1999 News
About Cannabis and Drug Policy
May 14-20

Friday, May 14, 1999:
• Update on HB 3052 - Medical Marijuana Compromise Legislation (An e-mail to advocates for medical marijuana patients from Dr. Rick Bayer, a chief petitioner for the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, forwards a message from Oregonians for Medical Rights about the status of the bill before the Oregon legislature that would nullify much of the voter-approved initiative. Yesterday the Oregon House approved HB 3052 by a vote of 49 to 8. The bill now goes on to the Senate judiciary committee. Please contact your state senator and ask him or her to vote "no" on HB 3502 when it goes to the floor. "Even more importantly, get involved in politics and rid our Capitol of extremists who have no concern for dying and suffering patients.")
• Lawmakers consider clipping the end off Oregon's cigar tax (The Oregonian says the Oregon House of Representatives Revenue Committee approved HB 3371 Thursday on a party line vote of 5-4. The bill would limit a voter-approved tax increase on cigars, now 65 percent of the wholesale price, to 50 cents a stogie. The bill's supporters point to evidence that cigar consumers in Oregon have been avoiding prohibitory state taxes for years by making their purchases through the mail or via the Internet. With the cigar-buying public avoiding the tax, the increase has hurt small businesses and cost the state money, said Rep. Bill Witt, R-Cedar Mill, the bill's sponsor. Democrats said the bill would undermine voters and send the wrong message about tobacco.)
• Panel approves rollback on cigar taxes (The Associated Press version)
• Judge cuts damages in Portland tobacco suit (The Oregonian says Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge Anna J. Brown reduced a Portland jury's recent assessment of $79.5 million in punitive damages against Philip Morris to $32 million, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's insistance that punishment has to be proportionate to the level of wrongdoing. The $32 million, which is still the largest judgment against a tobacco company, could have been reduced even further but Judge Brown found that Philip Morris had not taken steps to keep from lying in the future, interpreting the multistate settlement sponsored by state attorneys general as lacking "substantial remedial steps" to prevent wrongdoing.)
• Judge cuts tobacco verdict from $79.5 million to $32 million (The Associated Press version)
• Port of Portland sells county land for jail (The Oregonian says the final price for Multnomah County's new jail will depend on a survey, but is expected to be about $5.5 million. The newspaper characteristically omits the cost to taxpayers of interest on bonds and the annual cost of maintaining the gulag, the funding of which hasn't been secured yet. The 525 beds could be expanded later to 2,000 beds.)
• Bill Prevents Cities From Banning Smoking In Bars (The Associated Press says the Oregon House of Representatives voted 36-22 Friday to approve HB 2806, which would prevent cities in Oregon - except Corvallis - from enacting smoking bans in bars and taverns. Some representatives said they found it ironic the House voted earlier in the day to let cities zone sex businesses into restricted areas, but then passed a bill taking away their rights to enact tavern smoking bans. The bill now goes to the Senate.)
• Bill curbs medical marijuana - Senate OKs pot limit, mandatory registry (The Anchorage Daily News says the Alaska state senate voted 15-5 Thursday in favor of SB 94, a bill that limits the medical marijuana law 60 percent of voters approved last fall. Most significantly, the bill would require patients to register with the state, and preclude a medical defense for nonregistered patients. It would also limit the amount of marijuana a patient can possess to one ounce or six plants. The bill now moves to the state house of representatives.)
• Eli Lilly targets weekend, late-night TV viewers with Prozac infomercial (An Associated Press article in the online Nando Times says the pharmaceutical company based in Indianapolis will begin airing a 30-minute advertisement for the world's top-selling antidepressant on May 17. The ad will be broadcast during time slots when more depressed people are expected to be slouched in front of the tube. Late-night viewers will also no doubt appreciate a break from all those Partnership ads.)
• Third Massachusetts News (UPI says Stephen Greaney, a police detective in New Bedford, Massachusetts, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of taking $3,500 from a drug dealer for the name of an undercover police agent who had infiltrated his operation.)
• Pot ruling indictment of Health Canada (A staff editorial in the Toronto Star, excerpted from an editorial in the Montreal Gazette, says Jim Wakeford, a 54-year-old Toronto resident dying of AIDS, should not have had to sue the Canadian government to safeguard his use of marijuana to relieve his pain and suffering. An Ontario Superior Court judge's ruling this week that he has waited long enough is a damning indictment of Health Canada's approval process for the medical use of pot.)
• Our ancestors knew better . . . (A list subscriber quotes an item in today's Sydney Morning Herald noting the sale at auction of the world's oldest cookbook, from 15th century Italy, that includes a recipe for cannabis bread.)
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  Saturday, May 15, 1999:

• Drug War Takes Daily Fight (A staff editorial in the Statesman Journal, in Salem, Oregon, says the war on drugs is a battle that can never be won. "It is an endless fight, one that must continue as long as drugs retain the ability to grab hold of users and shake the life out of them. . . . the fact that 49 percent of high school seniors reported having tried marijuana is cause for alarm." The fact that usage rates were lower before prohibition apparently doesn't register. The editors don't explain why people who use the least dangerous drugs should be criminalized, but not tobacco and alcohol consumers and traffickers.)
• Drug War Requires Daily Stupidity (A letter sent to the editor of the Statesman Journal responds to today's staff editorial urging war without end. "The delusions of prohibitionists like the Statesman Journal" are what rob users of their freedom and make them slaves to addiction, not the drugs themselves. "The Statesman Journal shares in the bloodguilt for all the needless death and destruction caused by an idiotic policy that causes a hundred times more trouble than drugs by themselves ever did.")
• Come To Sacramento, Lovers Of Liberty! (Best-selling author and medical-marijuana patient/activist Peter McWilliams urges you to attend the trial, beginning Tuesday, of B.E. Smith, who, like McWilliams, is facing federal cultivation-related charges despite California's Proposition 215. If Smith is acquitted, McWilliams' case may be dismissed as well. McWilliams calls this the "most important case yet in the medical marijuana movement. . . . If you ever said, 'I wish I had the chance to have marched with King in Selma,' then come to Sacramento.")
• Court Backs Border Patrol Traffic Stop (An Associated Press article in the San Jose Mercury News says a 2-1 ruling Thursday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ignores widespread concern about racial profiling and allows Border Patrol agents to consider ethnicity among other factors when they make traffic stops.)
