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

Pot Center Founder Fights Charges (An update in The San Francisco Chronicle
on pretrial motions and hearings involving the prosecution of Peter Baez,
the former operator of Santa Clara County's only medical marijuana
dispensary. The next hearing is Dec. 23.)

Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 15:40:40 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US CA: Pot Center Founder Fights Charges
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: hadorn@dnai.com (David Hadorn)
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Contact: chronletters@sfgate.com
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Pubdate: 5 December 1998
Copyright: 1998 San Francisco Chronicle
Author: Todd Henneman, Chronicle Staff Writer

POT CENTER FOUNDER FIGHTS CHARGES

Search excessive, lawyer argues

Trying to avoid a long prison term, the former operator of Santa Clara
County's only medical marijuana center went to court yesterday in an
effort to get his charges dismissed.

Attorneys for Peter Baez argued that San Jose police officers went
beyond the scope of their search warrants in March when they conducted
a ``wholesale seizure of records'' by removing all 265 client files
from the Santa Clara County Medical Cannabis Center. They seek to have
evidence from that search suppressed and the charges against Baez dismissed.

Baez faces seven felony counts charging him with selling marijuana to
people lacking a doctor's recommendation, operating a drug house and
grand theft. Baez was co-founder of the San Jose cannabis center,
which opened in April 1997 and closed last May 8. It opened in
response to 1996's Proposition 215, which authorized the cultivation
and use of marijuana for medical purposes. ``To seize all the patient
files ... requires a showing that the business is pervaded with fraud
or pervaded with illegal conduct. So the fact the center had been in
operation with no legal difficulties for approximately a year at the
time the search was executed goes to this question of whether there's
any showing of pervasion of fraud,'' said defense attorney Gerald Uelmen.

The district attorney's office maintains that the search remained
within the warrant's scope, that the Fourth Amendment was not violated
and that police officers were free to inspect the center under San
Jose's regulations.

``Mr. Baez doesn't have standing to object to the search of the
center,'' Deputy District Attorney Robert Baker said before the
hearing in a Palo Alto courtroom. ``The local ordinance allowed that.''

Baker said the files were removed for the convenience of both the
police and the center because reviewing all the files at the center
``would have taken months.''

Before his legal troubles began, Baez had been lauded by city
officials for his efforts to help create a medical marijuana ordinance
in San Jose and screen out people who forge a doctor's
recommendation.

The hearing will continue December 23.

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

Cop Questioned At Hearing (The San Jose Mercury News version
notes defense attorney Gerald Uelmen did not complete his initial questioning
of San Jose police Sergeant Scott Savage as Friday's hearing ended.
Supporters of Peter Baez have said the criminal case against him
stems from a vendetta by Savage.)

Date: Sun, 6 Dec 1998 21:27:59 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US CA: MMJ: Cop Questioned At Hearing
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, 5 Dec 1998
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright: 1998 Mercury Center
Contact: letters@sjmercury.com
Website: http://www.sjmercury.com/
Author: Raoul V. Mowatt

COP QUESTIONED AT HEARING

Lawyers for medicinal-marijuana advocate Peter Baez began grilling
police witnesses Friday in an attempt to get evidence thrown out in
the case against the head of a former San Jose-based marijuana center
because of an alleged illegal search.

Defense attorneys Gerald Uelmen, a Santa Clara University Law
professor, and Tom Nolan are arguing during a hearing that police went
beyond the bounds of a March warrant when they searched the Santa
Clara County Medical Cannabis Center, which has since been closed.

For months, Baez and his supporters have said the criminal case
against him stemmed from a vendetta against him by San Jose police
Sgt. Scott Savage.

Savage weathered inquiries in a Palo Alto courtroom about police
regulations for medicinal marijuana centers in the wake of Proposition
215, which allowed creation of such institutions to distribute
marijuana to the seriously ill with a doctor's order.

One of the issues Uelmen was trying to explore with Savage is why
officers seized all the center's patient records and photocopied them
on March 23. The defense contends that the officers should have first
tried to determine which files suggested illegal behavior and seized
only those.

Savage said the ``quagmire of paperwork'' from Baez's former center
made it too difficult to see at a glance whether the 35-year-old
Gilroy man had violated the law.

In one tense exchange, Uelmen asked, ``You believe you had a right to
copy a file whether it appeared to comply with Prop. 215 or not?''

Savage frowned, then paused. Then he asked for the question to be
repeated again.

``In reviewing it, it was difficult to determine if any of them
complied with 215,'' Savage answered.

Deputy District Attorney Rob Baker contended that the police acted
commendably, and said the files were such a jumble it would have taken
months to sort through each one at the center.

Uelmen did not complete his initial questioning of Savage and, when
the hearing continues Dec. 23 before Superior Court Judge Diane
Northway, Savage and three other police officers are to testify. But
Baez said he became more optimistic after watching Savage on the
stand. ``Truth is on our side, and it's starting to show,'' he said.

For about a year, Baez was the executive director of the cannabis
center, a San Jose facility that sold marijuana to about 265 people.
Some of his supporters, including celebrity cousin, folksinger Joan
Baez, were on hand Friday.

