1999 News
About Cannabis and Drug Policy
January 29-February 4

Friday, January 29, 1999:
• State's prisons not keeping up with increase in prisoners (The Seattle Times says prisons account for the fastest-growing chunk of Washington state's budget, almost $500 million annually. The Stafford Correctional Center in Aberdeen, opening a year from now, will be swiftly crammed with 1,936 convicts. Another $200 million prison for another 2,000 inmates will be needed three years later. Washington's prison population has more than doubled since 1989, to 14,300. An estimated 4,000 people are imprisoned because of more punitive drug laws passed by the legislature since 1989. Taking care of one prisoner costs about $23,000 a year. So the new drug sentences alone are costing the state about $92 million annually.)
• Marvin Chavez Doesn't Deserve Jail Time (A column in the Orange County Register by senior editorial writer Alan W. Bock pleads for leniency at the sentencing today of the founder of the Orange County Cannabis Co-op. Marvin Chavez made some mistakes and may have broken the law, he was engaged in a good-faith and above-board effort to implement the will of the voters when they passed Prop. 215. Officials should explain what he did wrong, then work with him to do things right, not throw him in jail.)
• Cannabis club founder gets six-year sentence (An Associated Press article in the Sacramento Bee says Superior Court Judge Thomas J. Borris sentenced Marvin Chavez, founder of the Orange County Cannabis Co-op, to six years in a California prison for selling marijuana to undercover officers and mailing pot to a cancer patient. Prosecutor Carl Armbrust maintained that Chavez was nothing more than a sophisticated street pusher, using Proposition 215 as a front. Chavez winced on his way to prison as a bailiff cuffed his hands behind a back brace.)
• Medical Pot Advocate Gets Prison (A different Associated Press version from America Online)
• Medicinal Cannabis Patient Marvin Chavez Sentenced to Six Years (A local correspondent's version says a tear-filled courtroom of about 30 supporters addressed Judge Borris, to no avail. A man who was a member of the jury that convicted Marvin told the judge there hasn't been a night he's gone to bed not thinking about Marvin and the consequences the verdict has had on his life. Julie Ireland, a caregiver for her terminally ill son who was a member of the Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support Group, told the judge that, as a retired police officer, she could not understand how the Orange County DA's office would set up a sting on a law abiding citizen trying to implement Proposition 215. She brought up the case of a Los Alamitos police officer who was found guilty of stealing methamphetamine from a police evidence locker and received one year in jail and three years' probation.)
• Founder of medical marijuana clinic sentenced to six years in prison (A different Associated Press version)
• Kubbys Enter Plea (A list subscriber says Steve Kubby, the medical-marijuana patient/activist and 1998 Libertarian candidate for California governor, together with his wife, Michele, pleaded not guilty in a Superior Court in Placer County, California, to a variety of charges stemming from their cultivation bust last week.)
• Former Gubernatorial Candidate, Wife Plead Innocent To Drug Charges (The Associated Press version incorrectly describes the Kubbys' plea of not guilty.)
• Dope Show! Arresting Kubby May Have Been Prop. 215 Opponents' Worst Mistake (According to the Orange County Weekly, Steve Kubby said of his cultivation bust: "We set a trap, and they fell for it. We received a tip six months ago that Dan Lungren had ordered surveillance on us. When the raid came, we were prepared." Even so, Michelle contracted pneumonia in the unheated jail and Steve spent the night vomiting and shivering.)
• Libertarians 'Disappointed' With Lockyer, Call for Meeting To Discuss Kubby Case (PRNewswire relays a message from the Libertarian Party of California's web site responding to a statement by a spokeswoman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, who said Lockyer would not intervene in the prosecution of Steve & Michele Kubby for growing medical marijuana. State Libertarian Party Director Juan Ros said, "Placer County law enforcement is ignoring the will of the voters and harassing two innocent people. It is the Attorney General's constitutional responsibility to intervene.")
• Report From the Trenches: Marijuana vs Ondansatron (Don't expect to read about it in the Journal of the American Medical Association, since it wasn't paid for by a pharmaceutical company, but a list subscriber in San Francisco describes his recent scientifically valid single-subject experiment showing that cannabis controlled his nausea much more effectively than Zofran, the top-of-the-line pharmaceutical antiemetic administered intravenously at $400 a pop.)
• Action Alert! Prison Moratorium Bill (The Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center provides some interesting background on the bill that would suspend Colorado's prison-building boom for three years, now under consideration by the state Senate Judiciary Committee. The group also provides contact information for committee members, and asks you to lobby them to support the bill.)
• DARE is scrapped - Anti-drug effort goes down drain in budget squabble (The Arizona Daily Star says Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik yesterday made good on his threat to dump the supposedly popular Drug Abuse Resistance Education program to cut his $2 million deficit. Elimination of DARE is expected to put 10 officers back in service and save about $234,000 allegedly expended on 21,000 schoolchildren, which would be about $10 each.)
• Pentagon Changes Policy On Use Of Troops In Drug War On Border (The Houston Chronicle says that well over a year after Esequiel Hernandez Jr., a high school sophomore, was shot and killed by camouflaged U.S. Marines near Redford, Texas, the Pentagon has "all but" ended the use of ground troops along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to a Defense Department spokesman.)
• Son Killed When Used As 'Shield' (According to the Associated Press, police say an Indianapolis, Indiana crack addict who used his children as "shields" when he bought drugs in dangerous neighborhoods was charged with murder Friday after his 6-year-old son was fatally shot Jan. 4 during a $20 deal gone bad.)
• Million Marijuana March (A list subscriber forwards a program and schedule of events for the mass reform rally March 5-7 in New York City.)
• Clinton Seeks Drug Prevention Money (The Associated Press says the Clinton administration's budget proposal, to be outlined Monday, will include more money for methadone treatment for heroin addicts, drug courts, and urine-testing of prisoners, all of which the administration characterizes as drug prevention and treatment efforts. However, some Republicans would like more focus on eradicating illegal narcotics at their source.)
• From the Hill, Evidence of Our Decline (An excellent column in the Washington Post by Judy Mann ponders the significance of President Clinton's impeachment and trial. While parenthetically condemning the war on some drug users, Mann suggests the Meaning of It All is that America's transformation into a banana republic is essentially complete. There was never a country on Earth so rich as ours in the promise of social justice for its people, or so powerful in its potential to do good in a tormented world, that has been so determined to fritter away the opportunity.)
