-------------------------------------------------------------------

Fraction of juveniles punished under alcohol law (The Associated Press
says juvenile court judges throughout Oregon have largely nullified
a state law that requires them to suspend the driving privileges of youths
caught possessing alcohol. More than 11,000 juveniles throughout the state
were arrested for possession of alcohol last year, but only 2,646
had their licenses suspended.)

From: "Bob Owen @ WHEN, Olympia" (when@olywa.net)
To: "-News" (when@hemp.net)
Subject: Fraction of juveniles punished under alcohol law
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 19:32:49 -0700
Sender: owner-when@hemp.net

Fraction of juveniles punished under alcohol law

The Associated Press
10/10/98 4:27 PM Eastern

SALEM, Ore. (AP) -- Juvenile court judges are not enforcing a state law that
requires them to suspend the driving privileges of youths caught possessing
alcohol.

More than 11,000 juveniles throughout the state were arrested for possession
of alcohol last year, but only 2,646 had their licenses suspended, state
figures show.

"I helped write this law. It's a real frustration to me," former state
legislator Rod Monroe told the Statesman Journal.

Monroe and other members of Gov. John Kitzhaber's Advisory Committee on
Driving Under the Influence of Intoxicants voted Friday to send letters of
concern to juvenile court judges in all 36 Oregon counties.

The group is looking into ways to reduce teen-age drinking and
alcohol-related crashes.

Crowded juvenile court dockets may partially explain the lack of
suspensions, but some members of the governor's panel say the problem has
persisted for years.

In many cases, they said, juveniles cited for alcohol possession simply
don't show up for court proceedings. Typically, they face no consequences
for failing to appear.

"If you don't show up, there's nothing the courts can do to punish the kids.
They don't issue bench warrants," said Debra Downey, manager for the Oregon
Department of Transportation's impaired driver program.

Statistics reflect varying levels of enforcement, depending on the county.

Marion County recorded 309 court denials of juvenile driving privileges last
year, the most in the state. Jackson County was next with 298, followed by
Coos (203), Washington (157) and Yamhill (156).

In contrast, the most populous county in the state, Multnomah, reported 59
denials of young people's driving privileges, one more than Polk County.
Three counties -- Gilliam, Hood River, and Sherman -- recorded none.

Kitzhaber's committee intends to contact state lawmakers as well as judges
about the disparity.

The panel also is recommending that the state toughen its drunken driving
laws by:

-- Establishing police roadblocks to check for drunken drivers.

-- Expanding the definition of driving under the influence by including
intoxicating substances besides alcohol.

-- Creating a felony punishment for a third drunken-driving conviction.
Current law treats all such convictions as misdemeanors; it only becomes a
felony if someone is killed.

The suggestions will be forwarded to the 1999 Legislature.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Sex And Drugs And The World's Richest Man (According to The Irish
Independent, a new book about Microsoft founder Bill Gates of Seattle,
"The Microsoft File - The Secret Case Against Bill Gates,"
by Wendy Goldman Rohm, says the squeaky-clean embodiment
of the American dream has a taste for expensive prostitutes and cannabis.)

Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 12:34:45 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: Sex And Drugs And The World's Richest Man
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)
Pubdate: Sat, 10 Oct 1998
Source: Irish Independent (Ireland)
Contact: independent.letters@independent.ie
Website: http://www.independent.ie/

SEX AND DRUGS AND THE WORLD'S RICHEST MAN

Renowned for its ruthless business practices, Bill Gates's Microsoft is
embroiled in a long war against the US Justice Department, accused of using
devious means to establish the global software empire . But in a new book
the impossibly squeaky-clean embodiment of the American dream is shown to
be human after all with a taste for expensive prostitutes and cannabis.
Daniel Jeffreys reports from New York

The Amsterdam bar was full of dark corners and small groups of people
wreathed in pungent smoke. Most had eaten so many powerful marijuana cakes,
legal in these `space clubs', that they no longer knew where they were.
There was a feeling of anarchy in the air.

It was September, 1992. In one corner sat an intense American man dressed
like a poorly-paid bank clerk, squinting through thick glasses at a
beautiful blonde. The couple behaved as if they had once had a sexual
relationship which was now over.

The man looked at his female companion wistfully. He had been in this
situation many times before: falling in love with a attractive woman who
was at first drawn to his intense intelligence, only to have her leave
eventually for a man with looks more in her league. Uneasy at first, the
couple soon began drifting off to faraway places in their minds as the
drugs took effect.

No one in the bar realised they were being joined in their narcotic haze by
Bill Gates, billionaire chairman of the computer giant Microsoft, a company
that had grown to dominate many facets of our everyday lives.

He was with senior Microsoft employee Stephanie Reichel, deputy head of his
German operations, with whom he had fallen deeply in love. She had just
told Gates she was leaving him for Bill Neukom, the booming company's
in-house lawyer, who had long had a stormy relationship with the computer
mogul.

The news made Gates sick inside in part because he was depending on Neukom
to defend him against serious business malpractice charges that might
include criminal indictments, yet could not bring himself to trust the man
who was effectively his number two and knew where all the Gates skeletons
were buried.

More than that, Gates could not stand to be beaten not in love, not in
business, not in sport and his friends were beginning to fear that his
desire to win had moved from being a passionate trait to an unhealthy
fixation.