He and his colleagues met repeatedly with Savage before Baez was hit
with criminal charges. In court documents, police contend sales to
five members of the center were illegal because none had obtained a
doctor's recommendation. They also allege that Baez was using center
money to pay for such personal expenses as his home satellite
television bill and garbage service.

Baez also was charged with grand theft because, prosecutors contend,
he received a $14,000 federal housing subsidy that stipulates he have
no other income. In addition, Baez was indicted on a seventh charge,
maintaining a drug house.

Baez, who has AIDS and colon cancer, has said he is not guilty. He and
other supporters blamed Savage, author of police department
regulations for medicinal marijuana centers and the primary
investigator in the case against Baez.

The case is just one example of legal troubles facing
medicinal-marijuana advocates. The U.S. government filed civil
lawsuits in January against six Northern California clubs that
provided medicinal marijuana.

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

Smoking and the Self-Righteous (Los Angeles Times columnist Susan Self
says you know the tide has turned in the war on tobacco when a nonsmoker
like her starts to feel sympathy for cigarette companies. But someone has to
take a stand for principle. There have been 34 studies of the effects
of secondhand smoke noted by the Congressional Research Service
and only seven found significant negative health effects. One actually
found benefits. What these studies mean, in the words of the Economist
magazine, "is that the effects are so small as to be hard to pin down
with any certainty at all." Virtue no longer seems to be its own reward.)

Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 23:22:39 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: Smoking and the Self-Righteous
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Jim Rosenfield
Pubdate: Sat, 5 Dec 1998
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Contact: letters@latimes.com
Fax: 213-237-4712
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Copyright: 1998 Los Angeles Times.
Author: SUSAN SELF

SMOKING AND THE SELF-RIGHTEOUS

If you would like a textbook lesson in mob rule, reach into your pocket and
take out a cigarette. When your potential executioners are at the point of
apoplexy, take a long, long drag, and blow the most perfect smoke rings
you're capable of.

You know the tide has turned when a nonsmoker like myself is starting to
feel sympathy for cigarette companies. But like the ACLU defending the
Nazi marchers in Illinois, someone has to take a stand for principle.

Tiresome antismoking radio spots, with no rebuttal following, continue to
pollute the otherwise balanced airwaves. Billboards depicting lung-less
cowboys and sarcastic debutantes clog airspace. Then there is the TV
commercial created by the state of California--and obviously financed by
me--that boldly flaunts misleading statistics. After some art-house
footage of a smoking toilet, the commercial triumphantly announces that
54,000 people die annually from secondhand smoke. So there. Case closed.
No smoking in bars for the rest of eternity. We're the government and we're
making the decisions around here.

An Internet investigation revealed the following: There have been 34
studies of the effects of secondhand smoke noted by the Congressional
Research Service and only seven found significant negative health effects.
One actually found benefits. What these studies mean, in the words of the
Economist magazine, "is that the effects are so small as to be hard to pin
down with any certainty at all."

That didn't sound like a scientific slam-dunk to me, so I called a less
predictably sympathetic source: a public health physician at the Rand
Institute. After a few nit-picking comments about the size of the control
group, he told me that yes, indeed, secondhand smoke is nobody's friend,
but to keep in mind that these studies were done on the spouses of
smokers--people who lived with smokers, in the same house, following them
around everywhere. To occasionally lurk in a smoky bar isn't going to make
much difference to your health in the long run.

So why do we have laws about bars and not about homes? In a free society,
you get to choose what payoffs are worth what risks. You get to decide
what a good life is and then promise to shut up if it's over all too
quickly.

A probe of the national psyche is called for. Why is cigarette smoking now
considered the eighth deadly sin? Granted, there is always something
patently annoying about a person who lives a little too close to the edge
and refuses to apologize. Or perhaps it's because smoking conveys a
contempt for the current ethos that holds health as evidence of morality.
Maybe it's the refusal to join in the culture of fear. How dare you, Mr.
Smoker, continue in your evil ways? Don't you think these statistics apply
to you? Do you realize how much time we all spend to convince ourselves
that these years of boredom are going to pay off in 30 additional years of
life--grim, spartan and rife with wheat germ.

Virtue no longer seems to be its own reward: If people have renounced all
of life's pleasures, why aren't they at least getting tipsy on a sense of
their own goodness? Like the neighbors whom you secretly suspect of
calling the police to come break up the party because they weren't invited,
the Health Missionaries recognize it's no fun to be alone.

So stronger action is called for. No, I'm not going to tell you to take up
cigarettes, because then I'll also have to tell you to quit blowing smoke
in my face. But if you let this appalling restriction of freedom come and
go without some sort of response, you are laying the foundation for further
intrusions. Since the antismoking zealots have the public convinced that
bar workers are basically indentured servants shackled to the cash
register, it's only logical that next year they'll be demanding to inspect
our homes, as there may be innocent children or nannies or cleaning people
sitting around breathing.

Soon, all smokers will have to register with the state and unattractive
warning signs will be planted on lawns of those whose homes contain
unacceptable levels of nicotine. Tanning booths, doughnuts and motorcycles
will be next, and inevitably we'll be getting wake-up calls for required
morning exercises with our neighbors while oversized speakers blast out
inspirational lyrics. So the next time that someone asks you if they can
smoke, go ahead and say no, but thank them for trying.

