1999 News
About Cannabis and Drug Policy
April 16-22

Friday, April 16, 1999:
• Oregon legislative hearings on HB 2933, for industrial hemp, and HJM 10, for medical marijuana (A list subscriber says a hearing has been scheduled for Rep. Prozanski's hemp bill at 8:30 am Thursday, April 22, in Hearing Room D at the capitol. A hearing on Rep. Bowman's medical marijuana resolution is also likely to take place by April 23.)
• Oregon high court OKs double-jeopardy review (The Oregonian says the state Supreme Court agreed Thursday to hear an appeal claiming double jeopardy in a 1994 Portland case involving the civil forfeiture of a house and a criminal indictment based on the same marijuana arrest. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that civil forfeiture is not punishment for purposes of considering a double-jeopardy claim. But the Oregon Supreme Court never has reviewed the state civil forfeiture statutes under the state Constitution. According to Stephen Kanter, a professor at Northwestern School of Law at Lewis & Clark College, in Portland, the Oregon Constitution's ban on double jeopardy is broader than the U.S. Constitution's.)
• Control Dispute Reappears At Jail Meeting (The Oregonian says about 300 beds for inmates undergoing treatment for alcohol or other drug abuse are being considered for a proposed 225-bed Multnomah County jail along North Portland's Bybee Lake. A county attorney pointed out a new wrinkle at a Board of Supervisors meeting Thursday. If the county puts the jail and the treatment beds in the same facility, it could create constitutional problems for inmates undergoing coerced treatment who have served out their sentences.)
• Students questioned over drinking at model U.N. (The Associated Press says as many as 100 students from two Portland High Schools are being questioned about drinking at a model United Nations event last week at the University of Oregon in Eugene.)
• Model U.N. students quizzed about drinking (The Oregonian version)
• A Josephine County medical marijuana martyr (A rural Oregon man dying from hepatitus C, contracted in the Marines, rues his legacy.)
• Seattle Million Marijuana March sign-making gathering April 26 (A list subscriber invites local activists to the Queen Anne Library to prepare for the Seattle rally scheduled in conjunction with others around the world Saturday, May 1.)
• Norman Vroman's views on crime, punishment and paying taxes set him apart (The Santa Rosa Press Democrat says the newly elected district attorney in Mendocino County, California, has charted a new course in dealing with domestic violence, drunken driving and marijuana cultivation. Vroman also signaled a new tack toward asset forfeiture by ousting a veteran prosecutor who had handled such drug-related cases. He says there are two types of criminals, those who are predatory and violent, and those who make mistakes but who are basically benevolent. The newspaper says concern is stirring within law enforcement and victim advocacy groups, but that Vroman continues to receive strong support from both sides of Mendocino County's political spectrum, which share a common distrust of the government.)
• Brownie Mary dies, but lives on in memorials this week (An obituary in the Bay Area Reporter for Mary Jane Rathbun quotes Dennis Person saying, "Mary adopted every gay kid in San Francisco. She was there before we knew what AIDS was, when it was referred to as 'GRID,' and even back then she always had a batch of brownies there to relieve the pain of her kids.")
• Report: Lett Fails Drug Test (According to UPI, the New York Times is reporting that Leon Lett, the Dallas Cowboys' defensive tackle, has failed a drug test for the third time and faces a lifetime suspension from the National Football League. The Times report did not say what drug was involved. One of Lett's agents, Michael Claiborne, told the Dallas Morning News that his client had been tested an average of ten times a month for the past four years.)
• Senate Hardens Pot-Sale Penalty (The Des Moines Register says a bill that would make it a felony to sell even the smallest quantity of marijuana in Iowa passed 34-11. The bill would also provide up to five years in prison for anyone who gave away one-half to 1 ounce of marijuana. Having already sailed through the House. It still needs Gov. Tom Vilsack's signature to take effect. Sen. Jeff Lamberti, R-Ankeny, who guided debate of the bill, said it treats marijuana more like other illicit drugs.)
• Couple Sent To Prison For Growing Marijuana (The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in Wisconsin, says Gary & Dawn Roth forfeited their 460-acre farm in Vernon County and were sentenced to 10 years, and three years and one month, respectively, after police found 4,244 marijuana plants in a converted hog barn in December.)
• Illinois "Cannabis Info" bill dead (A list subscriber forwards a message from an ACLU-Illinois legislative coordinator predicting the demise of HB 792, which would make it a Class A misdemeanor to "transmit information by the Internet about a controlled substance knowing that the information will be used in furtherance of illegal activity.")
