Weekly Action Report on Drug Policies, Year 4, No. 44 (A summary of European and international drug policy news, from CORA in Italy)
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Wednesday, December 30, 1998:
Housemate of officer's killer receives 4-year term (The Oregonian says Multnomah County Circuit Judge Linda Bergman sentenced Jeffery Harlan Moore, the man whose housemate, Steven Dons, shot and killed a Portland police officer during a warrantless raid by the Marijuana Task Force, to four years in prison Tuesday on cultivation and child-neglect charges. The judge doubled the usual 18-month sentence for drug manufacturing to three years and added a fourth year on the child-neglect charges, ignoring the role of the warrantless search and blaming Moore for the officer's death, even though he was at work when the break-in and shooting occurred.)
Roommate of cop killer gets four years for growing marijuana (The Associated Press version)
The Right To Defend Against Illegal Police Action (An Oregon patriot and militia member says the paralyzed Steven Dons was murdered in his jail bed by police because he had every legal right to shoot at members of Portland's Marijuana Task Force as they broke into his home without a warrant last January. The list subscriber cites several court rulings and a few aspects of the case the mass media have ignored.)
Number of drug-related deaths continues upward trend (The Oregonian says that as of early December, "drugs" were involved in 226 fatalities in Oregon - ignoring the toll from such legal drugs as alcohol and tobacco, which together killed about 7,000 Oregonians. The newspaper doesn't say so, but once again, no deaths were recorded from marijuana, the substance most targeted in the war on some drug users.)
Number of drug-related deaths continues upward trend (The Associated Press version)
NewsBuzz: Zoning In (Willamette Week says the Portland City Council will consider in the next few months whether to add a large chunk of residential North and Northeast Portland to the city's ever-expanding "drug-free zone." The proposed zone encompasses four square miles, nearly four times the next-largest zone. The weekly shopper also says the proposal will be discussed "next Monday morning" but doesn't give the actual time or place, since the public obviously isn't welcome - unless maybe they want to get shotgunned with beanbags again.)
The Olympian raps Brad Owen (A staff editorial in the Olympia, Washington, daily is critical of Lt. Gov. Brad Owen's claim that his allocation of state funds to oppose a drug-policy-reform ballot initiative was proper. To say it's OK to spend tax dollars until initiative signatures are validated seems like splitting hairs.)
S.F. DA Drops Charges Against Medical Marijuana Backer (A Scripps Howard News Service article in the San Francisco Examiner says the San Francisco district attorney's office has dropped drug and pornography charges against Richard Evans, who angrily accused police of deliberately targeting his residence for a raid and slandering him. Police completely trashed his apartment, he said, and left a four-inch knife lodged in a door in what he feels was a thinly veiled threat. Evans also said police seized two professional art books by renowned San Francisco photographer Jock Sturges.)
Medical pot advocate has charges dropped (A slightly different San Francisco Examiner version)
San Francisco New Year's Eve party (A list subscriber suggests the place for Bay Area hempsters to be Thursday night is the Maritime Hall.)
Misguided Drug Policy - Treatment In U.S. Better Than Helicopters In Mexico (A staff editorial in the Sacramento Bee says an ambitious U.S. program to train and equip the Mexican army to intercept drug traffickers has failed, and the Clinton administration has come to realize that using U.S. military hardware and trainers to thwart the drug trade in Mexico has too often been a waste of money and effort. If the aim is to reduce illegal drug consumption in the United States, a 1994 study by the Rand Corp. concluded that dollar for dollar, providing treatment for cocaine abuse is far more effective than interdiction. The study calculated that an additional $34 million spent in drug treatment would reduce cocaine consumption in this country by 1 percent. In stark contrast, it would require $366 million to produce the same 1 percent reduction with local law enforcement and a whopping $738 million to produce the same results with border interdiction.)
Totally NORML (A NORML activist's letter to the editor of the Village Voice, in New York, says marijuana-law reformers aren't left-wingers. Ending marijuana prohibition is the "right" thing to do.)
Making Criminals of Us All (An op-ed in the New York Times says the blame for a popular president's unpopular impeachment and impending Senate trial can be laid to a surfeit of intrusive laws that would make criminals of almost anyone the Government decided to investigate.)
Cargo Shipowners Must Test 50 Percent Of Crew For Drugs (According to the Journal of Commerce, the US Coast Guard says cargo shipowners will be required to administer random drug tests to at least 50 percent of their crews in 1999, even though the percentage who tested positive decreased from 1.87 percent in 1996 to 1.59 percent in 1997 - it's not clear if that includes the false positives. If the rate falls below 1 percent for two years, only 25 percent of crewmembers will have their constitutional rights violated.)
PBS presents "Snitch" on Frontline Tuesday, Jan. 12 (A lengthy preview, apparently from the Public Broadcasting Service, publicizes what will likely be one of the most important and disturbing television documentaries of the year. In the last five years, nearly a third of defendants in federal drug trafficking cases have had their sentences reduced because they informed on other people. Since the passing of strict anti-drug legislation in the 1980s, snitches have become key players in the war on drugs and are used by the FBI, DEA, Customs, and other law enforcement agencies in almost every drug bust, seizure, and arrest. But the laws designed in part to help catch drug kingpins are in most cases landing small-time offenders in prison for as long as ten years to life without the chance for parole. Ofra Bikel is the documentary's producer.)
Marijuana 'Medicine' (According to the Province, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Cheryl Eburne and her doctor say she benefits from the medical marijuana she purchases at a Commercial Drive pot club to help her cope with severe arthritis and fibromyalgia. But the dispensary is giving the folks at city hall a big headache. After seven months, the club still doesn't have an occupancy permit from the city. City hall is perplexed by the fact that the club has been given society status by the provincial government. With that registered-charity status, the club can solicit donations legitimately. It pays income tax for the 10 people on staff, who work for minimum wage.)
Pot crusader urged to educate physicians (The Calgary Herald says Hilary Brown of Vancouver's Compassion Club suggested Tuesday that Grant Krieger, the Calgary multiple sclerosis patient who is organizing a non-profit club to help seriously ill people obtain marijuana for medicinal purposes, should work at educating physicians about the drug's benefits.)
DrugSense Weekly, No. 79 (The original summary of drug policy news from DrugSense starts with a feature article - What the war on drugs is doing to America, by Bob Ramsey of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas. The Weekly News in Review includes several articles about Drug War Policy, including - Groups mobilize to push for lenient drug policies; Teenage use of stimulants levels off in 1998; Lake Worth school districts turning to drug testing; Right this wrong; DC and medical marijuana. Articles about Law Enforcement & Prisons include - New surveillance proposed for bank accounts; Officers' actions attacked in San Jose marijuana trial; Confiscated drugs stolen from under nose of Customs; FBI picks up a prison probe some say was stifled by union; Activist denounces prison system; UN official seeks reforms in US prisons; The mandatory-sentencing mistake. Articles about Drug Use Issues include - The possible link between genes & attention deficit; Prince ponders medicinal value of cannabis. International News articles include - Shan rebels blame Myanmar military for opium boom; Colombia police make record 66-pound heroin bust; Gambians arrested for drug crimes; U.S. aid said used in air raid on Colombia. The weekly Hot Off The 'Net gives the URL for Professor Charles Whitebread's speech on RealAudio. The DrugSense Tip Of The Week details the FEAR On-line Chat group. The Quote of the Week features Charles Dickens. The Fact of the Week cites a reference proving the U.S. government spent only 7% of its drug-control budget on treatment in 1992.)
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Tuesday, December 29, 1998:
Cannabis Proves Itself Medically (A letter to the editor of the Columbian, in Vancouver, Washington, responds to a letter from drug warrior Sandra Bennett, citing a few credible scientific studies in which researchers found non-THC cannabinoids had beneficial affects, such as a reduction in painful muscle spasticity.)
Lockyer to back medical marijuana (The San Francisco Examiner says California Attorney General-elect Bill Lockyer has unrolled a list of 12 priorities that bear little resemblance to those of his Republican predecessor, Dan Lungren. As his 10th priority, Lockyer promises to try to implement Prop. 215, the 1996 initiative that was intended to allow seriously ill patients to grow and use marijuana with a doctor's recommendation.)
Environment And Crime - Major Issues (The San Diego Union Tribune says outgoing Governor Pete Wilson is crediting his support for California's uniquely harsh "three strikes" mandatory minimum law for the state's lowest crime rate in 30 years. Wilson also credits the three strikes law for a drop in gun sales, and for more parolees leaving the state for other regions. But critics note the three strikes law is enforced differently in every county, while crime dropped everywhere, including the 49 other states that generally don't sentence pot smokers and pizza thieves to 25 years to life.)
Fire in Shed Doused, Pot in House Seized (A cautionary tale in the San Francisco Chronicle says a faulty natural gas generator ignited in a San Francisco backyard shed early yesterday, leading prohibition agents to seize 200 marijuana plants they valued at $20,000, or just $100 each.)
VA Legislators Pass Resolution To Grow Hemp (The Associated Press says a Virginia House of Delegates committee voted 9-2 Monday to approve a measure calling for a study of industrial hemp. The resolution, sponsored by Del. Mitchell Van Yahres, D-Albemarle, asks federal officials to let the state's universities experiment with cultivating hemp for commercial use. The General Assembly will consider the measure during the session that begins Jan. 13.)
Narcolepsy Drug Offers Wide Appeal (The San Jose Mercury News says the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved modafinil, a new drug manufactured by Cephalon that has few of the side effects associated with caffeine, amphetamines and other commonly used stimulants. Narcolepsy affects one of every 1,000 to 2,000 people - including untold numbers of people who contract it as a sometimes-permanent side effect from prescription antidepressants. The drug is expected to become available in February at a cost of "less than $10 a pill," compared to, for example, less than $1 for Ritalin.)
Review Board Sought For Drugs Gone Awry (A New York Times piece in the San Jose Mercury News says a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine contrasted the government's approach to airplane safety with its approach to drug safety. Noting adverse reactions to medicine kill 100,000 Americans a year - far more than die in plane crashes - the authors suggested that the United States needs an independent drug-safety agency, analogous to the transportation board, to investigate drug "crashes," and a mandatory reporting system to catch adverse drug effects as early as possible. Unfortunately, FDA officials seem to have taken personal offense and don't seem interested in improving the process.)
DrugSense Focus Alert - Hypocrisy in Action (DrugSense asks you to write a quick letter to the editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal, to comment on a recent letter by Ken Singer, a liquor distributor who runs Champions For a Drug Free Kentucky, a state-funded organization. In case you need help, DrugSense includes some interesting quotes on alcohol, incarceration, violence, and marijuana.)
Crusader vows to start pot 'club' for patients (According to The Calgary Herald, Calgary multiple sclerosis patient Grant Krieger said Monday he plans to have his non-profit medical marijuana dispensary - the Compassion club - up and running in two months. Paul Laventure, head of the Calgary police drug unit, said Krieger would be "liable to imprisonment for life.")
Body's 'cannabis' could hold blood pressure key (The British Broadcasting Corporation says medical researchers in Nottingham have received a £120,000 grant from the British Heart Foundation to study endocannabinoids, natural substances produced by the body that are chemically similar to cannabis. Endocannabinoids are known to make blood vessels relax, which can reduce blood pressure.)
Drug-Related Crimes On The Rise In Russia (According to Itar-Tass, Colonel-General Sergei Stepashin, the Russian interior minister, said Tuesday that a sweep by police that ended this week has resulted in the dentention of 62 thousand criminals and 13 thousand other fugitives from police investigations, including many sought for drug-related crimes.)
Pakistan Busts Heroin Smuggling Ring (Reuters says seven mail office employees in Karachi have been arrested this month in connection with a group that sent as much as $1.5 billion worth of heroin out of the country over the last 13 years. The alleged smugglers took wrongly addressed parcels and letters sent to Pakistan, put heroin inside them, changed the return addresses and mailed them back out of the country. Mukhtar Ahmed, regional director of Pakistan's Anti-Narcotics Force, said he wanted drug cases to be tried in special military courts.)
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Monday, December 28, 1998:
Suicide law still draws emotional responses (The Oregonian interviews four doctors who work with dying patients about the Oregon Death With Dignity Act, the state's unique physician-assisted suicide law that took effect in 1997.)
Drugs: A Silent Alarm Prompts The Search Of Robert Evans' San Francisco Apartment (An Associated Press version of yesterday's news about the bust of Rich Evans, a medical-marijuana patient and activist.)
The Last Worst Place (The San Francisco Chronicle visits Florence, Colorado's $60 million ADX prison - governmentese for "administrative maximum." Unparalled in America, it is the only prison specifically designed to keep each of its 400 occupants in near-total solitary confinement.)
VA To Take A Look At How To Treat Pain (The Grand Rapids Press, in Michigan, says beginning in January, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will do what few health-care providers have done. It will assess a patient's level of pain along with other vital signs such as temperature, blood pressure and pulse. Veterans facilities ranging from hospitals to nursing homes to clinics will use the assessments to develop long term strategies for treating both chronic and acute pain. The VA serves more than 25 million veterans, and one third of American medical residents and about half of American medical students are trained in VA facilities.)
First conviction lands man 25 years to life under Rockefeller laws (The Associated Press says Albert Brunner was convicted about 10 years ago of selling nearly two pounds of cocaine. Under New York state's mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines for drug-law violators, the first-time, non-violent offender was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. His younger sister, Margaret Liberatore, a school teacher on maternity leave, is circulating petitions calling for reform, and hopes to gather 3,000 signatures by mid-January to send to Gov. George Pataki.)
Sharp Drop in Violent Crime Traced to Decline in Crack Market (The New York Times discusses the many theories about why new statistics released Sunday by the Justice Department show violent crime has dropped seven straight years after an upsurge in the 1980s. The annual survey, carried out for the Justice Department by the Census Bureau, asks 80,000 people ages 12 and older whether they have been victims of a crime in the past year. The newspaper favors the theories that the decline is due primarily to a withering away of the crack market and police efforts to seize handguns from criminals and juveniles.)
Drug Traffickers Terrorize Upscale Zone In Rio (Reuters says shops and restaurants near the governor's palace in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, reopened on Monday after drug traffickers forced them to close over the weekend to honour a drug lord killed by police. Residents and business owners in the middle-class neighbourhoods of Laranjeiras and Cosme Velho said shootouts between rival gangs in the nearby shantytowns were common, but the forced closings showed a new level of brashness.)
Medical trials of cannabis to start in Britain (The Age, in Melbourne, Australia, notes yesterday's news about the British government planning a series of trials into the medical efficacy of cannabis.)
Top-secret Cannabis Ready For Medicinal Harvest (The Times, in London, says Britain's first crop of government-licensed cannabis is to be harvested secretly this week, in preparation for trials on up to 2,000 people that will begin once medicine has been distilled from the plants.)
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Sunday, December 27, 1998:
Medical marijuana advocate arrested (California NORML corrects and forwards a San Francisco Examiner article about the bust of Richard Evans in San Francisco. Evans, who described himself as director of Americans for Compassionate Use and who was busted previously for operating a medical marijuana club near Cincinnati, was arrested after police found 17 pounds of packaged marijuana, 40 plants being cultivated - and alleged child pornography.)
Re: Rich Evans arrested (A Bay Area list subscriber says he spoke with the accused and the alleged "child pornography" consisted of two art books, not pornography.)
Re: Rich Evans (Another list subscriber provides more information, and identifies the alleged "child pornography" as a book purchased at the Ansel Adams gallery which included nudity of children and others.)
Rich Evans Charges Dropped (That was quick.)
Marijuana Battlegrounds (A staff editorial in the Orange County Register says medical marijuana made significant advances in 1998, but in California the law passed by voters in 1996 remains well short of implementation. Much more effort - and suffering - will be necessary before government at all levels abandons its war on sick people.)
Drug programs imposed by law making a mark (The Arizona Daily Star says Arizonans still can't legally use marijuana for medical purposes, but backers of Proposition 200 confirm the drug treatment programs mandated by the law are having positive results.)
Columbia authorities cracking down on marijuana offenders (An Associated Press article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch says police in Columbia, Missouri, who catch people with even a small amount of marijuana are handcuffing them and taking them to jail as part of a new police policy to get tough on drug offenders. One of the first acts of Police Chief Norm Botsford when he took over the department last year was to create a special narcotics enforcement unit to concentrate solely on drug interdiction.)
Groups mobilize to push for lenient drug policies (A feature article in the Fort Worth, Texas, Star-Telegram, looks at the Drug Policy Forum of Texas and the reform movement nationwide. DPFT recently received a $25,000 donation from billionaire philanthropist George Soros. Other supporters of reform around the nation include Stanley Marcus, the 93-year-old former chairman of Neiman Marcus, and former New York Police Commissioner Patrick Murphy. Plus commentary from list subscribers about Mark Kleiman, a drug warrior and White House policy adviser quoted in the article.)
Re: Groups Mobilize To Push For Lenient Drug Policies (A letter sent to the editor of The Fort Worth Star-Telegram says that if indeed "these groups want the government to drastically change the way it punishes drug users," they have missed the question, as have the newspaper's writers. The larger and far more important issue is why society believes it must "punish" some drug users in the first place.)
Truth About Marijuana (An excellent letter to the editor of the Daily Herald, in Arlington Heights, Illinois, critiques the reasoning of an anti-marijuana zealot who spoke at the College of DuPage, as well as the newspaper's evident bias in printing just one side of the story.)
Rockefeller Drug Law Radio Ads (A bulletin from the Lindesmith Center, in New York, follows up on yesterday's news with the text of advertisements from the new radio campaign urging reform of New York state's mandatory-minimum sentencing laws for drug offenders.)
Clinton Seeks Curbs On Drunken Driving (According to an Associated Press article in the San Jose Mercury News, President Clinton Saturday asked Congress to impose a lower, uniform blood-alcohol standard for drunken driving across the nation, saying the Justice and Transportation departments would use the "leverage" of federal grants to persuade states to adopt low-tolerance standards "on their own . . . . One impaired driver is one too many.")
'Demon Alcohol' - Hatchet-Wielding Do-Gooders Launch Health Crusade (The Washington Times says nearly a century after Carry Nation waged her one-woman saloon-wrecking campaign, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and dozens of other groups are carrying out a multipronged offensive to limit advertising, boost taxes, and get the federal government to label alcohol a carcinogen.)
U.S. 'Cautiously' Boosting Aid To Colombia (Who says the cold war is over? A Washington Post article in the Los Angeles Times says that despite human rights abuses by Colombia's military, and its rampant corruption associated with the illegal-drug trade, the United States is stepping up its involvement with the Colombian armed forces because it fears they are losing a war to Marxist rebels who derive much of their income from drug trafficking.)
U.S. Boosts Aid To Colombian Military (A slightly different version in the San Jose Mercury News)
Colombia To Receive Aid For Drug Squad (The UPI version)
Guard probed for drugs (The Halifax Daily News says a guard at the Halifax Correctional Centre - who can't be identified until he is formally charged - was arrested Christmas Eve after being investigated for smuggling "drugs" to inmates.)
MS patient hails testing of pot (The Calgary Herald says Grant Krieger, a multiple sclerosis patient and Calgary medical-marijuana activist, has given guarded applause to an announcement in Great Britain that more than 1,000 patients will participate in scientific research into the therapeutic uses of cannabis. Last week the British government announced the Medical Research Council and Royal Pharmaceutical Society would set guidelines for the trials Jan. 11 at a closed meeting to be attended by Health Department officials.)
Ministers Approve NHS Cannabis Tests (The Sunday Telegraph, in Britain, says it has learnt that the government is about to sanction a series of trials into the therapeutic uses of cannabis involving more than 1,000 patients. The Medical Research Council and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society will set out the guidelines for the trials on January 11 at a closed scientific meeting to be attended by Department of Health officials. The first trial will be for spasticity in multiple sclerosis patients.)
Medical Cannabis Tests Get Go-Ahead (The version in Britain's Mail on Sunday)
Britons Sip Liqueur Of Poets (The Montreal Gazette says absinthe, once the poison of choice in bohemian Paris, was banned by France and most other Western nations early in this century. The liqueur's controversial reappearance in Britain has sent an illicit sort of thrill through the upscale drinking public, due to the ingenuity of four young rock 'n' roll entrepreneurs who discovered that Britain had somehow never got around to banning absinthe. Were French absinthe addicts suffering delirium and hallucinations because they had simply drunk too much alcohol, or was it because of a chemical in wormwood - thujone - related chemically to cannabis?)
A Storied Drink, Britons Take To The Allure Of Absinthe (The original Philadelphia Inquirer version)
ACM-Bulletin of 27 December 1998 (An English-language news bulletin from the Association for Cannabis as Medicine, in Cologne, Germany, features more details about the recent scientific report that a cannabinoid receptor system may play a role in the regulation of sperm function; and an account of the recent New Zealand parliament report saying the negative effects of marijuana have been overstated.)