• County Wants To Stop Hemp Fest (The South Bend Tribune, in Indiana, says officials in Cass County, Michigan, want to nip Hemp Aid '99 in the bud. The four-day, three-night festival has taken place every Memorial Day weekend since 1993 at Rainbow Farm in Vandalia. Scheduled to appear this year are comedian Tommy Chong, the High Times Cannabis Cup Band and the Billy Bongster Band. A county ordinance requires permits for outdoor gatherings of more than 500 people, but not for events that are sponsored by non-profit organizations. At issue is whether Hemp Fest '99 is, in fact, sponsored by such an organization.)
• Miami Drug Gang, Suspended Detective Charged In Roundup (The Tampa Tribune says the Boobie Boys, a Miami gang blamed by police for 35 killings, including that of a 5-year-old boy, was dismantled Friday with a roundup targeting a suspended detective and 14 other reputed gang members. The police detective, Marvin Baker, a 16-year veteran of the Miami-Dade department, was accused of ripping off cocaine dealers during traffic stops, and federal prosecutors charged he worked with Boobie Boys leader Kenneth Williams and gang members to steal their customers' money and cocaine.)
• Overheated Hype About Hemp (A letter to the editor of the Washington Post from Erwin A. Sholts of the North American Industrial Hemp Council responds to a previous, anti-hemp, green-baiting letter from Jeanette McDougal of Drug Watch/Minnesota. "Our organization . . . is composed entirely of those who support the legal and regulated cultivation of industrial hemp for industrial products. None of us supports marijuana legalization.")
• House Panel Supports Anti-Alcohol Messages (According to the Arizona Republic, a U.S. House Appropriations subcommittee voted Friday to require that the White House drug czar's five-year, $1 billion youth anti-drug advertising campaign include anti-alcohol messages.)
• Just Say No To Drug Reform (The Sydney Morning Herald, in Australia, says "parent" lobby groups such as PRIDE, the Parents Resource Institute for Drug Education, effectively grasped control of the drug debate in the United States back in the 1980s, and have had a disastrous effect. While marijuana use among American students has wavered up and down, the number of those addicted to cocaine and heroin has risen. As public funds were diverted to "zero tolerance" policies and prisons, funds for treatment facilities were slashed. But perhaps the most disturbing impact of the parent groups on U.S. drug policy has been the deep divide it created between public health experts and politicians wishing to court the vocal parent groups. In a perverse way, the parent groups are behind a campaign that pushed Americans in the aggregate away from softer drugs like pot toward harder ones like crack - the exact opposite of what the "gateway" theory would have predicted.)
• Using: Nearly Everybody's Doing It (The Sydney Morning Herald says the latest National Drug Strategy Household Survey found that 39.3 per cent of Australians had used marijuana at some time in their lives, 10.7 per cent hallucinogens, 8.7 per cent amphetamines, 4.7 per cent Ecstasy and designer drugs, 4.3 per cent cocaine and 2.2 per cent heroin. One supposes most of the rest of the population had used more dangerous but legal drugs such as tobacco, alcohol, and various pharmaceuticals - but the newspaper and maybe the survey don't say. Australians are estimated to spend about $14 billion a year on illicit drugs, not including a marijuana harvest "so big it is too difficult to estimate." Thirty per cent of males and 21 per cent of females said they had used marijuana "recently." The highest marijuana usage, 44 per cent, was among males aged 20-29.)
• Stoned Age Artists May Have Been On A Trip (The Guardian, in Britain, says hemp seeds and spores of 'magic mushrooms' found in excavations in France and Spain suggest that the hazy and often upside-down bison and stickmen of primitive artists may have been painted under the influence of psychoactive substances. "It is too early to talk about proof, but there are striking similarities with modern hallucinogenic art," said David Cowland, who delivers a lecture at Bradford university next week on cannabis finds at prehistoric sites.)
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  Sunday, May 16, 1999:

• Where's Public Outrage Over Nonviolent Criminals in Jails? (A letter to the editor of the Seattle Times notes the U.S. Justice Department recently reported the nation's jails and prisons now warehouse over 1.8 million individuals, and the Justice Policy Institute found 1.1 million of them were nonviolent offenders. Do the taxpayers really enjoy wasting $24 billion every year to house nonviolent criminals?)
• Court Rules Agents Can Consider Ethnicity When Stopping Drivers (An Associated Press article in the Houston Chronicle says a 2-1 ruling by a panel from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco on Thursday upheld the convictions of two Hispanic men. The judges said a search of their car, which yielded "two large bags of marijuana" and a pistol, was justified partly by the men's ethnicity and partly because they turned their car around to avoid a checkpoint.)
• Students Fight Ban On College Funds For Drug Offenders (The Chicago Tribune says opposition is growing on college campuses to a provision in the Higher Education Act that withholds federal financial aid from students convicted merely of possessing "drugs," including marijuana.)
• A Public-Safety Fix - About Time (The Boston Globe says Elana Ennis, the chief of police in Burlington, Vermont, announced last week she would kill the local DARE program at the end of the school year, calling it "lame," and citing nationwide studies showing it does not work. While outspoken proponents of the program remain, several studies, including one by the U.S. Department of Justice, have suggested Drug Abuse Resistance Education is not worth the $750 million it costs every year. Burlington will be the first major city in New England to drop the program.)
• DARE Gets Updated In Some Area Schools, Others Drop Program (The Boston Globe says this fall, Lexington, Massachusetts, will become the third school district in the region to drop DARE, although retaining some elements of the national antidrug course taught by police officers mainly to fifth-graders. Lawrence public schools eliminated the once-a-week Drug Abuse Resistance Education classes two years ago, weaving elements of it into health classes. And schools in Bedford last fall introduced Project Adventure, an alternative health-physical education program that delivers much the same messages about peer pressure and decision-making as DARE. Otherwise, DARE appears to be thriving at other school districts in the region, except Arlington, which never adopted the program created by the Los Angeles police in 1983.)