• Four Co-Defenders Say Cop Was Drug Kingpin (The Chicago Tribune says four co-defendants pleaded guilty Thursday to drug conspiracy charges and accused Officer Joseph Miedzianowski, a Chicago policeman, of leading a double life as a cocaine kingpin who allegedly interfered with a murder investigation, armed gang members with semi-automatic weapons and betrayed fellow officers working undercover. In exchange for their cooperation and their testimony against Miedzianowski and others, the four likely will receive sharp reductions in prison sentences that could have sent them away for anywhere from 17 years to life.)
• Merle Haggard Still Calls The Tune (A Boston Globe feature article on the country music legend from Bakersfield, California, quotes him saying "Okie from Muskogee" was a kind of joke, and that conservatives - especially the anti-marijuana forces - have gone too far. "America has sure gone to some sort of a police state in the last 10 years," he said. Thanks to "zero tolerance" policies by U.S. authorities at the Canadian border, he won't play in Canada now for fear of having tour buses forfeited.)
• El-Amin Apologizes, Gets One Day Of Community Service (The Middletown Press says University of Connecticut basketball star Khalid El-Amin apologized Thursday to his family, his teammates and the people of Connecticut and Minnesota for his arrest on marijuana possession charges 15 days after leading the Huskies to their first national championship. The 19-year-old Minneapolis native was stopped for a traffic violation in Hartford and a small amount of marijuana was discovered during a pat-down search.)
• 89-Year-Old Man Sentenced For Selling Crack (The Associated Press says Brose Gearhart, who turns 90 today, was sentenced Monday to up to four years in prison for running a $1,000-a-week operation from his home in Saugerties, New York, and routinely trading drugs for sex with prostitutes.)
• Strawberry Arrest Adds Bleak Note To Yankees (The Washington Post recounts yesterday's news about the cocaine bust of baseball legend Darryl Strawberry in Florida.)
• Yankees' Strawberry Is Charged With Drug Possession, Solicitation (The Philadelphia Inquirer version)
• Report: Strawberry Begged To Be Let Off (The UPI version says the Yankees slugger told Tampa police he was only joking when he offered $50 to an undercover police officer for sex. He also said he knew nothing about the cocaine that was allegedly found wrapped in a $20 bill in his wallet, claiming he found the money in the glove compartment of a borrowed car.)
• Million Marijuana March web endeavor - millionmarijuanamarch.com (A list subscriber forwards information about the worldwide reform rally scheduled for Saturday, May 1. The world wide web is making it all possible.)
• Zero tolerance sparks mutiny in police ranks (The Australian News Network says New York Police Commissioner Howard Safir, who has overseen a sharp drop in crime with a much-vaunted zero-tolerance policy, faces a mutiny in the ranks for turning the city into a "police state" where people despise men and women in uniform. The Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, representing police officers, has cast a unanimous vote of no confidence in Safir amid rising concern about police misconduct.)
• Salvos Stop Saying 'No' (The Australian says the Salvation Army has jettisoned its "just say no" approach to drug and alcohol rehabilitation, forcing Prime Minister John Howard's chief drug adviser and his best-known advocate of zero-tolerance policies to concede the agency had allowed itself to be depicted as too hardline.)
• Moral Crusaders Must Be Ignored (A letter to the editor of the Canberra Times says prohibition never works. All that making a drug illegal does is put money into the hands of organised crime. The "war against drugs" does not exist. It is a war waged by certain sections of Australian society to impose their moral beliefs and drug of choice - alcohol - onto the rest of society.)
• Treatment Demand Stretches Clinics (According to the Irish Examiner, representatives of the Eastern Health Board, the main treatment provider in Dublin, told the Dail Public Accounts Committee yesterday that at any one time, 600 people are on waiting lists seeking treatment for heroin addiction.)
• WHO Cautious On Swiss Experiment (The Associated Press says a study sponsored by the United Nations concluded Friday that while Switzerland accepts the evidence that its heroin maintenance program leads to health gains for addicts, its claims must be tested carefully in "rich" countries before other "rich" countries copy the program. The World Health Organization criticized the Swiss for not including a control group, even though last year, 209 drug-related deaths were reported, down from a peak of 419 in 1992. The Swiss put the heroin program on a permanent legal footing last year.)