• Bloc wants to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes (The Canadian Press says Bernard Bigras, a Bloc Quebecois member of Parliament, has tabled a motion in the Commons aimed at legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes. Debate is supposed to begin on Feb. 19 but a Commons subcommittee will decide Wednesday if it meets the criteria to go to a vote by MPs. The New Democratic Party also supports the motion, and Bigras said he believes Conservative, Reform and Liberal MPs are also sympathetic to the cause.)
• Drug Trafficking Through Cuba on the Rise, Investigators Say (The Miami Herald says that Cuba, once considered off-limits to drug trafficking, is confronting a noticeable narcotics problem amid signs that the island has become a conduit for multi-ton shipments of cocaine. Police in Colombia on Dec. 3 seized a 7.2-ton load of cocaine packed in shipping containers and bound for Cuba. Castro accused two Spanish investors of masterminding the 7.2-ton shipment, saying Jose Royo Llorca and Jose Anastasio Herrera fled Cuba for Spain. But their lawyer told The Herald that neither Spaniard had anything to do with the cocaine and that Havana may be seeking to confiscate some $550,000 in assets they invested in a small factory. "Strains had developed with the Ministry and they were in the process of negotiating the factory's closure. It's possible this is being used as an excuse by the Cuban government to seize my clients' assets," he said.)
• Police Ready To Pounce On Music Festival Drugs (The Advertiser, in Australia, describes the efforts of prohibition agents to prepare for today's Big Day Out music festival. The authorities were allegedly deluged with calls from alarmed parents after the Advertiser said herbal stimulants would be on sale at the festival.)
• Drug Policy Foundation's Network News (Headlines in the monthly publication from the Drug Policy Foundation, in New York, include - Senate Republicans push a drug-free century; Rep. Ron Paul to introduce financial privacy legislation to block intrusive "Know Your Customer" banking rules; Chief Justice of Supreme Court criticizes over-federalization of crime and Sentencing Commission's demise; 1998 Higher Education Act targeted by college students and faculty across the country; New coalition formed to bring drug policy reform to Congress; DPF to feature congressional visits at drug policy reform conference May 12-15, 1999; Drug-related legislative activity of the 106th Congress)
• The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 76 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original dispatch of news and calls to action, including - Your tax dollars at work: U.S. developing fungi to kill narcotics plants; Higher Education Act student reform effort; Rep. Ron Paul to introduce financial privacy legislation to block intrusive 'Know Your Customer' banking rules; Hemp for victory; Israel to set standards for medicinal use of marijuana; Life for nonviolent juveniles proposed in Virginia; The Lindesmith Center drug policy seminar series, January through April; Conferences and events; Harm Reduction Training Institute, winter '99 calendar; Report: militarized democracy in the Americas; and an editorial by Adam J. Smith, Strange logic, regarding the the "Drug-Free Century Act" proposed in Congress.)
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  Saturday, January 30, 1999:

• Cannabis Club Figure Gets 6 Years (The Los Angeles Times version of yesterday's news about Marvin Chavez, founder of the Orange County Cannabis Co-op, being sentenced to six years in a California prison for selling marijuana to undercover prohibition agents and mailing pot to a cancer patient.)
• Medicinal-Pot Advocate Gets Prison Term (The Associated Press version in the San Jose Mercury News)
• Marijuana Co-Op Founder Sentenced (A different Associated Press version from America Online)
• Marijuana Co-Op Founder Gets Prison (The Orange County Register version)
• Supporters Are Grim As Chavez Led Away To Jail (A different Orange County Register account)
• Chavez Sentence Is Criminal (Orange County Register senior editorial writer Alan W. Bock says Marvin Chavez's severe six-year prison sentence shows the importance of developing guidelines and protocols for the implementation of Prop. 215. Others need to step up on this issue. California Attorney General Bill Lockyer's office says he is assembling a task force to develop a statewide plan to implement Prop. 215. Perhaps he should enter the appellate process on Mr. Chavez's behalf as well. Newly elected Gov. Gray Davis has the authority to pardon Mr. Chavez or to commute his sentence.)
• Pot Club Lawyers Try For A Merger (The Long Beach Press-Telegram, in California, says Venice attorney James Silva and San Francisco attorney J. David Nick are scrambling to file an appeal for Marvin Chavez of the Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support Group. The attorneys plan to link the Chavez appeal to another for cannabis co-op volunteer David Lee Herrick, previously sentenced to four years. Meanwhile, the attorneys are now scheduled to defend yet a third member of the cannabis co-op, Jack Shachter, a Garden Grove resident whose case has been on hold pending the completion of Chavez's trial.)
• Medical Marijuana Distribution Imperfect (The Associated Press examines the difficulties faced by patients in California in the wake of the federal closure of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative and other dispensaries. Many former co-op members are forced to seek out small, low-profile groups and buy from street dealers. Dozens have been arrested for having plants. Ryan Landers, who has AIDS, travels to Middletown, 90 miles north of San Francisco, where Proposition 215 author Dennis Peron and members of his two defunct San Francisco pot clubs grow marijuana. This summer, Peron plans to begin delivering plants to thousands of San Francisco patients who will pay for them at cost.)
• Ground Troop Use On Border Curtailed, Officials Say (According to the Dallas Morning News, the U.S. military says the use of ground troops along the U.S.-Mexico border has "almost ended" now that the Pentagon has issued new rules that require special permission for armed anti-drug units there. The lack of policy change comes well over a year after Esequiel Hernandez Jr., a high school sophomore, was shot and killed by camouflaged U.S. Marines near the small border town of Redford, Texas, while tending his family's goats.)
• Search Of Couple's House 'Within Law,' Judge Rules (The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette says Washington County Circuit Court Judge William Storey ruled Friday that the arrest in Texas of Stephen Miller, a former alderman in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and his wife, Janette, was valid, and that a subsequent search of their Fayetteville home was proper. Defense attorneys argued that prohibition agents went onto the Millers' property without a search warrant, and that the preceding search of their car was illegal. The ruling allows their criminal trial to proceed Feb. 11.)