• Drug-Law Reform Gains Steam (The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle says numerous proposals to reform New York's Rockefeller-era mandatory-minimum drug laws are floating around the state capitol. Many legislators are waiting on a report due later this month from the conservative Manhattan Institute, whose scholars are criticizing the use of mandatory sentences in drug cases. The state's burgeoning prison population is now about 70,000, of which about 22,000 are drug offenders.)
• Drug Reform Sense (A staff editorial in the Times Union, in Albany, New York, says a proposal from a coalition headed by John Dunne, a former state senator who voted for the Rockefeller mandatory-minimum drug laws back in 1973, holds out the best hope for a just and humane compromise in achieving reform. Mr. Dunne offers common ground between those who want incremental change and those favoring an aggressive overhaul. He would not repeal the mandatory minimum sentences but instead lower them. More important, he would give judges the discretion to mandate treatment for offenders instead of prison, even if the prosecutor objects. The last provision is surely the most controversial. Under the Rockefeller laws, prosecutors hold most of the cards. They effectively decide the punishment in selecting which charges to bring against an offender. But justice should be about punishment fitting the crime, not about punishment imposed by blind mandate.)
• Employers Almost Free To Drug Test (The Star-Ledger says the New Jersey legislature is poised to pass a bill that would authorize employers to force all employees, no matter what their jobs, to submit to random drug testing. The bill would expand the power of employers to find out what their workers are doing on their own time in other ways, too.)
• Bill would OK drug testing for all workers, but ACLU hates it (The Associated Press version)
• Unequal Justice (An op-ed in the Baltimore Sun by David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University and author of "No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System," says that thanks to New York police, Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo have become household names. Thanks to state police in New Jersey, Maryland and elsewhere, "Driving While Black" has entered the general lexicon. For the moment, the nation seems to be taking seriously the issue of racial bias in the criminal justice system. It's about time. The issue is not new. Nothing corrodes public trust and faith in the criminal justice system like perceptions of bias. And much of what drives the disparities is the war on drugs. Cole then proposes four reforms.)
• Here's Why I Smoke Marijuana (An op-ed in the Toronto Star by Barbara Turnbull, a staff reporter, explains that in 1983, a bullet in the neck made her a quadriplegic. Pot helps her deal with the resulting muscle spasms in a way no legal drug can. "And I refuse to feel fear or shame because of that.")
• Son of Camilla Parker Bowles Snorted Cocaine (The Sunday Times, in London, says Tom Parker Bowles, 24, the son of the longstanding companion of Prince Charles, has admitted to having a drug problem after he was seen taking cocaine at a party. A friend who asked not be named said he had been provoked to disclose details of Parker Bowles's drug abuse because of his closeness to Prince William, the future king of England. Bowles was cautioned for possession of cannabis and ecstasy four years ago.)
• ACM-Bulletin of 16 May 1999 (An English-language bulletin from the Association for Cannabis as Medicine, in Cologne, Germany, features - Science: Cannabis use appears not to affect cognitive functioning; Australia: Calls for treating drugs as a health and social issue; Canada: Ontario Superior Court permits AIDS patient to use marijuana; 4. News in brief; The comment.)
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  Monday, May 17, 1999:

• Marijuana research in Catch-22 (A letter to the editor of the Oregonian responds to an op-ed by the two principal investigators for the Institute of Medicine's March 17 report on medical marijuana. Drs. John A. Benson Jr. and Stanley J. Watson Jr. fail to address the issue that is currently preventing the development of cannabinoid drugs: prohibition.)
• B.E. Smith Trial in Sacramento (A bulletin from California NORML encourages advocates for medical-marijuana patients to show up Tuesday to support the Trinity County activist facing federal cultivation charges for 87 plants intended for the defendant and several other designated patients pursuant to Proposition 215. The judge has made it known he will not allow any medical testimony.)
• 'NewsRadio' Actor Arrested (UPI says Andy Dick, who played a neurotic reporter on the canceled NBC sitcom, was busted Saturday after crashing his car into a utility pole in Los Angeles and then trying to run away. A subsequent car search turned up marijuana and cocaine.)
• Officer, 5 Others Arrested In Gang Probe (The Miami Herald notes the arrest Thursday of Marvin Baker, a 16-year veteran Miami-Dade police officer who allegedly conspired to deal drugs with members of the Boobie Boys, which the newspaper calls one of the county's most notoriously violent street gangs. Baker was allegedly involved in a scheme to use bogus traffic stops to rip off cocaine dealers.)
• Ruling Allows Cops To Seize Cars (An Associated Press article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune says the U.S. Supreme Court today reversed the Florida Supreme Court, voting 7-2 to reinstate Tyvessel Tyvorus White's conviction for possessing crack cocaine police found in his car after seizing it without a warrant. The initial seizure of White's car was based on police officers' belief that it had been used several months earlier to deliver illegal drugs.)
• Let Farmers Grow Hemp (A staff editorial in the Capital Times, in Wisconsin, says this is the ideal time for Congress to lift the ban on industrial hemp. Paul Mahlberg, a professor of plant pathology at Indiana University, says law enforcement officials should have no problem distinguishing between legal and illegal marijuana because the two types of plants look completely different. Identification has not been a problem in Canada or Europe where hemp is grown legally, so that's an argument that has no weight.)
• Major Crime Continues To Decline (UPI says preliminary figures in the FBI's Uniform Crime Report, released Sunday evening, show that "serious" crime dropped for the seventh year in a row, and 7 percent from 1997 to 1998. Attorney General Janet Reno attributes some of the decrease in violent crime to the Brady Law, restricting guns. UPI, on the other hand, attributes the decline to some unspecified alteration in the crack cocaine market.)
• U.S. Crime Decreases Dramatically (The New York Times version in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
• Doctors, Users, Unite For Drug Reform (The Canberra Times, in Australia, says 15 groups representing doctors, lawyers, drug users and their families have joined forces to lobby the New South Wales Government for drug reform, and will make a joint submission to the NSW Drug Summit being held in Sydney's Parliament House this week. The summit delegates, led by former Victorian premier Joan Kirner and National Party stalwart Ian Sinclair, will debate and vote on recommendations coming from 11 working groups.)
• Jerusalem (According to the Guardian, in Britain, a Gallup poll shows the Green Leaf party, which wants to legalise marijuana, is likely to win two or three seats in today's parliamentary election. Although the party's television ads have been like a rave party, with the words "love," "sex" and "marijuana" flashing over a trippy-techno beat in English, Hebrew, Russian and Arabic, the intriguing prospect looms that Green Leafers could hold the balance of power in a coalition government.)