Susan Self Works in Politics. She Lives in Brentwood

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

Man convicted of drug dealing says voodoo made him do it
(According to The Associated Press, Olakunle A. Osoba was convicted
in Columbus, Ohio, of heroin trafficking, but said voodoo made him do it.
The judge didn't buy it and sentenced him Friday to 2 1/2 years
in federal prison.)

From: "Bob Owen@W.H.E.N." (when@olywa.net)
To: "_Drug Policy --" (when@hemp.net)
Subject: Man convicted of drug dealing says voodoo made him do it
Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 14:38:42 -0800
Sender: owner-when@hemp.net

Man convicted of drug dealing says voodoo made him do it

The Associated Press 12/05/98 5:35 PM Eastern

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A man convicted of heroin trafficking said voodoo
made him do it. The judge didn't buy it.

Olakunle A. Osoba was sentenced Friday to 2 1/2 years in federal prison.

Before the sentencing, Osoba, 50, a native of Nigeria, told U.S. District
Judge John D. Holschuh that his problems started when he began living with a
woman in New York.

He said she was a witch who repeatedly fed him "voodoo poisonous food." His
health deteriorated and he began suffering from arthritis.

Osoba said he left the woman, at the suggestion of police, but she still
controlled him.

He said she ordered him through his dreams to send her money, and he began
selling drugs to finance the payments.

Osoba said he realized that Americans have difficulty believing in the power
of voodoo.

"But in Africa, they know better," he said.

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

Legal Office Didn't Seek Aid (The Baltimore Sun says state public defender
Stephen E. Harris was accused yesterday of placing political concerns
over constitutional rights. The Maryland Office of the Public Defender,
which provides lawyers for the poor, requested $750,000 in October to hire
eight additional lawyers in the current fiscal year, but the request came
months after it sent letters to 350 defendants who were charged with drug
offenses, telling them they were eligible for free attorneys but that the
office could not provide them.)

Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 21:35:19 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US MD: Legal Office Didn't Seek Aid
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: General Pulaski
Pubdate: Sat, 05 Dec 1998
Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)
Contact: letters@baltsun.com
Website: http://www.sunspot.net/
Copyright: 1998 by The Baltimore Sun, a Times Mirror Newspaper.

LEGAL OFFICE DIDN'T SEEK AID

Legislators criticize public defender for not staffing drug courts

Since May, attorneys for the poor have turned away hundreds of indigent
people facing felony drug charges in Baltimore Circuit Court, saying they
did not have enough staff.

All the while, state legislators who control the purse strings of state
government say, the Office of the Public Defender could have requested more
money, but it waited more than six months to do so.

The lawmakers say that was too long. State Sen. Barbara A. Hoffman, a
Baltimore Democrat who chairs the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee, said
yesterday that state public defender Stephen E. Harris placed political
concerns over constitutional rights.

"Constitutional protections take precedence over money disputes," said
Hoffman, who spoke with Harris yesterday. "He wants to stay within his
budget because he doesn't want to get criticized. His fear of being blamed
caused him to do what he did."

The office, which provides lawyers for the poor, requested $750,000 in
October to hire eight additional lawyers in the current fiscal year. The
request came months after it gave 350 defendants letters telling them they
were eligible for free attorneys but that the office could not provide them.

State Del. Howard P. Rawlings, the Baltimore Democrat who chairs the House
Appropriations Committee, said, "There are provisions in state law for
emergency expenditures of state funds. I think if we are a country of laws,
we ought to abide by the Constitution."

Del. Peter Franchot, a Montgomery County Democrat who is chairman of the
House's subcommittee on Public Safety and Administration, said the requested
money has been approved.

Harris would not say yesterday whether he considered asking for emergency
funding. The so-called deficiency request for additional lawyers -- the
office had had 32 lawyers handling felony cases -- was made during the
regular budget cycle for the next fiscal year. "We began the planning for
the October request in the beginning of the summer. We have been working on
this for quite some time," Harris said.

He declined to comment further.

Some officials, including Franchot, say Harris was placed in an untenable
position. Baltimore's Administrative Judge Joseph H. H. Kaplan opened two
drug courts in May to address an influx of cases. The courts were opened
after the legislative session and near the end of the budget cycle, when
obtaining additional funds is more difficult.

Franchot said the legislature has placed "demands" on Harris to manage his
$42 million budget better. Last fiscal year, Harris promised not to go over
budget, as he had done the previous year, Franchot said. Harris'
predecessor, Alan H. Murrell, drew much criticism for routinely going over
his budget.

"The legislature has been very aggressive in criticizing previous
deficiencies," Franchot said. "A lot of demands have been made" on Harris.

Franchot said the blame for the crisis falls on the "dysfunctional"
operation of the court system in Baltimore. Prosecutors, public defenders
and the courts need to communicate better, he said.

Harris is "not blameless, because there is some gamesmanship going on,"
Franchot said, but "fundamentally, the problem is a management problem."

"It is the responsibility of the judiciary to bring all the parties together
and propose constructive reform so we don't have these crises occurring that
affect innocent people's lives," Franchot said.

Maryland's Chief Judge Robert M. Bell said yesterday that he will meet next
week with court officials to discuss the future of the two new drug courts,
including the possibility of shutting down the courts until the public
defender's office can staff them.