• Mistrial Declared In Case Of Jury Foreman Accused Of Taking Bribe (The Chicago Tribune says a judge declared a mistrial Friday in the trial of Miguel "Mike" Moya, a jury foreman in Miami, Florida, charged with selling his vote for $500,000 in a major 1996 cocaine-smuggling case. Jurors said they were "at each other's throats." Defense attorneys said Moya's wealth came not from any bribe but from a cousin, Ramon "Ray" Perez, a convicted drug smuggler and former Miami police officer. Prosecutors said they would try the case again in April.)
• 'Willie And Sal' Case Creates Lots Of Headaches (The Miami Herald recounts the background to the Moya jury-tampering case. Willie Falcon and Sal Magluta were indicted on racketeering charges in 1991 and acquitted in 1996 of bringing 75 tons of cocaine into the United States over 13 years, amassing $2.1 billion in assets. Eventually the government imprisoned them both on other charges.)
• Mexican Rights Activist Killed (The San Jose Mercury News says Jorge Aguirre Meza was a lawyer and president of the Sinaloa state bar who had been demanding that the government clean up organized crime. He is the third of four activists to be killed who had waged a campaign in 1990 against police torture and abuse that led to the creation of the National Human Rights Commission.)
• Prozac's Irish Life (The Irish Times says Prozac has become the most prescribed antidepressant in the Republic since its introduction in June 1989. It has "revolutionised" the management of depression because the same one-capsule-per-day dosage is prescribed for every sufferer, and because it acts on numerous mental illnesses. More than 200,000 people in the State suffer major depression, while one in three will have an episode of major depression, which has been linked to the majority of the 380 suicides in the Republic each year.)
• The Shrug Drug (A feature article in the Irish Times by Elizabeth Wurtzel, the author of "Prozac Nation" and one of the early beneficiaries of the anti-depressant, assesses the drug's legacy 10 years after it first became available to her. In 1997 patients in the United States filled 65 million prescriptions for anti-depressants. In the US, where there is no National Health Service and doctors' duties are dictated by insurance companies, Prozac has been a perfect solution to the financial unmanageability of mental health care. Indemnifiers would no longer cough up for therapy sessions, but they would gladly pay for a pill. The Food and Drug Administration eventually endorsed Prozac to cure obsessive-compulsive disorder, obesity, attention deficit disorder - a whole range of mental illnesses. Essentially, Prozac became the shrug drug, it was one big "why-not?" Prozac's permanent legacy may be that it medicalised mental health, even when the symptoms were fairly slight.)
• Israeli Government to Give Marijuana Guidelines (The Lancet, in Britain, says the Israeli Health Ministry established a committee Jan. 20 to provide the country's doctors with guidelines for prescribing marijuana. The six-member group of physicians, jurists, and public officials was asked to define the medical conditions under which physicians will be permitted to prescribe marijuana. Until now medical marijuana has been available only on an ad hoc basis by special permit, provided by police from confiscated supplies. Boaz Lev, an internist and the ministry's deputy director-general for medical affairs, said "we don't want people to have to break the law to get treatment when no other drug is effective.")
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  Sunday, January 31, 1999:

• Medical pot law remains untested in mid-valley (The Albany Democrat-Herald says law enforcement officials in the mid-Willamette Valley haven't encountered any medical-marijuana cases yet, two months after the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act began to take effect. However, Benton County, District Attorney Scott Heiser still thinks the law is ripe for abuse. For instance, he worries about what would happen if somebody is arrested and insists on smoking medicinal marijuana while in jail on the grounds that his illness is a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Albany Police Chief Pat Merina says "Marijuana is used pretty subtly in this community," meaning that pot smokers don't usually beat up women or get in car accidents with the dope in their vehicles. "Maybe they're not as dumb," Merina allows, begging the question, what good purpose is served by persecuting nonmedical marijuana consumers?)
• Supporters Call for Legislation to Implement Prop. 215 after Orange County Medical Cannabis Provider is Sentenced to 6 Years (A press release from California NORML says the harsh prison sentence handed down to medical marijuana patient/activist Marvin Chavez by Superior Court Judge Thomas Borris, who did not allow Chavez to invoke Proposition 215 in his defense, has outraged patient advocates and sparked calls for further reform of the state's marijuana laws. California NORML is aware of more than 20 medical cannabis cases in the past three or four months. In Tulare County, medical-marijuana patients Penny and C.D. McKee were convicted of felony cultivation for growing 43 plants, while a Lake County jury acquitted patient Charles Lepp for growing 131 plants.)
• Drug War Priorities (A letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle from a marijuana offender incarcerated in Texas says the drug war is not about kids dying of heroin. It is about money. Some drugs can kill, such as heroin. Some drugs can't kill, such as marijuana. Until the American people understand the difference and demand a change in enforcement priorities, they will continue to bury their children and pay to incarcerate marijuana offenders.)
• Pot Holds No. 1 Spot (The Arizona Republic briefly notes a recent survey of Express Personnel Services franchises found that 82 percent of franchise owners reported drug testing revealed marijuana smoking to be the No. 1 reason for penalizing workers and applicants. Ten percent of respondents said drug tests revealed alcohol to be their biggest problem, while 6 percent cited amphetamines and 1 percent cited cocaine.)
• Welfare Drug Test Plan Gets Mixed Reaction (The Tulsa World says the American Civil Liberties Union is questioning the Oklahoma Department of Human Services' plans to start drug testing welfare recipients. Earlier this week, DHS Director Howard Hendrick said his agency, beginning in mid-March, will require welfare recipients and those seeking aid to take a written exam to determine their propensity to abuse drugs and alcohol. The results will be used to determine which clients will be required to give a urine sample for analysis. Welfare recipients who don't cooperate will be denied benefits.)
• When police work goes fatally wrong (An op-ed in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune by Neil Haugerud, a former law enforcement officer and state legislator, says something has gone drastically wrong in law enforcement. Shouldn't we be asking ourselves: Has this pervasive drug war, this win-at-all-costs mentality, made innocent men, women and even children expendable in Minnesota? Considering that upwards of 60 percent of our total law enforcement and judicial resources are spent on the war on drugs, we should begin to ask the questions posed by Mayor Kurt Schmoke of Baltimore. At public meetings, the mayor asks three questions: Have we won the drug war? People laugh. Are we winning the drug war? People shake their heads. If we keep on doing what we are doing, will we have won the drug war in 10 years? A resounding no.)