The Amsterdam scene is described in a fascinating new book about the man
who bestrides the world's most important industry. The Microsoft File The
Secret Case Against Bill Gates, by Wendy Goldman Rohm, reveals the dark
side of computing's King Midas, rated by many as one of the most
influential men of the century.

Now 43, Gates is apparently happily married to a former employee,
34-year-old Melinda, with whom he has a three-year-old daughter. But in the
early 80s, when he was trying to fry every competitor in sight by fair
means or foul, his behaviour had all the trappings of a despotic potentate.

Rohm's picture shows Gates to be a self-obsessed man who, after his love
for Reichel was repulsed, would stop at almost nothing to defeat his
business rivals, pausing from squashing the competition only to relax with
high-priced prostitutes.

In Rohm's account, Gates found his favourite hookers in Las Vegas,
headquarters of America's computer trade shows. Rohm believes Gates's use
of prostitutes is a key part of his character: he is a man who acknowledges
no boundaries in morals or business, when it comes to getting what he
wants, but who suffers from chronic insecurities about his appearance and
lack of social graces.

Although Rohm concedes that Gates built much of Microsoft's IEP70bn empire
on his own genius, she also reveals for the first time how much may have
been stolen from others, as he ruthlessly knifed competitors in the back
while pretending to be their friend or potential partner.

Gates treats business like war and sees his industry with the eyes of a
dictator, as territory to be conquered at all costs, except that in place
of deadly weapons he uses allegedly unfair business tactics, which all but
strangle any potential competitors at birth.

In the 21 years since he dropped out of Harvard, finding academic studies
``less relevant'' than starting Microsoft, William Henry Gates III has made
the computer that secondary brain which so many of us now use think exactly
like him, in the form of software he has designed to run the programs and
tasks that make desktop PCs so valuable.

Much of the way in which billions of people do their work is dictated by
what Gates believes is the best way to organise information.

It is now possible to see for the first time how this dominance was
achieved, between 1990 and 1994 with a ruthlessness that would have
appealed to Napoleon although, like Bonaparte, Gates made mistakes. These
could still conceivably land him in jail if a US Justice Department case
beginning next month can prove that Microsoft's founder lied, stole and
bugged his way to America's second largest fortune.

In 1990 there were many competing operating systems on the market and
Microsoft's dominant product, Windows, had not yet been released. IBM had
the biggest share of the personal computer industry and believed it was
working with Bill Gates to develop a new operating system, the OS/2.

Within a few months IBM's chief strategist, Jim Cannavino, heard rumours.
Gates was telling IBM he had OS/2 as his main project but was telling
customers he was concentrating on MS/DOS (Microsoft's own operating
system) and Windows, which he told them would soon become the industry
standard.

Enormous stakes were involved. With personal computing just taking off, any
company which had the lion's share of the software market would have a
licence to turn base metal into gold. Cannavino convened a crisis meeting
with Gates and Microsoft at a Las Vegas hotel. Businessmen who were there
testified that there were two odd aspects to the event. One was Gates's use
of call girls.

No one ever observed Gates having sex with any of these prostitutes but,
according to many witnesses, the girls were often his companions, in public
and at more discreet meetings behind closed doors.

By 1992, even as Gates looked for other forms of expansion, America's
business police had homed in on Microsoft's core activities, claiming the
firm had used commercial intimidation and predatory tactics to stifle
competition.

To keep Gates focused on obliterating competition and away from anxiety
about Federal probes, Gates's senior staff began to increase the number of
beautiful and paid young women they pushed his way. Company lawyer Bill
Neukom and head of sales Steve Ballmer, Gates's closest friend, knew all
about the billionaire's yen for women and made sure he was taken care of.
At the same time Gates was conducting an affair with a low-level employee
at Microsoft.

Gates did not seem to mind that the women he was seen with were paid for.
He was getting revenge for when, seeing him as a scruffy `computer nerd',
lovely women would never give him a second look. Now he could drape them
around himself like arm candy, sweet reminders that he could have any
beautiful woman, except one.

In April, 1992, Gates spotted Stephanie Reichel, her figure and silky
blonde hair made more striking by a beautiful red suit. They were at a
computer sales meeting in Monte Carlo and Reichel was part of a classic
Gates strategy in Germany.

Her job was to make the country's top computer manufacturer Vobis switch
entirely to Microsoft as its operating system, then penalise it every time
it used a competitor's product. At their first encounter Gates couldn't
take his eyes off Reichel. He cancelled his flight back to the US for a
chance to take her to out to dinner that evening.

By August, at Microsoft's annual board meeting held in Britain at the
Cliveden estate, famous for the Profumo scandal orgies, Reichel was on
Gates's arm. They had met the day before at the Sheraton Heathrow Hotel,
continuing to central London's Park Hyatt and taking in the show Miss
Saigon before having dinner at one of Michael Caine's restaurants.

Gates seemed to be in love. Reichel appeared more enamoured of the power
than the man not surprisingly, as Gates treated her rudely in business
meetings, despite having sent her a stream of e-mail love letters since
their April introduction.