• Weekly Action Report on Drug Policies, Year 5, No. 19 (A summary of European and international drug policy news, from CORA, in Italy)
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  Tuesday, May 18, 1999:

• Let the sick choose own medicine (A letter to the editor of the Oregonian from Clifford A. Schaffer responds to a recent op-ed by Drs. John A. Benson Jr. and Stanley J. Watson Jr., the co-principal investigators for the Institute of Medicine's March 17 report on medical marijuana. "It is amazing to me that, with all the research they did, they never once considered the health effects of jailing sick people. In all their research, did these good doctors come across any other instance in which we would jail sick people because they chose a medicine other than what the doctor prescribed?")
• Lawmakers body slam requirement that wrestlers undergo drug tests (An Associated Press article in the Register-Guard, in Eugene, says the Oregon state senate, hoping to lure more professional wrestling events to Oregon, on Tuesday voted 22-5 for SB 238, which would end a requirement that professional wrestlers undergo mandatory drug testing. Supporters noted that World Championship Wrestling last year scrubbed a televised performance that had been scheduled at the Rose Garden in Portland after learning its performers would be subjected to drug tests.)
• House Votes Against Pharmacists In Ethical, Religious Case (According to the Oregonian, state legislators on Monday voted down HB 2010, sought by the Oregon State Pharmacists Association, which would have allowed pharmacists to refuse to dispense such drugs as RU-486 on religious or ethical grounds. Critics said the measure could be particularly hard on women in rural areas.)
• House rejects bill to allow druggists to just say no (The Associated Press version)
• Kitzhaber proposes borrowing to fund school aid (The Associated Press says Oregon Governor John Kithaber today proposed borrowing $150 million and repaying the debt with money from the national tobacco settlement in order to balance his budget without new taxes.)
• Lawmakers urged to use tobacco settlement for anti-smoking programs (The Associated Press says public health groups in Oregon have launched a radio advertising campaign urging that at least one-fourth of the state's share of the national tobacco settlement be spent on anti-smoking programs - that is, public health groups.)
• Welfare of Oregon kids slipping, study says (The Associated Press says the Annie E. Casey Foundation's 1999 annual Kids Count Data Book, a nationwide report on kids, crime, poverty and health, indicates Oregon's ranking dropped from 23rd place last year to 29th place this year. "We were never a shining star," said Gary Dombroff, director of Children First for Oregon, a nonprofit advocacy group. "But this has been a pernicious, precipitous drop." In Oregon, the study bears the worst news for teen-agers: While the national dropout rate dipped by 9 percent from 1985 to 1996, Oregon's high school dropout rate jumped by 33 percent. Unfortunately, AP doesn't ask any of the public officials responsible for the transfer of money away from public services into the drug war why their strategy failed to produce the results they promised.)
• Oregon kids slip in U.S. ranking (The Oregonian version)
• Cannabis may help combat schizophrenia (The Orange County Register says an ongoing study of mentally ill patients by researchers at the University of California at Irvine, to be reported next month in the journal Neuroreport, found high levels of anandamide, a cannabis-like chemical produced naturally by the human body, in the cerebrospinal fluid of schizophrenic patients, meaning the body may be producing the chemical to fight the disease. Plus, vote in an online medical-marijuana poll at the newspaper's web site.)
• Marijuana-Like Chemical Found In Schizophrenics (The Reuters version says researchers discovered that each of 10 people with schizophrenia had twice the normal level in their cerebrospinal fluid of anandamide, a naturally produced chemical that resembles the cannabinoids found in marijuana. "We've known that many schizophrenics smoke marijuana and claim it eases some of their symptoms," said Daniele Piomelli, a pharmacologist who helped lead the study. Schizophrenia is characterized by abnormally high levels of dopamine. Piomelli's team earlier reported that anandamide tempers the effects of dopamine.)
• Marijuana-like chemical linked to schizophrenia (The BBC version)
• House OKs Marijuana Restrictions (The Anchorage Daily News says the Alaska house of representatives voted 30-9 Monday for SB 94, a bill sponsored by Sen. Loren Leman, R-Anchorage, that would restrict the medical marijuana law voters approved last year. The bill would require patients who want to use medical marijuana to register with the state, and it sets the maximum amount a patient can legally possess at one ounce or six plants. David Finkelstein of Alaskans for Medical Rights said, "The bottom line is it will work for Alaskan patients," except some patients will refuse to register. For them, the law will offer no protection. The governor is expected to sign the bill.)
• Ex-Drug Investigators On Trial (UPI says three former investigators for ex-Attorney General Jeffrey B. Pine's much heralded Narcotics Strike Force have gone on trial in federal Superior Court in Providence, Rhode Island, for conspiring to violate the civil rights of several innocent people by arresting them on trumped up marijuana and cocaine charges. A fourth defendant, Cesar A. Moreno, an informer/agent for the Strike Force, remains at large.)
• Hemp Campaign Gains Momentum (According to UPI, the campaign to allow U.S. farmers to grow industrial hemp again is making progress. On April 19 North Dakota became the first state to enact an industrial hemp bill. Virginia and Hawaii have also passed similar legislation, and bills are pending in Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico and Vermont. Now the Wisconsin Assembly's Agriculture Committee has held its first hearing on a hemp bill.)
• With The Needle Came AIDS (An article translated from Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung says that for a long time, the Chinese thought of drugs as merely a historical issue having to do with the Opium Wars against the British. Nowadays, though, disco-goers are popping ecstasy, young artists and businesspeople are smoking marijuana, and rock musicians and students are shooting heroin. Entire shiploads of drugs from neighboring countries are secretly making their way into China. The Asian economic crisis has spared China, which is now making life harder for drug investigators. "Because our currency is stable, the drug bosses are bringing far more drugs to us than to Southeast Asia," says Sun Dahong, director of the Drug Control Bureau in Yunnan. According to the government, two-thirds of all HIV-infected people become infected by injecting drugs; today their number is estimated at 400,000. Every drug addict caught by the police must enter forced treatment, and a return to drug use lands addicts in a labor camp.)