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Saturday, December 26, 1998:
Critics launch ad campaign opposing Rockefeller drug laws (The Associated Press says a bipartisan coalition opposing New York state's mandatory-minimum drug laws is launching radio advertisements calling for an overhaul of the rigid 25-year-old sentencing guidelines. Among those on the coalition are one of the original sponsors, former state Sen. H. Douglas Barclay, and Warren Anderson, who was state Senate Majority Leader when the laws were enacted in 1973.)
Grandparents enlisted in war on drugs (The Associated Press says the White House drug czar's Office of National Drug Control Policy has launched an ad campaign to coax grandparents into "talking to their grandchildren about the dangers of drugs" - since at least one of every nine school-age children has at least one parent incarcerated on a drug-related offense, apparently the government feels parents are no longer supporting the war on some drug users.)
Sea urchins and human sexuality (The Toronto Star's ombudsman apologizes for the newspaper running a piece of junk science propaganda from the United States alleging marijuana use reduces male fertility. The story should have said the study involved sea urchins, not humans; that it was funded by the U.S. ministry of propaganda known as the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and that there have been no epidemiological studies showing increased infertility in marijuana-using humans.)
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Friday, December 25, 1998:
Medical marijuana law poses questions (The Oregonian suggests the difference between state and federal marijuana laws has created a mess for employers who subscribe to the government-sponsored myth that marijuana use causes impairment.)
Employers face difficult questions under new law (The Associated Press version)
CRRH will wait to circulate OCTA (A bulletin from Paul Stanford of the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act campaign says the Oregon secretary of state's office has not yet certified the ballot initiative, so signature-gathering will not begin until spring. Also, OCTA's sponsor, the Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp, is preparing to file similar Cannabis Tax Act initiative petitions in Washington and other states.)
Officers' actions attacked in San Jose marijuana trial (A San Jose Mercury News article in The Contra Costa Times says attorneys for medical-marijuana patient Peter Baez asked San Jose prohibition agents pointed questions Wednesday in an attempt to have the charges against the former head of a San Jose-based medical cannabis dispensary dismissed. San Jose police officer Tim Kuchac stated in an affidavit that he was part of the team that served the first warrant and noticed a computer that could have contained business records and other key evidence. In fact, he testified Wednesday, that was not true. He had never been to the center before signing the affidavit. "I was blown away," said defense attorney Gerald Uelmen. "I have very few instances in my life as a lawyer where I had a police officer admit on the stand to perjury.")
Treating The Cause (A staff editorial in the Cincinnati Post claims Hamilton County's drug court has saved taxpayers money, but doesn't explain why more is now needed. Seventeen other Ohio counties now run drug courts; all are modeled after the one pioneered in Cincinnati three years ago. The judge who runs the drug court and other county officials are lobbying the state for a second drug court judge, but the newspaper says the county should reassign one of its 15 other judges.)
Pataki Refuses To Grant Holiday Clemency (The Bergen Record, in New Jersey, says hundreds of prisoners applied for a show of Christmas mercy from New York Governor George Pataki, a former marijuana consumer. In the past three years the Republican governor has commuted the sentences of 13 prisoners, all but two of them sentenced under the state's mandatory-minimum drug laws passed during the Rockefeller era.)
More about House Speaker-in-waiting J. Dennis Hastert (A list subscriber follows up on yesterday's news about the drug-warrior credentials of the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives, noting the Republican leader spoke at a 1997 "International Symposium Against Drugs," in Zofingen, Switzerland, organized by the Swiss psycho cult, Verein Fuer Psychologische Menschenkenntnis, or the Organisation for the Psychological Knowledge of Human Nature.)
Quotes from the Prozac Survivor's web site (A list subscriber forwards citations from Business Week and Time magazine with some disturbing information about the pharmaceutical antidepressant most widely prescribed by American physicians. Plus a first-person account from a former Prozac user able to remember some of the side effects.)
Ann Landers (The annual Christmas message from the syndicated advice columnist says the "war on drugs" has turned out to be a colossal failure.)
Ann Landers Censored (The Tampa Tribune version omits the sentence saying the "war on drugs" has turned out to be a colossal failure.)
A Muslim Celebrates Christmas (A not-so off-topic list subscriber says, according to cable television's History Channel, the most prominent features of Christmas, ever since it began as a pagan holiday in ancient Rome, have been drunkenness and riotous conduct, which caused it to be prohibited at several points throughout history. Like other prohibitions, of course, they were astounding failures.)
No Safe Haven: Children of Substance Abusing Parents (A list subscriber forwards a notice from CASA, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, saying it will release a report at a press conference Jan. 14 at which CASA will propose expanding the war on some drug-using parents.)
Prince Charles Asks Victim Of MS If She Has Tried Pot (An Associated Press version of yesterday's news, in the Everett, Washington, Herald)
Prince in Flap Over Pot Rx (The New York Daily News version)
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Thursday, December 24, 1998:
Poor Police Work Alleged In Pot Case (The San Jose Mercury News says attorneys for medical-marijuana patient Peter Baez asked San Jose prohibition agents pointed questions Wednesday in an attempt to have the charges against the former head of a San Jose-based medical cannabis dispensary dismissed. San Jose police officer Tim Kuchac stated in an affidavit that he was part of the team that served the first warrant and noticed a computer that could have contained business records and other key evidence. In fact, he testified Wednesday, that was not true. He had never been to the center before signing the affidavit. "I was blown away," said defense attorney Gerald Uelmen. "I have very few instances in my life as a lawyer where I had a police officer admit on the stand to perjury.")
Fatal Error: The Pentagon's War On Drugs Takes A Toll On The Innocent (A lengthy account in The Austin Chronicle details the killing of an 18-year-old Texas goatherder, Esequiel Hernandez Jr., by camouflaged US Marines on a drug interdiction mission along the US-Mexico border. The Posse Comitatus Act, passed by Congress in 1878, made it a felony to deputize the armed services for domestic law-enforcement duty. Congress began chipping away at Posse Comitatus in 1982 - the same year then-Vice President Bush was put in charge of the War on Drugs - with a defense bill allowing the military to loan equipment and facilities to civilian law enforcement agencies. A 1989 bill went further, allowing military personnel to work in the field. And a 1991 act authorized the services to conduct armed anti-drug reconnaissance missions. The definition of these missions has been expanded in every defense bill since. The Pentagon spends about $1 billion a year fighting drugs. The United States has pursued violent regeneration through a series of "savage wars," of which the war on some drug users is but the latest.)
"Right This Wrong" (A sidebar to the Austin Chronicle's article about drug warriors killing an 18-year-old Texas goatherder says a scathing 249-page report on the 1997 shooting, prepared by U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, concluded that the U.S. Border Patrol helped aim the gun that killed Esequiel Hernandez Jr., and that both the Defense and Justice Departments obstructed Smith's investigation into Hernandez's death.)
Pot's Hazards (A letter to the editor of The Chicago Tribune from Peter B. Bensinger, the former head of the DEA, blasts the newspaper for its staff editorial saying there is "growing recognition that marijuana may have therapeutic value as medicine." The voters are inacapable of understanding science, and government agencies such as the "Federal Drug Administration" should be left alone to make such decisions because they are the only ones capable of understanding the science, are unbiased, and have only the best interests of everyone in mind. Sheesh.)
A Bad Season For Amateurs (According to The San Francisco Chronicle, the Wall Street Journal reported this week that a new NIAAA survey of 14,000 American workers found inexperienced drinkers caused more problems than veteran drunks. The findings challenge popular wisdom blaming heavy boozers for an estimated $27 billion a year in lost productivity.)
Medical Marijuana - The Six-State Sweep (William Greider in Rolling Stone magazine says the American people want marijuana legalized for medical use. So why isn't Washington listening? Bill Zimmerman of Americans for Medical Rights says, "More than one-fifth of the American electorate has now voted in the majority to give patients the right to use marijuana. If the federal government doesn't respect that vote and change its attitude, we're fully prepared to go to the rest of America with this issue.")
Charles: Why Don't You Try Cannabis? (The Sun, in Britain, says Prince Charles put further pressure on the Government to legalise marijuana for medical use when he asked a multiple sclerosis patient, "Have you tried taking cannabis? I have heard it's the best thing for it." The patient said later, "He is a lovely man. He is really caring." Last night charity chiefs and medics backed the Prince. Rosemary Leonard, the Sun's doctor said: "This shows how well-informed he is." But Charles is not the first Royal to back the use of cannabis for pain relief. Queen Victoria used it to ease period pains.)
Ever Tried Cannabis? Prince Asks MS Sufferer (The version in Britain's Guardian)
Prince Ponders Medicinal Value Of Cannabis (The version in The Times)
Charles: Ever Tried Smoking Cannabis? (The version in The Mirror)
Charles Joins Cannabis Debate (The Scotsman version)
Prince Charles drawn into medicinal marijuana debate (The Associated Press version)
China's Shenzhen Executes 11 For Drug Trafficking (Reuters says China's southern boomtown of Shenzhen executed 11 drug dealers, including a teenaged girl, in the city's second major legally sanctioned bloodbath this year.)
The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 72 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original compilation of news and calls to action regarding drug policy, including - A message to our readers; Livingston out as speaker, drug warrior Hastert set to take gavel; Court hears case to decide fate of D.C. medical marijuana initiative; Monitoring The Future survey released; Appalachia: under the gun; and an editorial, Impeach This, by Adam J. Smith.)
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Wednesday, December 23, 1998:
Wounded laborer seeks city settlement (The Oregonian says Ron Barton of Portland is suing the city and three Portland police officers for nearly $3.5 million, contending police illegally entered his apartment while he was asleep and shot him, crippling his left arm. Barton also alleges in the lawsuit that he was falsely prosecuted because the two officers involved in the shooting conspired with Officer Wayne Svilar, who investigated the incident.)
Federal charges against Marin Alliance dropped (A list subscriber forwards news from attorneys for the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana.)
Baltimore Police in Spotlight - Almost everyone agrees that drugs represent the city's biggest hurdle (The Associated Press says the apparent inability of Baltimore, Maryland, to bring its homicide count down below 300 per year, even as other types of violent crime have declined, has thrust a national spotlight on the city's dark side. Baltimore, the nation's 14th-largest city with 650,000 residents, has about 46 homicides per 100,000 people - more than four times the rate such larger cities as New York.)
Ouch! (A list subscriber forwards a urine-testing joke.)
RJR Subsidiary Pleads Guilty To Smuggling (The New York Times says a unit of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. pleaded guilty on Tuesday and agreed to pay $15 million in penalties to settle federal criminal charges stemming from a scheme to smuggle cigarettes into Canada through an Indian reservation in upstate New York. Authorities said the guilty plea, filed in Federal District Court in Binghamton, N.Y., marked the first time that a tobacco company has been convicted of complicity in the shadowy and growing world of international cigarette smuggling.)
U.S., Mexico Admit Drug War Is Failing (According to a New York Times News Service article in The Chicago Tribune, officials from both the United States and Mexico say an ambitious U.S. effort to help train and equip Mexico's armed forces to pursue drug smugglers is a shambles, as are relations with an ally that Washington has worked intensely to court.)
U.S. Plan to Help Mexican Military Fight Drugs Is Faltering (A lengthier version)
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Tuesday, December 22, 1998:
NORML Foundation Weekly News Release (Will Foster To Spend Another Christmas Behind Bars, Medical Marijuana Patient Remains Incarcerated Despite Parole Board's Plea For Early Release)
Fight Brews Over State's Inmate Work Program (The Oregonian notes Oregon Governor John "Prisons" Kitzhaber wants to cut the state's 1999-2001 prison-inmate forced-labor budget from $14.4 million to $9 million, saying it has become too expensive - apparently it threatens to limit the number of pot growers and other illegal drug offenders the state can lock up. "What is the price for full compliance, and are we willing to pay it?" Kitzhaber said, referring not to the war on some drug users but to Ballot Measure 17, the 1994 ballot initiative that obliges inmates to work a 40-hour week.)
Seattle's war on drugs has priorities mixed up (Seattle Times columnist Michelle Malkin says instead of arresting drug dealers in public parks and streets, city attorney Mark Sidran and the Seattle Police Department have focused their energies on taking away private property from people like the McCoys, owners of Oscar's II, using a 1988 drug-nuisance abatement law. Of approximately 100 total cases brought by Sidran since 1990, roughly two-thirds were secret because of open-records rules or "administrative" reasons. Most of the 28 drug-abatement cases Malkin was able to review were filed against people who were never charged, accused, suspected of, or arrested for any criminal activity. Only one was filed against a white person. Twenty-three were filed against blacks, and four were filed against Asians or Hispanics.)
Lt. Gov. settles ethics charges for $7,000 (The Associated Press says Washington state Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, a longtime drug-war hawk, will pay $7,000 to settle state ethics charges arising from his allocation of state funds to oppose a 1997 initiative to legalize the medical use of marijuana and other controlled substances.)
Alan Carter McLemore (A list subscriber says the former Texas lawyer, disbarred and incarcerated for growing his own medical marijuana, is being transferred to a halfway house, and might be paroled in June.)
7 Officers Cleared In Shooting (The Houston Chronicle says a Fort Bend County grand jury refused to indict seven Houston police officers Monday for the death of Derek Jason Kaeseman, an unarmed man shot 14 times while trying to flee police. The chase started when two officers saw what appeared to be a drug deal between two men. A passenger bailed out before the chase, but the medical examiner's report said the passenger was a male prostitute.)
Subtle As A Frying Pan (Syndicated columnist Jacob Sullum, in The Pioneer Press, in St. Paul, Minnesota, says public discussion of the drug issue is rife with messages that subvert themselves.)
Details of cop's alleged drug deals revealed (The Chicago Sun Times says an FBI agent testified in federal court Monday that Chicago police officer Joseph Miedzianowski, a 22-year veteran of the force, sold up to 330 pounds of crack cocaine to one drug dealer during an 18-month period.)
Ex-Park District Cop Acquitted In Shakedown (The Chicago Tribune says a federal jury on Monday exonerated Andre Williams, formerly with the Maywood Park District Police Department, of charges he shared in a $2,000 payoff from a purported drug dealer in 1996. The acquittal came despite audio tape and videotape of the payoff, the cooperation of Williams' partner, and the fact that the purported drug dealer was an undercover agent.)
The Mandatory-Sentencing Mistake (Washington Post columnist William Raspberry says he was unmoved by the argument of Vincent Schiraldi, director of the Justice Policy Institute, who discovered that during the last 10 years, New York State has increased spending on prisons by very close to the amount by which it has decreased spending on higher education. What persuaded Raspberry that the drug laws constitute poorly thought-out policy, misguided toughness and bad law was Schiraldi's story about Tom Eddy, a classmate of Schiraldi's at the State University of New York in Binghamton who was arrested in 1979 and served 13 years of a 15-to-life sentence for selling two ounces of cocaine.)
NJ Supreme Court Prohibits "Electronic Roadblocks," Curbs Police Power, Upholds Privacy (The ACLU News says a landmark New Jersey Supreme Court ruling earlier this month prohibits police from indiscriminately searching for personal information about innocent motorists by entering their license-plate numbers into mobile data terminals in police cars. "This is the first time that a court has recognized that a government official's search of a government database might violate statutory or constitutional privacy protections," said Eric Neisser of Rutgers Law School.)
Millions At Stake; Drug Tax Refunds Igniting Debates (The Wilmington Morning Star, in North Carolina, says the state has collected $40 million since 1990 from people accused of dealing illegal drugs. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the state's "drug tax" was unconstitutional, but the state attorney general's office has so far prevented any of the victims from getting any money back.)
Board OKs Plan To Test Athletes For Drugs (The Charlotte Observer, in North Carolina, says the Gaston County School Board gave the first round of approval Monday night to testing high school athletes for drugs, alcohol and, possibly, steroids. Board member Kemp Michael said, "The ultimate purpose of this is to use athletics as a way to keep them in the fold." The cost will be $135 per student, or $4,000 to randomly test 10 percent of the county's high school athletes and cheerleaders.)
Judge Rules Scott Chief Planted Fake Drugs To Justify Cash Found (The Advocate, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, says Scott Police Chief Jerry Carpenter planted fake cocaine in a car to justify seizing $55,000 found during an interstate traffic stop.)
Biology Of Behavior - The Possible Link Between Genes, Attention Deficit (Newsday discusses some of the research presented to a panel of scientists convened by the federal government earlier this month to discuss the state of medical research about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD.)
Biker slain in restaurant (The Montreal Gazette says Lawrence Bellas, 38, a Hell's Angels associate, was shot and killed yesterday by a hit man in a busy east-end restaurant, where two innocent diners were also wounded. Police said there was little doubt Bellas was another victim in the continuing war between the Hell's Angels and the Rock Machine for control of the illicit-drug trade.)
Colombia Police Make Record 66-Pound Heroin Bust (Reuters says that with Tuesday's haul, Colombian authorities have seized 836 pounds of heroin this year, a 75 percent increase from 1997. Colombia began to produce and export heroin from about 1991, and officials now estimate Colombia has some 12,000 acres of illegal opium poppy plantations.)
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Monday, December 21, 1998:
Million Marijuana March (A list subscriber seeks volunteers to help organize a rally in Los Angeles scheduled for May 1, 1999.)
Lake Worth School Districts Turning To Drug Testing (The Fort Worth Star-Telegram says the Lake Worth School District in northwest Tarrant County this year joined the small but growing number of school systems across the nation that are drug-testing students who participate in extracurricular activities. School officials strongly believe that the programs help, but finding statistics to confirm their beliefs is problematic.)
U.S. Prosecutors Say Bright Columbia Graduate Had Led Secret Life For Years (With uncharacteristic irony, The New York Times says Zolton Williams isn't likely to pay back his $60,000 in student loans for some time. He sits in a Brooklyn jail awaiting a federal sentence of up to 12 years for smuggling "tens of thousands" of dollars' worth of cocaine from Jamaica to the United States while he was a student at one of the nation's leading law schools.)
His Bail Seized, Coke Defendant Is Still In Jail (The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says Gerardo Hernandez's friends and family scraped together $100,000 to bail him out of the Milwaukee County Jail. But before the checks could be credited to Hernandez's bail account, a Wisconsin prohibition agent familiar with the case overheard the transaction as he passed by, intervened and scooped up the checks under the theory that the money was derived from drug dealing. Under current forfeiture laws, his theory counts for more than factual statements from 25 people who put up the $100,000, and Hernandez remains in jail.)
2 ex-officers convicted in drug case (The Associated Press says a jury in Monroe, Louisiana, on Friday convicted Warren Jones and Roderic Oliver, two former police officers in Tallulah, Louisiana, of federal charges in connection with a conspiracy to sell protection to illegal drug dealers.)
U.S. Aid Said Used In Air Raid On Colombia Village (According to Reuters, Human Rights Watch, based in Washington, D.C., charged Monday that Colombia's military used warplanes and rockets bought with U.S. anti-drug aid during a recent raid on a village in rebel-held territory that killed up to 27 civilians, including five children. Under guidelines imposed by Congress, the United States is barred from providing military aid to Colombia for use in counterinsurgency operations.)
Bolivia Eradicates Coca Leaf Fields (The Associated Press says the president of Bolivia, Hugo Banzer, announced Monday that the country had eradicated a record 28,660 acres of coca, or nearly a quarter of the crop. The government had to kill only 13 farmers in the process.)
Most People Say No To Cannabis Law Change (The New Zealand Herald says that, despite the recommendation of a Parliamentary select committee, a New Zealand Herald-DigiPoll survey of 663 people showed 61.8 per cent did not want people to be able to legally grow or buy the drug for their own use. Chris Fowlie of the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, noting the poll also asked about respondents' personal use, said that might have affected the result. Other polls that had asked whether the use of cannabis should be decriminalised showed clear support. Interestingly, in terms of the "slippery slope" theory, only 3.3 per cent said they had never used cannabis but would if it were legal.)
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Sunday, December 20, 1998:
Anderson Faces Prison for Drugs (According to The Associated Press, an interview with Greg Anderson of the Houston Hawks, in Sunday's Houston Chronicle, says the professional basketball player blames himself for being entrapped by the FBI into participating in a cocaine deal, leading to his imminent prison sentence. Anderson, a 10-year veteran of the NBA who was a first-round draft pick by the San Antonio Spurs in 1987, faces up to 40 years.)
Drug Tests Proposed For Gaston Athletes (The Charlotte Observer, in North Carolina, says the Gaston County School Board will consider a countywide drug-testing program Monday night under which high school athletes could lose their right to play if they test positive for the kind of drugs that make them high - but they won't be tested for substances that make muscles grow big and strong.)
Drug Screening Tests Makers Improve Product Tamper-Resistance (The Akron Beacon-Journal, in Ohio, says there is a thriving industry in "drug testing aids" - products designed to beat urine tests. The hundreds of available products and companies that sell them are involved in an elaborate and ever escalating cat and mouse game, with the "cheaters" constantly raising the bar and the drug-testing companies constantly jumping higher, in tandem with the prices of their tests.)