Though public defenders started handing out the letters in May, the shortage
of lawyers did not become a crisis until October. Harris, Kaplan and Bell,
along with others, met to work out a temporary solution so that charges
against some of the defendants would not be dismissed.

Defendants must be tried within six months of their first court appearance,
so the group of court officials developed a plan to bring many of the
defendants initially turned away by the public defender's office back into
court to be given attorneys if they wanted them.

The plan covered only November. As of Dec. 1, the drug case courtrooms were
again empty of public defenders. The court arranged for volunteer lawyers to
take cases for the first two weeks of this month.

The lack of public defenders has had defendants greeting court proceedings
with blank stares and mystified looks. One man facing 20 years in prison on
felony drug charges had only his mother to consult when prosecutors offered
him a plea bargain that would keep him out of jail.

George L. Russell Jr., a former Baltimore circuit judge, said the public
defender's office walks a tightrope because lawmakers are reluctant to fund
lawyers for defendants.

"Prosecutors have no problem because people think they are on the Lord's
side. The public defender's office historically has been an afterthought,"
Russell said. Harris "doesn't want to say a thing to upset the legislature."

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

2 DeKalb cops shot during raid of alleged drug house
(The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says the two DeKalb County
prohibition agents were recovering at home from minor gunshot wounds
they suffered during a Thursday night raid on a suspected drug house
in Belvedere. The suspected shooter, Dwight Brown, surrendered to police,
who charged him with aggravated assault and marijuana possession.)

From: "Bob Owen@W.H.E.N." (when@olywa.net)
To: "_Drug Policy --" (when@hemp.net)
Subject: 2 GA cops shot during raid of alleged drug house
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 20:45:35 -0800
Sender: owner-when@hemp.net

December 5, 1998

2 DeKalb cops shot during raid of alleged drug house

By R. Robin McDonald
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Two DeKalb County police officers are recovering at home from minor gunshot
wounds they suffered during a Thursday night raid on a suspected drug house
in Belvedere.

Officer John Germano, 32, and Officer P.B. Hilton were shot as they broke
through the door of a house at 1815 San Gabriel Ave. in central DeKalb off
Memorial Drive. Neighbors and members of the Belvedere Civic Association
have complained about drugs being sold out of the house, police said.

The officers were executing a search warrant when they were wounded,
probably by the same bullet that passed through both of Hilton's legs and
then struck Germano, who was standing beside him, DeKalb Capt. Derwin Brown
said.

Both officers were treated at Grady Memorial Hospital and released early
Friday morning.

As the police officers entered the house about 11 p.m., they spotted at the
end of a hall "a hand gun come around the doorway," Brown said. "The gunshot
came from down the hallway."

At the time, there were five adults, including the suspected shooter, two
teenagers and six children ranging in age from 5-10 in the house, police
said.

The suspected shooter, Dwight Brown, 42, soon surrendered to police, who
charged him with aggravated assault and marijuana possession.

Police also arrested Linda Brown, 42; Shonterie Brown, 18; Thomas Perdue,
20; and a 15-year-old on felony drug charges.

Neighbors said one of the women now under arrest is known to neighborhood
children as "the candy lady" because she sells them candy.

"She probably sold candy to the kids and dope to the adults," Capt. Brown
said.

Police raided the house after civic association members, whose clubhouse is
next door, complained that illegal drugs were being sold openly on the
street, often by occupants of the house who would flag down passing traffic
with their illicit wares, the police captain said.

During the raid, police said, they seized a .380-caliber semi-automatic
pistol, ammunition, small quantities of marijuana and crack cocaine and drug
paraphernalia.

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

US Court Convicts Fugitive Haitian Of Drug Smuggling (Reuters
says Joseph Michel Francois, a top police official and reputed death squad
leader under Haiti's former military regime, was convicted in absentia
by a federal court in Miami on Friday of cocaine smuggling and money
laundering. Eight other people were convicted in the case in US District
Court, four of whom are fugitives. One of those convicted was Joel Audain,
a US immigration officer who allowed traffickers to pass through secure areas
of Miami airport.)

Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 21:35:32 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US FL: Wire: U.S. Court Convicts Fugitive Haitian Of Drug Smuggling
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: General Pulaski
Pubdate: Sat, 05 Dec 1998
Source: Reuters
Copyright: 1998 Reuters Limited.

U.S. COURT CONVICTS FUGITIVE HAITIAN OF DRUG SMUGGLING

MIAMI, Dec 4 (Reuters) - A top police official and reputed death squad
leader under Haiti's former military regime was convicted in absentia by a
federal court on Friday of cocaine smuggling and money laundering.

Joseph Michel Francois is a fugitive from justice, having fought off U.S.
attempts to extradite him from Honduras, where he settled after the toppling
of the Haitian regime in 1994.

He was one of nine people convicted in the case in the U.S. District Court,
three others of whom are also fugitives.

A U.S. immigration officer who allowed traffickers to pass through secure
areas of Miami airport was one of those convicted. He is in custody.

U.S. drug fighters accused Francois of using his position as Port-au-
Prince's police chief to set up an apparatus that flooded the United States
with more than 33 tons of Colombian cocaine between 1987 and 1994, using
Haiti as a transit point.