• Man Says Drug Use Is Religious (The Standard-Times, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, says Richard W. Nichols, of West Burke, Vermont, is challenging the constitutionality of Vermont's laws prohibiting the herb, claiming he uses marijuana for medical and religious reasons. Burke will appeal drug convictions handed down to him Wednesday, citing his Christian values, certain Bible verses, and his assertion that marijuana helps him meditate and alleviates his depression.)
• Re: Religious Defense (A list subscriber posts URLs for the text of the Boyll decision and a good review of the religious defense to illegal drug charges.)
• Is Plea Bargaining An Illegal Tactic? Lawyer Says The Age-Old Practice Gives Prosecutors An Unfair Advantage (The Morning Call, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, says John V. Wachtel, the lawyer in Wichita, Kansas, who represents Sonya Singleton, intends to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court the recent decision by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that federal prosecutors who offer leniency to one defendant in return for testimony against another do not violate a federal bribery statute. Allentown lawyer Tommaso Lonardo has used Wachtel's argument in the case of Stephen M. Konya, charged with running a cross-country methamphetamine ring. "The cooperating witnesses were bought and paid for," Lonardo said. So far, at least four cases in state and federal courts have challenged such plea bargains and won when judges said such testimony couldn't be used.)
• The dope on hemp (The Toronto Star says industrial hemp is poised to become big business in Canada, largely because it is still illegal to grow in the United States, the world's biggest importer of hemp fibre and textiles. The excitement surrounding this wonder plant is so widespread that even Disney is planning a new exhibit on the bio-based economy at Disney World in Florida. Cadillac has announced plans to build a car using hemp, in which everything but the engine and drive train are biodegradable. Some estimates put worldwide trade in hemp products at more than $100 million last year. That dollar figure could double in the next few years as new hemp-based businesses spring up globally.)
• Mexico hires lobbyists in drug-certification bid (The Dallas Morning News says Mexico has stepped up its lobbying and hired three public relations firms to help win the annual battle to be certified by Congress that it is cooperating with the United States in the war on some drug users. Even Mexico's staunchest friends on Capitol Hill acknowledge that Mexico faces a tough fight. The White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, is outspoken in his defense of Mexico.)
• Anti-Drug Aid Endangered (A Washington Post article in the San Jose Mercury News says there has been a recent spate of massacres in Colombia carried out by right-wing paramilitary groups who rely on illegal-drug trafficking to finance their operations. The massacres pose a new challenge to the Clinton administration's policy of combating the country's illegal-drug trade by increasing aid to Colombia's police and military.)
• Massacres Imperil US Aid To Colombia (The uncut Washington Post version)
• British MEP Faces Grilling Over Gay Video, Cannabis (Reuters says Tom Spencer, a senior Member of the European Parliament from Britain's Conservative party and the chairman of the parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, withdrew from this year's European parliament elections on Sunday after two cannabis cigarettes and a gay sex video were found in his suitcase after it was discovered unattended by airport security officers.)
• Gay MEP Guilty Of Importing Porn And Drugs (The version in Britain's Observer says Spencer was also caught with 1.5 grammes of cocaine.)
• UK MEP Caught With Drugs Withdraws From Election (A subsequent Reuters version)
• Gay Porn And Drugs Found On Top Tory (A more elaborate account in the Daily Telegraph says Spencer denied using marijuana.)
• Euro-Lawmaker Suspended for Drugs (The Associated Press version)
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  Monday, February 1, 1999:

• Fugitive arrested in Hood River cache (The Oregonian says Dale Allen "Pappy" Bush, a fugitive since late August, was arrested Jan. 24 at a truck stop in Wilsonville by officers from the FBI and the Hood River County sheriff's office and charged with 20 counts of possessing explosive devices, a machine gun and methamphetamine at his rural home in the Dee area.)
• Seeing No Offense In Medicinal Marijuana (Newsday, in New York, says the inauguration of Bill Lockyer as California Attorney General means the days are over when state agents beat the feds to the punch in closing down medical marijuana dispensaries. "I can't and won't interfere with an action by a local district attorney," Lockyer says, which means patients such as Steve Kubby and his wife, in socially conservative counties, will get no help, while medical marijuana dispensaries may reopen in such traditionally supportive counties as San Francisco.)
• Write/Visit Marvin Chavez (A list subscriber posts instructions on how to cheer up the Orange County Cannabis Co-op founder and medical marijuana martyr just sentenced to six years in prison.)
• How you can help Marvin Chavez (A list subscriber seeks donations to pay off more than $4,000 in overdue bail funds and save the home of Marvin's wife.)
• Juror's Stand Of Conscience Leads To State High Court (The San Luis Obispo County Telegram-Tribune describes an appeal facing the California Supreme Court involving a man who was convicted of statutory rape because his girlfriend was three months' younger than him - and because the trial judge removed a juror who said voting "guilty" violated his conscience. Nancy King, the author of a major article on jury nullification in a recent issue of the Michigan Law Review, says that what's facing the California court is trying to come up with a rule governing the circumstances in which allegations of nullification may or must be investigated, procedures for investigating them and what proof is required to remove a nullifier from a jury.)
• Marijuana Active Ingredient May Reduce Pain Sensation (The February issue of Anesthesiology News finally gets around to noting the research carried out by Ian Meng at the University of California at San Francisco, as reported in Nature magazine last September. Unfortunately, the magazine inaccurately inserts the word "may.")
• Feds Pay Drug Case Witness $2 Million (The Associated Press says attorneys for defendants in the United States' "Operation Casablanca" money-laundering sting against Mexican and Venezuelan bankers argued Friday during a pretrial hearing before U.S. District Judge Lourdes Baird in Los Angeles that the payments to the unnamed informant, believed to be a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Colombia, amounted to government misconduct. The first of four trials in the case is scheduled to begin March 29. Forty bankers have been arrested; 70 are still fugitives.)
• Press Release: Patients Out of Time (The advocacy group for medical marijuana patients says the National Association for Public Health Policy has joined the ever expanding list of organizations opposing current prohibitionist policies in the United States.)
