
understand the apparent paradox of their radically opposed approaches to
drug control. Indeed, the study summarized in The Swedish Drug Control
System was financed by the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, and
enjoyed the cooperation of the Swedish National Institute of Public Health,
and we are told that each ministry is quite convinced that such a study
must find in favor of the local system. Although this collaboration might
seem encouraging news, the overview of the Swedish situation would indicate
that in lieu of some nearly miraculous change of course, the present study
will be merely the first step of a very long and difficult journey, and
might well estrange Sweden, even be seen as an insult, before it assists
some relaxation of the current repressive attitude. And despite its
honesty, the accusation will of course arise that the present study must
certainly be biased on the grounds of its authorship: No doubt there will
be many in Sweden who will, in spite of the support of their ministry,
denounce the book and its conclusions, continuing to insist that the grail
of the "drug-free society" is just around the corner, thanks to the
increasingly forceful repression characteristic of Swedish drug policy.
But facts speak loudly enough without having to manufacture propaganda from
them, and I believe that observers independent of both Sweden and Holland
will agree that this book is very strong on facts indeed. The independent
observer will find it hard to imagine how a Swedish study along the same
lines could continue to support Swedish policy after having examined with
similar dispassionate objectivity the Dutch drug situation. In the United
States, for example, the Dutch achievement is constantly and blatantly lied
about in the media, and even in speeches to Congress, as the drug war
machine can only continue to exist by virtue of ignoring the facts and
substituting mendacious propaganda for honest reporting and careful
reasoning: in this manner is the U.S. War on Drugs protected from the
scrutiny which would blow it out of the water. Whether an honest
self-appraisal will appear in the course of continued study by the Swedish
National Institute of Public Health, or is even possible in the current
climate of opinion, is an important question.
In any case, it will be interesting to see how Sweden reacts to such an
exposé as found in The Swedish Drug Control System, for logic would insist
that the reaction be far more of capitulation than rebuttal. The book
itself shows, however, the near-impossibility of this. As in many
Prohibitionist countries today, it is nearly impossible for a government
minister, or even university professor or research scientist, to publicly
express the least doubt about drug policy without suffering greatly for it.
Mr. Boekhout van Solinge reports the results of his interviews with public
figures and politicians as indicating that many of them know far more about
the failure of Swedish policy than they can admit in public, but that it
will be a long time before any such knowledge will guide policy change or
public opinion.
In the immediate future, then, this book should prove far more effective in
providing the European Union as a whole with a portrait of the Swedish
fiasco (and the European Parliament has already been making some
significant anti-Prohibitionist noises), for it is plain that normalization
in Sweden might well be painfully slow. As I have suggested, differential
comparison of societies is a potent technique, thus this book, and the
entire series of studies from CEDRO are of great value in providing
Euro-politicians and think-tanks with meticulously researched views and
data comparing countries in a way that should hasten an approach toward
more liberal, more practical, more effective and rational drug policy.
Nations in the grip of crowd madness will probably have to be cajoled and
teased away from their obsession by a collectivity of more healthy views
wielded by agencies of an international character and makeup.
I would comment on just one further important observation made in this book
concerning the way in which Drug Prohibition is used as a means for
solidifying perceived "Swedishness" and protecting it from
Euro-Permissiveness and other purportedly harmful influences coming from
south of the border. History is replete with tales of one scapegoat after
the next, and also of legends of once-great nations succumbing to fatal
bouts of overweening regionalism and xenophobia. America, great
"melting-pot" that it is reputed to be, suffers internally from such
insanity, whereas smaller, more socially uniform nations see the threat
coming from afar. But the underlying collective psychology is the same, and
probably is (to use that imaginative term of Weston LaBarre) an archosis, a
seemingly ineradicable instinct still dwelling in the collective psyche of
humankind as a vestigial holdover from our simian ancestors and the ways in
which they needed to protect their social cohesiveness. But recent genetic
research indicates that humankind is far more homogeneous than previously
suspected, (whites are genetically closer to blacks than are apparently
identical families of chimpanzees from different African regions), and in a
world as necessarily interconnected as our own any hint of racism, and even
ignorant or excessive nationalism, must surely be labeled pathological on
scientific grounds alone. In the realization that we will all have to swim
or sink together, nations, especially small ones, should be inquiring today
how they might enrich their own culture by exposure to other cultures, not
closing ranks with the conviction they are mortally or even morally
threatened by heathen doctrines. The human race has sufficiently
flagellated itself with such nonsense.