• Pro-Marijuana Activists Stage Own Talkfest (The Illawarra Mercury, in Australia, says marijuana-law-reform activists gathered for an alternative drug summit outside State Parliament in Sydney yesterday. Michael Balderstone of the Nimbin Hemp Embassy said too much of the New South Wales drug summit was dedicated to heroin. "We reckon if there had been reasonable cannabis laws in the last 20 years there would not be anywhere near the heroin problem there is now," he said. Mr Balderstone estimates one million people in NSW smoke cannabis and argues they can't all be criminals.)
• Heroin Trial Inevitable: Penington (The Sydney Morning Herald says David Penington, the former professor of medicine at the University of Melbourne who chaired the Victorian Premier's Drug Advisory Council in 1995, told the New South Wales Drug Summit yesterday that a heroin-maintenance trial was an inevitable part of drug law reform, along with safe injecting rooms and the decriminalisation of marijuana. Decriminalisation was "long overdue", he argued, as messages about the herb's use would "only be heeded by young people in the context of health education, rather than in the context of criminality." Marijuana use in jurisdictions where it has been liberalised - in South Australia, the ACT and the Northern Territory - is not substantially greater than where it remains illegal. "To suggest that the legal status of the drug acts as an effective barrier to use is simply a nonsense," he said. "Prohibition is a simple, populist answer to a complex problem and, for this reason, holds political attraction. Clothing it in a moral dimension places it beyond rational argument and analysis.")
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  Wednesday, May 19, 1999:

• Philip Morris says it won't pay state's share in tobacco damages (According to the Associated Press, the cigarette trafficker says it won't pay Oregon's share of $32 million in damages assessed against it by an Oregon jury, arguing the multistate settlement with tobacco companies engineered by state attorneys general excuses Philip Morris from paying punitive damages to the state. Under Oregon law, 60 percent of punitive damage awards is appropriated to a state fund for crime victim compensation, meaning Oregon would get $19.2 million if the $32 million punitive-damages award withstands the tobacco company's appeal.)
• Oregon in pursuit of share of award (The Oregonian version)
• Kitzhaber rolls out tobacco money for schools (The Oregonian says Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber on Tuesday signaled that he is willing to drop his tax-increase proposals and instead dig deeper into the state's tobacco settlement money to boost school spending.)
• New pill can help pare off pounds (The Oregonian celebrates the arrival of orlistat, marketed under the brand name Xenical by Hoffmann-LaRoche Inc. Expect to see the ads soon. The weight-loss pill approved last month by the Food and Drug Administration is said to reduce the fat absorbed by the body by about one-third. Except after one year, only 57 percent of Xenical patients had lost a meager 5 percent of their body weight, compared to 31 percent of patients given a placebo. Designed for people who are very overweight, the drug is available only by prescription, and is meant to be used along with a physician-guided weight-management program that includes sensible diet and exercise. Several glaring omissions include the attrition rate - how many people were able to take the drug for as long as a year - how long the medicine was tested on human subjects, and whether any longitudinal follow-up monitoring of patients is being carried out to safeguard consumers by assessing or uncovering long-term side effects statistically.)
• DEA Lies (The Anderson Valley Advertiser follows up on last week's disturbing news about an evidentiary hearing in San Francisco intended to explore the actions of Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Mark Nelson, whose Ahab-like pursuit of supposed marijuana trafficker John Dalton of Redwood Valley allegedly led him to seduce Victoria Horstman, Dalton's wife, and swear her in as a Special Agent of the DEA. Monday's hearing confirmed Nelson's errant behavior, as well as his falsification of documents and perjury, but now he has his own attorney and will probably take the 5th at the next hearing, scheduled today. Dalton has been confined in a federal prison in Dublin, in the east Bay Area, for nearly two years awaiting trial.)
• Dave Herrick's 2nd Anniversary (A list subscriber shares a letter from Salinas Valley State Prison in California, where the medical-marijuana patient/activist is serving a four-year sentence for selling medicine through the Orange County Cannabis Co-Op, after having been denied a Proposition 215 defense. Herrick's appeal is scheduled for June 21, and he may be paroled in October.)
• Medical Marijuana Researcher to Speak at Forum (A news release from the Lindesmith Center provides more details about a free public lecture scheduled May 25 in San Francisco featuring Dr. Donald Abrams, the only physician in the United States currently allowed to carry out a clinical trial using medical marijuana.)
• Alaska Legislature Tightens Medical-Marijuana Law (Reuters says the Republican-controlled legislature on Tuesday passed a bill to limit the initiative approved last November by nearly 60 percent of voters. The legislation will require patients to register with the state, limit possession to one ounce and six plants of marijuana, and require patients to make periodic visits to their doctors' offices. A spokesman for Democratic Gov. Tony Knowles indicates he'll sign the bill.)
• Tax On Illegal Drugs Is Unconstitutional (According to the Salt Lake Tribune, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball has nullified Utah's Illegal Drug Stamp Tax Act. Judge Kimball ruled the law amounts to a criminal punishment, entitling defendants to the same constitutional protections provided in a criminal prosecution, yet it does not provide for those rights. A 1997 state supreme court decision already limited use of the tax, and officials had all but abandoned it.)
• 'Don't Do Drugs' (The Houston Chronicle publicizes a drug-prevention program called "Drugs Kill." Houston advertising executive Earl Littman introduced the program to Fort Bend Independent School District elementary schools in May, although he initiated Drugs Kill at some other, unspecified place in 1997 after being "approached" by the U.S. Justice Department. The program instills the anti-drug message from the first grade, and children receive quarterly rewards for avoiding drugs. Upon graduation, students "qualify to apply for" a $1,000 scholarship to college. Both children and parents sign a pledge card. Children also receive posters of local athletes encouraging a sober lifestyle. Littman said he hopes a poster is placed in every child's bedroom - just as long as it's not former Dallas Cowboys star Mark Tuinei.)
• Illinois House Votes To Study Hemp For Agricultural Purposes (The Associated Press says legislators voted 78-35 Wednesday for HR 168, a resolution to form a task force that would study the re-establishment of an industrial hemp industry.)