• Organizations Supporting Access to Therapeutic Cannabis (An updated bulletin from Patients Out of Time lists 64 supporters in the United States and around the globe.)
• Drug Cautions Judged A Success (The Age, in Melbourne, Australia, says Victoria's experimental cautioning program for people found possessing illegal substances other than cannabis appears to be working, with new figures revealing that one drug offender a week has been diverted from the criminal justice system to treatment agencies. Police Chief Superintendent Peter Driver, the commander of the district where the trial started, said: "I think the strict law-enforcement approach to illicit drug use has been shown that, in itself, it has not worked. It's good to be able to adopt more of a community-based approach, of harm minimisation, early intervention and treatment.")
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  Tuesday, February 2, 1999:

• February 1999 Phantom Gallery Schedule (Floyd Ferris Landrath of the American Antiprohibition League posts a calendar of reform events planned this month at the AAL's Portland headquarters.)
• 62 arrested for driving drunk (The Oregonian says state police arrested 62 people on Super Bowl Sunday for driving drunk on Oregon roads.)
• Trooper faces probe over outburst (The Associated Press says Joseph Michael Jansen, 28, an Oregon state police trooper assigned to the Madras patrol office, has been charged with disorderly conduct in Eugene, where he was attending a wedding. A police report says Jansen appeared to be extremely intoxicated while yelling racial slurs against blacks and Mexicans 2 a.m. Jan. 24 on the first floor of the Valley River Inn.)
• Wilsonville death brings reward offer (The Oregonian publicizes a $1,000 reward offered by a woman in Columbus, Ohio, for information regarding the heroin-related death of her brother last month in Wilsonville, a suburb of Portland. Christopher Dell, 37, died Jan. 23. Emily Boothe, his sister, thinks someone might have sold her brother a lethal batch of heroin. Her family is offering the reward to anyone who knows who might have sold him the drugs.)
• Bill requires 'chemical castration' (The Oregonian says state Rep. Kurt Schrader, D-Canby has introduced House Bill 2500, which would require that all repeat sexual offenders be chemically castrated with Depo-Provera before they were paroled from Oregon's prisons - but there is no provision for providing counseling in conjunction with the drug. The proposed bill would also grant the Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision the discretion to inject first-time offenders when paroled - something that already happens on a case-by-case basis. The proposal also gives inmates "the option" of surgical castration. In 1996, California became the first state to pass a "chemical castration" law. Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Montana passed measures in 1997. Efforts are under way to enact similar legislation in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Wisconsin. A Texas law allows repeat sex offenders to elect for surgical castration under certain conditions. Schrader argues that the shrinking availability of treatment programs for sex offenders is precisely why chemical castration is needed now.)
• DARE Files Lawsuit Against Rolling Stone Magazine (A press release from the Drug Abuse Resistance Education web site says DARE President and founder Glenn Levant is a co-plaintiff in the $50 million lawsuit, which alleges an unspecified article in Rolling Stone maligned DARE's reputation with fabricated quotes, incidents, and fictitious sources.)
• Always Keep An Exact Goal In Mind (An op-ed in the Santa Maria Times, in California, by Will Powers, a clinical psychologist, ponders a little wisdom once imparted by golf legend Jack Nicklaus, and how the war on some drug users characteristically lacks tangible goals.)
• Inebriated End to Cop's Exemplary Life (San Francisco Examiner columnist Stephanie Salter eulogizes Jake Stasko, a "good" San Francisco police captian who slammed his car into a tree on the way home to Petaluma while driving drunk.)
• Prison moratorium bill in Colorado (A list subscriber says Colorado's Senate Judiciary Committee voted to gut SB 95 yesterday, turning it into a study of sentencing practices and recommendations for reform.)
• Ex-Basketball Star Convicted Of Killing Woman Over Drugs (The Philadelphia Inquirer says a Montgomery County jury yesterday convicted Howard McNeil, a Seton Hall University basketball star drafted by the Los Angeles Lakers in 1982, of killing a Norristown drug dealer to get her stash and feed his thirst for crack cocaine. McNeil has faced murder charges before. At a party in 1976 McNeil shot and killed his best friend, but a jury found the shooting accidental.)
• A $475,000 Bribe Is OK, If Paid By DA (Paul Carpenter, a columnist for the Morning Call, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, pans the recent decision by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversing its own three-judge panel in the Singleton case. Prosecutors who "pay" witnesses with leniency should be seen as violating a federal bribery law, and Carpenter, a veteran court reporter, recounts several instances of injustice attributable to such prosecutorial bribery.)
• Ex-Hialeah Officer Accused Of Drug Trafficking (The Miami Herald says Osvaldo Guillermo Heredia, a former police officer in Hialeah, Florida, has been indicted on charges that he ran cocaine, served as lookout for members of a drug-trafficking operation and gave them information on police activities while on the force. Heredia was fired in 1994 for leaving the city while on duty to help a friend get a driver's license. But the department had been suspicious of his alleged drug activity since 1989.)
• Former Officer Arrested On Drug Charges (The UPI version)
• Dutch Parliament Votes To Lift Brothel Ban (Reuters says the vote on Tuesday to legalise brothels was based on arguments that proper regulation of the sex industry would help reduce trafficking in women, exploitation of minors and drug-related crime. The draft law now passes to the upper house for "rubber stamping." If the reform becomes law, an estimated 2,000 brothels will become legal January 1 next year.)
• IOC Panel Proposes Bans for Drugs (The Associated Press says Juan Antonio Samaranch, president of the International Olympics Committee, in Lausanne, Switzerland, opened a world summit on drugs in sport by calling for the creation of an autonomous international anti-doping agency to coordinate drug testing around the world.)
• Anti-Drug Chief Zings IOC (The Associated Press says the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, sharply criticized the International Olympic Committee today in Lausanne, Switzerland, saying its legitimacy had been damaged by "alleged corruption, lack of accountability and the failure of leadership" in the Olympics bribery scandal. McCaffrey and European government officials demanded that a proposed anti-doping agency be kept out the control of the scandal-tainted IOC.)