There is much else in this remarkable book which deserves mention and
discussion. (It's main fault is merely one of frequent but minor errors of
English grammar and usage which derives, no doubt, from an inadequate
going-over by someone more fluent in English than in Dutch.) I should
perhaps say that the author is far more cautious and measured in overt
condemnation of Prohibition than I, but that the facts presented in the
book speak loudly enough. As one who is more familiar with the situation in
America than in most other countries I was again and again surprised by the
examples which show that the Swedish situation is, in many respects, a
similar fiasco to that in the U.S. Political groups are locked into an
escalating vortex of drug warriorism which must certainly end very badly
indeed. Once the black hole of drug warriorism and pubic opinion supporting
it gets past a certain point of no return, the madness seems irreversible.
Interestingly, we learn also that alcohol prohibition was very nearly voted
in during the 1920s in Sweden, so the parallels between the present drug
policies in the two countries have instructive precedent.
Hopefully, further extensive study will be done of this Swedish situation,
not only for the necessary task of repealing Drug Prohibition in Europe and
eventually world-wide, but as a case study in how a society and nation can
become entrapped in such collective hysteria, as a case study of the kind
of collective psychological phenomenon which has so often led countries,
and the entire world, down roads that might better have been avoided
altogether.
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Epidemic Of Heroin Sweeps Britain (Britain's 'Independent' Notes A Major
Home Office Study Involving A Survey Of 200 Police And Drug Action Teams
In England And Wales Last Year Has Discovered Prohibition Doesn't Work -
Heroin Is Cheaper Than Ever And Users' Average Age Has Dropped From 17-25
To 14-25 - Not Satisfied, The Government Is Planning To Target
Other Young People With An Advertising Campaign)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 23:32:55 +0000
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
Subject: MN: UK: Epidemic Of Heroin Sweeps Britain
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Martin Cooke (mjc1947@cyberclub.iol.ie)
Source: Independent, The (UK)
Pubdate: Monday, 13 July 1998
Contact: letters@independent.co.uk
Website: http://www.independent.co.uk/
Author: Jason Bennetto, Crime Correspondent
EPIDEMIC OF HEROIN SWEEPS BRITAIN
A NEW heroin epidemic is sweeping into many of Britain's towns and
cities as dealers target increasingly young teenagers for their trade,
a major Home Office study has discovered.
Record numbers of dealers are selling heroin in low cost UKP10
packages in regions that had previously escaped the worst ravages of
the drug.
The disturbing findings of the report, which will be published in the
next few weeks, have prompted the Government to plan a major anti-
heroin campaign aimed at young users.
The study, details of which have been obtained by The Independent, has
identified "footprint" towns and cities where there are new heroin
"outbreaks" and where use among young people is reaching epidemic levels.
Other findings in the report New Heroin Outbreaks Amongst Young People
in England and Wales include:
Dealers are marketing heroin or "brown" aggressively by offering cut
price drugs and affordable UKP10 deals.
Some is being given away free to encourage a habit.
The core group are 15 to 20- year-olds who are typically from poor,
broken families with education problems.
Many young people are unaware of the dangers of heroin and start off
smoking it in the belief that they will not become hooked.
A far wider range of people are taking the drug, including school
pupils and people living on outlying housing estates.
Keith Hellawell, the UK Drugs Co-Ordinator,
known as the country's drug Tsar, told The
Independent: "The report is saying that the
problem is greater than we imagined.
"It confirms that heroin is becoming the drug of first choice for
young people."
He added: "We have a very good chance of nipping any epidemic in the
bud and controlling it."
"A growing number of users are not from disadvantaged backgrounds and
is moving into hitherto stable areas," he said.
Researchers carried out a survey of 200 police and drug action teams
in England and Wales last year.
They identified a new pattern for the distribution and use of
heroin.
The users' average age has dropped from 17-25 to 14-25.
There are reports of a significant number of 14 to 16- year old-heroin
users, but the average aged is about 18. In Bristol, for example,
there are an estimated 1,500 people aged under 19 taking heroin.
Many of the younger generation who missed the last epidemic in the
1980s are now unaware of the side effects of heroin and believe other
substances, such as ecstasy, are more addictive.
They also believe smoking is a "healthier" option than
injecting.
Bradford, Hull and Bristol were identified as "heroin footprint"
cities where the drug had previously only been available in very small
amounts but was now awash with the substance.
There have also been reports of heroin in Barnsley, south Leeds and
Dewsbury in West Yorkshire.
Agencies in the South East, Sussex, Surrey and Wales, have also
reported significant problems.
Heroin is believed to be far more widespread than the 1980's epidemic
which was focused on inner city estates in large metropolitan cities.