• The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 87 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original online drug policy newsmagazine includes - HEA reform campaign online petition launched; Conyers reintroduces racial profiling legislation; Conyers introduces legislation to end federal disenfranchisement; Unarmed boy shot in drug raid; California legislators consider "three strikes" modification; Doctor's undertreatment of pain draws penalty; Nevada legislature mulls marijuana decriminalization bill; Seminars at the Lindesmith Center; and an editorial: Disparity dilemma)
• DrugSense Weekly, No. 94 (The original summary of drug policy news from DrugSense opens with the weekly Feature Article - Kosovo is Small Potatoes Compared to the Drug War, by Mark Greer. The Weekly News in Review spotlights several articles about Drug War Policy, including - Drug survey of children finds middle school a pivotal time; Iowa report: 1 in 25 workers showed evidence of drug use; Editorial: the Fourth Amendment suffers at court's hands; 'Black tar' grimly covers S.F. streets; and, Number of drug deaths in Florida rises. Articles about Law Enforcement & Prisons include - As inmate population grows, so does a focus on children; Losing battle to revise drug law; The politics of punishment; Editorial: federalizing crime; and, Feds to join local war on drugs. Articles about Cannabis & Hemp include - Farmers show interest in hemp; Hemp-Ventura; High court hears man's case to grow marijuana for medicine; Marijuana as medicine - state bill inches forward; and, Movement on 215. International News includes - Australia: Bid for zero tolerance in schools doomed; Fugitive former governor of Mexican state charged with trafficking; and, Canadians favour the use of medical marijuana. The weekly "Hot Off The 'Net' feature points you to Steve Young's online book, "Maximizing Harm." The Fact of the Week uses the government's own statistics to document that mandatory minimums increase crime. The Quote of the Week shares an e-mail from British Member of Parliament Paul Flynn, who uses the DrugSense and MAP web sites.)
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  Saturday, April 17, 1999:

• Let Adults Decide What To Ingest (A letter to the editor of the Oregonian dismisses the newspaper's recent editorial on the Institute of Medicine report by asserting the primacy of individual rights.)
• Strip club suit keeps beer flowing for free (The Oregonian says Scores, in Northeast Salem, wants to continue to give away beer without a liquor license and is asking a judge to declare the practice legal in a lawsuit filed Friday in Marion County Circuit Court. The flow of free beer resumed Friday after a day's halt for a special event.)
• Hayden hearings (A bulletin from California NORML says SB 1261, a bill sponsored by state senator Tom Hayden that would create a commission on drug policy and violence, was approved by the senate Public Safety Committee on a 6-0 vote now goes to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Here's some swing votes to lobby.)
• Cannabis Has Herbal Benefits Research Can Help Unlock (An op-ed by a professional herbalist in the Buffalo News, in New York, summarizes the pharmacological history of cannabis.)
• Drug And Alcohol Use Jump In Nation's Capitol (According to an Associated Press article in the Standard-Times, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which implies that alcohol is not a drug, District of Columbia Mayor Anthony Williams cited a new report by Drug Strategies that claimed adult cocaine and heroin use rates in the district were twice the national average in 1993, the latest figures available. The Drug Strategies report also showed heavy drinking was 50 percent more prevalent among adults in the capital than among their peers nationwide, and alcohol-related deaths in the district were double the national rate. Unfortunately, AP doesn't mention Drug Strategies' methodology or its agenda.)
• Study Finds Drug Abuse At Heart Of City's Ills (The Washington Post version is similarly one-sided and uncritical.)
• 'Crisis' Of Black Males Gets High-Profile Look (The Washington Post says nationally, one in three young black men is under the supervision of the criminal justice system, and the rate approaches 50 percent in some states. In all, 12 states and the District of Columbia imprison blacks at rates 10 times those of whites, according to the latest government figures. The composite picture has become so alarming that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights made it the subject of an unusual two-day conference this week in Washington, D.C.)
• New Drugs For Old Habits (The Economist, in Britain, says advances in the understanding of how alcohol, cocaine, heroin and nicotine affect the brain at the cellular and molecular level are leading to new approaches to treating substance abuse. A few companies such as Merck and DuPont have already taken the plunge, at least for alcohol abuse.)
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  Sunday, April 18, 1999:

• Friends pay tribute to Brownie Mary's life (The San Francisco Examiner says a candlelight vigil in the Castro District honored "Brownie" Mary Rathbun, the late activist who helped launch the medical marijuana movement by baking marijuana brownies for AIDS patients. "Brownie Mary was my friend," San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan told the crowd while standing on the back of a red pickup truck. "Brownie Mary was a hero. She will one day be remembered as the Florence Nightingale of the medical marijuana movement." Hallinan then pledged that as long as he is DA, "Nobody is going to prosecute in the city and county of San Francisco anyone who uses and cultivates marijuana with a legitimate doctor's recommendation.")