• The Supermax Solution (The Village Voice describes Upstate Correctional Facility, New York's 70th prison and first "supermax" institution. The $180 million maximum-security cage, designed to hold almost 5,000 inmates, will open this summer in Malone, population 14,297, located 15 miles south of the Canadian border. Career options are so few in the North Country that prison guard has become a popular choice. What could be worse than spending 23 hours a day in a cell? Try spending 23 hours a day in a cell with somebody else. Rehabilitation is beside the point. The aim is to cut costs - to house as many prisoners as cheaply as possible. Locking together pairs of criminals with a history of breaking prison rules may save dollars, but it has an ominous history. Pelican Bay State Prison in California is eliminating the practice because 10 prisoners have killed their cellmates in the last few years.)
• Federal Courts Bogged Down In Methamphetamine Cases (The Tennessean says the drug is clogging up the federal law enforcement system in Middle Tennessee. Because criminal cases take precedence over civil cases, the impact of drug cases is further magnified. Firearms or money-laundering charges often accompany the illegal-drug charge, increasing costs all around. Wendy Goggin, acting U.S. attorney for Middle Tennessee, said the 18 lawyers in her office spend nearly 40 percent of their time investigating and prosecuting drug cases, most of which involve meth. Despite ever more DEA agents, prosecutors and judges, it's never enough.)
• Miami-Dade Officer Charged In Plot To Steal Drugs, Cash (The Miami Herald says James Vilmenay, a four-year veteran of the department, was arrested Tuesday for allegedly plotting a bogus traffic stop with the intention of stealing the driver's cocaine and cash.)
• Drug War Vigils (A bulletin from NORML encourages activists to take part in a new project being spearheaded by the November Coalition. The purpose of the Vigil Project is to get activists to stand with victimized families and show the public that there is broad opposition to the drug war. For the first time, the November Coalition will attempt to mobilize peaceful and dignified vigils in several states. "We envision a time when on a weekly basis at court houses around the United States prosecutors, judges and jurors will have to pass the equivalent of a picket line as they go into the courthouse to consider drug war prosecutions. . . . In essence this is a process of social mobilization, and we welcome those of you who would help us develop an army for the reform movement and direct it effectively.")
• The Racial Issue Looming In The Rear-View Mirror (The Washington Post says that from the U.S. Justice Department and Capitol Hill to Sacramento and other state capitals, there is a growing assault on racial profiling. Perceptions matter in part because there is relatively little hard data. As observed by David Cole, a Georgetown University Law School professor who wrote "No Equal Justice: Race and Class in the American Criminal Justice System," there is also "no data that shows a police department doesn't engage in racial profiling." Part of the problem is that current crime statistics, which reflect the racist impact of such policies in the past, may be used as justification for continuing them. For example, in the April edition of "Vital Stats," the Statistical Assessment Service says "crime patterns," that is, racial disparities in arrests, prosecutions, and sentencing, may make it "rational" for police to focus more on blacks and males than on whites and women: "The unpleasant truth is that profiling can be statistically valid . . . ." Cole agrees that the "stereotype the police are relying on is not entirely irrational.")
• Some 750 Canadians Apply To Grow Hemp (According to UPI, Canada's health department says it has received about 750 applications from farmers across the country to grow industrial hemp, and has approved more than two-thirds of them.)
• Tax Hikes Turn Teens Off Smoking: Study (According to the Toronto Star, the World Bank calculated in a report to health ministers in Geneva that tax hikes are the most effective way to stop adolescents from smoking. Stopping adults through prohibitory taxes also appealed to the bankers. The Star doesn't say if the bankers actually calculated the costs associated with an illicit market in cigarettes, only that they insisted "the appropriate response to smuggling is to crack down on criminal activity" - after all, that wouldn't come out of their budget. Canadians went down this road before, which may explain why cartons supposedly average $15 less there than in the United States.)
• Americans, Mexicans Blame Each Other In Poll (According to the Houston Chronicle, a survey of national attitudes released Tuesday by the polling company Louis Harris & Associates Inc., suggests Americans and Mexicans blame each other for illegal drug trafficking. Fifty percent of the 4,500 Mexicans surveyed said Americans' appetite for buying and using drugs is the main culprit for the illegal trade. By contrast, of the 1,006 Americans surveyed, 48 percent blamed Mexico for failing to take strong action against Mexican drug dealers.)
• Poll: Suspicion High On Both Sides Of Border (The Arizona Republic version)
• Battle Lines Drawn As Summit Deepens (The Illawarra Mercury, in Australia, says the Salvation Army's Major Brian Watters, who heads Prime Minister John Howard's drugs advisory council, came under fire yesterday as battle lines emerged between conservatives and reformers at the New South Wales drug summit in Sydney. Professor Peter Reuter of Maryland University said there was no scientific evidence to show that U.S.-style zero tolerance policies would curb the drug problem. "Beware of Americans bearing certainties," he said. "The end of the Cold War may have been a good thing but it has not made American policy-makers one bit more humble; particularly in this area they are prone to claims that I would argue are implausible, particularly as to the values of toughness.")
• Thousands lose right to jury trial (The Independent says Jack Straw, the British home secretary, today will announce plans to remove the right to trial by jury, regarded as one of the fundamental principles of British law, for about 18,500 defendants a year accused of offences including theft, possession of "drugs" and assault.)
• Thousands Will Lose The Right To Trial By Jury (The Guardian version)
• Deny Hard Core Addicts Their Last Chance? (A list subscriber translates and excerpts much of an article from Germany's Basler Zeitung, which says the leadership of Switzerland's EDU evangelical party, Federal Democratic Union, is using false arguments in a referendum campaign aimed at stopping Switzerland's heroin-maintenance trial for long-term addicts.)
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  Thursday, May 20, 1999:

• NORML Weekly Press Release (Alaska legislature limits voter-approved medical marijuana law; Illinois adopts legislation to study hemp production; Australian Medical Association endorses medical marijuana trials, decriminalization for personal use; Marijuana-like drugs could treat schizophrenia, study suggests)
• House rejects bill to make brandishing a gun while drunk an offense (The Associated Press says there is no such specific prohibition on the books, but Oregon legislators who voted against HB 3103 Wednesday contended it would only duplicate existing laws.)