According to the indictment, he had a private landing strip built and put
cronies in charge of the airport and seaports in return for millions of
dollars in payoffs from Colombian cartels.

He was arrested by Honduran police and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
agents in March 1997 in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, but has successfully
thwarted attempts to extradite him.

U.S. Attorney Tom Scott said in a statement on Friday that Francois, 41, had
been convicted of conspiracy to import cocaine from Colombia and Curacao in
the Netherlands Antilles.

The five men convicted and in custody included Fernando Burgos-Martinez, 57,
the Colombian cartel's liaison with corrupt Haitian officials, Marc Valme,
44, a Haitian military official who worked with the traffickers at
Port-au-Prince airport, and Joel Audain, 39, a U.S. Immigration and
Naturalisation officer at Miami airport.

One defendant, Fritz Lafontante, 44, fled during the trial.

They face a maximum of life imprisonment with a minimum of 10 years in jail,
and a fine of $4 million. Judge Federico Moreno set sentencing for Feb. 12.

Francois is believed to have been the mastermind behind the 1991 military
coup that toppled Haiti's elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. During
his tenure as police chief he ran a security apparatus that viciously
repressed any opposition.

He fled to the Dominican Republic in 1994 after U.S. troops invaded the
country to restore Aristide to power. He left for Honduras in 1996 after
Dominican authorities arrested him on charges of plotting to overthrow the
Haitian government again.

He has proclaimed his innocence over drug smuggling in news conferences in
Honduras.

U.S. officials have recently expressed concern that Haiti has again become a
major transit point for illegal narcotics bound for the United States.

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

A Newcomer in the Liberal Arts - Criminal Justice (The New York Times
says students are flocking to criminal-justice courses, making criminal
justice the fastest-growing major in the United States. From an obscure
discipline scorned by most academics, with only two small doctoral programs
as recently as 1970, criminal justice has exploded to 350,000 undergraduate
majors at colleges and universities. In part, the appeal of criminal justice
is a result of the huge growth in crime since the 1960s, the prison-building
boom and the fascination with criminals.)

Date: Sun, 6 Dec 1998 18:31:38 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: NYT: A Newcomer in the Liberal Arts: Criminal Justice
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: emr@javanet.com (Dick Evans)
Source: New York Times (NY)
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Copyright: 1998 The New York Times Company
Author: Fox Butterfield
Pubdate: Saturday, 5 Dec 1998

A NEWCOMER IN THE LIBERAL ARTS: CRIMINAL JUSTICE

NEWARK, N.J. -- At first glance, Bernice Jones is not your typical college
student. At 33, she is a little old, and she arrived for her
criminal-justice class at Rutgers University straight from work at the
Essex County Prosecutors Office, neatly dressed in a navy blue suit, blue
pumps and matching handbag.

There is also what she delicately calls "my family background in the
criminal-justice system." Her two brothers served time in prison for drug
convictions (one of them has since died), and the father of her 2-year-old
daughter is serving a 10- to 15-year sentence for armed robbery. But both
her job and her family situation make Ms. Jones representative of the
multitude of students flocking to criminal-justice courses, making criminal
justice the fastest-growing major in the United States, according to the
Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, a professional organization. From an
obscure discipline scorned by most academics, with only two small doctoral
programs as recently as 1970, criminal justice has exploded to 350,000
undergraduate majors at colleges and universities, said Freda Adler, a
professor of criminal justice at Rutgers and a former president of the
American Society of Criminology.

In part, the appeal of criminal justice is a result of the huge growth in
crime since the 1960s, the prison-building boom and the fascination with
criminals. These factors have combined to create a major new job market for
police officers and prison guards. For some students, like Ms. Jones,
criminal justice also offers a way to understand the lives of those around
them better.

But at another level, the flood of new courses and students is a reflection
of the intellectual success of criminal justice. Ten to 20 years ago
academic criminologists and law-enforcement authorities thought the police
could do little to fight crime, but now many new ideas have proved
successful in reducing the country's high crime rate. Among these seminal
theories was the suggestion by James Q. Wilson of the University of
California at Los Angeles and George Kelling of Rutgers University that the
police concentrate on "fixing broken windows," meaning that they could
avert more serious crimes like murder by arresting people for petty crimes
like vandalism.

At the same time, Herman Goldstein of the University of Wisconsin pioneered
the concept of community policing, which means that police officers,
instead of sitting in their patrol cars waiting for a 911 call after a
crime has occurred, get involved in their communities, thereby preventing
crime. Some of the ideas have come directly from the police themselves.
Foremost among these is the management strategy introduced by William
Bratton when he was police commissioner of New York City in the '90s, in
which he insisted on the rapid collection of crime statistics and then held
his local police commanders responsible for crime control in their areas.
Like community policing, this got his officers more involved in their
neighborhoods. On a different track, Gerald Patterson, a psychologist at
the Oregon Social Learning Center in Eugene, demonstrated that early
intervention with troubled children, particularly getting their parents to
do a better job of monitoring and supervising their behavior, could prevent
delinquency. And John Braithwaite at the Australian National University in
Canberra has introduced a less punitive alternative to jail and prison by
bringing criminals together with their victims to mediate a resolution, an
idea being rapidly copied in cities around the United States.