He may have been distracted. The Federal investigators had discovered that
Microsoft was shipping the computer equivalent of terrorist devices in its
Windows software. If the programs were run on the company's MS-DOS
operating system, they worked fine. If run on the competing DR-DOS system,
they would frequently send up error messages, making the panicked operator
think his computer was about to crash.

As the investigators probed deeper, evidence began to emerge that Gates and
others might have destroyed documents that could prove how Microsoft had
sought to kill all companies who could remotely been seen as competitors,
using industrial espionage to steal their secrets and Microsoft's huge
market share to sell the stolen ideas at prices the competitors could never
improve on.

The US Justice Department is continuing its investigation of Microsoft, as
Bill Gates in private dismisses its work, laughing at its recent attempts
to fine him $1m a day and saying the government should realise he makes a
million every 15 minutes. Microsoft also denounces claims that Gates used
prostitutes as `fiction' but has made no attempt to sue Wendy Rohm or
others who have repeated the story.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The California NORML Election Guide for 1998 (A list subscriber
posts the URL for California voters looking for the inside scoop.)

Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 07:29:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jo-D (jo-d@norml.org)
To: DPFCA (DPFCA@drugsense.org)
Subject: DPFCA: 1998 CA NORML Election Guide
Sender: owner-dpfca@drugsense.org
Reply-To: dpfca@drugsense.org
Organization: DrugSense http://www.drugsense.org/dpfca/

the CA NORML Election Guide for 1998 is posted at:

www.norml.org/canorml

kudos to dale gieringer :)

jo-d
NORML/SLO NORML

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Kubby Is Good Alternative (A letter to the editor
of The San Jose Mercury News endorses Libertarian candidate Steve Kubby
for governor, and refers readers to the web site for the medical marijuana
patient/activist's candidacy.)

Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1998 12:17:44 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US CA: PUB LTE: Kubby Is Good Alternative
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Marcus/Mermelstein Family (mmfamily@ix.netcom.com)
Pubdate: Sat, 10 Oct 1998
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Contact: letters@sjmercury.com
Website: http://www.sjmercury.com/
Author: James Merritt, Santa Cruz

KUBBY IS GOOD ALTERNATIVE

SOMETIMES, it seems that government today is about mastering, even herding
the population. How else to explain the refusal of various branches of
government to honor Proposition 215 on the one side of the political
spectrum, and Propositions 209 and 227 on the other?

>From all the debate and campaign rhetoric I've heard so far, gubernatorial
candidates Gray Davis and Dan Lungren apparently believe that it is OK to
compel people to obey, and to spend their money, on behalf of a ``good
cause.'' Each simply favors different causes. I'm not satisfied, and
apparently I'm not alone -- witness the recent Mercury News article
declaring ``Valley electorate not sold on choices'' (Page 1A, Oct. 2).

I'm relieved that we have another choice. Libertarian Steve Kubby realizes
that the person best suited to know what is best for you, and to make
choices for you, is you. Kubby pledges to work to reduce government's
control of your life, leaving most choices up to you, and your hard-earned
wages in your pocket. He has already demonstrated his commitment, as a
leader of the successful Proposition 215 campaign.

Despite being a serious candidate, Kubby is excluded from ``official''
gubernatorial debates. So, before November's election, please visit his Web
site at http://www.kubby.com to judge Kubby's positions and proposals for
yourself, and to learn where you can meet with him.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Brutal Prison Guards Charged (A version in The Telegraph, in Britain)

Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 11:03:49 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: Brutal Prison Guards Charged
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)
Pubdate: Sat, 10 Oct 1998
Source: Telegraph, The (UK)
Contact: et.letters@telegraph.co.uk
Copyright: (c) The Telegraph 1998
Author: John Hiscock, Los Angeles

BRUTAL PRISON GUARDS CHARGED

Five prison guards have been charged with conspiracy after prisoners
complained they were disciplined by being put a cell with a 17-stone
homosexual.

In return for raping and beating the prisoners, convicted murderer
Wayne Robertson was given extra food and tennis shoes, he told
investigators.

A grand jury was told that seven inmates at Corcoran State Prison in
California, were killed during six years of terror by a gang of guards
known as the Sharks.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Birchwood Bust Sets Pot Record Cops Harvest $2.2 Million
(The Anchorage Daily News indicates city, state and federal prohibition
agents confiscated almost 1,100 marijuana plants they valued at $2,000 each
from a Birchwood home Thursday night, the largest Anchorage pot bust
in memory.)

Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 11:08:19 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US AK: Birchwood Bust Sets Pot Record Cops Harvest $22 Million
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: compassion23@geocities.com (Frank S. World)
Pubdate: Saturday, October 10, 1998
Source: Anchorage Daily News (AK)
Contact: letters@adn.com
Website: http://www.adn.com/
Author: Peter Porco

BIRCHWOOD BUST SETS POT RECORD COPS HARVEST $2.2 MILLION GARDEN

Drug enforcement authorities confiscated almost 1,100 marijuana plants
from a Birchwood home Thursday night, the largest Anchorage pot bust
in memory, police said.

Acting on a Crime Stoppers tip of a few weeks ago, officers from city,
state and federal law enforcement agencies obtained a warrant to
search the home, police said.

The street value of the 1,097 plants is estimated at $2.2 million,
said police Lt. Audie Holloway, commander of the city's Drug
Enforcement Unit.