• Ready For Medical Marijuana Research (A staff editorial in the Oakland Tribune says the "unruly debate" over medical marijuana persists because the federal government is stubbornly obstructing the will of the people. Science is ready and the people have spoken, but are the bureaucrats ready?)
• These are your kids on drugs (An op-ed in the San Francisco Examiner by Steven Okazaki, an Academy Award-winning film maker who produced "Black Tar Heroin: The Dark End of the Street" for HBO, criticizes the White House drug czar's $1 billion anti-drug advertising campaign. "Not one of the kids I talked to was ignorant of the dangers of drug use when he or she began." Certainly, prevention is important. But it's not prevention to tell kids to stay away from drugs while we ignore the circumstances of their lives. Don't expect things to get better as long as policy makers refuse to back off the tough-on-crime bluster and address the frayed social services net and lack of treatment options for addicts.)
• Bad Marijuana Bill (A letter to the editor of the Daily Herald, in Arlington Heights, Illinois, from the director of the Illinois State Crime Commission, pans HB 792, which would make it illegal for anyone to transmit "cannabis information" through the Internet. The crime commission oftentimes finds itself delivering new, sometimes groundbreaking information about illegal drugs. Supporters of the measure admit that HB 792 contains a number of "gray areas" that would have to be addressed by the courts.)
• El-Amin's Joint More Important Than War In Kosovo? Get A Grip (Republican-American columnist Ed Daigneault, in Waterbury, Connecticut, says hysteria surrounded the bust of University of Connecticut basketball star Khalid El-Amin this week. El-Amin's possession of a tiny amount of marijuana became the lead story on local television news and received prominent play in Connecticut newspapers. Daigneault doesn't mention that if convicted, El-Amin faces the loss of student aid under the recently approved Higher Education Act.)
• El-Amin Gets Warm Reception (The Charlotte Observer, in North Carolina, says Khalid El-Amin, arrested for marijuana on Tuesday, was clearly the fan favorite Saturday during a parade in Hartford honoring the University of Connecticut's NCAA championship basketball team.)
• Billboards Come Down In 45 States (The News-Times, in Connecticut, says a settlement with that takes effect Friday will remove all billboard and transit advertisements for four tobacco companies' cigarettes. The settlement also obliges tobacco companies to turn over the remaining time on their advertising leases to the states' attorneys general so the states can run anti-amoker propaganda. Until now, the tobacco companies spent $300 million a year in outdoor advertising.)
• D.C. Medical Marijuana Referendum Is In Limbo (The Kansas City Star describes how Congress quashed the results from Initiative 59 in Washington, D.C. last November. After five months, a federal judge still has not ruled on whether anyone should see them.)
• JAX Election Scam! (A bulletin from the Florida Cannabis Action Network says petitioners for a medical marijuana ballot measure being sponsored by Floridians for Medical Rights were once again prohibited from gathering signatures Tuesday near a polling station in Jacksonville, despite a federal court order prompted by similar repression November 3. A local law enforcement official allegedly threatened to arrest petitioners and another stood by as a Baptist preacher threatened them with violence.)
• ACM-Bulletin of 18 April 1999 (An English-language bulletin from the Association for Cannabis as Medicine, in Cologne, Germany, features news about an Australian Survey on the medical use of cannabis; a science report on the Interaction of anandamide with dopamine, a basis for the treatment of movement disorders and schizophrenia; and a California town's attempt to implement the voter-approved medical marijuana law.)
• Russian Police Make Major Pot Bust (According to the Associated Press, the ITAR-Tass news agency said Sunday that police seized 1,320 pounds of marijuana from a truck crossing into Russia from the Central Asian republic of Kazakstan.)
• Weekly Action Report on Drug Policies, Year 5, No. 15 (A summary of European and international drug policy news, from CORA, in Italy)
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  Monday, April 19, 1999:

• HJM 10, the Oregon Medical Marijuana Rescheduling Memorial (A list subscriber says the resolution before the state house of representatives asking Congress to reschedule marijuana to make it available as medicine will receive a "tap-tap" hearing this week to keep it alive.)
• Andrea Nagy Raided (A list subscriber says the founder of the now-defunct medical marijuana dispensary in Ventura County, California, was busted by an unspecified agency today for her and her mother's 64 plants.)