The traditional "smack" cities such as Liverpool, London, Manchester,
and Glasgow still have a big heroin problem but the drug scene has
remained stable.
The report also identifies a gap in the policing of cross police force
borders which is allowing dealers to distribute their goods nationally.
Among the measures being considered by the Home Office are greater
funding for treatment centres and an advertising and education
campaign aimed at schools, teenagers and people in their early 20s.
The report's author, Professor Howard Parker, of Manchester
University, one of the country's leading drug experts, said: "I'm
concerned about the spread of heroin into the youth population and
regard the report as a significant contribution to trying to map this
problem.
"But I cannot discuss the details until the report has been
published."
There are around 40,000 known heroin addicts in Britain but experts
suspect the total could be five times higher.
In April Customs officers announced that they recovered 1.7 tons of
heroin last year with a street value of more than UKP145m. That was an
increase of 135 per cent on 1996.
About 80 per cent of the heroin seized is sent from
Turkey.
It is produced in Afghanistan and Pakistan and is then trafficked
through the Balkans from where it goes onwards to key markets in
western Europe.
'Pushers offer it free'
The story of Timmy's young life reads like a tragic novel. He is 19
years old and in two years has slipped from a fun-loving teenager, who
occasionally smoked cannabis, to a heroin addict who funds his habit
by selling his body for sex.
He hates his condition and is trying to break out of the downward
cycle with a detoxification programme in Bristol. He fidgets
constantly and his eyes are glazed as he tells his story.
At the age of 17 his cousin, a year older, offered him a smoke of
heroin. "I was sick at first, but the buzz was nice. He told me if I
tried it again I wouldn't feel so sick. The more I took the more I
wanted."
For the first year he smoked the heroin by "chasing it" - burning it
on a piece of silver foil - but found he needed more and more to get
the same buzz. He switched to injecting when he discovered a tiny
amount fired directly into his blood stream had a much more powerful
effect. But the dose gradually rose, until he was injecting a gram a
day and spending about UKP300 a week.
To pay for his addiction he went shoplifting, but could not earn
enough money so turned to prostitution. "I work on the streets at the
moment and in the pubs," he said with self-loathing.
"All my mates do heroin. There's even a group of kids at school, aged
from about 14 to 16, who are smoking it. Everyone I know moves from
smoking it to injecting it.
"In Bristol you get pushers looking to get people onto heroin - they
just go up to kids and offer them it for UKP10 or a free trial. They
know once they're hooked they'll be back for more.
"My brother is a year older and has never touched heroin, just a bit
of weed [cannabis]. I look at him and he has got a job and
qualifications, he's got a flat, a misses and a babby . That could
have been me, I could have had all that."
'It's everywhere now'
Sophie has been taking heroin for 17 years. She used to inject it but
her veins became so broken she turned to smoking.
Since she started on heroin the price has dropped from about UKP100 a
gram to about UKP45 in Bristol where she lives.
To pay for her regular fixes she would go on shop-lifting sprees,
which could net her more than a thousand pounds a week. The stolen
goods were sold to "punters" who pay one-third of the face value.
"Heroin is always just a phone call away. I used to have to travel
around the country looking for it, but it's everywhere now, I just
call a dealer and he will drop it off in about 15 minutes," she said.
Sophie, 38, says the dealers sometimes give it to users to sell on
their behalf, often in UKP10 "wraps", but they can be as little as
UKP5 for about one-third of a gram.
"Because people are frightened of getting hepatitis or Aids, a lot of
them are smoking it now," she explained. They smoke it in pipes, on
foil, and very occasionally mixed with tobacco and cannabis.
One of her four children became addicted to heroin at the age of 17
but managed to kick the after three years.
Sophie has finally managed to quit heroin and has been clean for 10
months, but has discovered she has contracted chronic hepatitis C from
injecting.
'Kids aren't afraid'
Tom, now 26, remembers the heroin epidemic of the Eighties. "It used
to be very hush-hush. No one would mention it and it was often hard to
get hold of. The difference is that the kids these days are not
frightened of it. Really young kids - 13- and 14-year-olds are taking it.
"Some of the young people have jobs - I know people who work as court
clerks who are taking heroin - others just go out nicking. It's so
easy to get hold of, there's a door-to-door service available at the
end of a phone."
Five months ago, Tom switched from heroin to the chemical substitute,
methadone, in an attempt to wean himself off the drug.
The three drug users, whose names have been changed, are being helped
by the Bristol Drugs Project.
to 1998 Daily News index for July 9-15