Police are seeking three people, including the homeowner, Holloway
said. A fourth person, whom Holloway described as a caretaker, was at
the residence at the time of the search but was not arrested. Holloway
declined to identify the suspects.

No charges have been filed yet in the case.

Investigators will dry and then weigh the plants before recommending
charges to the district attorney's office, Holloway said. The process
may take a week or two, he added.

"We've never dried 1,000 plants before," he said.

The property on Birchwood Loop Road consists of several buildings and
other structures, Holloway said.

The ground floor of a two-story house served as a starter room for
marijuana seedlings, he said. Attached to the house is a 40-by-40-foot
metal shed where officers found hundreds of mature plants. They found
more plants in two 40-foot-long containers adjacent to the shed.

Police also confiscated 77 lamps and other sophisticated growing
equipment, and several weapons, they said. No large amounts of cash
were found.

Busts of pot growers, particularly in the Matanuska-Susitna valleys,
are on the rise, Holloway said.

"Alaskan indoor-grown marijuana has the highest THC content of any
grown," said Holloway. THC - or tetrahyrocannibinol - is the plant's
most active ingredient.

Investigators believe most of what's grown in Southcentral Alaska is
shipped Outside.

"There's a good market for marijuana. But we can't track it to the
sellers," Holloway said. "We assume it's being shipped."

Daily News reporter Peter Porco can be reached at pporco@adn.com.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

NH Growers way ahead of narcs (A Boston Globe article about marijuana
cultivation in New Hampshire says police estimate about 3,000 plants are
found there every year, while another 20,000 or more go undiscovered. But
only about 10 percent of the marijuana sold on the streets is grown within
the state. "A lot more is used than anyone wants to know or anyone wants
to admit," said Sandown Police Chief J. Scott Currier. More marijuana
is grown in Maine and Vermont, police said, because those states are more
rural than New Hampshire.)

From: "Bob Owen @ WHEN, Olympia" (when@olywa.net)
To: "-News" (when@hemp.net)
Subject: NH Growers way ahead of narcs
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 20:48:58 -0700
Sender: owner-when@hemp.net
Newshawk: ccross@november.org
Source: Boston Globe
Pubdate: 10/11/98
Online: http://www.boston.com

NH Growers way ahead of narcs

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - Police say illegal cultivators of marijuana are way
ahead of pot's legal harvesters.

Police estimate that about 3,000 marijuana plants are found in New Hampshire
each year while about another 20,000 or more go undiscovered.

``A lot more is used than anyone wants to know or anyone wants to admit,´´
said Sandown Police Chief J. Scott Currier in whose town a patch of pot was
found recently.

``I think a lot of people would be surprised if they knew some of the people
who were using it,´´ he said.

For each crop of marijuana, police say there are different types of growers,
from occasional smokers to people who make a business of it.

Marijuana is popular not only among teen-agers, but with adults of all
backgrounds, including serious drug addicts who make it a part of their drug
regime, police say.

Last year, an 80-year-old man was arrested in Meredith for growing
marijuana. ``It runs the spectrum,´´ said Jerry Graffam, an agent in the New
Hampshire office of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. ``From
husband and wife, to kids to old people,´´ he said.

Most of what is grown in the state stays in New Hampshire, but it only makes
up about 10 percent of the marijuana sold on the streets, police estimate.

Marijuana growers take advantage of New Hampshire's rural and secluded areas
to plant the pot, though usually not on their own land, said Lt. Michael
Hureau, of the State Police Narcotics Unit.

``They´ll put (the plants) on a neighbor´s property,´´ he said.

Last week, Merrimack police found a crop of 219 plants worth $450,000. On
Sept. 18, Newton police found 35 marijuana plants on vacant land and on
Sept. 14, Sandown police found 38 plants near a busy road.

The police departments are still trying to find the growers. ``It would have
to be someone local,´´ Currier said.

``It takes a lot of time. You have to check them weekly. I don´t think it is
some high school kid who read a book and decided to give it a try. I think
it was someone who knew what they were doing.´´

Graffam said he has seen people growing it in pots on back yard decks, in
flower gardens, inside homes and hidden among other crops.

People who raise three to five plants usually grow them for their own use.
Above that, they are probably selling it, Graffam said.

Quality homegrown marijuana can be profitable. While Mexican and California
marijuana sells for $1,000 to $1,500 per pound, homegrown can bring $2,000
to $4,000 per pound.

A good hybrid of homegrown marijuana has a higher percentage of the active
ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol or THC.

Growers harvest the plants between mid-August and mid-October, when the
plants are as tall as 14 feet and are most visible to passersby.

Luckily for police, harvest season coincides with hunting season. Many
reports of marijuana crops come from hunters, like the Merrimack plants
found by a bow and arrow hunter.

More marijuana is grown in Maine and Vermont, police said, because those
states are more rural than New Hampshire.

Slightly less is grown in Massachusetts, Hureau said, ``but there is no town
that is immune to it.´´

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Ex-Chief Could Get Up To 50 Years In Drug Conviction (The Houston Chronicle
says Robert Sanger, the former chief of police in Premont, Texas, was found
guilty by a federal jury Thursday on one count of possession with intent to
distribute marijuana, one count of conspiring to distribute about a ton of
marijuana, and one count of knowingly accepting gifts while acting as chief.)

Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 16:00:38 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US TX: Ex-Chief Could
Get Up To 50 Years In Drug Conviction
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: adbryan@onramp.net
Pubdate: Sat, 10 Oct 1998
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Contact: viewpoints@chron.com
Copyright: (c) 1998 Houston Chronicle
Website: http://www.chron.com/
Author: Associated Press

EX-CHIEF COULD GET UP TO 50 YEARS IN DRUG CONVICTION

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) -- He used to put people behind bars, but now a
former Premont police chief faces up to 50 years in prison after being
convicted on drug charges.

Robert Sanger, who has been suspended without pay, will remain in custody
until his Dec. 16 sentencing.

A federal jury found Sanger guilty Thursday on one count of possession with
intent to distribute marijuana, one count of conspiring to distribute about
a ton of marijuana, found at the Falfurrias Border Patrol checkpoint, and
one count of knowingly accepting gifts while acting as chief.

Jurors found him innocent on a fourth count -- lying to investigators.

"The defendant's position in law enforcement required him to have fidelity
to an oath, and that oath was to obey the law," said U.S. District Court
Judge Hayden W. Head Jr. "He is lucky the jury did not convict him of the
fourth count. He clearly made a false statement."

Sanger, who served as chief of Premont in Jim Wells County for five years,
was indicted May 13.

An associate of his, Roger Lopez, pleaded guilty in the case and was
sentenced to seven years. On Monday, Lopez testified he used cocaine with
Sanger and gave him several gifts, including $280 and motel accommodations.

David Gonzalez, a Corpus Christi police officer assigned to work with a Drug
Enforcement Administration task force, testified that phone records show 191
calls between Sanger and Lopez in 1996 and several more calls in 1997.

Lopez also said Sanger gave him information about drug interdiction
operations.

Other co-conspirators already sentenced in the case include Ernest Huerta,
who received seven years; Michael Junk, who was sentenced to 4 years; and
Patricia Marie Gongora, who received five years probation.

Premont is a town of about 3,000 people, about 50 miles southwest of Corpus
Christi.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

102 Accused Of Supplying Crack To White-Collar NY Workers
(A New York Times article in The Dallas Morning News says 102 members
of five gangs were indicted Friday for selling millions of dollars' worth
of crack cocaine to white-collar workers in midtown Manhattan during
the last decade. The five gangs involved apparently shunned confrontation
to avoid drawing police attention. To avoid warfare, dealers declared a truce
and worked out a shift schedule among themselves, officials said.)

Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998 16:00:38 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US NY: 102 Accused Of Supplying Crack
To White-Collar NY Workers
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: adbryan@onramp.net
Pubdate: Sat, 10 Oct 1998
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Contact: letterstoeditor@dallasnews.com
Copyright: (c) 1998 The Dallas Morning News
Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/
Author: New York Times News Service

102 ACCUSED OF SUPPLYING CRACK TO WHITE-COLLAR NY WORKERS 10/10/98

NEW YORK - Officials announced the indictments Friday of 102 members of a
drug operation that sold millions of dollars' worth of crack cocaine to
white-collar workers in midtown Manhattan.

Authorities said that the dealers from five gangs largely sold their drugs
indoors, rarely fought over territory and catered to their most-cherished
customers, what the dealers called the "S and T crowd" - the suit and tie
crowd. The sales were made over the course of a decade.

Officials said the gang members' practice of selling drugs indoors and the
fact that they shunned firearms indicated the adaptability of the drug
trade.

They said a continuing demand for drugs fueled the operation. Half of its $5
million in annual sales were made to white-collar workers, investigators
said.

Walter Arsenault, assistant Manhattan district attorney, said the
white-collar workers "bought big and they paid twice as much."

The five gangs involved apparently shunned confrontation to avoid drawing
police attention. To avoid warfare, dealers declared a truce and worked out
a shift schedule among themselves, officials said.

Dealers from different gangs shared customers and drug supplies and even
warned each other when police approached, investigators said.

Gang disputes were settled by slashings and stabbings, not by gunbattles.
Gang members told the police that they no longer carry guns because they
fear that they will be stopped by police enforcing the city's crackdown on
low-level crimes, authorities said.

The lucrative operation ended after a rival gang from Boston tried to move
in, law-enforcement officials said. A shooting in January drew the attention
of the police and eventually led to Friday's indictments.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Parity For Mental Illness, Disparity For The Mental Patient (Psychiatrist
Thomas Szasz writes in The Lancet, in Britain, that recent legislation in the
United States mandating insurance parity for patients with medical illnesses
and psychiatric illnesses is inconsistent with the disparity in their legal
status. Patients with sarcoma are assumed to remain in possession of their
mental faculties, but patients with schizophrenia are not. Medical patients
are treated as contracting moral agents, while mental patients are commonly
treated as if they are minors or unconscious, and are often institutionalized
against their will and/or forced to take toxic medications. The Patient
Self-Determination Act makes it mandatory for healthcare providers receiving
Medicare or Medicaid payments to "inform patients of their existing rights
under state law to refuse treatment and prepare advance directives." The
problems that mental patients pose for themselves, their families, and
society can be resolved if the familiar advance directive or "living will" is
adapted to the circumstances of psychiatric patients and their carergivers.)

Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1998 21:08:23 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: UK: Lancet: Szasz: Parity For Mental Illness, Disparity For The
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Newshawk: Peter Webster (vignes@monaco.mc)
Pubdate: 10 Oct 1998
Source: Lancet, The (UK)
Volume: 352, Number 9135
Pages: 1213-15
Contact: lancet.editorial@elsevier.co.uk
Website: http://www.thelancet.com/
Copyright: Lancet, The (UK)
Author: Thomas Szasz MD

Department of ethics

PARITY FOR MENTAL ILLNESS, DISPARITY FOR THE MENTAL PATIENT

SUNY Health Science Center, 750 East Adams Street, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA
(Prof T Szasz MD)

The core concept of mental illness--to which the vast majority of
psychiatrists and the public adhere--is that diseases of the mind are
diseases of the brain; in other words, that mental diseases and brain
diseases are the same kinds of diseases.1 It is now widely accepted that
"the overwhelming weight of medical research has demonstrated that mental
illnesses are biologically based".2 The equating of mental disease with
brain disease, supported by the authority of a large body of neuroscience
literature, is used to rationalise the drug treatment of mental illness and
justify the demand for parity in insurance coverage for medical and mental
disorders.

Reflecting the influence of these ideas and their implications, on Sept 26,
1997, President Clinton signed the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 (PL
104-204), which took effect on Jan 1, 1998). "This landmark law", according
to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), "begins the process
of ending the long-held practice of providing less insurance coverage for
mental illnesses, or brain disorders, than is provided for equally serious
physical disorders". (See the NAMI website--http://www.nami.org )

Many states have enacted similar legislation.2 Congress enacted, 7 years
earlier, the Patient Self-Determination Act, another important piece of
legislation with potentially far-reaching implications for mental patients.

It has apparently gone unnoticed that the rhetoric of parity in insurance
status for patients with medical or mental illness is inconsistent with the
reality of disparity in their legal status. This disparity is usually
justified on the ground that medical diseases, unlike mental diseases, are
unlikely to impair the patient's competence to elect or reject treatment.
Patients with sarcoma are assumed to remain in possession of their mental
faculties, but patients with schizophrenia are not. Thus, medical patients
are treated as contracting moral agents, and medical hospitals and
physicians are never accused of imprisoning them. Mental patients, however,
are commonly treated as if they are minors or unconscious, and mental
hospitals and psychiatrists are often accused of imprisoning them.3

Note that the truth or falsity of the claim that mental diseases are brain
diseases is largely irrelevant to the disparity in legal status between the
patient with psychiatric illness and the patient with neurological illness.
Before World War II, when neurosyphilis was still common, most patients
with paresis (general paralysis of the insane)-- unlike most patients with
other neurological ailments, such as Parkinsonism and multiple
sclerosis--were confined in mental hospitals against their will. There was
a good reason for this policy. Patients with paresis, like other "insane"
people, commonly exhibited "disordered" thoughts, feelings, and behaviours,
whereas most patients with other brain diseases did not. In short, mental
patients (the "mad" or "insane") were confined against their will primarily
because they misbehaved, not because they were sick. This continues to be
the case.

The contention that confining people against their will is an accepted part
of the mental hospital's social function is starkly illustrated by the 1997
Supreme Court ruling in Kansas v Leroy Hendricks (No 95-1649) upholding a
law that "states have a right to use psychiatric hospitals to confine
certain sex offenders once they have completed their prison terms, even if
those offenders do not meet mental illness commitment criteria".4,5 Despite
the characterisation of this ruling as an "abuse" of the mental health
system by Psychiatric News, the American Psychiatric Association's official
newspaper,6 traditional social-psychiatric custom leads directly to such
abuses. As the diagnosis of bodily illness justifies a physician's
admission of a willing patient to the hospital, so the diagnosis of mental
illness justifies a judge's (and a psychiatrist's) admission of an
unwilling patient to a mental hospital. Failure to acknowledge this fact
precludes genuine reforms in psychiatric policy.

The Patient Self-Determination Act makes it mandatory for healthcare
providers receiving Medicare or Medicaid payments to "inform patients of
their existing rights under state law to refuse treatment and prepare
advance directives".7 The Act requires healthcare providers in hospitals
and other healthcare settings:

To develop written policies concerning advance directives;

To ask all new patients whether they have prepared an advance directive and
to include this information in the patient's chart;

To give patients written materials describing the facility's policies on
advance directives and the patient's right (under applicable state law) to
prepare such a document; and

To educate staff and the community about advance directives.8

The mandate of the Act reflects the US political commitment to the value of
the patient's autonomy as an integral part of the right to personal
liberty. Although nothing in the Act suggests that the term "patient" does
not include those treated by psychiatrists, prevailing mental health
practices clearly fail to comply with the mandates--for example,
involuntary psychiatric hospitalisation, and involuntary drug treatment of
mental patients living in psychiatric facilities as well as the community.