Breaking Addiction's Hold (A Cox news service article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says the answer to America's drug problem may be ibogaine, which comes from an obscure plant that grows wild in African rain forests. With a single capsule - or perhaps several over a period of weeks - heroin addicts, alcoholics, cocaine users, even smokers might erase or at least interrupt their cravings. Efforts to understand the plant have foundered on a tangle of lawsuits and conflicting scientific results.)
Gang leader gunned down in Vancouver (A Canadian Press article in The Edmonton Journal says Bindy Johal, 27, was gunned down early Sunday at a crowded night club by a gunman who blended into the crowd and escaped undetected. Johal, a self-admitted drug dealer, was one of the men tried for the 1994 murders of brothers Ron and Jimmy Dosanjh. He and five others were acquitted.)
Caught In The Unforgiving Grip Of Thai Justice (A book review in The Miami Herald about "4,000 Days: My Life and Survival in a Bangkok Prison," by Warren Fellows, calls it an "unrelievedly horrible tale." The author, a native of Australia, was sentenced in 1978 to life in prison for smuggling heroin. After a dreadful interrogation, torture and preliminary confinement in unspeakable conditions, he was shipped off to Bang Kwang, the most feared prison in the world. Fellows writes, "While doing my business in Bangkok, I had been aware of the possibility that, if caught, I might be sent to Big Tiger. But somehow it had seemed a distant chance - I did not belong in Bang Kwang. It was a place for the lowest, most hopeless forms of humanity. Nobody thinks of themselves in that way. Not even criminals." Without self-pity, he makes a compelling case that his punishment was wildly out of proportion to his crime.)
Shan Rebels Blame Myanmar Military For Opium Boom (According to Reuters, Colonel Yod Suk of the Shan State Army says frequent attacks by the Myanmar military against the SSA and its followers as they fought for their own homeland and autonomy has caused local production of opium and heroin to expand. Local residents need permanent plots of land to grow rice and other crops, so they have turned to growing poppy because it takes a short time to harvest and they can shift the location of plots easier.)
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Saturday, December 19, 1998:
Legal defense fund for Lina and Gina Savage in detention since 11-20-98 (A Bay Area list subscriber forwards what could be the most disturbing news of the year. Despite Proposition 215, authorities in Contra Costa County, California, have decided that no medical marijuana patient will be allowed to raise children. Please help stand up for the rights of Gina, age 1, and Lina, age 4, taken from their biological parent to a foster home!)
Sacramento Police: Arrest, Kill & Destroy (A list subscriber forwards a witness's account of yesterday's court hearing in the case of Sacramento-area medical marijuana defendant Robert Ames. Two years after passage of Proposition 215, the Sacramento Police Department admitted in open court, in the county's first medical-marijuana cultivation case, that the department's policy is to automatically arrest all medical cannabis patients, kill all immature medical cannabis, and destroy all medical cannabis gardens, regardless of any paperwork documenting a cultivator's medical status. Ames was ordered to stand trial next year on two felony charges - cultivation, and posesssion with intent to distribute.)
Pair Gets Chance To Defend Pot Use (The Press Democrat, in Santa Rosa, California, says that even though Lori Converse, of Guerneville, had two letters from doctors authorizing her marijuana use, she was arrested for growing marijuana and taken to jail, along with her caregiver, William McConnell. For some reason left unexplained by the newspaper, District Attorney Mike Mullins has decided to violate the letter and spirit of Proposition 215 by disregarding the letters from Converse's physicians and making her try to prove her claims of medical use to a physician review board. It's also not clear why Converse's attorney applauded the prosecutor's extralegal demand.)
New Somoma board may get pot case (The San Francisco Examiner version says several physicians from outside Sonoma County had acknowledged Lori Ellen Converse's medicinal marijuana use but never recommended it, as required by Proposition 215.)
Confiscated Drugs Stolen From Under Nose Of Customs (According to an Associated Press article in The San Jose Mercury News, The Union Tribune in San Diego said Saturday that U.S. Customs agents are under investigation for delivering 7 tons of confiscated drugs to an incinerator and then allegedly leaving the drugs unattended and susceptible to theft - a procedure they may have followed on as many as five other occasions.)
Injured Girl Awarded Millions In Bus Wreck (The Anchorage Daily News says a Superior Court jury in Anchorage, Alaska, this week hit Laidlaw Transit Inc. with a $3.5 million verdict in a lawsuit over a school bus accident in which the driver tested positive for marijuana. A drug test on the driver taken some five hours after the accident indicated she had used marijuana, but not how recently, and an attorney for Laidlaw told jurors the company was sure that marijuana use did not cause the accident. The driver showed no signs of impairment and was not feeling impaired when she hit a patch of black ice that morning. The 12-year-old plaintiff's injuries were minor and she quickly recovered, and has since participated in track and field sports events and is a regular runner.)
War On Drugs Is Self-Serving Politcal Policy (A letter to the editor of The Anchorage Daily News cites several little-known aspects of the dubious war on some drugs.)
Judge Hears Pleas, Says Little on Pot Vote (The Washington Post says U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts asked plenty of questions yesterday but gave no signals about how he might rule in the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of backers of Initiative 59, the District of Columbia measure that would permit seriously ill people to use marijuana for medical reasons.)
Judge keeps D.C. marijuana vote under wraps (The Baltimore Sun version)
Needle Exchange Returns to D.C. (The Washington Post says a private firm now carries out the program, funded previously by the District of Columbia. In October, Congress forced the city to stop trying to prevent intravenous drug users from spreading AIDS.)
Teen Drug Use Down Slightly, Study Says (A Knight Ridder news service article in The Orange County Register summarizes the latest results from the annual Monitoring the Future survey, conducted by the University of Michigan for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Used to track teen-age drug use since 1975, the survey conducted by Professor Lloyd Johnston this year found that 10th-graders' use of marijuana dropped from 34.8 percent to 31.1 percent. Thirty-five percent of 10th-graders said they had used some kind of drug, including tobacco, in the past school year, down from 38.5 percent the year earlier. However, Professor Johnston and the federal government apparently do not consider alcohol to be a drug, or illegal for kids - about seven in 10 sophomores said they had consumed alcohol, and one-third of seniors reported being drunk in the past month. Overall "drug" use among eighth-graders dropped from 23.6 percent to 21 percent. But marijuana use held steady at 9.7 percent for that grade and remained at 22.8 percent among 12th-graders. Some 22.4 percent of high school seniors smoked cigarettes daily in the latest survey, compared with 1992's all-time low of 17.2 percent. Black teenagers continue to have the lowest smoking rates, with just less than 15 percent of black seniors saying they smoked in the past month.)
Teens' drug use dips slightly but remains high, survey finds (The Miami Herald version notes, according to the survey, 41.4 percent of high school seniors reported using "drugs" in the last year, down from 42.4 percent.)
Study Finds Decline In Teen Substance Use (The Washington Post version)
Teen Drug Use Stabilizes But Overall Rate Still High, Study Finds (The Sacramento Bee version)
Report: Drug Use Stabilizing Among Teens (A slightly different version in The Omaha World-Herald)
Drug Use Among Teen-Agers Leveling Out, Report Says (The Los Angeles Daily News version)
Drug Use Slows As Teens Heed Dangers (A lengthier version in The Peoria Journal Star)
Teen Drug Use Has Stabilized, Even Dipped, Study Says (The Arizona Republic version)
Dip In Teen Drug Use Called Inadequate (The Philadelphia Inquirer version)
Drug Use Slows As Teens See, Hear More About Dangers (The version in The Commercial Appeal, in Tennessee)
1998 Monitoring The Future Study: Tide Of Youth Drug Use Turns (A press release from the office of the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, says this year's survey of teen drug use demonstrates that "our balanced approach - focusing on preventing children from turning to drugs, treating drug addicts, and breaking trafficking organizations - works.")
Colombia Seizes 30 Percent More Cocaine, Heroin In 1998 (According to Cable News Network, today's release of an annual crime report by the Colombian National Police shows Colombian prohibition agents seized a record 59 tons of cocaine and 770 pounds of heroin this year, worth about $1 billion wholesale in the United States. However, the area of land covered with illegal drug crops has increased over the past two years. The DEA estimates Colombia supplies 80 percent of the world's cocaine and about 60 percent of the high-grade heroin bought in the United States. The DEA also estimates Colombian cocaine sells for about $17,500 per kilogram in the United States, and heroin for $85,000 to $195,000 per kilogram.)
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Friday, December 18, 1998:
Implementation of Measure 67 (Stormy Ray, a multiple sclerosis patient and chief petitioner for the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act of 1998, provides some potentially helpful advice to other Oregon patients about how to comply with the voter-approved law.)
Task Force: New office needed to improve pain management (The Associated Press says a state task force has recommended that Oregon should set up a new office to improve pain management and ease doctors' fears about treating pain with narcotics. The recommendations will be given to Governor John Kitzhaber and the legislature next month in hopes that lawmakers will act on them.)
Raid yields guns, ammunition, drug paraphernalia (An Oregonian account of North Portland residents being awakened at 5:30 a.m. Thursday by a police raid characteristically fails to say what the "paraphernalia" consisted of or whether the weapons were illegal, or on what evidence Portland police charged Leroy Sylvester Long with conspiracy to commit first-degree distribution of a controlled substance, or how one person could engage in a conspiracy and/or why nobody else was apparently charged.)
County considers taking cars of drunken drivers (The Oregonian says the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners unanimously endorsed a resolution Thursday to consider forfeiting vehicles operated by drivers who have suspended or revoked licenses as a result of driving under the influence of alcohol or "drugs." The resolution, introduced by Commissioner Lisa Naito, allows Sheriff Dan Noelle to appoint a committee to consider the ramifications and potentially recommend a county ordinance.)
Medical Pot Not A Problem (A letter to the editor of The Columbian, in Vancouver, Washington, responds to an op-ed against medical marijuana by Sandra Bennett, the notorious local drug warrior.)
Illegal Plant Grown For Medicine, Man Claims (An Associated Press article in The Houston Chronicle notes Musa Ahmed Gelan of Prunedale, California, pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in San Jose to charges related to growing more than 1,000 khat plants. Gelan's lawyer said the native of Yemen used khat to help control his diabetes. Prohibition agents said Gelan's garden was the first such outdoor "plantation" discovered in the United States.)
Not Guilty Plea In Exotic Drug Case (A lengthier San Jose Mercury News version)
Texas reporter was murdered in Mexico, authorities say (The Dallas Morning News says an autopsy shows Philip True, the Mexico City correspondent for the San Antonio Express News, was strangled and may have been sexually assaulted before his death. The newspaper says American law enforcement sources "privately" suspect drug smugglers.)
US Journalist In Mexico Sexually Assaulted, Slain (The Chicago Tribune version in The Orange County Register says True was indeed sexually brutalized, but that he may also have stumbled upon an illegal logging operation.)
American Journalist Is Killed In Mexico (The original Chicago Tribune version - slightly different)
Express-News news release relating to Philip True (The San Antonio Express-News says news reports that the newspaper's slain Mexico City correspondent was investigating drug trafficking or cultivation are false. There is no evidence to suggest he was the victim of foul play by drug traffickers or cultivators. Also contrary to published reports, True's wallet and other effects were missing, suggesting robbery may have been a motive.)
Texas Lawyer Battles Highway Department, Anti-drug Police (A Dallas Morning News article in The San Jose Mercury News says Pat Barber of Colorado City, Texas, erected a big billboard on his ranch at the edge of town next to Interstate 20 saying, "Just Say NO to Searches! 915-728-5505." Law enforcement officials were not amused and the Texas Department of Transportation said the billboard violated the Highway Beautification Act and threatened to fine Barber $1,000 a day if he didn't remove it. "Nobody wants to see us turn into a Third World police state," says Barber. "Police may want it, but people don't want it.")
Drake nurse allegedly stole patient's morphine (The Cincinnati Enquirer says the woman had a history of substance abuse when a temp agency placed her at the Drake Center, raising questions about the effectiveness of an Ohio law requiring background checks for health care workers. "We arrest a health professional every six days," said Sgt. John J. Burke, commander of Cincinnati's pharmaceutical diversion squad. About 70 percent of the health workers the squad arrests are nurses. The rest are pharmacists, doctors and other health care workers.)
Taylor Turns Himself In On Drug Rap (UPI says former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, a virtual lock to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame next month, faces crack cocaine charges in Teaneck, New Jersey.)
Dealer's house is officer's - Drug conduit's forfeited Hilltown Twp. home is sold to Philadelphia policeman (The Morning Call, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, gives a quick history of Bucks County District Attorney Alan M. Rubenstein's campaign since 1986 to forfeit people's homes for illegal-drug-related offenses. It's still not clear though how Ralph Mirarchi is able to afford a $315,000 house on a policeman's salary.)
Joe Hart - Key West Buyers Club (A list subscriber says the case against one of the founders of a medical marijuana club in Key West, Florida, was thrown out today by a judge who ruled that the "no-knock" raid on his apartment was illegal.)
Judge Hears Medical Marijuana Case (The Associated Press says U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts will hear oral arguments today by lawyers for the District of Columbia and the American Civil Liberties Union, who want to overturn the move by Congress to censor the results of medical-marijuana Initiative 59 in November's election.)
Anti Climax (A list subscriber notes U.S. District Court Judge Roberts didn't issue a decision today regarding Initiative 59, but provides the URL for "almost all" the written arguments presented by the various parties.)
Study finds smoking marijuana and cocaine can cause cancer (CNN apparently failed to ask for an objective interpretation of the science while conveying the latest US government anti-marijuana propaganda released Tuesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Supposedly the study was the first of its kind, and found that smokers of marijuana and crack cocaine show the same kinds of precancerous conditions caused by smoking tobacco. Unfortunately, neither CNN nor the phony scientists explained why the government has never able to point to a single person who has contracted lung cancer by smoking cannabis.)
Teenage use of stimulants levels off in 1998 (An Associated Press article in The Seattle Times says the annual Monitoring the Future survey of teen drug use conducted by the University of Michigan was released today. According to the summary, it paints an optimistic picture of American teenagers, with a few exceptions. Use of marijuana, by far the most popular "drug," dropped among 10th-graders. But there was an increase in the number of 8th-graders who had tried crack or cocaine.)
Teen Drug Use Steady In 1998 (The CNN/Associated Press version)
Teen Use Of Pot, Booze, Cigarettes Down Slightly (The San Francisco Chronicle version)
Highlights Of Teen Drug Use Survey (The Associated Press cites some selected statistics from the annual Monitoring the Future survey of teen drug use. Among high school seniors, 54 percent had used an "illegal drug" at least once. Apparently that didn't include alcohol or tobacco, though both are illegal for kids.)
UN Official Seeks Reforms In US Prisons (Reuters says Radhika Coomaraswamy, a top United Nations official concerned with violence against women, on Friday called for stronger monitoring of women's prisons in the United States to control widespread sexual misconduct.)
Wiseman Noble cancels all Hemp and Non-Wood Fibre projects (A company press release from Wiseman Noble, the research-based events and publications company in Vancouver, British Columbia, whose aim is to facilitate change through consensus, cites financial losses. Wiseman Noble produced seven events across Canada related to hemp and non-wood fibres since 1997, and published eight issues of Commercial Hemp magazine.)
Illegal Drug Trade Is Tool Of Power Elite (An op-ed in The Victoria Times-Colonist, in British Columbia, by Jim Hackler, a professor of sociology at the University of Victoria and the author of "Crime and Canadian Public Policy," says it is difficult for Canada to have a sensible drug policy when its neighbor, the United States, the most powerful country in the world, supports the drug trade and then lies about it. Clearly, enough powerful people are benefiting from the current drug policy that it will be hard to develop intelligent alternatives.)
Torture Scandal Stirs Dominicans (The Associated Press says a videotape of a drug suspect being beaten in the presence of the Dominican Republic's top anti-drug official, General Humeau Hidalgo, is drawing public outrage.)
Cannabis Ifs And Butts (The New Zealand Herald says that after eight months of deliberation, the New Zealand parliament's health select committee released its report on the mental health effects of cannabis yesterday. "Based on the evidence we have heard in the course of this inquiry," the committee concluded, "the negative mental health impact of cannabis appears to have been overstated . . . . Cannabis should be viewed as a lesser threat to cognitive functioning than alcohol." The committee said the evidence also suggested that cannabis did not cause behavioural difficulties, rather that cannabis was frequently used by youths who misbehaved. Neither was it a cause of suicide.)
Cannabis Laws Should Be Reviewed (The version in The Press, in New Zealand.)
Britain Is Drugs Capital Of Europe (Britain's Independent says the 1998 Annual Report on the State of the Drugs Problem in the European Union, carried out by the European Commission, shows that the war against drugs is being lost, and that proportionately more people in the United Kingdom use cannabis, ecstasy, amphetamines and solvents than in any other country in Europe.)
Gambians Arrested For Drug Crimes (A translation of an article from Dagens Nyheter, in Sweden, says the illegal heroin and khat trade in Stockholm is growing at an immense rate - despite the most repressive anti-drug laws in Europe - with police alleging that 400 of the county's 900 Gambians are involved.)
The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 71 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original summary of drug policy news and calls to action, including - Diana McCague sentenced for syringe exchange - including McCague's statement to the court and links to prior coverage of the Chai Project; Action opportunity: protest on steps of New Jersey Statehouse; Bills seeking to decriminalize marijuana, legalize medical marijuana and legalize hemp cultivation to be introduced in New Hampshire legislature in 1999; Patient who was denied liver transplant for using medical marijuana dies; Media spotlight: drug smuggling by U.S. Marines a growing problem; and an editorial by Adam J. Smith, Unrighteous indignation.)
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Thursday, December 17, 1998:
The NORML Foundation Weekly Press Release (Increasing Marijuana Reform Legislation Anticipated In 1999 State Legislatures)
Medical Marijuana Act: Don't Act Yet (Stat, the newsletter of the Oregon Medical Assocation, says that despite the passage of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, Oregon physicians should not "take action" until "all the issues" are resolved - like maybe a thousand years from now - even though the new law requires only that a physician express the opinion on a patient's chart that marijuana may help the patient's condition.)
Re: Medical Marijuana Act: Don't Act Yet (Dr. Rick Bayer, a chief petitioner for the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, comments on the advisory from Paul Frisch, the Oregon Medical Association's director of medical legal affairs. When the federal threat no longer looms large, the OMA will mellow. By spring, things will work out if reformers keep up their educational efforts.)
Trooper thankful to escape close call (The Oregonian interviews an Oregon state trooper who is trying to recover from a devastating wreck caused by a drunken driver. The drunk got 60 days for maiming a state trooper - a lot less time than most convicted marijuana growers.)
Advocates seek assurance of adequate pain treatment (The Oregonian says the Portland-based Compassion in Dying Federation is leading other advocacy groups in pushing the federal government to assure that patients entering hospitals clearly understand their right to request adequate pain treatment.)
Acquittal shows difficulty of prosecuting gang murder suspects (The Associated Press says it took a jury just 30 minutes Wednesday to find a Portland man not guilty of murder in a 1995 gang shooting after two key witnesses refused to cooperate with prosecutors during the trial.)
Please Send Dave Herrick a Card or Letter in Jail (A list subscriber notes this is the second Christmas behind bars for the California medical marijuana martyr and former San Bernardino County deputy sheriff.)
Ex-Tucson cop indicted on charges stemming from corruption probe (The Arizona Daily Star says Jose Ernesto "Ernie" Medina was indicted yesterday on charges stemming from a federal investigation into corruption in the Tucson police department.)
Court upholds cash forfeiture of $9 million (The Houston Chronicle says the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld the forfeiture of more than $9 million in cash deposited in a Houston bank by Mario Ruiz Massieu, a former Mexican official who was in charge of investigating drug cartels.)
Police Find $1 Million During Traffic Stop (The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in Missouri, says two police made the largest seizure of suspected drug money in St. Louis County's history after stopping a man on Interstate 44 for two moving traffic violations and because one of his headlights wasn't working.)
Suburban Drug Force Disbanding (The Chicago Tribune says the Cook County Metropolitan Enforcement Group, an alliance of state, county and local police that for years was some suburban cities' only weapon against small-time drug dealers, will disband at the end of the month after 21 years. Reasons for the group's slow death over the last two years include the proliferation of law-enforcement task forces at the county, state and federal levels - some of whose duties overlap those of MEG. As these task forces have formed, some of the local departments that assigned officers to MEG pulled them out and redeployed them to the other groups. The reason is economics: By having officers take part in task forces that seize more assets, local departments typically get more money.)
County Drug Unit Loses Officers, May Shut Down (The version in The Daily Herald, in Arlington Heights, Illinois)
Policeman Accused Of Running Drug Ring (The Orange County Register version of yesterday's news about Joseph Miedzianowski, the veteran Chicago police officer who was charged Wednesday with running a drug ring that allegedly distributed millions of dollars worth of cocaine and heroin between Chicago and Miami.)