The popularity of criminal justice on campus has cut deeply into
traditional fields like sociology and psychology. And it has emerged as a
"cash cow" for college administrators, said Donna Hale, a professor of
criminal justice at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania and past
president of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

At Shippensburg, criminal justice has become the second-largest major,
after education, with 409 undergraduates in a total enrollment of 6,700.
"We could easily be the largest, if the administration gave us the
resources, because there are so many students transferring here for
criminal justice and there are so many students on the waiting list," Ms.
Hale said. One of the factors that set criminal justice apart from some
traditional fields is the makeup of the student body. At both urban,
inner-city schools like Rutgers, where many of the students are black or
Hispanic, and rural universities like Shippensburg, where most of the
students are white, the majority of those majoring in criminal justice are
from working-class backgrounds and are the first members of their families
to go to college. The appeal is jobs as police officers, prison guards,
probation officers, private security company employees or FBI agents.

"I'm interested in the private prison field," said Michael Bonavota, a
22-year-old senior who took Ms. Adler's class. "It's a growth field with
good job opportunities. As long as there are criminals, there will be
prisons and jobs."

Ms. Hale and other specialists in criminal justice are quick to admit that
their field has also benefited from movies, television and widely covered
trials like that of O.J. Simpson. "The largest single impact on
criminal-justice enrollment in the past 10 years was "Silence of the
Lambs,"' said Timothy Flanagan, dean of the College of Criminal Justice at
Sam Houston State University in Texas.

Rebecca Thaxton, a student who was also in Ms. Adler's criminal-justice
class at Rutgers, is an administrator for an investment bank by day but
wants to become a profiler for the FBI. Her inspiration comes from watching
the NBC show "Profiler," which is about a beautiful, blond FBI agent who
solves gruesome murders through psychological analysis of demented killers'
minds. "When I'm teaching," Ms. Hale recounted, "I ask students why they
take the class and what they want to be. It used to be they wanted to be
police officers or state troopers. Now they all want to be FBI profilers.
They see it on TV; it's very glamorized."

Criminal justice as a subject dates back to the 1890s when the University
of Chicago's famous School of Sociology began studying deviance in society.
But it remained the poor stepchild of criminology until the late 1960s when
President Lyndon B. Johnson's Commission on Law Enforcement and Criminal
Justice recommended that police officers be college graduates to cope with
the explosion of violent crime in the nation.

In 1968, as a result of the commission's findings, Congress created the Law
Enforcement Assistance Administration, which spent $7 billion, much of it
going to new departments of criminal justice at colleges and universities
to improve education for the police, Ms. Adler recalled. As part of this
surge, Ms. Adler helped create a School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers in
1974. While the border between criminology and criminal justice is
sometimes hard to define, Lawrence Sherman, chairman of the Department of
Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland, describes
criminal justice as "applied criminology, that portion of criminology that
specializes in studying the police, the courts and prisons."

The broader, older field of criminology is more focused on the study of
what causes crime and criminal behavior, issues like poverty, the family,
neighborhoods, gangs and, increasingly, biology.

Criminal justice is still looked down on by some academicians and is still
not taught at some prestigious schools like those in the Ivy League. But
Sherman says it has "really become a liberal art," explaining that "it
combines sociology, psychology, history, economics, politics and
statistics" and uses the scientific method.

With all the interest in crime, criminal-justice studies have taken on a
gold-rush feel. At Franklin Pierce College in New Hampshire, the
administration long lobbied the faculty to create a criminal-justice major
because it was one of the most frequently requested majors at college job
fairs and looked like a way to attract applicants.

"The administration presented a message that we had to respond to the
market demand and offer a criminal-justice major," wrote Forbes Farmer, a
professor at Franklin Pierce, in a bulletin for the Academy of Criminal
Justice Sciences. "Like other small liberal arts colleges, the
administration was promoting strategies to survive the enrollment and
financial crunch of the 1990s." In 1996, the faculty finally and
reluctantly approved, Farmer said, a decision he said was greeted
ecstatically by school officials. At Rutgers, Kimberly Robinson, a
sophomore from Newark, is thinking about majoring in criminal justice. A
major reason, she said, is that she "grew up around crime." Her brother is
in prison, her three uncles are each serving life sentences and her father
has been incarcerated four times. "At a personal level, I felt I just
didn't understand the criminal-justice system," Ms. Robinson said. But now,
she added, "I'm so interested in criminal justice, it's the only class
where I stay awake."

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Pot-Growing Professor Hopes To Teach Again (The Victoria Times-Colonist,
in British Columbia, says Professor Jean Veevers, just fined $15,000
and given a conditional 12-month sentence she can serve at home, hopes
to greet her sociology class at the University of Victoria on Jan. 4
and resume her teaching career. British Columbian Supreme Court Justice
Dean Wilson said Veevers, who suffers from chronic depression
and fatigue syndrome, arthritis and fibromyalgia, does not pose a risk
to the community.)

Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 10:10:01 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: Canada: Pot-Growing Professor Hopes To Teach Again
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Alan Randell
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (Canada)
Contact: jknox@victoriatimescolonist.com
Author: King Lee, Times-Colonist Staff
Pubdate: Sat, 5 Dec 1998

POT-GROWING PROFESSOR HOPES TO TEACH AGAIN

UVic instructor fined $15,000 and given jail term to serve at home

Prof. Jean Veevers hopes to greet her sociology class at the University of
Victoria on Jan. 4 and resume her teaching career.