The treatment of people without their consent, and even against their will,
happens far more often with mental patients than with medical patients.
Rare but dramatic dilemmas of involuntary treatment involving patients on
life support, such as the much-publicised case of Nancy Cruzan,9 capture
the interest of the public. Most people can imagine themselves on life
support against their will. By contrast, routine cases of involuntary
treatment--typically involving the admission to hospital of people who
disturb the peace--appear uncontroversial and hold little interest for the
public. Most people either cannot see themselves in such a predicament or
believe that, in such a situation, medical judgment ought to over-ride the
patient's choice. These reactions reflect the intuitive understanding,
albeit unarticulated, experienced by most people who feel that there really
is a difference between medical and mental disease.

I hope that the increasing emphasis on patient responsibility and
self-determination in medicine will have a knock-on effect on patient
responsibility and self-determination in psychiatry. Indeed, I believe that
the so-called medical model of mental illness holds out more promise for
clarifying the mental patients' legal status than for understanding their
malady. In any case, we have to confront the marked disparity in legal
status between these two kinds of patients.

The evidence that psychiatric practices fail to conform to the requirements
of the Patient Self-Determination Act is so abundant that the assertion
hardly requires documentation. A single example should suffice.
Investigators studied about 350 admissions to three acute psychiatric
inpatient units in Virginia. 45 of the patients tried to refuse treatment.
None succeeded: "Psychiatrists exercised their discretion to promptly treat
all patients who refused treatment. Nonetheless, these patients suffered
more morbidity than compliant patients. This study suggests that the
negative sequelae of an inhospital treatment refusal cannot be eliminated
by rapid treatment".10 The investigators candidly acknowledge that
"refusers were prescribed higher doses of antipsychotic medications than
were compliant patients". Patients who refused treatment, according to this
study, "had negative attitudes toward past, present, and future treatment
at the time of admission"; it was felt that such attitudes may be
"generated by prior coercive treatment".

The dilemmas that mental patients pose for themselves, their families, and
society can be resolved if the familiar advance directive or "living will"
is adapted to the circumstances of psychiatric patients and their carers. I
proposed such an advance psychiatric directive--or, as I called it,
"psychiatric will"--in 1982, crafting it especially for the needs of mental
patients who face the prospect of future involuntary treatment.11 The
intent of the directive was to transcend the problems created by
psychiatric crises or emergencies--situations in which the patients'
involuntary treatment is justified by their being deemed dangerous to
themselves or others.

Modelled on the last will that comes into force after death, the
psychiatric will becomes operative only after the person's legal status has
undergone the change he or she anticipates. As the last will becomes
effective only after the testator is officially declared dead, the
psychiatric will would become effective only after the person was
officially declared a mental patient (dangerous to himself or others).
Executing such a document would be of special interest to individuals who
have undergone an episode of involuntary psychiatric treatment; they would
have first-hand experience of the interventions they might want to request
or reject in the future, should they be deemed to require psychiatric care.
Like the last will, the psychiatric will would be valid only if executed by
people considered legally competent at the time of its signing. This
criterion is met, by definition, by individuals who have been discharged
from psychiatric hospitals, because they are deemed capable of living on
their own. Generally, mental patients not declared legally incompetent are
covered because, in the USA, adults are presumed to be competent until
declared incompetent, just as defendants are presumed to be innocent until
proven guilty. So far, the idea of a psychiatric will has aroused more
interest in Europe, especially Germany, than it has in the USA.

Some may object that if people who are committable by current criteria were
left at liberty, because that is what they requested in their psychiatric
will, they might harm themselves or others, imposing financial and personal
costs on families, insurance companies, or the government. Although this is
true, involuntary psychiatric interventions also entail significant
financial and personal costs, and it is not at all clear which option would
be the costliest in the long run. In any case, in Anglo-American political
philosophy, there is not supposed to be a price on the freedom of the
individual. As for the possibility of such people harming others, their
psychiatric will deals with this contingency by requesting that their
"treatment" consist of the punishment prescribed by law for their
particular offence.

Another objection, also stemming from the fear of the mental patient's
dangerousness, might run like this. When a medically ill person--such as
one with a progressive brain tumour--loses his "mind", it is reasonable to
respect his advance request that he be given no further treatment since his
choice harms only himself. However, when a mentally ill person, such as one
with schizophrenia, loses his "mind", many people feel it is unreasonable
to respect his advance request that he be given no further treatment
because his choice may harm others as well. This misgiving is intrinsic to
our concept of mental illness. We do not know, however, whether so-called
mental patients would commit more or less violence against others if those
who elect to be punished for legal transgression were to be "treated" by
the legal sanctions they prefer rather than by the psychiatric sanctions
they reject.

Curiously, writers on advance directives rarely consider the situation of
psychiatric patients; when they do consider it, it is to promote the
patients' consent to treatment rather than to protect their right to refuse
it. For example, a recent treatise by an attorney on the mental patient's
right to refuse treatment makes no reference to the Patient
Self-Determination Act or to the psychiatric will. The attorney takes the
view that when the psychiatrist's decision is to treat, the patient's
refusal is suspect: "When the objection is to a therapeutic
intervention--hospitalization or conventional treatment--recommended by the
patient's therapists, there also may be reason to at least question whether
the refusal of such treatment might be antitherapeutic and inconsistent
with their welfare".12 He goes on to say that the use of such instruments
by mental patients may be "therapeutically advantageous".