Cop Charged In Drug Ring (The Chicago Tribune version)
$750,000 Awarded In False Arrest Case (The Miami Herald notes the war on some drug users just got more expensive locally Wednesday as a federal jury in Broward awarded the judgment to a man in Hollywood, Florida, after a judge ruled his civil rights were violated by two police officers in a 1996 drug arrest. In a rare decision, U.S. District Judge Wilkie Ferguson Jr. held Sgt. Jeff Marano and former Officer Tony Fernandez responsible for violating Dwight Edman's rights before the jury could even deliberate the matter. The judge based his verdict Tuesday on Marano's admission that police had no probable cause to arrest Edman.)
Human Body Makes Own Version of Chemicals Found in Marijuana (A scientifically illiterate but nonetheless interesting article from Knight Ridder News Service in The Salt Lake Tribune grapples with the belated realization that our brains and bodies are flooded with a natural form of cannabis. Called cannabinoids, after the euphoria-inducing plant Cannabis sativa, this family of compounds blocks pain, erases memories and triggers hunger. Newer studies show they also may regulate the immune system, enhance reproduction and protect the brain from stroke and trauma damage.)
Natural Form Of Marijuana In Humans A Medical Mystery (A lengthier version in The Chicago Tribune)
Just Say 'Wait a Minute' (The New York Review of Books discusses "The Fix," by Michael Massing, and "Drug Crazy - How We Got Into This Mess and How We Can Get Out," by Mike Gray. Malcolm Gladwell writes, "Drugs" really aren't that much fun - at least not in the way that straitlaced adolescents and anxious parents think that they are. This is a critical point, but so often overlooked that it is worth examining in more detail.)
Marijuana Can Affect Fertility, Damaging Sperm, U.S. Study Says (A Reuters article in The Toronto Star uncritically passes along Tuesday's news about the latest drug-warrior junk science from the United States suggesting cannabis may have medical utility as a birth-control adjunct - plus commentary from list subscribers, including a letter to The Toronto Star faulting the newspaper for publishing propaganda from US ideologues.)
MPP's view of the Monitoring the Future survey data (A press release from the Marijuana Policy Project, in Washington, DC, critiques the federally funded survey to be released tomorrow, and says the MPP's newly released online report, "Marijuana Prohibition Has Not Curtailed Marijuana Use by Adolescents," examines the government's data and concludes that criminal penalties have had no effect on adolescent marijuana use rates. "When teen marijuana use is down, the drug warriors say, 'Our policies are working, so let's stay the course.' When use is up, they say, 'We blame the legalizers! We must stay the course.' They can't have it both ways. It's time for the drug warriors to take full responsibility and admit that prohibition is a useless, wasteful, cruel strategy.")
Stripped in search, teens sue police (The Toronto Sun says two Toronto high school students are alleging they were strip-searched, assaulted, threatened and falsely imprisoned while being investigated for possessing marijuana.)
Woman Drops Pants In Airport After Customs' Smuggling Claim (According to The Edmonton Sun, workers at Pearson Airport in Toronto say a Toronto woman, 20, who arrived on a flight from Jamaica was accused by a Customs officer of smuggling drugs in her body cavities. The irate woman suddenly removed her pants and underwear in front of about 30 stunned people and bent down in front of the officer to show she had no drugs, workers said.)
Huge Pot Bust York's Largest (The Toronto Sun says prohibition agents raided two homes in Markham yesterday and shut down what police estimate was the largest-ever pot-growing operation in York Region, with 6,000 plants.)
Today in the history of the drug war (A list subscriber notes in 1973, the Canadian deputy minister of health confirmed that Health Department officials had been ordered to make no comment on the the LeDain Report.)
New Zealand Select Committee Report Recommends Law Review (A press release from New Zealand NORML says New Zealand's parliamentary inquiry into the mental health effects of cannabis has resulted in a recommendation that "the Government review the appropriateness of existing policy on cannabis and its use and reconsider the legal status of cannabis.")
Alcohol And Drug Problems Rife In Jails (The Advertiser, in Australia, says a national study conducted by the Australian Medical Association has found that up to 83 per cent of the nation's prisoners continue to suffer from alcohol and other drug problems while in jail, and as many as one in four inmates continues to use heroin when in jail, while half of all prisoners suffer from hepatitis C and hepatitis B.)
Parole Officers Back Heroin Trial (An op-ed in The Daily Telegraph, in Australia, by Greg Oates, the president of the Probation and Parole Officers' Association of New South Wales, says "We are filling our jails in NSW faster than they can be built. There is no hope of stemming the flow of illicit drugs into the country. People are not safe on the streets and parents mourn their children, dead or imprisoned. It is a disaster. We believe all political parties have a moral obligation to stop politicking on this subject and to introduce an on-going inquiry into how to combat the use of illicit drugs with emphasis on early intervention, treatment and harm minimisation. We support a heroin trial.")
Bytes: 146,000 Last updated: 12/31/98
Wednesday, December 16, 1998:
Urban Pulse - Flesh and Blood (Willamette Week, in Portland, says local doctors estimate that as many as 70 percent of Portland's injecting drug users are carriers of Hepatitis C, and during the last six months, 11 heroin users in the city have been afflicted with necrotizing fasciitis - better known by its tabloid nickname, "flesh-eating bacteria.")
Re: Urban Pulse - Flesh and Blood (A letter sent to the editor of Willamette Week says the shopper's suggestion that diseases associated with heroin use are "drug-related" is to miss, or deny, the central problem, which is the unregulated market.)
kxlporwamcar1 (An Associated Press article with a garbled headline at the Eugene, Oregon, Register-Guard web site says Harrison Bletson, the Portland crack addict who murdered his mother when she refused to give him money, has been sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 30 years.)
Bread Control - It's No Longer Just About Guns (A sarcastic letter to the editor of Willamette Week uses the logic of prohibitionism to call for a ban on bread, urging readers to "Think idiotically, act globally!")
Marijuana arrests soar for students on Gig Harbor peninsula (According to The Associated Press, sheriff's officials say at least 16 students in the area of Gig Harbor, Washington, have been caught with marijuana at school over the last 10 days. "Marijuana is back to the time when it was in its heyday" on the Gig Harbor Peninsula, said Pierce County sheriff's Sergeant Ross Herberholz.)
Wash. sting describes bargain-hunting smokers as smugglers (The Spokesman-Review, in Spokane, Washington, notes smokers in eastern Washington are upset over a half-day sting Monday near Stateline, Idaho, where agents of the Washington Liquor Control Board confiscated cigarettes and wrote $250 citations for bargain-hunters who preferred Idaho's tax of 28 cents per pack over Washington's tax of 82.5 cents per pack.)
Cross-border holiday shoppers may be breaking law (An Associated Press story on the same topic, in the Eugene, Oregon, Register-Guard)
Couple arrested for Web site classified ads for cocaine, sex (An Associated Press article in The Register-Guard, in Eugene, Oregon, says a couple in Bothell, Washington, was arrested after police investigated classified advertisements on a popular Web site that offered and solicited sex and cocaine.)
Cocaine, Sex Listed Among Web Site's Classified Ads (The Seattle Post-Intelligencer version)
WSU frat suspended after alcohol-related incident (An Associated Press article in The Register-Guard, in Eugene, Oregon, says Kappa Sigma, a Washington State University fraternity in Pullman, Washington, that is already on probation for its role in last spring's riot, is being suspended and faces closure because of members' party habits.)
Medical marijuana court hearings . . . (A bulletin from the Sonoma Alliance for Medical Marijuana asks concerned Californians to show their support for Proposition 215 by attending hearings Dec. 18 and Dec. 21 regarding two separate medical-marijuana cases in Sonoma County. The first case involves Lori Converse and William McConnell, and the second involves Ed Learn and Will Larson.)
FBI Picks Up A Prison Probe Some Say Was Stifled By Union (The San Mateo County Times says the Federal Bureau of Investigation has taken up an investigation into brutality by guards at Pelican State Prison in California. State officials had pledged to reform the supermaximum penitentiary in 1995, but just a few months after investigators started working, the warden cut short their probe and the investigators then found themselves the subject of repeated investigations by the Corrections Department.)
DARE Still Finds Support With Pueblo-Area Principals (The Boulder Daily Camera says that while some cities and districts are dropping Drug Awareness Resistance Education, principals in at least one corner of Colorado say they plan to stick with the program.)
Drug Survey (A staff editorial in The Ft. Worth, Texas, Star-Telegram notes a full 10 percent of the members of the Class of 1998 at Keller and Fossil Ridge high schools said in a survey taken last spring that they had used heroin. In response, school district officials are working with Keller Police Chief Bill Griffith on a comprehensive plan to replace the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program that is taught to most of the district's fifth graders.)
Prosecutors: Chicago police officer ran cocaine, heroin ring (The Associated Press says Joseph Miedzianowski, a 22-year police veteran and member of the gang crimes unit, brokered drug deals, served as a go-between with feuding drug lords, and eventually took over daily control of a drug ring that allegedly distributed millions of dollars worth of cocaine and heroin between Chicago and Miami.)
Veteran Chicago Police Officer Charged In Drug Ring (The Chicago Tribune version)
An Experiment Gone Awry Half Of State's 400 Breweries (The Wisconsin State Journal presents a brief but interesting history of alcohol Prohibition in the state, where 400 breweries flourished in 1920, but fewer than 200 re-opened in 1933. Some breweries managed to stay in business by manufacturing their own malt and selling to home brewers, who worked around Prohibition by fermenting in their basements or cellars. Pabst, in particular, created a healthy demand for its malted barley by openly marketing to home brewers. Prohibition did little to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed by Wisconsinites.)
Ex-coach pleads guilty to sex, drug charges (The Cincinnati Enquirer says Thomas Oswald, a former Little League coach in Hamilton accused of giving a 16-year-old girl "drugs" and money to induce her to have sex with him and to pose naked for photos, pleaded guilty Tuesday to 15 criminal charges.)
Facing charge, he stops playing Santa (The Philadelphia Enquirer says for the last eight years, Michael Maltman has brought joy to the hearts of Westville youths by dressing as Santa Claus and parading up and down Broadway in the days leading up to Christmas. This year, he is facing five years in prison on charges of possessing crack cocaine. However, in the spirit of the holidays, many of the borough's 5,000 residents have come out in support of Maltman, and 50 of them rallied behind him Monday at a special council meeting on the issue.)
Liquor/Beer Regulations (A letter to the editor of the Louisville, Kentucky, Courier-Journal, from the president of Expressway Liquors, who is also president of Champions For a Drug Free Kentucky, responds to news about local college students who died in an alcohol-related incident by pointing out the hypocritical double standards and regulations allowing beer to be purchased more easily than hard alcohol.)
Cops Sued Over Drug Arrest Await Verdict (The Miami Herald says a federal jury in Broward is deliberating today whether two police officers in Hollywood, Florida, violated the civil rights of a man who claims he was wrongly arrested on drug charges in 1996.)
U.S. study shows marijuana can affect fertility (Reuters uncritically passes along yesterday's news about the latest drug-warrior junk science from the United States suggesting cannabis may have medical utility as a birth-control adjunct.)
Army Role In Mexico Rights Abuse Alleged (According to The Irish Times, Mrs Rosario Ibarra, 71, a leading campaigner for "disappeared" persons who is currently visiting Ireland, said disappearances are increasing in Mexico as a result of intensified military efforts against drug trafficking. Mrs Ibarra, who was the first woman candidate for the Mexican presidency, and a senator for the Democratic Revolutionary Party between 1994 and 1997, also criticised the UN Human Rights Commission for being reluctant to challenge Mexico over documented abuses. A commission investigation into disappearances announced last August had yet to begin, she said.)
Mitch Damage Seen Upping Drug Traffic In Caribbean (Reuters quotes Derek Haines, Chief Superintendent of the Caymans Drugs Task Force, saying Tuesday that the destruction of roads and bridges in Central America by Hurricane Mitch may force South American traffickers to move more illegal drugs through the Caribbean rather than over land, through Mexico.)
Italian Researchers Say The Sweet Doesn't Mimic Marijuana (According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, scientists in Italy said today that, contrary to earlier reports, certain substances in chocolate do not appear to mimic the effects of marijuana on the brain. "Furthermore, they said, most of the substances - known as endocannabinoids - are broken down in the digestive system before they reach the brain.")
Chocolate "Addiction" a Fiction? (Reuters says research by Italian scientists, reported in the journal, Nature, suggests the much-touted marijuana-like properties of chocolate may not contribute to chocolate cravings after all. The researchers found milk and cocoa do contain substances that mimic marijuana's effects, but not enough to have psychoactive effects. However, the research team apparently wasn't very sure, and recommended studies to determine if low doses of such substances could affect behavior.)
DrugSense Weekly, No. 78 (The weekly summary of drug policy news from DrugSense leads with the feature article - The U.S. Supreme Court and your rights, by Mark Greer. The Weekly News In Review includes several articles on Effective Activism - Drug war; The main thing; Drug crusade has produced everything but success. Articles about Policy include - McCaffrey blasts medicinal marijuana; New FDA chief vows to put science first; Column: Dumping DARE a good start; Texas tobacco-suit lawyers reportedly get $3.3 billion. Articles about Law Enforcement include - Editorial: Three-strikes' economics; Corruption in the system; Drug probes find smugglers in the military. Drug Use Issues are discussed in - Teen meth use outpaces treatment; Rise in cigarette smoking doesn't bother Burma government; Toxic markers called 'poor man's drug.' International news includes - UK: Drugs and weapons seized as police arrest 70 in dawn raids; UK: Drugs-related deaths double in Glasgow; UK: Drug smugglers' European Union; Mexico: Brazen drug dealers frustrate Mexico, US; Heroin use going up among US teen-agers. The weekly Hot Off The 'Net section has yet another full page ad in The New Republic. The DrugSense Tip Of The Week features a hot tip on searching the DrugNews Archive. The Quote of the Week cites Tom Armstrong. The Fact of the Week shows treatment beats interdiction.)
Bytes: 127,000 Last updated: 1/1/99
Tuesday, December 15, 1998:
Patient Who Was Denied Liver Transplant For Using Medical Marijuana Dies (A press release from California NORML notes medical malfeasance has caused the death of Ed Plotner, who was removed from a liver transplant list for using medical marijuana. Plotner suffered from multiple hepatitis infections, and had used marijuana to combat severe appetite and weight loss. Unlike alcohol and other drugs such as cocaine and heroin, marijuana is not a risk factor for hepatitis, nor does it cause liver damage.)
We Kill Them With Kindness (An op-ed in The San Francisco Chronicle says "compassionate" programs such as welfare are only making life worse for street people, who just spend their checks on alcohol and other drugs. The author says in the last decade, San Francisco has spent well more than $1 billion trying to "solve" the homeless problem, yet it is worse today, despite the healthy economy.)
Heroin Big Killer In San Francisco (The Associated Press says a health department study released Tuesday says that out of 86 drug-related deaths among the homeless last year, 40 were connected to heroin. Neither AP nor, apparently, the health department, mentions the number of homeless who died from hunger, exposure, lack of medical care, or prohibition, since apparently those are not considered public health issues.)
Underage drinking cases clogging Vermont courts (The Associated Press says Vermont's crackdown on underage drinking is clogging the state's courts and forcing court officials to stop offering diversion programs to some offenders.)
Committee Endorses Call for Hemp Study (The Associated Press says a Virginia House of Delegates committee endorsed a measure Monday calling for a study of industrial hemp. The resolution, sponsored by Mitchell Van Yahres, a Democrat from Albemarle, asks federal officials to let the state's universities experiment with cultivation of industrial hemp for commercial use. The General Assembly will consider the measure during the session that begins Jan. 13.)
Must State Become A Criminal to Fight Drugs? (A letter to the editor of The Richmond Times-Dispatch, in Virginia, responds to the recent article about Customs Service agents violating airline passengers while engaging in drug-seeking behavior.)
Pot-Like Agents May Affect Fertility (UPI says investigators from the University at Buffalo in New York told the annual meeting of the American Society of Cell Biology in San Francisco that they had discovered that sperm contain receptors for cannabinoids such as THC, the most prevalent of the dozens of psychoactive substances found only in cannabis. Unfortunately, the researchers then ignored the epidemiological evidence and engaged in speculation that led them to revive the drug-warrior myth that heavy pot use may reduce fertility.)
Teens, Depression & Drugs (According to Washington Post columnist Abigail Trafford, Alan I. Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, divides teenage "drug abusers" into two categories: the Sensation Seekers, who are the majority, and the depressive Self-Medicators, supposedly a minority, even though an estimated 8 million to 10 million children have an untreated mental illness. Traditional drug-prevention strategies aren't designed for depressives and aren't effective with them - but Trafford and Leshner still want to lock them all up. Both fail to acknowledge, or just flat-out lie about the fact that society isn't about to provide universal psychiatric care on demand; that pharmaceutical antidepressants don't work for some people, and can cause severe, permanent, debilitating side effects, unlike cannabis; that a large body of historical and medical research documents the utility for many people of treating mood disorders with cannabis; that cannabis is not a drug of abuse, and to the extent it may raise dopamine levels like drugs of abuse, it does so in the same manner as some pharmaceutical antidepressants; and that it is cruel as well as counterproductive to treat depressive teens who self-medicate with cannabis as "drug abusers," when self-medication with cannabis may allow them to function more productively, happily, and normally than otherwise.)
Errors, Sensationalism Hurt Papers' Credibility (According to The Associated Press, a nationwide survey released today by the American Society of Newspaper Editors found that about 80 percent of adults said newspapers sensationalize the news. Those who had firsthand experience with reporters and editors are some of their biggest critics. And the public thinks reporters are out of touch with their readers. Thirty-one percent said they had been the subject of a news story or had been interviewed by a reporter. Of that group, 24 percent said they were misquoted and 31 percent found errors in the story.)
It's A Question Of Trust (A staff editorial in The Victoria Times-Colonist, in British Columbia, says the president of the University of Victoria is right to seek the dismissal of Jean Veevers, the sociology professor convicted of commercial cultivation marijuana charges.)
Re: It's a question of trust (A letter sent to the editor of The Victoria Times-Colonist says that if politicians, police, teachers, and priests should be held to a higher level of accountability, then politicians should represent their constituents. A majority of Canadians believe that cannabis should be decriminalized, so why is cannabis still prohibited?)
Colombian may be extradited to U.S. (An Associated Press article in The Dallas Morning News says Jaime "Jimmy" Orlando Lara, an alleged drug boss accused of shipping heroin to U.S. cities, could be the first person extradited to the United States under a December 1997 Colombian law that restored extradition of citizens for trial abroad.)
Judge Acclaims Ability of Cannabis Grower (The Irish Times says a horticulturist who grew four-foot cannabis plants in his home was commended for his technical ability by Judge Kieran O'Connor at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court - who gave Wayne O'Connor a three-year suspended sentence and fined him £100 for possession of the herb.)
Bytes: 48,900 Last updated: 12/23/98
Monday, December 14, 1998:
Brownie Mary Could Use a Pick-Me-Up (San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler notes "Brownie" Mary Rathbun, the 69-year-old grandmother who baked pot brownies for AIDS patients she knew from volunteering at San Francisco General Hospital, has been hospitalized herself after a recent fall. She'll be at Ralph K. Davies Medical Center a long time, but hardly anyone stops by. "It's sad," says a friend. "No one has brought Mary her favorite medicine.")
Inmates On Hold Burden Jails (The San Jose Mercury News says that even as crime in California falls to its lowest levels in decades, a ballooning population of prisoners awaiting trial is filling the state's county jails to record levels. Unsentenced inmates - men and women whom judges have refused to release until their cases go to trial and who cannot come up with bail - were once a minority in the state's jails. But in the past 10 years, their ranks have swollen by 50 percent, surpassing those jailed for minor crimes, according to statistics from the California Board of Corrections.)
Texas Ranger Says Military Acted To Obstruct Border Death Inquiry (According to an Associated Press article in The Houston Chronicle, Sergeant David Duncan, who investigated the killing of 18-year-old goatherder Esequiel Hernandez Jr. along the Mexican border by camouflaged Marines on a drug-interdiction mission, told the San Antonio Express-News that the military obstructed an inquiry into the death and says he wants a grand jury to consider the case a third time.)
DC & Medical Marijuana on All Things Considered (A transcript of a National Public Radio newscast about Congress quashing Initiative 59, the District of Columbia medical-marijuana initiative.)
Have You Been Drinking or Using Drugs? Police Officers Will Soon be Able to Answer Both Parts of This Question in Just Minutes (A former prohibition agent's press release on Business Wire says LifePoint Inc., a Rancho Cucamonga, California-based company will soon be marketing a saliva test that will allow police to check drivers for the ingestion of illegal drugs. The former Los Angeles cop also asserts that alcohol is not a drug, and cites two articles from The Journal of Forensic Sciences, in 1993, and The New England Journal of Medicine, in 1991, which he claims show about 50 percent of drivers under the influence are actually under the influence of drugs other than alcohol, disregarding evidence from around the world showing that cannabis users are safer than drivers who use no substances at all.)