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  Wednesday, February 3, 1999:

• NewsBuzz: What Are They Smoking In Those Newsrooms? (Willamette Week, in Portland, says the Oregonian and other local media sensationalized the results of the 1998 Oregon Public School Drug Use Survey last week, suggesting the results meant "bad news on teen substance abuse." In fact, however, marijuana use among eighth- and 11th-graders was down from the previous survey in 1996, and only tobacco use among 11th-graders showed a significant increase.)
• Man commits suicide during police car chase (The Associated Press says an unnamed 18-year-old Portland man wanted on "drug" charges and being chased by police committed suicide Wednesday, sending his car through a fence and slamming into a parked vehicle.)
• Man gets 27 years in prison for killing (The Oregonian says Multnomah County Circuit Judge Joseph Ceniceros sentenced Bryant Wayne Howard to life in prison Tuesday with a minimum of nearly 27 years for murdering a rival gang member. "There is more to life than tattooing yourself, selling drugs and killing people," said the judge.)
• Kubbys Prepared For Marijuana Arrests (The Auburn Journal, in California, describes the prosecution of medical marijuana patients Steve & Michele Kubby on cultivation-related charges, in spite of Proposition 215. The North Tahoe Task Force launched its investigation based on an anonymous letter claiming the 1998 Libertarian gubernatorial candidate was financing his campaign by selling marijuana.)
• Hawaiian Medical Cannabis (A press release from the Drug Policy Forum of Hawai'i provides background information about public hearings on the medical use of marijuana, scheduled to begin the week of Feb. 8. Senator Inouye and Governor Cayetano are advocating for patients, and the DPFH is seeking patients, physicians, and others who will testify to the positive medical benefits of smoked marijuana.)
• Don't Send The Cops (A letter to the editor of the Arizona Daily Star applauds the recent demise of Pima County's DARE program, citing several possible reasons why at least one national study has shown the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program doesn't work.)
• INS agents in Nogales indicted (UPI says four current and former Immigration and Naturalization Service agents were arrested Tuesday. Three were charged with waving 20 tons of cocaine across the border in exchange for more than $135,000.)
• Border Inspectors Held In Drug Case (The Arizona Republic version)
• Border Inspectors Face Constant Temptation (The Arizona Daily Star says agents for the federal Office of the Inspector General have arrested 18 employees of the Immigration and Naturalization Service on drug-related corruption charges in the past five years, apparently including four Nogales inspectors indicted yesterday. But 27 other INS workers have been arrested for alleged corruption related to immigration documents.)
• Gov. Bush 'Very Interested' In White House Run (Reuters says Texas Governor George W. Bush, son of the former U.S. president, told CNN in an interview broadcast Tuesday that there was nothing in his background to disqualify him from running for president, but dodged a question about whether he had ever used "drugs." The elder Bush told the French daily newspaper, Le Figaro, in an interview published Wednesday, that "There was a time when he drank a lot, but for the past 11 years, he hasn't touched a drop. He was never an alcoholic, it's just he knows he can't hold his liquor," Bush said.)
• Rates For Cirrhosis, Drinking Don't Add Up (The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says a report in today's issue of the Wisconsin Medical Journal paradoxically shows that Wisconsin has the highest rate of alcohol consumption in the nation - 69 percent - but one of the lowest death rates from cirrhosis of the liver. Wisconsin also has the nation's fourth-largest per-capita alcohol consumption rate, at 3.4 gallons for every man, woman and child every year. Nationwide 51 percent of Americans consume alcohol, at a per capita rate of 2.5 gallons per person.)
• Boogie's Logic (A letter to the editor of the Little Rock Free Press, in Arkansas, from one Bob "Boogie" Oliver, says "Every issue of the Free Press that addresses the war on drugs has been right on in their analysis," but then paradoxically comes out against the war, saying "the law against drugs is the main problem.")
• Tobacco, Crack Raise Miscarriage Risk (According to UPI, a study in tomorrow's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Agency on Health Care Policy Research, found cigarettes to be deadlier than crack cocaine to unborn babies. Marijuana and alcohol did not have a similar effect, said Roberta B. Ness, who led the research on 970 pregnant women and who is the director of the Women's Health Program at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. She points out, however, that a mother's drinking can harm babies in other ways.)
• Study links miscarriages to cocaine, tobacco use (The Reuters version)
• The Nation - Reprising Zero Tolerance (The New York Times, noting the plan announced this month by New York City Police Commissioner Howard Safir to seize the vehicles of drunk drivers, interviews Dick Weart, who, a decade ago, was the ombudsman for the federal government's zero-tolerance drug crackdown. From his desk in Washington, he fielded frantic telephone calls from customs inspectors all over the country who had just turned up a few marijuana seeds or a roach in a car or boat. Within 18 months, the program had been revised three times, evolving into a relatively lenient approach in which people were cited and released without any confiscation of their property.)
• Prison Drug Program Draws Suit (The Philadelphia Inquirer says an inmate at a New Jersey state prison who was convicted of "drug" use and "drug" possession has sued the Department of Corrections, saying that when he asked to be removed from the religion-based Nu Way drug-treatment program, he was told he would lose his eligibility for a community-release program. Staff frequently led group meetings in prayer and invoked God's name, but the inmate was told that if he quit Nu Way, he would be punished with a "failure to comply" charge.)
• Rolling Stone Magazine Being Sued (The Associated Press says the private corporation in Culver City, California, that administers DARE, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, wants $50 million, alleging it was libeled in a March 1998 article by freelance writer Stephen Glass, who said the program tries to "silence critics, suppress scientific research and punish nonbelievers." Glass later admitted making up an unspecified portion of the story. The federal lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges that Rolling Stone sought a derogatory article about DARE to further editor-publisher Jann Wenner's "ongoing efforts to discredit anti-drug organizations.")
• Immigration Inspectors Indicted (The Associated Press says three current and one former inspector for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service have been indicted on bribery charges in Phoenix, Arizona. The three current INS agents are accused of allowing suspected cocaine traffickers to pass through the Nogales port of entry in exchange for cash. The fourth is alleged to have taken money to approve immigration documents.)
• First Do No Harm - An Overview Of Dutch Tolerance (The Little Rock Free Press, in Arkansas, travels to the Netherlands to study Dutch drug policy. Tolerance seems to be the official party line, taught in school and church. The Dutch make it hard not to be ashamed of the United States. "The normal American citizen has such an idiotic picture of drugs," says Herman-Louis Matser of Adviesburo Drugs. America's influence on Dutch drug use has been profound. Oregon and California marijuana growers originally developed the strains of high-potency pot the Dutch have been perfecting.)