Such prejudgment destroys the usefulness of the advance directive as a
device for protecting the mental patient's right to self-determination. In
psychiatry, unlike in other medical specialties, tradition sanctions the
use of involuntary treatment. Hence, the principal use of advanced
directives in psychiatry must be to help patients to avoid unwanted
interventions. In a setting where enlightened voices claim that patients
diagnosed as mentally ill ought to be treated like patients diagnosed as
medically ill, and where laws guarantee "parity" with respect to insurance
coverage, differential treatment of the two groups with respect to their
right to refuse treatment is particularly troubling. We must beware lest
these latest efforts at psychiatric reform result in greater parity between
psychiatric and non-psychiatric physicians, but greater disparity between
psychiatric and non-psychiatric patients.

Adoption of an advance mental-health directive or psychiatric will would
help patients, physicians, and lawyers alike to cut psychiatry's Gordian
knot--namely, the conflation of (mental) illness and (legal) incompetence.
The Patient Self-Determination Act requires that the law afford the same
rights to accept or reject treatment to the competent medical patient and
to the competent (ex)mental patient. The psychiatric will, supported by the
proper application of the Act to psychiatry, would thus protect mental
patients from involuntary treatment in the event that, at some future time,
they are deemed to be in need of such treatment, but, because of (mental)
illness, are thought to be unable to make sound decisions about their own
welfare. (If such persons break the law, they ought to be charged with a
crime and tried for it; if not, they ought to be left alone.) Psychiatric
practice would then conform to the requirements of the Act, and Americans,
as patients as well as citizens, would be guaranteed equal protection under
the law.

I thank Alice Michtom and Roger Yanow for their help in the preparation of
this paper.

References

1 Szasz T. The meaning of mind: language, morality, and neuroscience.
Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996: 115-38.

2 Anon. Campaign moves Congress and the nation forward. Campaign Spotlight:
The Quarterly NAMI Review 1997; 1: 2.

3 Associated Press. Psychiatric hospital accused of holding patients
captive in Fla. Arizona Republic, Dec 14, 1996: A9.

4 Anon. Excerpts from opinions on status of sex offenders. New York Times,
June 24, 1997: B11.

5 Collins J. Throwing away the key. Time, July 7, 1997: 29.

6 Hausman K. Court ruling opens door to abuse of mental health system.
Psychiatric News 1997; 32: 1.

7 Editorial. The Patient Self-Determination Act. JAMA 1991; 266: 410-12.

8 Greco PJ, Schulman KA, Lavizzo-Mourey R, Hansen-Flaschen J. The Patient
Self-Determination Act and the Future of Advance Directives, Ann Intern Med
1991; 115: 639-43.

9 Cruzan v Director, Missouri Department of Health, 110 S Ct 2841, 1990.

10 Kasper JA, Hoge SK, Feucht-Haviar T, Cortina J, Cohen B. Prospective
study of patients' refusal of antipsychotic medication under a physician
discretion review procedure. Am J Psychiatry 1997; 154: 483-89.

11 Szasz T. The psychiatric will: a new mechanism for protecting persons
against 'psychosis' and psychiatry. Am Psychol 1982; 37: 762-70.

12 Winick BJ. The right to refuse mental health treatment. Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association, 1997: 398-99.

[Visit The Thomas S. Szasz Cybercenter for Liberty and Responsibility at
http://rdz.acor.org/szasz]

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Controlled Heroin Distribution Given The Nod (An Associated Press story
in The Australian says Switzerland's experimental heroin maintenance program
is set to be extended after Swiss lawmakers yesterday gave the go-ahead
for doctors to prescribe heroin to long-term addicts on a permanent basis.)

Subj: Switzerland: Controlled Heroin Distribution Given The Nod
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n886.a11.html
Pubdate: 10 Oct 1998
Source: Australian, The (Australia)
Contact: ausletr@matp.newsltd.com.au
Website: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/
Author: Associated Press

CONTROLLED HEROIN DISTRIBUTION GIVEN THE NOD

SWITZERLAND'S experimental drug-distribution program is set to be extended
after Swiss lawmakers yesterday gave the go-ahead for doctors to prescribe
heroin to long-term addicts on a permanent basis.

The upper house of parliament approved the measure by 30 votes to four,
following approval by the lower house the previous day.

The move is expected to increase from 800 to some 2000 or more the number
of addicts who can receive controlled distribution. It comes into effect
Saturday.

Until now, the daily supply of nominally priced heroin to addicts who had
rejected all forms of therapy was on an experimental basis.

Switzerland's experiment with drug distribution began in 1994 with the
first government-authorised distribution of heroin, morphine and methadone.
A three-year study last year said the project had slashed crime, misery and
death associated with the hard-core drug scene.

In September 1997, voters overwhelmingly endorsed the Government's liberal
drug policies, including the distribution program. In a referendum, nearly
71 per cent threw out a proposal which would have clamped down on drugs use.

Immediately after the vote, the health ministry announced plans to put
State provision of heroin to long-term addicts on a permanent legal footing.

Interior Minister Ruth Dreifuss told lawmakers that passing the measure to
extend the program could help save lives. Some 150 addicts are on the
waiting list, she said.

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