New Surveillance Proposed for Bank Accounts (Reuters and Wired say a proposed government plan that has drawn fire as an Orwellian intrusion into Americans' privacy would require US banks to monitor their customers and alert federal officials to "suspicious" behavior.)
Marijuana Advocates Continue Push For Legal Use (Reuters summarizes the recent annual conference in Washington, DC, sponsored by the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws. Activists do not agree on the best way to legalize marijuana, but all agree that the success of multiple medical marijuana initiatives Nov. 3 marks a watershed for their movement. Some believe medical marijuana should be the first goal and the acceptance of marijuana at a grass-roots level will lead ultimately to wider progress for personal freedoms.)
Rx: Marijuana (Dan Baum, author of "Smoke and Mirrors," writes in The Nation that he once thought the main problem for medical marijuana patients was marijuana's classification under Schedule I of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control Act of 1970, which describes it as having a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. Moving it to Schedule II would make clinical research possible and eventually permit prescriptions. In the present political climate, however, this course seems unlikely.)
Herbal Medicine (A letter to the editor of Time wonders why the magazine's special issue on herbal medicine never mentioned marijuana, the one herb thousands of Americans take for anxiety, fatigue, chronic depression, nausea, pain and other ailments.)
Loud music as addictive as drugs, study says (The Ottawa Citizen says a study published last week in Ear and Hearing, by researchers at Northeastern University, supposedly found that people who "need" high-decibel music experience the same withdrawal symptoms as substance abusers. The group adapted a 32-question survey used to diagnose alcoholism and recruited 90 self-professed loud-music lovers, eight of whom showed signs of addiction. However, according to Will Hunter, a substance-abuse specialist and one of the researchers, "There really is no need to be worried. It needs to be clinically significant distress or impairment - which means pretty serious.")
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Sunday, December 13, 1998:
Drug Probes Find Smugglers In The Military (The Los Angeles Times says the American military has encountered an unexpected enemy in its war on drugs: U.S. servicemen smuggling marijuana and cocaine into California for Mexican drug rings. At least 50 Marines and sailors have been investigated "in recent years" for drug running, according to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Eight military probes involving 20 Marine and Navy suspects were launched in the past year alone. And here's an interesting statistic: Out of an active duty force of 1.4 million, 4,888 servicemen and women were discharged in fiscal 1998 for drug-related misconduct - mostly marijuana and cocaine use.)
Marines Reportedly Smuggled Drugs (The Associated Press version)
State Corrections Program Is Failing Us (Two letters to the editor of The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel call for a blue-ribbon commission to be appointed to reconsider Wisconsin's rapidly expanding correctional system.)
Failing To Police Their Own - Win At All Costs series (The tenth and final part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette series about the newspaper's two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors break the law routinely. The Office of Professional Responsibility is the arm of the US Justice Department that is supposed to enforce the law and ethics among federal prosecutors. That's why Roger Pilon, a former Justice Department official, was surprised to learn that the men who leaked erroneous information about him to newspapers - leaks that violated federal privacy laws - included top attorneys at the OPR. No one was ever punished.)
Hyde Amendment Makes Violations Costly - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its series about the newspaper's two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors break the law routinely. Last year, Congress provided a measure of recourse for some victims of overzealous federal prosecutions. Legislation introduced by U.S. Representative Henry Hyde now allows defendants to recover reasonable defense costs if they can show a federal case was "vexatious, frivolous or in bad faith." The claims are starting to add up to serious money.)
Congress Steps In To Protect Whistleblower - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its series about the newspaper's two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors break the law routinely. Dr. Frederick Whitehurst, an FBI chemist, began reporting his concerns to OPR in 1986 that FBI Crime Laboratory managers lacked proper training, routinely ignored or tried to cover-up problems in handling evidence, that lab employees sometimes lied as witnesses to bolster government cases, and that some lab officials had rewritten reports he and others had produced. In response, the Justice Department suspended and publicly humiliated him.)
Aggressive Attorney At OPR Targets Prosecutor, Loses On All Counts - Win At All Costs series (Part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette series about the newspaper's two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors break the law routinely. The US Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, in one of its largest investigations ever, spent two years looking into charges against William R. Hogan, a prosecutor in the Chicago U.S. Attorney's office. Based on OPR findings, he was fired in 1996, but vindicated last August by a judge who determined that the exhaustive OPR investigation showed he was guilty of no wrongdoing.)
Win At All Costs series - sidebars end the series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette concludes its series on corruption in the Justice Department with an invitation to write to two key congressmen asking for stronger oversight.)
'Strong-Willed' Prosecutor Unmoved By Spotlight (The Roanoke Times, in Virginia, portrays Joan Ziglar, the tough local prosecutor who extradited Alfred Martin, a businessman and father of three, from Michigan because he walked away from his 10-year jail sentence in 1974 after being sentenced for selling $10 of marijuana.)
Marijuana's Relief, Etc. (Four letters to the editor of The News & Observer, in North Carolina, find fault with the reasoning of Linda Bayer, the hack from the White House drug czar's office who criticized syndicated columnist Molly Ivins' recent apostasy on the drug war.)
Border Agency Protects Its Own Despite Misdeeds (The Miami Herald says its investigation of the U.S. Customs Service's employment practices in Florida found that the agency has promoted officers caught dating drug smugglers, wrecking an agency car after drinking, tampering with evidence, and helping a key witness leave the country. The newspaper's investigation, prompted by disclosures that the Customs Service's head agent in South Florida got the job after 2 1/2 years of failed management elsewhere, reveals a culture that often protects favored employees from their own mistakes yet hammers those who go public with criticism.)
FBI: Serious Crime Rates Dropping (The Associated Press says the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported Sunday that serious crimes dropped another 5 percent in the first half of 1998, extending a six-year trend. The half-year report comes weeks after the FBI's final 1997 figures, which showed the national murder rate reaching its lowest point in 30 years.)
Justices Limit Searches By Police In Traffic Stops (The Philadelphia Inquirer notes the US Supreme Court has ruled that a routine traffic violation doesn't automatically give police the right to search an automobile.)
A Selective Drug War (A letter to the editor of The Washington Times says Viagra enthusiast Bob Dole is a recreational drug user.)
University President Wants Pot-Growing Professor Fired (The Miami Herald notes the president of the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, wants to fire Jean Veevers, a sociology professor convicted of growing and selling marijuana who was fined $15,000 and given a conditional 12-month sentence to be served in the community.)
Veevers is a threat (The first of two letters to the editor of The Times Colonist, in Victoria, British Columbia, calling for the dismissal of sociology professor Jean Veevers, recently convicted of running a marijuana-grow operation, says "if we are able to remove all drug pushers, our community would be less-crime-ridden and a far more pleasant place to live.")
Brazen Drug Dealers Frustrate Mexico, US (The Washington Post begins the annual debate over certification of Mexico as an ally in the United States' drug war with an article about suspected corruption in Quintana Roo, "the first narco-state in Mexico," according to one U.S. official.)
ACM-Bulletin of 13 December 1998 (An English-language news bulletin from the Association for Cannabis as Medicine, in Cologne, Germany, features more details about the recent medical research in Spain showing that THC induces programmed death in certain brain tumor cells, but not in healthy cells.)
Bytes: 118,000 Last updated: 12/17/98
Saturday, December 12, 1998:
Man found guilty of killing his mother now faces death penalty (The Associated Press says a jury in Portland, Oregon, convicted Harrison Lee Bletson of aggravated murder Thursday. Witnesses said Bletson went on a crack cocaine binge the day before his mother was killed, but the possibility that he was a sociopath before using crack isn't mentioned.)
Jury convicts Portland man of felony murder at illegal club (The Oregonian says Edwin Lasaun Williams faces a minimum of 25 years in prison for a gunfight at an after-hours drinking and gambling club in Northeast Portland.)
Australian Study Finds Marijuana Not a Significant Driving Hazard - Evidence Contradicts Drug Czar McCaffrey, Impugns Rationale for Drug Testing (A press release from California NORML provides more details about "The Prevalence and Role of Alcohol, Cannabinoids, Benzodiazepines and Stimulants in Non-Fatal Crashes," a study published in May of this year by researchers at the Department of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacology at the University of Adelaide, the largest and latest research to contradict claims by U.S. drug warriors, led by Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, that marijuana is a major road safety hazard.)
Governor Backs Medicinal Marijuana (According to an Associated Press article in The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Hawaii Governor Ben Cayetano said Thursday night he would propose a bill when the Legislature convenes next month to make it legal for people to use marijuana if they have a legitimate medical reason to do so. Cayetano said the state needs to be a leader in the issue if it hopes to become a health and wellness center for the Pacific.)
Drug Crime Punishment Bill Filed (The Oklahoman says a Republican state representative, John Sullivan of Tulsa, has introduced a bill in the legislature that would give the death penalty to adults who sell "drugs" to minors.)
2nd Officer Placed on Paid Leave in Shakedown Probe (The Dallas Morning News says another Dallas police officer, Quentis R. Roper, a former local football standout, is suspected of stealing thousands of dollars from drug dealers and undocumented Mexican immigrants and has been placed on paid leave pending the outcome of a criminal investigation. The investigation into the alleged shakedowns became public Sunday night when Officer Daniel E. Maples Jr. turned himself in because he feared drug dealers would hurt his loved ones.)
Was Justice Denied On The Border? (The San Antonio Express-News says a senior FBI agent and a Texas Ranger who investigated the killing of an 18-year-old goatherder, Esequiel Hernandez Jr., by a camouflaged Marine leading an anti-drug patrol near Redford, Texas, contend the military obstructed an inquiry of the death. They want a grand jury to consider the matter for a third time.)
Lawyers In Tobacco Case Will Receive $8.2 Billion (The New York Times says dozens of attorneys who represented the first three states to settle with the tobacco industry over alleged health care costs - Florida, Mississippi and Texas - were awarded $8.2 billion in fees Friday, the richest legal payday in the nation's history. The fees will be paid by cigarette smokers, who weren't represented in the legal wranglings.)
Tobacco Case Lawyers Awarded Billions In Fees (The Associated Press version in the New Bedford, Massachusetts, Standard-Times)
Forfeiture To Aid Narcotics Bureau (The Oklahoman says a judge in Grady County Thursday allowed the forfeiture of $122,210 in cash that will benefit the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics.)
Failed Drug Policy (A letter to the editor of The Minneapolis Star-Tribune ridicules Linda Bayer, the hack from the White House drug czar's office who criticized syndicated columnist Molly Ivins' recent apostasy on the drug war.)
Groom who brought marijuana to court gets married - and sentenced (The Associated Press says a judge in Edwardsville, Illinois - where marijuana is not decriminalized - presided over the marriage of a man, then sentenced him minutes later for bringing marijuana into the courthouse. The groom, Ewel Simon Greene, had been arrested at the courthouse Friday when a deputy using a metal detector discovered a metal pipe in his pocket. Greene got one year's probation and a $100 fine on misdemeanor charges of marijuana and drug paraphernalia possession.)
Activist Denounces Prison System (The Cincinnati Enquirer says Angela Davis, best known for the trails she blazed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, spoke to a packed auditorium at Northern Kentucky University Friday night and criticized today's prison system.)
Pfizer hires Dole to talk about health (The Associated Press says the pharmaceutical company has hired former senator and presidential candidate Bob Dole for a television advertising campaign to raise awareness about impotence, hoping to improve sales of Viagra.)
In D.C., Marijuana Dispute Hits A Raw Nerve (The Philadelphia Inquirer suggests District of Columbia residents are less upset about the ramifications for medical-marijuana patients than they are about the lack of local control evidenced by Congress's quashing of Initiative 59, the medical-marijuana initiative that won handily, according to exit polls.)
Free Speech Becomes Drug War Casualty (Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robyn Blumner says first the drug warriors took away the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches. Now Congress has decided that the right of citizens to be heard in an election is disposable - that is, if Congress doesn't like the election results. Our government's doomsday rhetoric about drugs is no longer being swallowed whole. Which makes the powers that be very nervous, and correspondingly makes this a dangerous time for free speech.)
US Gang Threatens To Kill Toronto Cops (The Toronto Sun says Toronto police have assigned heavily armed emergency task force officers to protect their drug squad colleagues after Rema Posse, a violent gang based in New York City and Jamaica, made threats to kill Toronto cops - including one phoned in to the newspaper. Toronto prohibition agents executed 75 warrants and filed more than 169 charges against gang members between May and September.)
UVic poised to fire pot-growing prof (The Times Colonist, in Victoria, British Columbia, says the president of the University of Victoria is calling for the dismissal of a sociology professor found guilty of operating a marijuana grow operation. Under the Human Rights Code, it is discriminatory to fire someone for an offence unrelated to their employment.)
Yeoman Of The Weed (An account in The Economist, in Britain, about the marijuana growers on the Caribbean island-nation of St. Vincent who have organized against the United States' eradication efforts there, says the farmers' plea for regulation is not as reasonable as it sounds. Ignoring the example of Cayman Islands banks, the magazine says the United States would never agree to decriminalisation, and if it did, or itself legalised marijuana, the price of ganja would probably collapse.)
Medicopolitical digest - Lords criticise government's response to cannabis report (The British Medical Journal says the chairman of the House of Lords science and technology committee, which produced a report last month saying physicians should be allowed to prescribe herbal cannabis to patients, has called on the government to "give more mature consideration to our recommendations.")
Ecstasy Users Face Consequences Of Neurotoxicity (The Lancet, in Britain, says "experts" who met at the Novartis Foundation conference in London on Dec. 4 asserted that the drug methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, also known as ecstasy, is a human neurotoxin, and one dose could be enough to damage serotonergic neurons. The "experts" said the functional consequences of such lesions remain unknown, but could include mood disorders and memory difficulties. A decade of research has shown that MDMA causes a deficit of brain serotonin in every animal species tested, said George Ricaurte of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, though such lesions have persisted for no more than 7 years in any animal.)
More On Serotonin System (A related article in The Lancet notes there are actually at least 14 distinct types of serotonin receptors. This week, US scientists report that genetically engineered mice lacking the 5-HT1A inhibitory serotonin receptor are more anxious than their normal littermates and that they behave like mice that have been given antidepressants. "Our speculation," says senior author, Laurence Tecott, of the University of California at San Francisco, "is that both these abnormalities - anxiety and antidepressive responses - can be accounted for by disinhibition of serotonin system activity.")
Drug Smugglers' European Union (The Guardian, in Britain, says the arrest of Gungor Tekin, a famous Turkish soccer player who started serving a 23-year sentence in a British jail this week after being convicted of heroin smuggling, has cast light on the new international links of the heroin trade. What has emerged from the case and other recent operations is that there is now a European criminal community that is cooperating far more successfully than their ministerial counterparts.)
Myths Stubbornly Resist Debunking - "Character weaknesses" demolished (A translation of an article from Tages Anzeiger, in Switzerland, presents a brief historical overview of current American drug policy, emphasizing its basis in myth, and the harm caused by myths that stubbornly endure. They lead to false generalisations, faulty assumptions, half-truths, cliches, and repression, yielding ground but slowly to rational argument and the sweet voice of reason.)
Bytes: 100,000 Last updated: 5/15/99
Friday, December 11, 1998:
Trap and trace device at American Agriculture (An investigative list subscriber reports the Marijuana Task Force in Portland has been using its illegal "trap and trace" device at the American Agriculture hydroponics store to bust cannabis cultivators all over Oregon. A busted grower in Bend allegedly has a tape recording of MTF Officer Nathan Shropshire spilling the beans.)
Hemp jewelry kit for kids at Sears (Paul Stanford, a chief petitioner for the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, a proposed initiative that would legalize industrial hemp, notes at least one Portland franchise of the nationwide retailer is offering kids something new for Christmas this year.)
Veteran acquitted on marijuana charge (An Associated Press article in The Contra Costa Times says a jury on Thursday acquitted Charles Lepp in connection with his cultivation of 131 marijuana plants. Lepp's was the first medical marijuana case taken to trial in either Lake or Mendocino counties since voters approved Proposition 215 in 1996.)
Media Culpa - Cracking the CIA (Seattle Weekly columnist Mark Worth says the Central Intelligence Agency is finally admitting what the San Jose Mercury News and many independent political journals have been saying for more than two years - that the CIA, at the very minimum, turned a blind eye to the Nicaraguan Contras' cocaine-for-weapons operation.)
Committee Debates Sentences For Small-Time Drug Dealers (According to an Associated Press article in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the soon-to-retire Wisconsin Department of Corrections secretary, Michael Sullivan, told the 18-member Criminal Penalties Study Committee that it should consider sending small-time drug dealers to rehabilitation and training programs instead of prison. However, the committee is examining ways to make the state's sentencing guidelines tougher under "truth-in-sentencing" legislation signed by Governor Tommy Thompson in June.)
Elderly Brothers Face Drug Charges (The Washington Post says police arrested Russell Bailey, 79, and his brother, Oliver Bailey, 83, after a Talbot County narcotics task force raided their house in Trappe, Maryland. Police say the two found an enterprising way to stretch those Social Security checks - by selling crack cocaine and marijuana out of their rural home.)
Crack Mom Seeks Release From Prison (The Rock Hill Herald, in South Carolina, says the case of Cornelia Whitner, a South Carolina woman convicted of child neglect because she used crack cocaine while pregnant, has become a rallying point for women's groups and doctors who say jailing pregnant women with substance abuse problems discourages them from seeking proper prenatal care.)
Court Official's Arrest (UPI says Bennie Hugh Frazier, the chief of U.S. District Court pretrial services in Miami, Florida, where he manages a staff of about 50 officers and is responsible for recommending bail amounts for those charged with federal crimes, was busted in Liberty City trying to buy $50 worth of crack cocaine.)
Hidden Danger in Your Milk? Reporters File Suit To Thwart Fox-TV Coverup (A list subscriber forwards the URL for a web site where two veteran investigative reporters have posted documentation about their lawsuit alleging they were fired by FOX-owned WTVT Channel 13 in Tampa, Florida, for refusing orders to broadcast false and slanted stories about BGH, the dairy hormone banned in Europe and elsewhere because of human health concerns.)
Cold kills more than 700 Americans a year (A list subscriber forwards an Associated Press item noting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found that about 700 more Americans die every year from cold weather than from marijuana. No word when the government plans to launch a war on hypothermia.)
Alcohol-Linked Traffic Deaths Still In Decline (The Orange County Register says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta attributed 16,189 traffic deaths in the United States in 1997 to alcohol, a 6 percent decline from 1996. Alcohol was a factor in 39 percent of traffic deaths.)
FBI housecleaning: 19 fired last year for misconduct (An Associated Press article in The Miami Herald says the Federal Bureau of Investigation fired 19 employees for misconduct last year, including an unspecified number of agents charged with drunken driving and "drug" use.)
Strip searchers transferred (A Canadian Press article in The Toronto Sun says trustees for the Greater Essex County District School Board have decided that a vice-principal and a gym teacher who strip searched 19 students in Grade 9 at Kingsville District Secondary School will be suspended without pay for 10 days and transferred to different schools.)
Give Authority Figures An Inch - They'll Take A Mile (Calgary Herald columnist Debra Harper comments on the strip-search of 20 boys in Grade 9 near Windsor, Ontario. How ironic, as the world celebrates the 50th anniversary of the United Nations human rights declaration, to be reminded how easily, swiftly and righteously those rights can be swept away. This is what authoritarianism looks like. This is how it treats our children. This is what they have come to expect. If you are disgusted by this kind of abuse, where were you when half your neighbours were baying for harsher punishment when teenagers break the law? If we want kids to learn values and responsibilities, civility and civilization, they have to see it first.)
Medium 'Uses Cannabis To Talk To The Dead' (The Eastern Daily Press, in Britain, says it took just a few minutes for a jury in Norwich Crown Court to convict a spiritual medium of possessing cannabis, despite her claim that she uses it to "get to the other side.")
The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 70 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original summary of drug policy news and calls to action, including - Exemplary citizen to be extradited on 25-year-old $10 marijuana conviction; Supreme Court strikes down car search law; Congressional report - Citibank facilitated Salinas money laundering; Exciting resources available online; Job opportunity; Fellowships and academic opportunities; Giving the gift of hope; and an editorial by Adam J. Smith, Human rights declared but not observed.)
Bytes: 77,600 Last updated: 12/21/98
Thursday, December 10, 1998:
The NORML Foundation Weekly Press Release (High Court Overturns Iowa Blanket Search Law, Marijuana Conviction; Clinton Administration Calls Amendment Nixing DC Medical Marijuana Vote "Sensible"; Michigan Man Must Return To Virginia Jail To Serve Out 24 Year Old Marijuana Conviction; Jamaican Custom Officials To Order Drug Tests For Airline Passengers; Congress Allocates $23 Million To Develop Anti-Marijuana Fungus)
State outlines medical pot use (An Associated Press article in the Eugene, Oregon, Register-Guard, says state Attorney General Hardy Myers issued a set of guidelines for the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act Wednesday, spelling out how police should comply with the voter-approved law. A spokesman for Oregonians for Medical Rights said the guidelines follow the law closely.)