"That's all I know," Veevers said Friday after she was fined $15,000 and
handed a conditional 12-month sentence she can serve at home, for
cultivating marijuana and possession for the purpose of trafficking.

"I am competent to teach. My classes are full with a waiting list," said
Veevers, described at sentencing at B.C. Supreme Court Justice Dean Wilson
as an offender who does not pose a risk for the community.

Wilson imposed a 12-month term with conditions that Veevers remain in the
province during that time and perform 60 hours of community service. He also
gave her three years to pay off the $15,000 fine.

UVic president David Strong will review her case next week and make a
decision on her status as a sociology professor.

On medical leave since a police raid on the home, Veevers said losing her
teaching job is her biggest fear.

A UVic professor since 1980, she pleaded guilty on Oct. 26 to cultivating
marijuana and possession for the purpose of trafficking. Charges of theft of
power from B.C. Hydro and mischief were stayed by Crown counsel Ernie
Froess.

Veevers: 'For once in my life, I wanted help.'

RCMP drug section officers raided Veevers' residence on April 17, 1997, and
seized 122 marijuana plants and 8.6 kilos of marijuana from what was
described as a sophisticated-grow operation.

"It was a God-awful surprise," Veevers said Friday.

"I had absolutely no idea of what was coming upon my head. I was stunned by
what came raining down on me."

Veevers she has been in a perpetual state of embarrassment over the
publicity.

"I thought I would live under my bed."

She credits her doctor, Dr. Robert Angus, and psychologist, Dr. Frances
Ricks, with helping her through the ordeal.

"I got very good help there. For once in my life, I wanted to be helped."

Veevers, 55, has been teaching at universities since she was 23, and became
a full professor before age 40.

Much had been made in court of a statement taken from her computer journal
that she wanted to retire at 55.

"It is certainly something I said a lot," admitted Veevers.

But she said it was in the context of her chronic health problems and not
monetary that she wrote that statement.

Suffering from chronic depression and fatigue syndrome, arthritis and
fibromyalgia, Veevers said she realized that she could not carry a full
workload at UVic until she was 65.

To that end, Veevers had taken a reduced responsibility appointment in the
sociology department and was to teach only one of terms, from January until
June of each year.

Meanwhile, Crown counsel Froess, who initially said that he would not appeal
Wilson's decision, later retracted his comments and said he would forward
his report to the Vancouver headquarters for a appeal decision.

Staff Sgt. Pat Convey, head of the Vancouver Island RCMP drug section, asked
to comment on the sentence, said

"It's not a hell of a lot to comment on, actually.

"I don't know what kind of message it sends to people out there who want to
get into the marijuana-growing business. It's something that's not going to
deter a lot of people."

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Antiepileptic Drug Blocks Rats' Taste For Nicotine (The Lancet, in Britain,
says scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York,
have discovered that the antiepileptic drug vigabatrin blocks
nicotine-induced brain dopamine release in rats and primates. Further,
vigabatrin treatment disrupts rats' preference for an environment previously
associated with nicotine; pretreatment with the drug blocks the development
of such a preference. Vigabatrin also blocks the biochemical and behavioural
effects of alcohol, morphine, amphetamine, and methamphetamine in animals.)

Date: Mon, 7 Dec 1998 18:24:00 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: UK: Antiepileptic Drug Blocks Rats' Taste For Nicotine
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, 5 Dec 1998
Source: Lancet, The (UK)
Contact: lancet.editorial@elsevier.co.uk
Website: http://www.thelancet.com/
Copyright: The Lancet Ltd
Author: Kelly Morris

ANTIEPILEPTIC DRUG BLOCKS RATS' TASTE FOR NICOTINE

Scientists from the USA have discovered that the antiepileptic drug
vigabatrin can block drug-seeking behaviour in animals by increasing brain
concentrations of GABA (-aminobutyric acid). If this effect is also found
in people, vigabatrin could be one way to tackle addictions, including
addiction to nicotine.

In the USA, 35 million smokers will try to quit each year. But more than
70% of attempts are unsuccessful and chronic use of nicotine replacement to
combat nicotine addiction may be harmful.

Stephen Dewey (Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA) and
co-workers previously found that vigabatrin lowered cocaine-induced
dopamine release in the brain, and abolished drug-seeking behaviour in
cocaine-addicted animals (see Lancet 1998, 352: 1290 ). Because nicotine,
like other addictive drugs, increases synaptic dopamine in areas of the
brain related to reward, the team hypothesised that vigabatrin might also
disrupt the rewarding effects of nicotine.

The investigators now report that vigabatrin blocks nicotine-induced brain
dopamine release in rats and primates. Further, vigabatrin treatment
disrupts rats' preference for an environment previously associated with
nicotine; pretreatment with the drug blocks the development of such a
preference. These findings suggest that vigabatrin abolishes the
motivational effects of nicotine (Synapse 1998; 81: 76-86). Importantly,
the dose of vigabatrin that blocks these behaviours in rats is equivalent
to less than a tenth of the standard antiepileptic dose in people, says Dewey.