• Industrial Hemp Legal in North Dakota (A list subscriber forwards an unsourced press release announcing that Governor Schafer on Saturday signed HB 1428, which reportedly means "any person in this state may plant, grow, harvest, possess, process, sell, and buy industrial hemp." North Dakota's Senate passed HB 1428 by a vote of 44-3 on April 12. The week before the House passed the bill 86-7.)
• U.S. Drug Policy, Problem Need Fix (According to an editorial in the Topeka Capital-Journal by Gene Smith, Barry McCaffrey, who says he didn't ask for his job as drug czar, came to Kansas last week to promote the national drug control strategy, spending nearly an hour with the newspaper's editorial board. General McCaffrey's attempt to tone down the language of the "war on drugs" may be too late. The past several years show the already tattered Bill of Rights may have suffered permanent damage. Maybe the white-haired ex-general can find a way to both wage the drug war and preserve the Constitution. "Let us pray that he does. And that, like a physician, he first does no harm.")
• Rally Held In Houghton In Support Of Legalization Of Marijuana (WLUC, the NBC affiliate in Marquette, Michigan, says Michigan Tech University students associated with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws held their annual campus rally Sunday.)
• Ritalin Abuse Is Rampant In American Schools Today (Syndicated commentator Betsy Hart writes in the Standard-Times, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, about an indictment of Ritalin in the most recent issue of the Heritage Foundation's Policy Review magazine - not a periodical most medical school libraries subscribe to. Hart emphasizes the DEA's classification of methylphenidate as a "stimulant," ignoring its role as one of the first antidepressants, and the doctors, pharmacologists and educators who could explain that, for psychiatric patients, including kids with Attention Deficit Disorder, it's not a stimulant at all. Unfortunately, Hart misses the boat by failing to endorse the sort of research that could reveal Ritalin's real hazards, for example, a longitudinal study of a representative sample of longterm users. Plus commentary from various list subscribers.)
• 2 N.J. State Troopers Indicted (The Associated Press says a grand jury today in Trenton, New Jersey, indicted John Hogan and James Kenna, the two cops who opened fire last April on a van on the New Jersey Turnpike containing four unarmed minority men. The two troopers were accused of falsifying records by misrepresenting the race of the motorists they had stopped and searched, and of illegally searching vehicles and occupants in the three months prior to the shooting.)
• DEA: Status of the proposed rescheduling of dronabinol (Jon Gettman, the former director of NORML who has been petitioning the Drug Enforcement Administration since 1995 to reschedule marijuana, based on the government's own science, shares a letter from the DEA indicating his objection to reclassifying Marinol as a Schedule 3 drug, apart from marijuana, is causing the DEA "concern" because, "by intertwining Mr. Gettman's petition with the proposed transfer of Marinol, the respective issues" have become "confused," a word Gettman would probably replace with "linked." Then the DEA has the incredible gall to imply that Gettman's objections may be harming sick people.)
• Statement on Marinol (Jon Gettman and High Times magazine officially repond to the DEA's "confusion" about the relationship between Marinol - pure THC - which the DEA wants to move to Schedule 3, and marijuana, which the DEA wants to keep in Schedule 1.)
• It's Time to Open the Doors of Our Prisons (An op-ed in Newsweek by Rufus King, a Washington lawyer and perhaps the longest-active drug-policy-reformer in the United States, explains how freeing first-time drug offenders now would make economic sense.)
• Jamaican Spring Break: Sun, Sea and Sex (The Salt Lake Tribune says about 20,000 students from northeastern U.S. universities are expected to spend their spring vacations at Jamaica's three main resort towns by the end of April - up from 13,000 last year - lured by the promise of hot sunshine, cool seas, all-night parties and plenty of booze. For some, an additional attraction is "ganja," or marijuana.)
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  Tuesday, April 20, 1999:

• Report on April 15 hearing regarding registry system for medical marijuana (Sandee Burbank of Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse summarizes the recent public meeting in Portland sponsored by the Oregon Health Division regarding implementation of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act. Plus, details about the "Marijuana is Medicine" rally April 30 in Salem.)
• Los Angeles County Deputies Raid Andrea Nagy (A list subscriber forwards the marijuananews.com version of yesterday's news, interspersed with comments by Steve Kubby.)
• A Grass-Roots Effort To Legalize Hemp (The Santa Barbara News-Press, in California, spreads the news about industrial hemp as related by Al Espino, the owner of Hempwise, an Isla Vista store that sells hemp clothing. The article also publicizes the hemp bash today in Anisq' Oyo' Park in the heart of Isla Vista. According to a report in the Washington Post, worldwide sales have gone from $5 million in 1993 to $75 million in 1995.)