Smoke Clears On Medical Marijuana (The Yahoo! version)
Medical marijuana law stymies police (The Oregonian version hides behind unnamed sources in order to assert that nonmedical users will take advantage of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act to escape prosecution, without explaining how such recreational users would get a physician to stand up for them in court.)
Court upholds Rider's marijuana conviction (An Associated Press article in The Register-Guard, in Eugene, Oregon, says an Oregon appeals court on Wednesday upheld the 1997 conviction of Portland Trail Blazers guard Isaiah Rider for marijuana possession.)
Memorial fitting for officers who died in duty (A staff editorial in The Columbian, in Vancouver, Washington, speaks favorably about a proposed memorial for public safety officers in Clark County who have died in the line of duty, including two Prohibition agents killed in 1932, B.W. Turner and Edward Vlasich, whose misfortune is recounted.)
Help Keep Marvin Chavez Free: Write the Probation Department (A list subscriber says your letter could help save the medical marijuana patient and founder of the Orange County Cannabis Co-op from wasting years in prison. Complete instructions included.)
Teen Crime Wave Called Myth (The San Francisco Chronicle says the MacArthur Foundation's two-year study of juvenile crime statistics found that laws aimed at youthful lawbreakers are based on "deeply flawed analyses of juvenile violence statistics." "We're not any more violent than we were 10 or 20 years ago. We're just paying more attention to the violence," said Franklin Zimring, author of the study and a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Zimrlng's findings will be published as a book by Oxford University Press but were released at a news conference yesterday.)
Three-Strikes' Economics (A staff editorial in The Orange County Register says the California legislature should take small but definite steps to reform the voter-approved "three strikes" law, so the third strike must be violent to trigger a lengthy sentence.)
Supreme Court Prohibits Police From Routinely Searching Vehicles (The Denver Post notes the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that police officers cannot routinely search motorists and their cars after stopping them for traffic violations.)
No Blanket Searches (A staff editorial in The Las Vegas Review-Journal applauds the US Supreme Court's unanimous ruling that a routine traffic violation doesn't justify a warrantless search of a vehicle.)
Pot Use 'No Big Deal' To Teens (The Daily Herald, in Arlington Heights, Illinois, gives the usual one-sided coverage of an anti-marijuana conference Wednesday at the College of DuPage, where 200 people from throughout the area supposedly learned how to teach teens to shun pot.)
Man Sues Drug Task Force (The Dayton Daily News, in Ohio, says Howard Johnson of Spring Valley has filed a $13 million lawsuit charging the Greene County Drug Task Force engaged in a "pattern of corrupt activity" to finance itself. In April, Johnson's brother, Fairborn businessman Bobby Johnson, filed a $10.4 million lawsuit against the task force, alleging it similarly engaged in a pattern of corrupt activity by trying to force him to pay it money and surrender property in order to have false charges dismissed.)
Texas Tobacco-Suit Lawyers Reportedly Get $3.3 Billion (According to an Associated Press article in The Seattle Times, The Dallas Morning News said today that the lawyers involved in the Texas tobacco settlement have been awarded nearly $3.3 billion by a national arbitration panel, the largest attorney-fee award in US history.)
Take a toke, minimize stroke, research says (According to a Knight-Ridder news service article in The Calgary Herald, a study reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says researchers at the National Institute of Health, led by A.J. Hampson, found that cannabidol, one of a class of marijuana constituents called cannabinoids, is a powerful antioxidant. When tested on rat neurons in a lab dish, the substance prevented the death of brain cells during conditions simulating a stroke.)
Five Months In Jail For Pot Promoter (The Edmonton Journal says Alberta provincial court Judge David Tilley sentenced Ken Kirk to five months in jail Wednesday, even though Kirk uses cannabis to help control his epilepsy and other medical problems, including bipolar disorder and a chronic inflammation of the lower back. The judge said Kirk's crimes were aggravated by the large amount of pot police seized from him, the fact he re-offended while on bail and because he sold to a minor.)
Pot-for-Health Claim Still Draws Jail Term (The Edmonton Sun version)
Drug trade violence stalks Tijuana (An Associated Press article in The Detroit News says Tijuana sits between the haves and the have-nots: those in Mexico who have cocaine, marijuana, heroin and speed, and those in the United States who do not but will pay lots for it. With 2 million people, there is an average of one murder every 30 hours, the overwhelming majority connected to the smuggling of drugs, arms or undocumented workers. US officials seized more than 188 tons of drugs worth an estimated $308 million at five Mexico-California border crossings in the 1998 fiscal year - up 44 percent. Struggles between mid-level and emerging dealers have made 1998 the bloodiest on record: 156 homicides in Tamaulipas state, 49 in Chihuahua, and 216 in Sinaloa.)
Drugs-Related Deaths Double In Glasgow (According to The Independent, in Britain, a new police report says illegal-drug-related deaths in the Scottish city have more than doubled in the past year. The increase - to 63, of which 55 were directly linked to heroin - breaks a downward trend over the previous three years. No word on whether more people die from falling down stairs, as is the case in the United States.)
Weekly Action Report on Drug Policies, Year 4, No. 41 (A summary of European and international drug policy news, from CORA in Italy)
Bytes: 79,900 Last updated: 1/1/99
Wednesday, December 9, 1998:
Recommendations for the Implementation of Ballot Measure 67, Medical Use of Marijuana (The text of the guidelines proposed for state law enforcement officials' compliance with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, released today by the Oregon Attorney General's Work Group on Medical Marijuana - plus a favorable introduction by Dr. Rick Bayer, a chief petitioner for the ballot measure.)
Statewide Activists Meeting in Eugene 12/12/98 (The Cannabis Liberation Society in Eugene sponsors a meeting for Oregon marijuana-law and drug-policy-reform activists, 1-4 pm Saturday at Grower's Market.)
Heroic Stand in Court (A list subscriber forwards a successful motion for dismissal of a marijuana case, filed by an Oregonian who was charged in Humboldt County, California.)
Corruption In The System (The San Mateo County Times rewrites the recent favorable review of "The Prison-Industrial Complex" in The Atlantic Monthly, by syndicated columnist Molly Ivins.)
S. Texas sheriff arrested for theft - He's accused of taking drug money (An Associated Press article in The Dallas Morning News says Frio County Sheriff Carl Henry Burris was arrested Tuesday on charges that he stole nearly $12,000 in drug money and tried to replace it by selling marijuana.)
FBI Arrests South Texas Sheriff (The UPI version)
Heroin bust largest in state history (The Associated Press says a 23-year-old New Jersey woman was arrested Wednesday with about $250,000 worth of heroin in the largest such bust in New Hampshire's history. Evelyn Abreu faces life in prison.)
The Drug War's Political Climate (An op-ed in The Hartford Courant by a co-founder of the NORML chapter at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury says the most damaging aspect of the drug war political climate, and the one most in need of change, is not the ignoring of evidence, but the demonization of those who express dissent. The United States is one of the worst offenders in this category.)
Two officers suspended in separate incidents (The Associated Press says two New York City police officers were suspended without pay Wednesday - one for allegedly shooting his wife and the other for charges stemming from a drunk driving accident that killed his girlfriend. Both officers were off-duty at the time and are suspended for a maximum of 30 days.)
Press Clips - Joint Effort (The Village Voice, in New York, paints an ugly portrait of media hacks who crashed an election-night party in Washington, DC, sponsored by the Marijuana Policy Project, and pestered guests for marijuana.)
Get the Guest? The Supreme Court Protects Some Visitors From Searches (A staff editorial in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette comments on the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches don't always cover short-term visitors to a private residence. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who contributed a fifth vote to the ruling, wrote that the majority opinion is "consistent with my view that almost all social guests have protection against unreasonable searches, in their host's home." The "almost all" qualification invites police to test the limits.)
D.C. Fires 19 School Bus Drivers (An Associated Press article in The Las Vegas Sun says District of Columbia school officials discovered some of the school-bus drivers had drunken-driving convictions or had tested positive for "drug" use. Three administrative clerks were also dismissed for tampering with bus driver records.)
New FDA Chief Vows To Put Science First (The Orange County Register says Dr. Jane Henney of the US Food and Drug Administration was responding Tuesday to criticism that the agency was too easily influenced by pressure from the pharmaceutical industry.)
Effective Medical Treatment Of Opiate Addiction (The Journal of the American Medical Association describes how a panel of medical experts was created to reach consensus on how best to provide effective medical treatment for opiate addiction. The objective was to provide clinicians, patients, and the general public with a responsible assessment of the effective approaches to treat opiate dependence. The panel concluded that opiate dependence is a brain-related medical disorder that can be effectively treated, with significant benefits for the patient and society. The panel also concluded society must make a commitment to offer effective treatment - including methadone - for all who need it - and the law should be changed so doctors can prescribe methadone more widely.)
Sparks Fly at Hemp Shop Hearing (The Vancouver Sun describes the city council hearing yesterday in Vancouver, British Columbia, where municipal officials and lawyers tried to deny a business license for Hemp BC.)
City Hearing about Cannabis Cafe turns into Kangaroo Court (Vancouver Sun columnist Ian Mulgrew says the city council hearing Tuesday in Vancouver, British Columbia, regarding Hemp BC's business license turned into a farcical kangaroo court.)
Parents want strip-search teachers gone (A Canadian Press article in The Halifax Daily News, in Nova Scotia, says the board of education in Kingsville, Ontario, has asked the vice-principal and teacher who led the humiliating strip search of 19 Grade 9 students to leave Kingsville district high school and work at home until the board decides what else to do. Parents say they don't want the pair back - ever.)
School Strip Search Outrages Premier (UPI says Mike Harris, Ontario's provincial premier, says he finds it abhorrent that a group of Grade 9 students were strip searched in a school in the Windsor area.)
'A flight from common sense' (Toronto Sun columnist Heather Bird comments on the strip-search of 19 students in Kingsville, Ontario. What may be at the root of school officials' bizarre behaviour is a recent high court ruling that condoned searches of students and their lockers for weapons or drugs.)
Kingsville incident 'abuse of power' (According to The Toronto Star, educational law experts and school administrators agree the strip-search of 20 teenage boys at a Windsor-area school was an abuse of the broad powers granted to school officials. The newspaper implies the search would have been legal and proper if the object of the search had been guns or "drugs." Last month, the Supreme Court asserted there was an increasing problem with weapons and drugs in schools and declared that Canadian school authorities had the right to carry out warrantless searches.)
Board bans strip-searches (The Toronto Star says strip-searches have been banned by the Greater Essex school board as trustees try to determine the fate of a vice-principal and a gym teacher accused of strip-searching 20 teenaged students.)
Education minister orders new guidelines (The National Post, in Canada, says Dave Johnson, Ontario's education minister, has ordered the creation of new guidelines to ensure that teenagers are never again strip searched at school. Outrage over the strip search cut through all political lines with the general consensus being that the students' rights were violated by overzealous teachers and all urged the government to establish strict guidelines.)
School visits turn up drugs (The New Brunswick Telegraph Journal says random searches at six schools have turned up small amounts of marijuana recently. Police say students and parents should be aware that any school could be searched at random by drug-sniffing dogs at any time.)
Bloods take a DARE (The Lethbridge Herald, in Alberta, says Blood Tribe Police Constable Dale Murphy believes he's the first aboriginal police officer in Canada to instruct the 17-week Drug Abuse Resistance Education course on his own reservation.)
Panama Pull-Out May Hurt DoD's Anti-Drug Mission (Jane's Defence Weekly says US military counter-narcotics operations in Latin America are expected to suffer, at least temporarily, when the Department of Defense pulls its forces out of Panama next year.)
DrugSense Weekly, No. 77 (The weekly summary of drug policy news from DrugSense leads with a feature article - Protecting your privacy during a drug-war strip search. The Weekly News in Review includes such articles about Prisons as - The prison-industrial complex; Our prisons have bigger problems; Jail guards smuggled contraband, paper says; and Shipping inmates no solution. An article about Law Enforcement - Selling lies - win at all costs series. Articles about Drug Policy include - Eye at the keyhole; School board to ask the US Supreme Court to reinstate drug testing; Customs Service drug searches prompt outrage, lawsuits; Book Review of "Whiteout" - The C(ocaine)I(mportation)A(gency). Articles about Medical Marijuana include - Groups seek results of marijuana vote; Pot center founder fights charges; Cannabis buyers' co-op to reopen, but not sell pot; and Rx - marijuana. International News includes - Cocaine flood raises fears of HIV upsurge; Congress steps up aid for Colombians to combat drugs; Hitman's victim had links to drug gang. Hot Off The 'Net focuses on the group Family Watch, as well as the topic of breaking news stories. The Quote of the Week cites William Lloyd Garrison. The Fact of the Week - Prohibition Pollutes.)
Bytes: 136,000 Last updated: 12/17/98
Tuesday, December 8, 1998:
Oregon Cannabis Tax Act petition (Paul Stanford, a chief petitioner for the proposed ballot measure, which would regulate the sale of cannabis through state liquor stores, abolish laws against private cultivation, and allow farmers to grow industrial hemp, forwards three Adobe Acrobat .pdf files featuring the text of the initiative, a ballot title with instructions for signature gatherers, and a blank signature sheet. Download them here, collect signatures of everyone you know, and mail them in to the OCTA office.)
Toxic Markers Called 'Poor Man's Drug' (The Orange County Register tries to launch a nationwide drug menace, saying Magnum 44 marker pens are being used as inhalants by kids.)
Dare To Do Better (A staff editorial in The Denver Post comments on the dwindling local support for DARE. Last year, Delbert Elliott and other researchers at the University of Colorado's Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence reviewed 400 programs aimed at reducing youth violence and "drug" use. They cited 10 such programs - not including DARE - as worthy of emulation. The newspaper believes "drug education" should be part of the curriculum at all levels, not just elementary schools, and that preventing "drug abuse" through "education" is "far more effective" than belatedly treating or incarcerating those who miss or ignore that message - though the newspaper doesn't say on what evidence that opinion is based.)
Dumping DARE A Good Start (Denver Post columnist Diane Carman says that like most aspects of the war on drugs, DARE has been a colossal waste of money. Since 1971, the US has spent an estimated $1 trillion on the war against some drug users. In that time, illegal drug use has mushroomed and black-market prices have soared. More than 400,000 Americans are in prison on drug charges. One in nine American schoolchildren has at least one parent in prison. If we really cared about protecting our children, we'd demand that the government abandon the war on drugs and employ some of the cheaper and vastly more effective programs under way in other countries.)
'High' Road Is Full Of Pot Holes (Arizona Republic columnist E.J. Montini revisits cancer patient and medical-marijuana user Josh Berner. Now that Arizona voters have again voted to endorse medical marijuana, Berner is unable to find two physicians willing to recommend cannabis to him - most doctors are afraid they'll be busted by federal authorities for prescribing an illegal drug. And no pharmacy stocks it. "Without an implementation plan to go along with the proposition, the situation of people like me hasn't changed a bit since we passed the first proposition back in '96," Josh said. "So, that's my job now. To get it implemented.")
Officer in theft case surrenders - He feared drug dealers' retaliation, source says (The Dallas Morning News says Daniel E. Maples Jr., a Dallas police officer accused of stealing thousands of dollars from drug dealers, turned himself in Sunday night because he apparently feared some dealers were about to retaliate by killing his girlfriend. Maples was not charged and was not in custody late Monday, having been placed on paid administrative leave.)
McCaffrey blasts medicinal marijuana (United Press International says the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, told those attending the Council of State Governments' annual convention in San Antonio, Texas, today that victory in the war on some drug users is being jeopardized by the medical marijuana "movement" - and by an increase in "drug" use among teenagers. Misrepresenting both doctors and patients who have experience with medical marijuana, McCaffrey said "pain management is not best done with a joint and two vodkas.")
Drug czar targets meth crisis (The San Antonio, Texas, Express-News says General Barry McCaffrey told the annual gathering of the Council of State Governments Tuesday that America is winning the war against cocaine, but losing the war against chemically produced methamphetamine. All of the speakers agreed government should focus on rehabilitation and curbing drug use among children, but the White House drug czar admitted that current policies had only tripled the number of eighth-graders taking "drugs" in the past six years.)
Turning good kids to bad? (A letter to the editor of The Houston Chronicle says the newspaper's recent article about inmates going to school to warn students about drinking and "drugs" ignored the most obvious fact. As kids, the inmates had problems before they started using alcohol and other drugs. The article seems to say, "We were all good kids until we used alcohol and other drugs. Now look what these substances have done to us." But it is impossible for an inanimate object to "make" us do anything.)
Methadone ruled as cause in N. Richland Hills death (The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram says Christopher W. Bryant, 18, had started taking methadone to kick his heroin habit days before his uncle found him dead. On the day after Bryant's death, his mother said she had heard that he had exaggerated the amount of his daily heroin usage when he went to a treatment clinic in Fort Worth, Texas, for his first of four methadone doses.)
Long-Ago Fugitive To Be Extradited (The Associated Press says a judge in Detroit, Michigan, ruled Monday that Alfred Martin, a businessman who has led "an exemplary life" since being convicted of selling $10 worth of marijuana 25 years ago, should be extradited to Virginia, where he once walked off a prison farm.)
New Bills Would Decriminalize Marijuana, Reduce Size of N.H. House (The Keene Sentinel, in New Hampshire, notes the 400 members of the state house of representatives still have another week to raise issues for consideration in January. Among the bills being drafted is one that would permit the medical use of marijuana, and another that would decriminalize possession of small amounts of cannabis, both sponsored by Timothy N. Robertson. In the past, Robertson has sponsored legislation to legalize hemp production in New Hampshire. Another effort will be spearheaded this year by other representatives. Robertson said it was a strategic decision to separate the hemp bill from marijuana-related proposals because hemp cannot be used as a drug and the issues are not related, yet many lawmakers and citizens confused the two issues.)
Rolling Back Stiff Drug Sentences (The Christian Science Monitor says 25 years after New York ushered in the nation's first mandatory-minimum drug-sentencing laws, it and several other states are considering modifying such laws - a trend with far-reaching ramifications for the American criminal-justice system. At the same time, however, states are enacting even stricter sentencing laws and abolishing parole for dangerous felons, particularly violent sex offenders.)
Wrath Of Vengeance - Win At All Costs series (The ninth part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about its two-year investigation showing that federal agents and prosecutors break the law routinely. When Congress enacted a series of get-tough-on-crime laws in the 1980s, no one realized defense attorneys would become such easy targets. The case of Patrick Hallinan is illustrative. Hallinan is a prominent defense lawyer and an accomplished archeologist in San Francisco. His father was considered to be one of the finest lawyers to emerge from the city. His brother was head of the city's law department, and is now District Attorney. After Hallinan reduced the sentence faced by one client to 10 years, instead of life, federal prosecutors met with the client privately and offered to let him walk if he could implicate Hallinan. In early 1996, Hallinan was acquitted when his lawyers were able to prove that the government had coached his client's testimony and that he was lying about Hallinan's direct knowledge of his drug activities and money laundering.)
Court Rules Against Car-Search Law (The Associated Press says the US Supreme Court, in a rare win for privacy rights, unanimously struck down an Iowa law Tuesday that allowed police to search people and their cars after merely ticketing them for routine traffic violations. The decision overturned the conviction of Patrick Knowles, who was pulled over for speeding in 1996. An officer gave him a ticket and then searched Knowles and his car. He was charged with possessing marijuana, convicted, and sentenced to 90 days in jail.)
US Supreme Court Bans Searches In Traffic Cases (The Reuters version)
Knowles v. Iowa (A list subscriber forwards the summary and posts a URL with the full text of the US Supreme Court's ruling that police cannot search people and their cars merely on the basis of a ticket for a routine traffic violation.)
Search Warrant Should Not Be A Press Pass (An op-ed by Robyn Blumner of the St. Petersburg Times in The Arizona Daily Star notes the US Supreme Court will decide this term whether a being served with a search warrant means suspects have to let true-crime television cameramen or other media who tag along with police enter their homes to record and then publicly broadcast or print photographs of their bust for private profit. In a ruling that defies common sense, the 4th US Court of Appeals, by a 6-5 vote, said inviting the press into a private home to photograph an innocent couple in their nightclothes did not violate their constitutional rights.)
Hearings Requested on Marinol Rescheduling (A news release from Jon Gettman, former director of NORML, says he and High Times magazine have asked the Drug Enforcement Administration to delay reclassifying Marinol to Schedule III, subject to public hearings on the drug's relationship with marijuana and industrial hemp. High Times and Gettman are co-petitioners in another action to reschedule marijuana, THC, and Marinol. A hearing has been requested to determine if DEA's proposal rescheduling Marinol satisfies legal requirements for such a move, and whether it is prejudicial to the Gettman/High Times petition.)