Dewey and colleagues have found that vigabatrin also blocks the biochemical
and behavioural effects of alcohol, morphine, amphetamine, and
methamphetamine in animals. "It's quite unique that one drug appears
effective for many different drugs of abuse whose ability to elevate
dopamine is via a host of different mechanisms", he says. So, targeting the
GABA neurotransmitter system could be a fundamental strategy for tackling
addiction, he adds.

Clinical trials in smokers and in cocaine addicts are planned, which "could
be started within 6 months if US approval [of vigabatrin] goes smoothly",
says Dewey.

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

Ecstasy Use May Cause Brain Damage, Say Scientists (The Guardian,
in Britain, says scientists last night warned that ecstasy, or MDMA,
could trigger long-term damage to vital brain cells called serotonin neurons,
although there is still no hard evidence. Rat brain cells seem to recover.
But Professor Una McCann of the US National Institute of Mental Health
in Bethesda, Maryland, said that seven years after being treated
to a four-day course of drugs, every monkey in a series of labs
across the world had shown signs of irreversible damage. Now, she and
colleagues told a conference in London yesterday, tests and brain scans
on human volunteers show similar damage. The catch is that scientists
can only work with volunteers who have already become worried about
the drug's effects. The researchers are faced with other variables - they
cannot be sure about the amount, the frequency or the quality of the MDMA
taken, or the role of other drugs that might have been used.)

Date: Sat, 5 Dec 1998 14:31:56 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: UK: Ecstasy Use May Cause Brain Damage, Say Scientists
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: Guardian, The (UK)
Contact: letters@guardian.co.uk
Website: http://www.guardian.co.uk/
Copyright: Guardian Media Group 1998
Pubdate: Sat, 5 Dec 1998
Author: Tim Radford, Science Editor

ECSTASY USE MAY CAUSE BRAIN DAMAGE, SAY SCIENTISTS

Scientists last night warned that the clubber's favourite drug, ecstasy,
could trigger long-term damage to vital brain cells called serotonin
neurons.

Serotonin is a brain chemical important in controlling mood. Although there
is still no hard evidence, researchers believe this damage could lead to
impaired memory, loss of self-control, increased levels of anxiety,
sleeplessness, appetite problems and even long-term psychiatric illness.

Ecstasy is the popular name for the "recreational" drug
methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA. It is taken, sometimes on a weekly
basis, by hundreds of thousands of young people in Europe and the United
States. There has been a small number of deaths linked with the drug but
most users argue that it is safe.

But evidence from Britain, Italy and the US is beginning to tell a different
story. Tests on animals - rats, guinea pigs, monkeys and baboons - have
repeatedly and uniformly shown damage to parts of the brain that work with
serotonin.

Rat brain cells seem to recover. But Professor Una McCann of the US National
Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, said that seven years
after being treated to a four-day course of drugs, every monkey in a series
of labs across the world had shown signs of irreversible damage.

Now, she and colleagues told a conference in London yesterday, tests and
brain scans on human volunteers show similar damage.

George Ricaurte of the Johns Hopkins school of medicine in Baltimore,
Maryland, said many neuroscientists were now concerned at the possible
effect of this damage: users could be at greater risk of mood and sleep
disturbance, aggressive tendencies and anxiety.

The catch is that scientists can only work with volunteers who have already
become worried about the drug's effects.

The researchers are faced with other variables: they cannot be sure about
the amount, the frequency or the quality of the MDMA taken, or the role of
other drugs that might have been used. They have no information about users
who do not reveal their problems to doctors and they cannot ethically
conduct the kind of "double-blind" experiments which match large groups of
patients with control - the technique used to answer questions about
pharmaceutical drugs.

But they are in no doubt that ecstasy claims victims. Dr Fabrizio Schifano,
who heads an addiction treatment unit in Padua, said that at a conservative
estimate 50,000 to 85,000 young Italians took ecstasy in clubs on Saturday
nights. More than half of a group of 150 in Padua who had used the drug at
least once suffered from depression, psychotic disorders, cognitive
disturbances, bulimic episodes, impulse control disorders and social phobia.

"I know of no other recreational drugs," said Prof Ricaurte, "that prune
serotonin nerve cells in the brain, and do so without producing any
immediate and obvious change to the user to alert him or her that brain
injury has occurred. That is the reading of the available clinical
experience today.

"To me, the fact that we have a potent and selective neurotoxin in the brain
cells, and that it can produce these changes without giving an immediate
warning that something is amiss, to me that one of the most insidious
aspects of MDMA.

"It allows the user to continue using the drug for prolonged periods of
time, potentially sustaining greater and greater serotonin nerve cell
injury."

Andy Parrott, a psychologist at the University of East London, said he had
asked student users of ecstasy to rate their mood after taking the drug.
"Ecstasy users were rating high elation and euphoria, as you'd expect," Prof
Parrott said. "The thing was, the controls were almost as happy as the
ecstasy users.

"In other words, they were having a good time on a Saturday night. The
actual benefit of the drug was very slight.

"Two days later the ecstasy users had significant levels of depression,
sadness, bad temper, irritability: you name it, they were suffering from it.

"The controls were taking alcohol, or cannabis, a few were taking
amphetamines: their mood changes that week were very slight. The ecstasy
users' mood changes were really quite remarkable."

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

[End]