• Appeals court upholds Oregon jury statute (The Oregonian says a three-judge panel from the Oregon Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld the constitutionality of a state law that excludes felons and unregistered voters from serving as jurors in criminal trials. The law is set to expire June 30 but next week the Oregon House of Representatives is expected to vote on eight constitutional amendments proposed by Rep. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem. If approved by voters, the amendments would increase the admissibility of evidence, expand police search-and-seizure powers, limit bail, enact certain rights for crime victims, restrict who can serve on juries, and make other changes. Most of what is included in the eight measures was contained in Measure 40, a constitutional amendment approved by voters in 1996 but overturned by the state Supreme Court in 1998.)
• Bill would privatize state's new prison (The Oregonian says a group of Republican state senators led by Eileen Qutub, R-Beaverton, who call the Oregon Department of Corrections a monopoly, is pushing SB 1247, which would require the next men's medium-security prison be built and operated by a private company. The Republican majority probably will allow the bill to clear both houses, but it faces strong resistance from Gov. John "Prisons" Kitzhaber and from labor unions representing the state's corrections employees.)
• Pot Lured Man To Fatal Meeting (According to the Herald, in Everett, Washington, search warrants filed by Snohomish County sheriff's detectives indicate that Joshua Glaser, 20, had $7,500 on him when he left for a meeting near Arlington so he could buy up to three pounds of pot. Two of the three people now charged in Glaser's death have allegedly admitted they planned the robbery, the search warrants say. Two adults face the death penalty, illustrating a second way in which marijuana prohibition kills.)
• A Breakthrough Against Schizophrenia? (A staff editorial in the Orange County Register finds potentially profound possibilities in the recently reported research of Daniele Poimelli at the University of California in Irvine, who discovered dramatically elevated levels of anandamide in the cerebrospinal fluid of schizophrenia patients. The higher levels could mean the body produces extra anandamide to cope with or to mediate excess dopamine production. Mr. Piomelli and his team discovered some time ago that anandamide "puts the brakes" on dopamine in the brain, and researchers have long believed that excessive dopamine activity is associated with schizophrenia. While the newspaper notes some patients report symptomatic relief from smoking marijuana, it conveys Mr. Piomelli's warning that "it is not uncommon" for schizophrenics who begin smoking marijuana to "continue in a heavy binge-like fashion until a psychotic episode comes on." Unfortunately, neither the newspaper nor Mr. Piomelli note psychotic episodes are symptomatic of the disease, not cannabis use, which may alleviate other symptoms for such patients. Neither says what proportion of schizophrenics who use cannabis experiences such a syndrome, nor do they seem to realize that patients who find cannabis effective at preventing psychotic episodes won't be showing up in clinical settings.)
• Fresno Irrigation District Wins In Drug-Test Appeal (The Fresno Bee says the 5th District Court of Appeal in Fresno has overturned a jury award of $240,000 to ditch tender Ron Smith for being fired as a result of failing a drug test. Fresno Superior Court Judge Franklin Jones had previously ruled that Smith's constitutional right to privacy had been violated by the drug test, but the 5th District Court of Appeal somehow decided that random drug tests for workers who hold "safety sensitive" positions are more important than a worker's right to privacy. Smith's lawyer, Don Oliver, vowed to appeal the decision to the California Supreme Court.)
• George W. Bush Jr. Lashes Out At Parody Website (A news release, apparently from RTMARK, a group that specializes in calling attention to corporate subversion of the U.S. political process, recounts the efforts of the probable Republican presidential candidate to shut down a rogue web site maintained by RTMARK and Zack Exley that parodies Bush's official web site and discusses his alleged past cocaine use. Exley, a computer consultant to the Boston financial sector who describes himself as "a Christian who loathes hypocrisy," is incensed that "Bush won't deny he used cocaine, yet hundreds of thousands of people are serving very long sentences for equivalent or lesser crimes, including many in Texas," where Bush is governor. "Clinton just got away with perjury while a hundred people are in jail for that crime. Do we want our children to learn that a crime is only a crime if you don't have power?" In a case that may set a disturbing legal precedent in the area of free speech on the internet, Bush filed a complaint May 3 with the Federal Elections Commission, asserting that Exley violated the law by not registering as a political committee, citing gwbush.com's "fair market value" as evidence that Exley has exceeded the $1,000 threshold that defines a political committee under election law.)
• Fighting the drug war (The Dallas Morning News says the American Drivers Association, a national truck drivers' group based in Longview, Texas, with 86,000 members, has begun a billboard campaign advising I-20 motorists headed into East Texas from Louisiana to "just say no" when police officers ask to search their cars and trucks for drugs. J.D. Davis of the association said Texas police conducted an estimated 110,000 vehicle searches in 1998. About 1,000 of those searches, or less than 1 percent, yielded illegal drugs, he said. "It's clear the vast majority of these searches occur when the officer doesn't like your looks or you might argue about the traffic violation," he said. The goal, said Davis, is to place a billboard on every Texas interstate by year's end.)
• How The Media Muzzles The Marijuana Message (Hartford Advocate columnist Michael Marciano says MTV refuses to discuss its policy of censoring marijuana-related imagery in its music videos. On the TV screen, rap star Snoop Doggy Dogg sits in the driver's seat, toting a bottle wrapped in a paper bag. As the song's lyrics go, the rapper is "rolling down the street, smokin' Indo, sippin' on gin and juice," - or at least that's what he says on the CD. On TV, the word "Indo", aka Indonesian weed, has been deleted. Yes, Snoop and his buddies can drink and drive on MTV, but what they're smoking is as taboo as a naked crotch shot. There are hundreds of instances in which MTV has enforced a policy of censoring marijuana references. Guns, gangsters and prostitutes are still acceptable, of course.)
• Pot Politics (An insightful and well-researched article in the Hartford Advocate about the drug-policy-reform movement in the United States says there are now more than 400 reform groups, about 350 of which were established in the last decade in response to the government's escalating war on some drug users. Some view the myriad agendas and lack of unity as necessary, others as depleting the movement's strength and focus. The drug policy reform movement didn't start out as a mix of pot smokers and policy wonks. It started as a coalition of doctors and lawyers. Abolitionists, women's suffragists, and Gandhi's satyagrahi were even more divided than drug policy reformers, but accomplished more. According to Nora Callahan of Washington state, the founder of the November Coalition, which advocates for the families of drug-war prisoners, when she talks to her brother in jail, he says prisoners find hope in the very fact that so many people are challenging drug policies from so many different angles. "It's a huge brick wall, should we be barreling into the same spot?" Callahan asks, "Or should it come down brick by brick?")