• Bitter Pills: Inside The Hazardous World Of Legal Drugs (The Journal of the American Medical Association reviews the new book by Stephen Fried, a medical investigative reporter from Philadelphia who begins by describing his wife's misfortune with prescription drugs. Over several years he grew aware that severe complications from use of a medication are widespread. Initially the book seems a vendetta against drug companies and the US Food and Drug Administration. Much of the book describes in detail drug research, drug approval, market forces on drug companies and the medical industrial complex, and the FDA regulatory process. Criticisms aside, the book is overall informative and engaging. It serves as an excellent primer and source of information for consumers of medication and professionals alike.)
• Bitter Pills, by Stephen Fried, Prologue (A list subscriber posts the prologue to the new book about how and why the pharmaceutical industry developed into such a deadly but unrecognized disaster.)
• Smoking Out The Hypocrites (Deborah Orr, a columnist for the Independent, in Britain, ponders the fall of Tom Spencer and hypocrisy's role in the drug war as she recounts the extremely relaxed Sunday she spent last summer with a prominent but unnamed British member of the European Parliament, sharing a couple of joints of "skunk" marijuana.)
• Dutch Lawmakers Vote to Lift 1912 Ban on Brothels (The Associated Press says an overwhelming majority in the Netherlands' lower house of parliament passed the bill Tuesday, saying officials could better control crime if sex clubs were legitimate businesses. The legislation still needs to be passed by the upper house before it can become law. The bill is an attempt to crack down on the use of underage girls and illegal immigrants, as well as to control trafficking in illegal drugs and weapons.)
• DrugSense Weekly, No. 84 (The original summary of drug policy news from DrugSense opens with the weekly Feature Article - Protecting yourself against overzealous law enforcement, an essay inspired by the arrests of Steve & Michele Kubby, by Mark Greer. The Weekly News in Review features several articles about Drug War Policy, including - Pentagon changes policy on use of troops in war on drugs; Program pays students to snitch on classmates; ACLU questions aspects of drug search in schools; Balto. County to provide drug test kits; Senate backs bill to add drug prosecutors; Banks' big brother; and, From the hill, evidence of our decline. Several articles about Prisons include - Prison system grows fat from fear and greed; State's prisons not keeping up with increase in prisoners; and, Prisons aren't answer to drug problem. Articles about Marijuana include - Medicinal marijuana law leads needy to distribution impasse; Cannabis club founder gets six-year sentence; Marvin Chavez doesn't deserve jail time; and, Dope show! arresting Kubby may have been Prop. 215 opponents' worst mistake. International news articles include - Jails nearing crisis: report [Canada]; Colombia's internal security; Drug trafficking through Cuba on the rise, investigators say. The weekly Hot Off The 'Net alerts you to "Drug Crazy," reviewed in the Los Angeles Times. The Quote of the Week cites Jay Leno, from a story in the Washington Post. And a Special Notice proffers thanks to DrugNews Screeners Don Beck and Kevin Fansler.)
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  Thursday, February 4, 1999:

• NORML Foundation Weekly News Release (Post-arrest approval for medical marijuana no protection, California appeals court rules; Increased penalties, prison sentences don't deter drug use, ABA study finds; Athletic association mandates drug testing for Louisiana high school students; Portland, Oregon schools offer students $1,000 incentive to snitch on classmates)
• Lockyer Task Force to Look at Medical Marijuana Law (The San Francisco Chronicle says California's new attorney general, Bill Lockyer, invited about 35 law enforcement officials, health professionals, politicians and medical-marijuana patient advocates to the state Justice Department's Sacramento office yesterday for the first meeting of a new task force whose mission is to clear up the legal questions still remaining more than two years after the passage of Proposition 215.)
• Criminal Prosecution Body Count Grows In War On Medical Marijuana (Orange County Weekly surveys local law enforcement officials' war on medical marijuana patients, particularly the six-year sentence handed down last week to Marvin Chavez of the Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support Group. Jim Silva, the attorney for Chavez, said, "Judge Borris' decision took me completely off-guard. It may change the whole political landscape. Marvin only provided marijuana to patients or to undercover cops pretending to be patients. But Judge Borris didn't even consider that as a mitigating factor in his sentencing." Silva said the 30-page probation report used to justify Chavez's sentence noted, "Mr. Chavez says he would continue to travel around the state and 'educate' people about medical marijuana." Silva says "The report makes it abundantly clear they don't want Marvin to exercise his rights to free speech.")
• Kubby To Test State Pot Law (Tahoe World, in California, examines the prosecution of Steve Kubby, the 1998 Libertarian candidate for governor, and his wife, Michele. Both are Olympic Valley residents and medical-marijuana patients and both are charged with possession of marijuana for sale, cultivation of marijuana, and conspiracy. Christopher Cattran, the deputy district attorney, said the approximately 300 marijuana plants found in four grow rooms in the Kubbys' home "was for more than personal use." But then, police also estimated the value of each plant at $14,000, so what do they know? Kubby noted there is no limit to the amount of cannabis patients can grow under Proposition 215. Michele Kubby said, "My husband has a terminal illness. No one else has survived this illness. My question is, how much is too much?")
• Some Good News Re: Peter Baez (A list subscriber forwards news that a judge in San Jose County, California, ruled in favor of all three motions heard today in the case of the former operator of Santa Clara County's only medical marijuana dispensary.)
• Court Says Airline, Rail Workers Can Sue for Disability Bias (An Associated Press article in the Sacramento Bee says the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that an airline mechanic who was fired in May 1996 for using Marinol, a prescription drug consisting of synthetic THC, the primary cannabinoid in marijuana, can sue for disability discrimination. The three-judge panel also ruled unanimously that the victim of drug testing could also claim he was fired in violation of public policy, which could bring punitive damages for emotional distress. Saridakis' doctor prescribed Marinol to relieve the pain and insomnia he suffered from injuries.)