• Drums of Disapproval Are Still Pounding (The Salt Lake Tribune, in Utah, says local police armed with nightsticks, riot gear and gas launchers swept drum-circle celebrants out of Liberty Park Sunday afternoon, issuing citations to 16 people for alcohol violations, possession of marijuana, drug paraphernalia or distribution of drugs and one for not keeping his dog on a leash. "We cannot afford to let that park deteriorate to open lawlessness, to where drugs and weapons are being brought into that park," Police Chief Ruben Ortega said Monday, without explaining who besides police had weapons. Police allege up to 150 people taunted them as they busted one man for selling marijuana. Many drum circlers saw it differently. Only a few incorrigibles taunted the police, they say. Some in the drum crowd say they never heard an order to disperse. Several in the crowd were hit with nightsticks, although no serious injuries were reported.)
• Mass E-Mail Protest Targets Rule Requiring Reports (The Salt Lake Tribune says civil libertarians and other groups are flush with their success in forcing regulators to drop the proposed "Know Your Customer" rules on tracking bank customers' habits, and are organizing a campaign to end reporting requirements for cash transactions. Legislation proposed by Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, would repeal the Bank Secrecy Act, which requires banks to report customers' cash transactions of $10,000 or more, as well as "suspicious activities" to law-enforcement authorities.)
• Norwalk Drug-Ed Officer Charged (The Des Moines Register says Thomas Nolan, a police sergeant and DARE officer in Norwalk, Iowa, was charged with possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia after the Marion-Warren County drug task force searched his home Sunday. Sgt. Dave Murillo of the Des Moines Police Department, who lives in Norwalk, said he learned from one Norwalk officer that "narcotics" evidence had been disappearing from the Norwalk department.)
• Veteran State Police Officer Pleads Guilty To Corruption Charges (UPI says Richard Corey Jr., of East Falmouth, a veteran Massachusetts state police officer, pleaded guilty today to charges of taking payoffs from a cocaine dealer in exchange for feeding him confidential information about police undercover agents and informants.)
• Massachusetts State Police Sergeant Pleads Guilty (A lengthier version on PR Newswire)
• N.J. Report Admits Racial Profiling (According to the Associated Press, the New Jersey Attorney General's office acknowledged Tuesday that some state troopers have engaged in "racial profiling" in pulling over minority motorists. The state is also dropping its appeal of a 1996 court ruling that troopers demonstrated racial bias in making arrests along the turnpike. The court decision could affect dozens of pending criminal cases.)
• Useful excerpts from the IOM medicinal marijuana report (The Marijuana Policy Project, in Washington, D.C., publicizes its new online guide, "Questions about medicinal marijuana answered by the Institute of Medicine's report." Despite a statement at the IOM's March 17 news conference by Principal Investigator Dr. John Benson that "we concluded that there are limited circumstances in which we recommend smoking marijuana for medical uses," and a Gallup poll conducted March 19-21 that showed 73 percent of Americans support "making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in order to reduce pain and suffering," the latest issue of Psychiatric News says the Drug Czar's office still endorses arresting medical marijuana users. Chuck Thomas of the MPP said that at first, the drug warriors pretended to like the IOM report, but for the past month they've been ignoring it and outright maligning it.)
• Pot Advocate Called Refugee From U.S. 'War' (The Vancouver Province, in British Columbia, says a legal battle began yesterday in the B.C. Supreme Court to keep Renee Boje, a 29-year-old California woman, from being deported to the U.S. to face marijuana-related charges in connection with the 1997 Bel Air bust of Todd McCormick.)
• Western Canadian Hemp Acres Could Be High As A Kite (Resource News says good yields from the first Canadian hemp crop and depressed prices for traditional crops like canola and wheat will fuel dramatic growth in hemp production this summer on the Western Canadian prairies. Bruce Brolley, a new crops specialist with the Manitoba provincial agriculture department, says he's estimating about 15,000 acres will be planted in the province this spring, up from approximately 1,300 acres last summer.)
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  Wednesday, April 21, 1999:

• Female inmates need protection (A letter to the editor of the Oregonian from a board member of Amnesty International USA seeks support for Oregon House Bill 3596, introduced by Rep. Kathy Lowe, D-Milwaukie, which would criminalize sexual misconduct between guards and inmates. Male prison and jail guards in this country fondle, rape and coerce sex from female inmates. Amnesty International was instrumental in getting custodial sexual-misconduct legislation passed in three states this year - Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington. Oregon is one of the few states that still do not have statutory protection for female prisoners.)