Full Text of Marinol Hearing Request Available (The full text of the request by High Times and Jon Gettman that the DEA conduct hearings on the rescheduling of Marinol is online at the magazine's web site, http://www.hightimes.com/ht/new/petition/index.html.)
Re: Marinol Rescheduling (Jon Gettman and other list subscribers discuss the request by High Times and Jon Gettman that the DEA conduct hearings on the rescheduling of Marinol.)
Our National Epidemic (In These Times magazine says the United States, the world leader in imprisoning its own people, is in the midst of an incarceration epidemic. Nearly 1.9 million people are behind bars. According to the Sentencing Project, the rate is now 645 inmates per 100,000 people - six to 10 times the rate of most European countries. The rate in Britain, for example, is 100 per 100,000. In Norway and Greece it's 55 per 100,000. In Japan it's 37. Although China has about 10 times the US population, we imprison nearly half a million more people. Because crime rates have been falling, the incarceration explosion seems wildly incongruous. It can be explained in three words: war on drugs.)
Scientists urge expanded use of methadone (An Associated Press article in The Houston Chronicle notes today's issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association includes a report by a panel of scientists who call heroin addiction a "treatable disease," and who urge the government to expand the availability of methadone treatment and allow more doctors to dispense the synthetic narcotic.)
Heroin Use Going Up Among US Teen-Agers (The Orange County Register publishes a much more sensational account than Reuters summarizing a new report in Pediatrics.)
Human safety in medical studies inadequate, experts say (According to The Associated Press, a report published in Wednesday's edition of The Journal of the American Medical Association says people used as subjects in medical studies are inadequately protected from risks, with hazards often poorly explained and scientists often snared in conflicts of interest.)
A radical idea - Why can't people sue politicians for their deadly programs? (A news release from Libertarian Party headquarters in Washington, DC, says that if attorneys general in 41 states can sue tobacco and gun companies for alleged damages to the public, why can't members of the public sue politicians for specific damage caused by bad laws?)
Students protest strip-search (A Canadian Press article in The Edmonton Sun says about 200 high school students in Kingsville, Ontario, staged a walkout yesterday to protest the strip-search of about 20 teenage boys.)
Charges Dropped In Drug Sting (The Toronto Sun says a Crown attorney abruptly stayed hashish smuggling charges against a Toronto woman yesterday following testimony from Constable Lorelei McIvor, which showed the undercover cop to be lying.)
Ganja-Ho Operation Faces Spliff Resistance (The Scotsman recounts recent news about the United States using its military to eradicate cannabis plants that make up a major portion of the economy of the Caribbean island-nation of St. Vincent, and the Marijuana Farmers' Movement that opposes the invasion.)
Drugs And Weapons Seized As Police Arrest 70 In Dawn Raids (The Scotsman says prohibition agents in Lothian and Borders claimed a big victory in the fight against heroin dealers yesterday. An operation aimed at stopping a huge rise in the use of the drug snared 70 people, more than £300,000 in illegal substances and assets, and an arsenal of weapons.)
O'Donoghue Rules Out Decriminalising Drugs (The Irish Independent says the comments by the Irish justice minister, John O'Donoghue, came in response to a statement by the National Crime Forum that it would be happy to see the issue discussed in a calm and dispassionate manner.)
Think About It (A staff editorial in The Irish Independent says that when a body with the status of the National Crime Forum comes out in favour of discussing the de-criminalisation of so-called soft drugs we should take heed. Drugs are a huge issue for society, yet one which is rarely if ever debated in a non-hysterical or unemotional way. The Forum is correct, if science has a case it should be heard.)
Bytes: 157,000 Last updated: 12/17/98
Monday, December 7, 1998:
Investigation finds liquor agency badly understaffed (According to The Associated Press, The Statesman-Journal newspaper in Salem says the Oregon Liquor Control Commission is crippled by inadequate staffing and soft penalties, and unable to monitor thousands of bars and restaurants. The agency is asking the legislature for $1.5 million to hire 14 new inspectors.)
Trend To Be Discerned From The 1998 Elections (Orange County Register columnist Alan W. Bock says the mainstream media have missed most significant political trends until they have already become well-established. Bock suspects the media have also missed the most significant trend to be discerned from the 1998 elections - every single ballot measure that promised some kind of drug policy reform passed by a comfortable margin. He recommends two ballot measures for the next election - one mandating the introduction of federal legislation to reschedule marijuana, and another mandating a challenge to the constitutionality of federal drug laws.)
Teen Parties Today - "Cigarettes, Beer, Weed" (The San Francisco Examiner asks, what gives with Pleasanton teens and strippers? Are the adolescents all turning into drunken sailors, conventioneers and bachelor-party wannabes? And what goes on at a teen party these days anyway? Teenagers surveyed at Berkeley High and Stone Ridge Mall in Pleasanton said strippers are hardly the usual form of party entertainment. Teenage parties today seem to be just like they were when kids' parents were growing up. Loud music. Beer. Some hard liquor. Some sex. Cigarette smoking. And pot.)
Wiretap Operation Sheds Light On LAPD Tactics (According to The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles prohibition agents were convinced that John Lopez and his small storefront telephone company, Atel Cellular and Paging, were in cahoots with drug dealers, so they wiretapped the customers' and Atel's phones. Starting with just his business lines and a handful of customers, the operation spread like kudzu, eventually covering hundreds of phones and thousands of conversations, becoming the largest wiretap operation in the history of Los Angeles County. When the three-year probe ended in March, police had arrested dozens of Atel's customers, but not Lopez or any of his employees. The Atel taps are at the center of the nine-month controversy over whether prosecutors have been improperly concealing their wiretapping operations and the information derived from it. Also at issue are charges by defense lawyers that the allegations against Atel Cellular are a sham created to win court orders permitting an electronic fishing expedition against their clients.)
Belpre Community Upset By Fatal Raid (A United Press International article in The Columbus Dispatch says a controversy has erupted in southeast Ohio concerning a marijuana raid in which law enforcement officers shot a man eight times. Delbert Bonar's family contends the dead man was unarmed. Sheriff's deputies say the family is lying. They found a small amount of the illegal weed, enough for personal consumption.)
3 Detroit Police Officers Wounded In Ambush (The Chicago Tribune says three cops were wounded early Sunday, two of them critically, while the officers were investigating the kidnapping of a woman and her child, an abduction that appeared to be connected to "drugs.")
Teen Marijuana Use On Rise In DuPage (The Daily Herald, in Illinois, cites various drug-warrior myths about marijuana while publicizing a two-day anti-marijuana conference this week in DuPage County, sponsored by a Hazelden drug-treatment business that "serves" young adults.)
Calculated Abuses - Win At All Costs series (The eighth part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about its two-year investigation showing that federal agents and prosecutors break the law routinely. Federal prosecutors frequently rely on promises of leniency when they use criminals to snare other criminals, but the government's word isn't necessarily its bond. Deceived into thinking her brother was dying, Mary Ann Rounsavall testified against him, resulting in James Rounsavall being sentenced to life in prison. In return, Mary Ann Rounsavall had been promised about eight years. But the prosecutors in her case reneged on their pledge. They made no request that her sentence be reduced based on her cooperation, and the judge had no choice under federal mandatory sentencing guidelines but to give her a 20-year sentence based on her own confession.)
German Criminal Finds A Lucrative Life As Federal Informant (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year investigation showing that federal agents and prosecutors routinely break the law. When Helmut Groebe, a German citizen, offered his services as an informant to the US government in 1989, he was wanted in four countries for crimes ranging from fraud to drug smuggling to arranging a South American jail break. The DEA signed him up. Despite a criminal history that would bar his legal immigration, the DEA offered him permanent residency in the United States, turned him loose with little supervision, promised to pay him more than $600,000, then ensured that charges against the people he entrapped would stick by unlawfully withholding from defense attorneys information about Groebe's criminal background and government payoffs.)
Under Consent Decree, FBI Still Violates Order - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year investigation showing that federal agents and prosecutors routinely break the law. A group of Chicago residents who supported an organization called the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador, which opposed US policy in that country, discovered that between 1983 and 1985 the FBI had spied on them and listed them as suspected terrorists because of their affiliation - even though a 1981 court decree had ordered the agency to stop.)
Government Goes Back On A Deal - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year investigation showing that federal agents and prosecutors routinely break the law. It took federal prosecutors more than seven years to live up to their promise to free Alberto San Pedro from prison after he went undercover and helped snag the mayor and a commissioner in Hialeah, Florida, who were involved in an influence-peddling scam.)
Agents Dug Up More Problems For Archaeologist - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year investigation showing that federal agents and prosecutors routinely break the law. Peter Larson was sentenced to two years in prison based on charges that were filed in retaliation for Larsen's outspoken reaction to the federal government's tactics in a separate civil case.)
Heroin Said To Be Making Inroads Among US Teens (Reuters says an analysis of more than 80 existing studies and other resources on substance abuse, published Monday in the December issue of "Pediatrics," the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, turned up one study which found that heroin use by high school seniors rose from .9 percent in 1990 to 1.8 percent in 1996 and 2.1 percent in 1997. Out of 80 studies, one other report found the drug being used at an earlier age.)
Why it Takes a Village to Afford a Prescription (An op-ed in The San Jose Mercury News by a physician and former FDA official says prescription drugs now cost much more than they used to because of excessive government regulation. The example cited is the FDA's recent announcement that drug companies will be required to test in children the medicines they sell for adults, and to put the pediatric dosages on the label. That might sound benign, or even desirable, but these new requirements ignore the realities of drug testing. They may actually be detrimental to kids and could actually delay the availability of new drugs, if FDA withholds approval for adult uses while data from pediatric studies are being collected.)
The Lindesmith Center Web Site Additions (A news release from the New York drug-policy-reform group - part of the Drug Reform Coordination Network - publicizes lots of new and interesting research papers on a variety of issues.)
Hemp BC Hearing at City Hall, December 8 (A news release from Cannabis Culture magazine asks supporters of the hemp store in Vancouver, British Columbia, to show support Tuesday at a city council hearing where police officers and city officials are expected to ask that Hemp BC not be granted a business license, and that it be forced to close permanently. Meanwhile, Hemp BC lawyers have appeared before a judge to testify that Vancouver Police Officer Mark Bragagnola possessed cannabis on April 30, 1998, contrary to the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. A similar statement was made against US Navy operative Stacy Sherman, who allegedly trafficked in cannabis on April 25, 1998. Both of these charges relate to the Vancouver Police and US Navy "joint investigation" of Hemp BC, when Vancouver Police and US Navy officers tried to buy pot at Hemp BC and failed. So instead they bought some pot on the street and smoked it in Hemp BC themselves.)
Medicinal marijuana club in Bradford, Ontario (A list subscriber forwards a coming-out announcement and URL for the Marsh Marijuana Club.)
Lords Back Cannabis For Pain Relief (Chemistry & Industry Magazine, in Britain, notes the recent report by the science and technology select committee of the House of Lords, calling for doctors to be legally allowed to prescribe marijuana for multiple sclerosis and chronic pain.)
Iran No Longer A Drug-Problem Country (The San Jose Mercury News says President Clinton today removed Iran from the official list of drug problem countries, concluding the Islamic republic has carried out a successful program to eradicate opium poppies - and hanged hundreds of traffickers under a law that mandates the death penalty for anyone possessing more than a small quantity of narcotics. Clinton also deleted Malaysia from the list. The number of drug problem countries is now 28.)
Rise in Cigarette Smoking Doesn't Bother Burma Government (The International Herald-Tribune says free handouts and slick advertising tactics never before seen in Burma have enticed young people across the country to take up cigarettes. Smoking is also on the increase in other countries in Southeast Asia where cash-strapped goveraments have a financial stake in tobacco sales. The Burmese govemment likes dealing with multinational cigarette companies because it can more readily collect revenue from large factories or importers than it can from small-time producers of hand-rolled smokes. "The cinema is censored, and there are no nightclubs or live shows. Beyond smoking there is no entertainment," says one young man.)
Bytes: 136,000 Last updated: 12/17/98
Sunday, December 6, 1998:
S.F. cops arrest 3 in drug inquiry (The San Francisco Examiner says San Francisco undercover police officers slipped into a popular South of Market night club, the Sound Factory at 525 Harrison St., and arrested three disc jockeys for allegedly selling the stimulant ecstasy, part of a continuing probe of illegal drug sales in area dance venues.)
Second Thoughts On 'Three Strikes' Law (The Orange County Register says support is growing in California for a requirement that third-time felons must commit a violent crime before a sentence of 25-years-to-life can be handed down. Families to Amend California's Three Strikes, or FACTS, is lobbying legislators to support a bill to study the successes and failures of California's three-strikes law, believing that such a study will illuminate the law's failures and injustices and bolster support for reform. As of March 31, 4,076 felons had been sent to prison under the law, mostly for nonviolent offenses, including 18.8 percent for drug crimes.)
State Leads Nation In Housing Inmates At Out-Of-State Sites (The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says Wisconsin ranked third among states a year ago when it came to shipping criminals to prisons beyond its borders. But today, with nearly 2,600 convicts in exile, it has no rival for the dubious title. James Austin of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, in Washington, DC, said that instead of saving money, states such as Wisconsin spend more on transportation, monitoring and costly litigation when something eventually goes wrong at a prison thousands of miles away.)
Shipping Inmates No Solution (A staff editorial in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says the Wisconsin legislature is responsible for prison overcrowding and making the housing of inmates out of state a permanent feature of state corrections policy. Crime is not rising. Lawmakers dramatically lengthened sentences without adequately dealing with the predictable jump in prison population.)
'Gang loitering' law headed for Supreme Court (An Associated Press article carried by Nando Media says Chicago's anti-loitering ordinance designed to combat drug trafficking by street gangs, used to make 45,000 arrests to date, goes before the US Supreme Court this week for arguments on whether it endangers individual rights.)
Teen Meth Use Outpaces Treatment (According to The Des Moines Register, officials in Iowa say methamphetamine has replaced unspecified "other hard drugs" as the preferred high among adolescents in Iowa. While fewer than 25 youths sought help for meth addiction five years ago, 113 did so during the state's last fiscal year, said Dr. Ron Eckoff, the medical director for the Substance Abuse and Health Promotion Division of the state Department of Public Health. The article contradicts itself, saying marijuana and alcohol remain the drugs abused most often by Iowa teens, which would seem to omit tobacco, but in any case the comparative number of teens who sought help for alcohol addiction is omitted.)
Snitches Come With A Price (The Times Union, in New York, says that as the war on some drug users has escalated in recent years, so has the use of informants. But this dependence is making the criminal justice system vulnerable to challenge from defense attorneys.)
Inside Information Was Grist For Warrants (The Times Union, in Albany, New York, describes how informants sent a small-time seller of cocaine and marijuana to prison for 11 to 22 years - without the informants having to testify at trial.)
As Setups Go, This Informant Knows His Role (The Times Union, in New York, interviews an unnamed snitch who sets up the people who sell him illegal drugs.)
When Safeguards Fail - Win At All Costs series (The seventh part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about its two-year investigation showing that federal agents and prosecutors break the law routinely. The American justice system has made it simple for federal prosecutors to use a grand jury to win an indictment against almost anyone. But it has made it nearly impossible to punish them when they abuse that right.)
Businessman Goes To Prison When Agent's False Testimony Isn't Corrected - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series showing that federal agents and prosecutors break the law routinely. It wasn't until after he was incarcerated that Eugene Kent learned that a grand jury had erred in bringing indictments against him. A federal agent had testified falsely before the secret panel, but since defendants and their lawyers aren't allowed to be present at grand jury sessions, the false information was never corrected.)
Promoter Says Attractive Property Made Him A Target - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series showing that federal agents and prosecutors break the law routinely. Federal prosecutors tried to forfeit a $7 million property owned by professional wrestler Vince McMahon, and persuaded a federal grand jury to indict McMahon for buying muscle-building steroids in 1989 that were not banned until 1991.)
Georgia's Other Nasty Congressman (Atlanta Journal-Constitution Editorial Page Editor Cynthia Tucker says Newt Gingrich isn't the only Georgia Republican with a persona guaranteed to chill voters, frighten small children and upset family pets. There's also US Representative Bob Barr, who attached an amendment to a District of Columbia appropriations bill that prohibited the Board of Elections from spending any money to count the votes on Initiative 59, the DC medical marijuana initiative. Supporters of the referendum figure the cost would be about $1.64.)
Unindicted Inmates Add To Crowding (The Ledger-Enquirer, in Georgia, says more than 80 Muscogee County Jail inmates have been held without indictment for more than three months, with some unindicted more than nine months after being jailed.)
Drug War Does More Harm Than Good (A letter to the editor of The Palm Beach Post applauds Molly Ivins' recent syndicated column coming out against the drug war.)
A Basic Disrespect for Democracy (An op-ed in The Washington Post by a law professor and law student protests the amendment added to the omnibus appropriations bill in October, introduced by Representative Robert L. Barr Jr., which prohibited the District of Columbia from spending any money to count the votes for Initiative 59, the local medical marijuana measure.)
Suing For Drugs (A staff editorial in The Washington Times applauds the Clinton Administration for asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit which would force the District to reveal the vote count on Initiative 59, the District of Columbia medical-marijuana initiative.)
Medical Officer Removed After Opposing Drug's Approval (According to The Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times said Sunday that Dr. John L. Gueriguian, a veteran medical officer who opposed approval of the popular diabetes drug, Rezulin, was removed as its chief reviewer by the Food and Drug Administration. The drug, manufactured by Warner-Lambert Co., has been linked to at least 26 deaths worldwide.)
Drug Documentary Aired On CBS Said To Be Fake (The Washington Post says an independent panel ruled Friday that "The Connection," a documentary about Colombian drug-runners that was broadcast on "60 Minutes," was a fake. Produced by Carlton Communications, a prominent British television and film company, and sold to CBS in 1997, the production was broadcast around the world and has won eight journalism awards, including three in the United States.)
'Hypocrisy kills no-drug message' (The Launceston Examiner, in Australia, interviews Westhury nursing sister Heather Donaldson, a mother of four and author of a small book of aphorisms titled, "Drugs: High Hopes And Sudden Silences." "Zero tolerance doesn't work because of the hypocrisy of parents saying not to take drugs when coffee, alcohol, tobacco and chocolate all contain drugs." When a message contains hypocrisy, youngsters tend to dismiss the whole message. She said that concentration on hard drugs defied the National Campaign Against Drug Abuse statistics, which showed that 97 per cent of the 25,500 drug deaths a year were due to alcohol and tobacco and just 2 per cent to opiates and 1 per cent to other illicit drugs.)
Heart Charity Invests In Tobacco Industry (The Independent on Sunday says the British Heart Foundation, one of Britain's leading health charities that researches links between smoking and heart attacks, has invested £6 million of its employees' pension contributions in a fund that buys and sells shares in companies such as British American Tobacco, Gallaher and Imperial Tobacco.)
Ex-Mountie's low profile hid life on the run (The Toronto Star says Jorge Leite moved to Calhandriz, Portugal, in 1991 after being corrupted by the Cali cartel while a member of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police drug squad in Montreal. Portugal refused to extradite him back to Canada, since Leite has dual citizenship, but it is willing to jail him without bail and put him on trial early next year with secret Canadian evidence in a Portuguese court, where the burden of proof is on the accused.)
US Trains Colombian Military To Resist Rebels (A Cox syndicate article in The Austin American-Statesman says that officially, Washington classifies military instructor training missions in Colombia as counternarcotics aid, but in practice, the Green Berets from the 7th Special Forces group at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, are teaching skills the Colombian military needs to fight its civil war.)
Bytes: 151,000 Last updated: 12/18/98
Saturday, December 5, 1998:
Pot Center Founder Fights Charges (An update in The San Francisco Chronicle on pretrial motions and hearings involving the prosecution of Peter Baez, the former operator of Santa Clara County's only medical marijuana dispensary. The next hearing is Dec. 23.)
Cop Questioned At Hearing (The San Jose Mercury News version notes defense attorney Gerald Uelmen did not complete his initial questioning of San Jose police Sergeant Scott Savage as Friday's hearing ended. Supporters of Peter Baez have said the criminal case against him stems from a vendetta by Savage.)
Smoking and the Self-Righteous (Los Angeles Times columnist Susan Self says you know the tide has turned in the war on tobacco when a nonsmoker like her starts to feel sympathy for cigarette companies. But someone has to take a stand for principle. There have been 34 studies of the effects of secondhand smoke noted by the Congressional Research Service and only seven found significant negative health effects. One actually found benefits. What these studies mean, in the words of the Economist magazine, "is that the effects are so small as to be hard to pin down with any certainty at all." Virtue no longer seems to be its own reward.)
Man convicted of drug dealing says voodoo made him do it (According to The Associated Press, Olakunle A. Osoba was convicted in Columbus, Ohio, of heroin trafficking, but said voodoo made him do it. The judge didn't buy it and sentenced him Friday to 2 1/2 years in federal prison.)