• The Erosion Of Our Rights (San Diego Union Tribune columnist Joseph Perkins writes in the Oakland Tribune about recent encroachments on civil liberties carried out or sought by police in Buena Park, California, who stopped every car looking for invalid licenses; by police in New York City, who want the DNA of anyone arrested; and by police in three Northern California cities - Palo Alto, Menlo Park and San Pablo - who want to keep "problem drinkers and common drunkards" from being served by local merchants. One need not be soft on crime to recognize that when the government is able to chip away at any of our rights under whatever seemingly reasonable pretext, it is not long before it finds other seemingly reasonable pretexts to further erode those rights until those cherished rights no longer exist for all practical purposes.)
• Major Ariz. Pot Smuggler Of '80s Is Buried After Shooting in Mexico (The Arizona Daily Star says Manuel Federico Meraz Samaniego, a former resident of Douglas who was convicted of running a multimillion-dollar marijuana smuggling operation in the 1980s, was shot and killed early Monday in a small farming village near Casas Grandes, Chihuahua. According to Chihuahua police, Samaniego was shot in what is believed to have been an ongoing dispute with another former drug kingpin.)
• 3 Boston Police Officers Fail A First Drug Test (The Boston Globe says the Boston Police Department, which implemented a policy Jan. 4 of drug testing all 1,500 patrol officers, confirmed yesterday that three officers of 197 given hair tests so far had come up positive for unspecified illegal substances.)
• Study strengthens smoking-cocaine-miscarriage link (The Associated Press says a study in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine regarding 970 pregnant women who sought emergency room treatment for miscarriage or other problems at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia found no link between marijuana or alcohol use and spontaneous abortion. The report suggested smokers were almost twice as likely to miscarry as non-smokers, and cocaine users were nearly 1 1/2 times as likely to miscarry as non-users. Still, the link between cocaine use and miscarriage was not entirely persuasive, said an accompanying editorial by Dr. James Mills of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The increased risk was small, and other factors could have skewed the results. "One of the things we have learned from this study is that self-reporting is far from perfect," said Dr. Roberta Ness of the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, the lead author of the report.)
• Drug Study At Odds With Drug Czar Findings (USA Today says a study released Thursday by the American Bar Association found that increased drug arrests and longer prison sentences had not impeded illegal drug use. The report used statistics from several federal reports and surveys to find that illegal drug use increased 7 percent from 1996 to 1997, to 14 million people. The report contradicts a study earlier this year by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Barry McCaffrey, the ONDCP director, said he had not seen the ABA study, but said the general issues it raised were being addressed. There were 1.2 million Americans arrested on drug charges in 1997.)
• Keep Financial Privacy, New Legislation Urges (The Denver Post says U.S. Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican, unveiled a far-reaching legislative package Wednesday that would, among other things, block proposed anti-money-laundering rules that would track the habits of bank customers. At least two federal banking agencies are reconsidering the proposed "Know Your Customer" rules in response to the public outcry that started in December.)
• Hitting A Wall Of Opposition (According to the Chicago Tribune, federal regulators said Wednesday in Chicago that the "Know Your Customer" regulations proposed for U.S. banks would be rewritten or even scrapped because of public outcry.)
• GOP Wants Drug Smuggling Stopped (The Associated Press recounts recent Republican agitation for increased interdiction efforts in the war on some drug users. About 14 percent of President Clinton's proposed budget for 2000 would go to interdiction programs, compared with nearly 18 percent in 1999. The wire service fails to point out who wins when traffickers' cost of increasing production is cheaper than the government's cost of increasing interdiction.)
• Drug Approved To Fight Heroin Addiction (The Daily Telegraph, in Australia, says the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee has approved the anti-addiction drug Naltrexone, which can rescue heroin and alcohol addicts from their deadly habits. The drug, to be marketed as Revia, will be available by prescription beginning in March. The drug reportedly can remove cravings and is seen as superior to methadone, which is a replacement for, not a counter to, dangerous drugs. Previously, Naltrexone has been available only in trials of rapid detoxification programs. Desperate heroin addicts have paid up to $30,000 for treatments in the US and Israel.)
• Needle Swap Could Get Nod (The Age, in Melbourne, Australia, says that after the newspaper revealed yesterday that a teenager whom authorities knew was HIV-positive was sent to the Malmsbury youth training centre, where he shared a syringe with six other boys, the state government indicated it was prepared to consider experimenting with needle exchange programs in juvenile jails. The opposition party called instead for the appointment of a panel of experts for advice on the issue.)
• There Must Be An Election Due Soon (A letter to the editor of the Canberra Times, in Australia, explains why Andrew Refshauge, the New South Wales Health Minister, didn't have the public's best interests in mind when he suspended a needle-exchange program in Redfern after a photo appeared in the Sun-Herald the day before showing an as-yet unidentified boy injecting an unknown substance.)
• McLeish Set To Create A Taskforce Of Drug Busters (The Scotsman says Henry McLeish, the Scottish home affairs minister, will create a taskforce to oversee a new multi-million pound campaign against "drugs." Under the proposals, the Scottish Crime Squad - which already spends 90 per cent of its time tackling drugs, at an annual cost of £7 million - would be doubled in size from 100 to 200 officers to create a new Drug Enforcement Agency. Drugs squads in the eight individual police forces in Scotland would also be increased in strength by 100 officers. Mr McLeish has also proposed changing the law to allow the civil courts to confiscate the assets of suspected drug dealers, a system already in place in the republic of Ireland and in the US.)
• Chirac Calls For EU To Harmonise Anti-Drug Laws (Reuters says French President Jacques Chirac told an audience in Lisbon, Portugal Thursday that illegal drug use in Europe was reaching "dramatic" levels, and urged European Union members to agree on common laws to help fight the problem - which he previously has identified as the Netherlands.)
• Doping Summit Ends In Disarray (The Associated Press says the International Olympic Committee "drug summit" in Lausanne, Switzerland, which ended Thursday, laid the groundwork for major anti-drug initiatives in the future. But AP editorializes that what progress was made fell far short of the tough, immediate action the IOC needed to reassert its legitimacy. The IOC had to back off the two main planks of the meeting: creating an international anti-doping agency and imposing a mandatory minimum two-year sanction for positive drug tests.)
• Weekly Action Report on Drug Policies, Year 5, No. 5 (A summary of European and international drug policy news, from CORA in Italy)
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