• Don't link tobacco, schools (A letter to the editor of the Oregonian says the proposal by Oregon Treasurer Jim Hill to cash out the state's interest in its settlement with tobacco companies, thereby raising money to pay school costs, defers finding another source of education funding to the next biennium and leaves the tobacco-related health costs to be paid later, too.)
• $10 Million Claim Filed In Pot Arrest: Cancer patient had prescription (According to the Sacramento Bee, Robert DeArkland, 71, of Fair Oaks, California, who suffers from prostate cancer and arthritis, filed the claim against Sacramento County in response to prohibition agents from both Sacramento and Placer counties raiding his home last October and seizing 13 marijuana plants, $420 in cash and a scale. "I might not get a dime, but at least it may stop other people from being harassed," DeArkland said. He added that he would file a lawsuit against the county if his claim is rejected.)
• Police brutality at drum circle in Salt Lake City, Utah (A list subscriber forwards a first-person account of Sunday's confrontation that differs considerably from the Salt Lake Tribune's version.)
• Study: Drug Treatment Cuts Crime (The Associated Press says an Arizona Supreme Court study commissioned by the state legislature found that the mandatory treatment provision for nonviolent, first- and second-time drug offenders included in Proposition 200 led to reduced crime, saved taxpayers more than $2.56 million, and resulted in 78 percent of participants later testing drug-free. The 1996 law, which also allows doctors to prescribe marijuana, was repealed by the legislature but reapproved last fall in a second vote.)
• Arizona's Prop. 200 Saving Millions of Dollars, Cutting Drug Abuse, Says New Report by State Supreme Court (The PR Newswire version)
• Arizona Finds Cost Savings in Treating Drug Offenders (The New York Times version)
• Drug Diversion Law In Arizona Paying Dividends (The Los Angeles Times version)
• Study Backs Treatment, Not Prison, For Addicts (The Chicago Tribune version in the Seattle Times)
• Defendant Again Represents Himself In Marijuana Case (The Dubuque Telegraph Herald, in Iowa, says Gregory Sharkey argued at his retrial Tuesday that the plants he was busted for in October 1995 were just ditchweed and he was maliciously prosecuted. Sharkey was first sentenced to multiple 15-year sentences for 380 grams of marijuana and 66 marijuana plants. But in 1998 the Iowa Supreme Court reversed the conviction, saying his Sixth Amendment right to counsel was violated because a sufficient inquiry into his understanding of legal representation was not conducted.)
• The Double Standard - Inequality In Criminal Justice May Be A Good Thing For The Favored Classes (The New York Times reviews the book "No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System," by David Cole. "No Equal Justice" makes a strong case that we have tolerated a law enforcement strategy that "depends on the exploitation of race and class divisions." Cole offers three solutions. The first two admit the mistake, then revamp the rules to reduce the influence of race and class - but are probably unrealistic, especially as the new rules could reduce "the rights that the privileged now enjoy." Cole's third solution endorses "community-based criminal justice," the antithesis of the "tough on crime" approach, and would also be a tough sell.)
• Drug Law (A staff editorial in the Charlotte Observer, in North Carolina, endorses a proposed local anti-paraphernalia ordinance, even though a similar state law already exists.)
• Cops Can't Keep Up With B.C. Drug Trade (The Kelowna Daily Courier says figures compiled by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics show that in 1997, British Columbia had 13 per cent of Canada's population but was responsible for 25 per cent all the cannabis "incidents" in the country, 28 per cent of cocaine offences and 61 per cent of all heroin incidents. B.C.'s rate of drug charges is 26 per cent higher than the national average. But the drug problem is so prevalent, fewer than one in three cannabis offences resulted in criminal charges.)
• Police chiefs want possession of all narcotics decriminalized - Fight court backlog (According to the National Post, the newspaper has learned that Canada's police chiefs have recommended that the federal government decriminalize possession of small quantities of all illegal narcotics, including heroin. The proposal was approved last week by the board of directors of the Association of Canadian Police Chiefs and will be submitted to the membership for a vote later this year. The recommendation is meant to clear the courts of a backlog of drug cases and allow police to concentrate resources on more serious crimes.)
• Arthritis Drug Linked To 10 Deaths In US (According to the Scotsman, reports handed to the US Food and Drug Administration by the Wall Street Journal showed that Celebrex, a painkiller patented by Monsanto and manufactured by GD Searle, its St Louis-based subsidiary, has been linked to ten deaths and 11 cases of gastrointestinal bleeding in its first three months on the US market. More than two million people have taken Celebrex for osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis since January. Scarlett Lee Foster, a Monsanto spokeswoman, said "You can't draw any conclusions from the adverse incident reports.")