• In Switch, Democrats Won't Act on Pataki Plan to Ease Drug Laws (The New York Times says New York state's Democratic legislative leadership plans to shelve Gov. George Pataki's proposal to scale back the Rockefeller-era mandatory-minimumm sentencing guidelines for drug offenders. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver appears unwilling to support any such effort this year out of concern that Democrats might be portrayed as soft on crime in the next election, especially in relatively conservative upstate districts and in the suburbs of New York City.)
• The Zogby New York Poll (The Media Awareness Project forwards a press release from the Zogby web site, together with a news release from the Lindemsith Center, showing that a new poll of New York state residents reveals about 2-1 support for politicians who would act to reform the state's Rockefeller-era mandatory-minimum sentencing guidelines for drug offenders. The survey also reveals nearly three of every four likely New York state voters say anyone charged with simple possession of illegal drugs should receive treatment instead of a prison sentence.)
• Pharmacia's New Drug Could Provide Different Avenue To Treat Depression (The Wall Street Journal says company research presented at a psychiatric conference yesterday in Washington, D.C., showed Reboxetine, a new type of antidepressant made by Pharmacia & UpJohn Inc., is just as effective as Prozac in reducing depression, and is more effective at improving the social functioning of patients. The drug is approved in many European countries; Pharmacia & Upjohn officials said they expect a regulatory decision in the U.S. by the third quarter. According to the company, Reboxetine, if approved, would be the first antidepressant in the U.S. designed to block the re-uptake of norepinephrine, thereby increasing levels of the naturally produced chemical that revs up the brain and is associated with a patient's drive and vitality. Reboxetine takes about four weeks to start working.)
• Of Merchant Ships And Crack-Sellers' Cars (The Christian Science Monitor says the U.S. Supreme Court agreed this week that because forfeiture laws were passed by Congress in the 1790s, shortly after the Bill of Rights was written, the Constitution must also permit law-enforcement officials the same latitude in the 1990s. At issue was a 1993 Florida case involving the car of Tyvessel White. Alleging that Mr. White was a drug dealer, police seized his car without a warrant under a state forfeiture law. When they searched the car, also without a warrant, they found two pieces of crack cocaine in the ashtray that they used to convict Mr. White of narcotics possession. The high court ruled police didn't need a warrant before seizing and searching the car. Legal analysts say they are concerned the decision will encourage local, state, and federal law-enforcement officials to abandon the warrant process when seizing or searching cars subject to forfeiture.)
• DrugSense Focus Alert No. 108 - Canadian Reporter Tells Real Story of Medical Marijuana (DrugSense asks you to write a letter to the Toronto Star responding to Sunday's op-ed by one of its reporters who came out and explained why she refuses to apologize for using marijuana as medicine.)
• Mandatory Addiction Treatment Won't Work (A letter to the editor of the Toronto Star representing a provincial federation of 250 community mental health and addiction programs says Mike Harris's proposal for mandatory drug treatment for welfare recipients with addictions is totally impractical. Ontario's addiction treatment system is unable to meet existing demands from voluntary clients; any influx of mandatory clients would exacerbate this problem.)
• Alternative drugs to claim health benefits (The Canadian Press says natural health products carrying government-approved health claims should start appearing on Canadian store shelves within a year. The new labels will represent a dramatic shift in policy for the Health Department, which has previously refused to endorse the therapeutic benefits of herbs, plants and other alternative medicines.)
• Natural remedies face new rules (A somewhat different version in the Toronto Star)
• Two Alleged Drug Dealers Win In Courts (The Seattle Post-Intelligencer says efforts in Mexico City to prosecute the Amezcua Contreras brothers, whom American authorities believe rank among the world's largest producers of methamphetamine, appear to be collapsing. A federal judge yesterday declared proceedings against Jesus Amezcua unconstitutional. And his younger brother, Adan, 29, was freed from a federal prison yesterday after an appellate judge threw out trafficking and other charges against him.)
• Activists Manipulating Drug Summit, Says MP (According to the Australian Associated Press, New South Wales Liberal Member of Parliament Peter Debnam today claimed the New South Wales drug summit was being secretly manipulated by activists who wanted to relax drug laws. Debnam, a delegate to the summit, said "I greatly regret the working groups were held in secret and not open to the public.")
• Shooting Gallery, Heroin Trial Boost (The Illawarra Mercury, in Australia, says State Attorney-General Jeff Shaw agreed to a preliminary resolution approved Tuesday night at the New South Wales drug summit in Sydney, to trial safe injecting rooms and the legal prescription of heroin. On other issues, a working party said police should be allowed to caution offenders carrying small amounts of cannabis for personal use, and jail penalties should be removed for possessing and cultivating cannabis, and for having equipment to use the herb. The resolutions must now be voted on by a special resolutions group, which will make recommendations to the Government at the end of the summit.)
• Delegates To Vote On Summit Resolutions (The Australian Associated Press says delegates at the New South Wales drug summit will vote tonight on whether to recommend the government should legalise shooting galleries and relax cannabis laws. Debate on nearly 170 resolutions started just before 3 pm and was expected to go well into the night.)
• Carr Faces Drug Dilemma (The Sydney Morning Herald says an unexpectedly strong push for drug law reform is emerging at the New South Wales Drug Summit, challenging the long-standing views of the prohibitionist Premier. The Government will formally respond to the delegates' reform proposals in four to six weeks, but the political bipartisanship promised this week has evaporated, putting more pressure on Mr Carr to overrule summit recommendations.)
• Ex-Taumarunui Constable Fined On Drug Charges (The Dominion, in New Zealand, says Rebecca Lorene Boyce has been convicted of using cannabis oil and possession of cannabis and fined $660.)
• Trial By Jury (Two letters to the editor of the Independent object to yesterday's announcement by the British home secretary, Jack Straw, of plans to prohibit jury trials for about 18,500 defendants a year accused of such offences as theft, possession of "drugs" and assault.)
  Bytes: 148,000 Last updated: 6/3/99
  

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