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  Thursday, April 22, 1999:

• NORML Weekly Press Release (North Dakota becomes first state to legalize hemp cultivation; Drug czar's office endorses arresting, jailing medical marijuana smokers despite report backing drug's value; Hawaiian hemp research cultivation bill in final stages; Canada's parliament resumes historic medical marijuana debate)
• CMA Lobbies State Legislators (Synapse, a publication of the medical school at the University of California at San Francisco, describes the recent meeting of 500 members of the California Medical Association regarding various proposed state health care legislation, particularly the medical marijuana task force established by Attorney General Bill Lockyer. In addressing CMA members, Lockyer seemed to suggest that physicians could approve patients' use of medical marijuana without fearing federal intervention, if they did it quietly. He summarized his stance as, "We won't go looking, but don't bring yourselves to our attention.")
• Judge Suspends Baldwin Medical Marijuana Trial (The Auburn Journal, in California, says the trial of Michael and Georgia Baldwin was put on hold for one week Wednesday morning in order for Judge James D. Garbolino to read the meager case law on Proposition 215. Although both Baldwins have recommendations from their physicians, Placer County sheriff's detectives arrested them Sept. 23 for 146 plants at their Granite Bay home.)
• Hemp: Now We're Wearing It, Eating It, Even Building With It (The Orange County Register says hemp is so hot that many hemp manufacturers don't even bother anymore with doper jokes.)
• Controversy: The Legal Ties That Bind Hemp Farming (The Los Angeles Times says states are leading the drive to re-introduce industrial hemp production. On Saturday, North Dakota became the first state to permit the growth and sale of industrial hemp, although growers will still need permits from the Drug Enforcement Agency. Sales of hemp products are booming. In 1993, worldwide retail sales amounted to only a few million dollars. In 1997, sales surpassed $75 million, according to HempTech, a hemp research organization based in Sebastapol, California.)
• Possible April 20 (420) Connection to Pot Smoking Sub-Culture In Littleton Tragedy, FRC Says (A revealing press release from the drug-warrior Family Research Council, distributed by PR Newswire, jumps the gun by suggesting Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the two teen-agers who committed mass murder-suicide Tuesday at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, were pot smokers celebrating "4-20" rather than abstemious Nazi sympathizers whose only "drug" use involved a pharmaceutical antidepressant.)
• Reno at Large - U.S. Would Do Well To Prescribe Truce In 'Other' Drug War (An op-ed in Newsday, in New York, by U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno says America is fighting not one but two parallel and exceedingly costly drug wars. One is against suppliers of mood-altering illegal substances. The other is among manufacturers of mood-altering legal substances. The suppliers seem to be winning both wars. And the cost to the nation - measured in bulging jails, prohibition-associated violence, clogged courts, the rising cost of health care and a growing uninsured population - is huge. But Reno offers no evidence that the government is doing anything but abetting the problem, and offers no solutions to the systemic problems she presides over.)
• 'Just Say No': An Exchange (A letter to the editor of the New York Review of Books from Sue Rusch, often cited as the leader of the "parents' movement" that ended marijuana-law reform efforts in the 1980s, denies an allegation in "The Fix," by Michael Massing, that the movement ended a policy initiated in the Nixon administration to aggressively provide treatment to heroin addicts. Rusch's protests are ably dismissed by Malcolm Gladwell, the author of NYRB's review of Massing's book.)
• High On Fragrance (The Washington Post takes note of the moisturizing creams and soaps made with industrial hemp being sold by 300 Body Shop stores in the United States. Hempseed's protein-rich oil contains a fatty acid that penetrates dry skin. Body Shop, the trendy retailer of skin, body care and fragrance products in 47 countries, pushes the marijuana connection with a musky fragrance and suggestive pitch and packaging. "They can't arrest your skin," says one slogan. "The best moisturizer in the world and we promise you won't get the munchies," says another.)
• Police Like Pot-Penalty Plan (According to the Vancouver Province, in British Columbia, Vancouver police Chief Bruce Chambers says he's taking a "serious look" at supporting a plan to decriminalize possession of small quantities of cannabis products. The proposal was approved last week by directors of the Association of Canadian Police Chiefs. RCMP spokesman Sgt. Andre Guertin said the Mounties support the plan, because it would reduce a court backlog and free police to investigate more serious offences.)
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