Legal Office Didn't Seek Aid (The Baltimore Sun says state public defender Stephen E. Harris was accused yesterday of placing political concerns over constitutional rights. The Maryland Office of the Public Defender, which provides lawyers for the poor, requested $750,000 in October to hire eight additional lawyers in the current fiscal year, but the request came months after it sent letters to 350 defendants who were charged with drug offenses, telling them they were eligible for free attorneys but that the office could not provide them.)
2 DeKalb cops shot during raid of alleged drug house (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says the two DeKalb County prohibition agents were recovering at home from minor gunshot wounds they suffered during a Thursday night raid on a suspected drug house in Belvedere. The suspected shooter, Dwight Brown, surrendered to police, who charged him with aggravated assault and marijuana possession.)
US Court Convicts Fugitive Haitian Of Drug Smuggling (Reuters says Joseph Michel Francois, a top police official and reputed death squad leader under Haiti's former military regime, was convicted in absentia by a federal court in Miami on Friday of cocaine smuggling and money laundering. Eight other people were convicted in the case in US District Court, four of whom are fugitives. One of those convicted was Joel Audain, a US immigration officer who allowed traffickers to pass through secure areas of Miami airport.)
A Newcomer in the Liberal Arts - Criminal Justice (The New York Times says students are flocking to criminal-justice courses, making criminal justice the fastest-growing major in the United States. From an obscure discipline scorned by most academics, with only two small doctoral programs as recently as 1970, criminal justice has exploded to 350,000 undergraduate majors at colleges and universities. In part, the appeal of criminal justice is a result of the huge growth in crime since the 1960s, the prison-building boom and the fascination with criminals.)
Pot-Growing Professor Hopes To Teach Again (The Victoria Times-Colonist, in British Columbia, says Professor Jean Veevers, just fined $15,000 and given a conditional 12-month sentence she can serve at home, hopes to greet her sociology class at the University of Victoria on Jan. 4 and resume her teaching career. British Columbian Supreme Court Justice Dean Wilson said Veevers, who suffers from chronic depression and fatigue syndrome, arthritis and fibromyalgia, does not pose a risk to the community.)
Antiepileptic Drug Blocks Rats' Taste For Nicotine (The Lancet, in Britain, says scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York, have discovered that the antiepileptic drug vigabatrin blocks nicotine-induced brain dopamine release in rats and primates. Further, vigabatrin treatment disrupts rats' preference for an environment previously associated with nicotine; pretreatment with the drug blocks the development of such a preference. Vigabatrin also blocks the biochemical and behavioural effects of alcohol, morphine, amphetamine, and methamphetamine in animals.)
Ecstasy Use May Cause Brain Damage, Say Scientists (The Guardian, in Britain, says scientists last night warned that ecstasy, or MDMA, could trigger long-term damage to vital brain cells called serotonin neurons, although there is still no hard evidence. Rat brain cells seem to recover. But Professor Una McCann of the US National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, said that seven years after being treated to a four-day course of drugs, every monkey in a series of labs across the world had shown signs of irreversible damage. Now, she and colleagues told a conference in London yesterday, tests and brain scans on human volunteers show similar damage. The catch is that scientists can only work with volunteers who have already become worried about the drug's effects. The researchers are faced with other variables - they cannot be sure about the amount, the frequency or the quality of the MDMA taken, or the role of other drugs that might have been used.)
Bytes: 54,400 Last updated: 12/16/98
Friday, December 4, 1998:
Officials still have to iron out the details of how legal marijuana users will be protected (A slightly different version of yesterday's Associated Press article about the implementation of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, in the Salem, Oregon, Statesman Journal)
Audit - Review $1 billion expansion of prison system (The Oregonian says auditors for the state of Oregon are urging a thorough review of the state's $1 billion prison expansion plan because of concerns that it could bring a surplus of prison beds at construction costs that are nearly 70 percent higher than in other states.)
The Dire Consequences Of DARE (Boulder Weekly columnist Wayne Laugesen says Police Chief Mark Beckner and Boulder County Sheriff George Epp should be applauded for recently dumping DARE. Laugesen called psychologist William Hansen, whose research formed the basis for DARE. Hansen said the LAPD took an anti-drug model he had developed while it was in its infant stages and ran with it. "DARE was misguided as soon as they adopted our material, because we were off base," Hansen said. "It's outdated material that does not work." Dare to have no drug intervention program at all. The results will be astounding. Fewer children will use drugs, more classroom time will be spent on legitimate education, and police will be able to focus on crime.)
Drug Crusade Has Produced Everything But Success (An op-ed in the Fort Worth, Texas, Star-Telegram comes out against the war on some drug users. Among other things, the war has led to a 20 percent increase in substance addiction.)
DARE Officer's Wife Arrested For Drugs Possession (The Chicago Sun-Times says the Chicago's cop's wife was charged with possession of crack cocaine and marijuana.)
Our Prisons Have Bigger Problems Than Escapees (Syndicated Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Molly Ivins discusses "The Prison-Industrial Complex," in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly, an article revealing the out-of-control and increasingly corrupt American political, judicial and correctional system.)
DuPage Prosecutors File Lawsuit To Stop So-Called 'Head Shops' (The Daily Herald, in Illinois, says DuPage County prosecutors filed suit Thursday, claiming two alleged "head shops," as prosecutors called them, in Downers Grove and Westmont are selling drug paraphernalia.)
Supreme Court Hears Arguments In Case About Drinking Pregnant Woman (The Associated Press covers oral arguments before the Wisconsin Supreme Court Thursday in the challenge to a new law passed by the legislature allowing a woman to be imprisoned if police determine that her alcohol or "drug" habit endangers her fetus.)
Angela Davis' new crusade (Boston Globe columnist Derrick Z. Jackson says the tenured professor who was once placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List on false charges and jailed for 16 months before being acquitted, is calling for the abolition of prisons. For every black male eliminated from California universities in the 1990s, the state added 57 to its prisons. Prison has become less an institution for hardened criminals and more of an instrument of social control for low-income people.)
Government Ignores Teenage Alcohol Use (A letter to the editor of The Daily Star, in Oneonta, New York, notes the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and the White House drug czar's office focus their advertising dollars on marijuana, which never killed anyone. Meanwhile, they ignore the harm to young people attributable to ignorance about alcohol. For example, Michigan State University student Bradley McCue recently died on his 21st birthday from acute alcohol poisoning, after drinking 24 shots of liquor in less than two hours.)
Jail Officials Indicted (UPI says a major drug ring operating within two Miami-Dade County jails in Florida has been busted with the indictments and arrests of 26 people, including nine corrections officers and a jail counselor. The FBI says that in addition to smuggling "drugs," inmates, officers and others were charged with illegally bringing in cigarettes, worth $175 a carton.)
43 people charged in drug network run from behind bars (The Associated Press version says those charged in connection with smuggling illegal drugs in Miami-Dade County jails included 13 corrections officers - and the smuggling ring was run by a jailed dealer.)
Probation For Former Mayor (UPI says Todd Deratany, the former mayor of Indialantic, Florida, and the son of former state legislator Tim Deratany, has been sentenced to two years of probation after pleading no contest to a charge of attempting to sell cocaine.)
Nonprofit Cleared for DC Needle Exchange (The Washington Post says that six weeks after Congress ordered the District of Columbia to stop paying for a needle exchange program to reduce the spread of HIV and AIDS among drug users, the city's top lawyer yesterday cleared the way for the exchange to be taken over by Prevention Works, an independent nonprofit group that was spun off by the Whitman-Walker Clinic so as not to endanger its substantial city and federal grants.)
DEA Reconsiders Hemp Regulations (A letter from Thomas Constantine, head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, to Hawaii Senator Daniel Inouye, says DEA is "determining the feasibility of establishing a production level of cannabis that is consistent with the public interest in controlling drugs of abuse and recognizes the commercial interest in the cultivation of Cannabis sativa L. for fiber." Unfortunately, Constatine sidesteps the issue of why DEA officials have been lobbying against industrial hemp agricultural research in Hawaii.)
Secondhand Smoke, Alcohol Recommended As Carcinogens (The Associated Press says a subcommittee of the National Toxicology Program's Board of Scientific Counselors voted unanimously on Wednesday to affirm the recommendations of two groups of government scientists that secondhand smoke should be labeled a carcinogen. The panel also concluded that alcohol can cause cancer. The subcommittee's vote seems to have been motivated by a July decision by a federal judge in North Carolina which found that the EPA's similar conclusion in 1993 was biased and unscientific.)
Citibank Role Criticized In Mexican Money Case (According to The Chicago Tribune, a report by the General Accounting Office says Citibank executives ignored some of the bank's safeguards against the laundering of illicit funds in order to do business with Raul Salinas de Gortari, a brother of the former President of Mexico.)
Citibank Cut Corners for Salinas (The Cox Interactive Media version in The Austin American-Statesman)
Mexico Cops Arrest Man For Massacre (The Associated Press says Tijuana police have arrested Hector Flores Esquivias, an alleged member of the gang blamed in the September massacre of 19 people in the city of Ensenada. Also arrested was Cruz Medina Perez, believed to be the wife of the gang's alleged leader, Arturo Martinez Gonzalez. Apparently the evidence linking Flores to the massacre hasn't been disclosed yet.)
Oaxacan Police Chief Resigns (The Associated Press says Jose Mendez Rico, the chief of police for Mexico's southern Oaxaca state, resigned after two days on the job and one day after news reports linked him to a powerful drug cartel.)
US, Caribbean Troops Prepare for Marijuana Mission (The Associated Press says six US Marine Corps helicopters will ferry more than 120 troops from the Caribbean Regional Security Service and local police next week to uproot and burn marijuana plants on the Caribbean island nation of St. Vincent. The Marijuana Farmers movement, which claims to have 800 members, sent a letter to President Clinton on Thursday demanding compensation for lost marijuana plants.)
IOC Attempt To Resolve Doping Dilemma (Reuters says FIFA president Sepp Blatter and his International Olympic Committee counterpart Juan Antonio Samaranch will meet in Switzerland next month in an attempt to resolve their differences on proposed common rules regarding doping offenders.)
The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 69 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original summary of drug policy news and calls to action includes - DRCNet projects and campaigns; Alert - show of support needed for New Jersey needle exchange; US Congress triples military aid To Colombia; Report - New York state now spending more on prisons than higher education; Drug war perjury highlighted in Congressional impeachment hearings; Thousands protest at US Army School of the Americas; Swiss legalization referendum fails, but provides hopeful signs for future; Coalition seeking DC election results grows; and an editorial, Criminalizing our children, by Adam J. Smith.)
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Thursday, December 3, 1998:
Medical Marijuana Legal Today (The Oregonian notes the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act and a similar voter initiative in Washington state go into effect today. Dr. Rick Bayer, principal sponsor of Measure 67, said patients who were considering using marijuana should first talk to their doctors. "It will be imperative that the patient educate the doctor. That education won't be coming from Eli Lilly or Merck." Patients or doctors who want more information can contact Oregonians for Medical Rights through its Web site, www.teleport.com/~omr, or its toll-free telephone number, 1-877-600-6767.)
Oregonians light up as medical marijuana law takes effect (An Associated Press article on the same subject interviews a patient who uses cannabis for arthritis, glaucoma and post-traumatic stress from her years as a nurse in Vietnam.)
Marijuana Law Takes Effect Now, Prosecutors On Lookout (According to an Associated Press article in the Everett, Washington, Herald, King County Prosecutor Dan Satterbert said yesterday that his office will be on the lookout for people trying to abuse the voter-approved law legalizing the medical use of marijuana. Satterberg said prosecutors anticipate the biggest problems will involve people who try to defend large growing operations on behalf of a friend or relative who is sick.)
Marijuana Law Takes Effect Now Prosecutors On Lookout (A lengthier version in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
Pot for pain (An MSNBC story broadcast by KHQ-6 in Spokane, Washington, notes Sam Diana, who uses a wheelchair because of multiple sclerosis, is awaiting sentencing in federal court for a marijuana conviction. Despite voters' approval of Initiative 692, Spokane police say they will arrest anyone who dares to smoke marijuana and will let judges decide who is legal and who is not.)
Estimated 500 Pounds Of Pot Were Stolen From Burn Pile (According to The Arizona Daily Star, Sergeant John Sanders of the Pima County Sheriff's Department said a tip from a confidential informant and an examination of the amount of ash left at an incinerator have led him to conclude that thieves made off with about 500 pounds of a seven-ton load of marijuana transported by US Customs Service agents from El Paso to Tucson for incineration.)
DrugSense Focus Alert No. 90 - Dallas Morning News on "Speed" (DrugSense asks you to write a letter to The Dallas Morning News about yesterday's misleading and sensational article on "Nazi" meth labs in northern Texas.)
Nazi Meth (A list subscriber says that, according to the Topeka Capital Journal, the "Nazi" method of manufacturing methamphetamine is named after a cook operating in south central Missouri who distributed his recipe on stationery adorned with white supremacist images.)
School Board To Ask The US Supreme Court To Reinstate Drug Testing (The Indianapolis Star says the school board in Anderson, Indiana, voted Tuesday night to appeal a US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling to the Supreme Court, seeking to reinstate the school corporation's drug testing policy. Board member Irma Hampton Stewart, who is a lawyer, cast the only dissenting vote, which could entail legal fees close to $60,000.)
Eye At The Keyhole (A staff editorial in The Chicago Sun-Times says Tuesday's ruling by the US Supreme Court - that short-term visitors to a private home have no reasonable expectation of privacy - again has narrowly interpreted privacy rights. The decision further erodes the widely held expectation that one's home is one's castle and an inviolable bastion of privacy, and that those protections extend to one's invited guests.)
Medical marijuana group sues over ouster from polling place (The Associated Press notes Floridians for Medical Rights is suing Duval County's sheriff and top elections official after being ordered away from a polling place. Supervisor of Elections Tommie Bell said Wednesday that the group is correct in arguing it should have been allowed to remain at the polling place on Nov. 3. She also disputed the claim of a sheriff's spokesman that police had first checked with her office.)
Medical Marijuana Supporters Sue Officials (The UPI version)
Geronimo Guilty Of Drug Charge (The Washington Post says raunch-radio host Don Geronimo, half of the "Don and Mike" afternoon show, syndicated to 58 stations in 30 states, was found guilty yesterday of marijuana possession and pleaded guilty to reckless driving after a 90-minute trial in Fairfax County General District Court. The marijuana was found after Geronimo tried to bolt from the scene and an officer drew a gun on him. Prosecutors in Fairfax County, Virginia, asked that Geronimo be sentenced to jail because he already has a 1996 conviction for possession of cocaine.)
An Unholy Alliance (Washington Post columnist Steve Twomey discusses the ironies implicit in the Clinton Administration's support for the disenfranchisement of voters in the District of Columbia and the quashing of Initiative 59, the DC medical marijuana initiative, by conservative Republican US Representative Robert L. Barr Jr. Clinton came into office gushy for statehood as a way to end two centuries of congressional control of the city.)
Customs Service drug searches prompt horror tales, lawsuits (The Associated Press says the US Customs Service strip-searched hundreds of airline passengers last year and transported 675 to hospitals for X-ray inspections, usually in handcuffs, and some were detained for days without being allowed to call a lawyer or family members, but only about a fourth were caught with illegal drugs. Sixty percent of those pulled aside last year for body searches or X-rays were black or Hispanic.)
Customs Service Drug Searches Prompt Outrage, Lawsuits (A slightly different Associated Press version in The Orange County Register)
Tossounian Is A Hero (A letter to the editor of The Kitchener-Waterloo Record, in Ontario, says Jeannette Tossounian, a Kitchener dispenser of medical marijuana, is like Florence Nightingale, or those who helped Jews escape from Nazi death camps.)
Parents 'Grew Drugs For Kids' (The Courier-Mail, in Australia, says a Queensland couple accused of supplying marijuana to their children allegedly told police they did so to prevent them from buying drugs elsewhere. Police also will claim that homegrowing the drugs allowed the parents to know what type of drugs their sons were taking, as well as controlling their drug intake, stopping them from stealing and sneaking around the house.)
Hashish Therapy for AIDS? (A translation of an article from Suedkurier Konstanz, in Germany, says doctors attending an international medical marihuana convention in Frankfurt have asked that cannabis be made available via prescription, just as opiates are.)
Weekly Action Report on Drug Policies, Year 4, Number 40 (A summary of European and international drug policy news, from CORA in Italy)
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Wednesday, December 2, 1998:
Corrections budget turns toward crime prevention (The Oregonian admits the biennial budget for Oregon corrections submitted by Governor John "Prisons" Kitzhaber is up almost 21 percent from the last biennium, but it characteristically refuses to print the actual figure. Kitzhaber wants to save money by nullifying the prisoner-work law passed by voters, but he won't rock the boat by ignoring the older and more ridiculous laws that oblige the state to spend more than $26 billion to lock up all the illegal-drug users in Oregon.)
Sonny Bono (Three letters to the editor of The Los Angeles Times comment on allegations by the widow of the late Congressman and pop singer that his death may have been attributable to his abuse of prescription painkillers.)
The Main Thing (An emotional staff editorial in The Fort Worth Star-Telegram recommends that parents ignore calls for drug policy reform. Kids are dying of heroin, so we have to ratchet up the drug war even more - as if that's worked in the past.)
Drug War (Another staff editorial in The Forth Worth Star-Telegram says the attempt to mount a coordinated police effort against drug traffic across Northeast Tarrant County, Texas, is crumbling. It still exists, but only a handful of communities are participating. The problem isn't money - it's people.)
Alcohol And Ignorance (A letter to the editor of The Times Journal, in Cobleskill, New York, notes the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and the White House drug czar's office focus their advertising dollars on marijuana, which never killed anyone. Meanwhile, they ignore the harm to young people attributable to ignorance about alcohol. For example, Michigan State University student Bradley McCue recently died on his 21st birthday from acute alcohol poisoning, after drinking 24 shots of liquor in less than two hours.)
Groups Seek Results of Marijuana Vote (According to The Washington Post, The District of Columbia chapter of the League of Women Voters and eight other local organizations filed friend-of-the-court briefs this week in support of the ACLU's lawsuit asking a federal judge to release and uphold the results of DC's Nov. 3 referendum on the medical use of marijuana.)
So Much For 'The Will Of The People' (An op-ed in The San Diego Union Tribune by former Congressman Lionel Van Deerlin recounts the recent electoral victories for medical marijuana patients, taking note of the fear shared by many conservatives that marijuana usage is a first step on the path to perdition. Yet what became of the earlier concern among conservatives to get government off the backs of the people?)
Makeshift Methamphetamine Labs Spreading In N. Texas (A ludicrous piece of drug-warrior fear-mongering in The Dallas Morning News says crank cooks in northern Texas are whipping up batches of methamphetamine using a method once employed by Adolf Hitler's Nazis - but it's hard to imagine "nomadic" hordes of uniformed SS troopers hitting "large discount stores" to stock up on cold remedies containing ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, automobile starter fluid, drain cleaner, denatured alcohol, and other over-the-counter products. North Central Texas Narcotics Task Force Investigator Dan Coltrain is quoted saying the drug is so addictive that "Once it's got you, it's got you. I've never worked with anyone who's gotten off. They always go back to it.")
Rockers Play For Pot On 'Hempilation II' (An upbeat review by UPI notes "Hempilation," a 1995 music compilation, raised more than $90,000 for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Now comes "Hempilation 2 - freetheweed," released just after the recent election. It's more varied then the first album, and includes country, hip-hop and reggae along with rock.)
Germany Is Not Punishing Hashish Users (A translation of an article from Svenska Dagbladet, in Sweden, notes the new German government, formed by a coalition of the Social Democrats and the Green Party, is implementing new harm-reduction policies, in agreement that the hardline policies of the previous Kohl government have failed.)
DrugSense Weekly, No. 76 (The weekly summary of drug policy news leads with a feature article by Mike Gray, author of "Drug Crazy" - Medical marijuana initiatives shift the front of the drug war. The Weekly News in Review includes such Drug War Policy articles as - On the web - a virtual breeze comes to Washington; The San Francisco Examiner editorial, Pro Bono; Rep. Bono gets burned for honesty; Drug policy is sound, despite what Molly Ivins may think. Law Enforcement & Prison articles include - Prison shootings unjustified; Prison tour doesn't sway lawmakers; Feds sought bigger drug deal to ensure a stiffer prison term; and Double standard on drug sentences. International News articles include - Black passengers targeted in Pearson searches?; Mexico seizes three hotels from drug cartel; Australia - Uphill struggle on trail of record heroin bust; 55 percent of smuggled cocaine world wide being transported by express services; Swiss voters block bid to legalize narcotics; Dutch to extend free heroin hand-outs to addicts; Drugs - cacophony in the European Union. Hot Off The 'Net publicizes a CD recording, From the mouths of drug war prisoners; New Republic ads by Common Sense for Drug Policy. The Quote of the Week features Tacitus. Plus Special Notices, including an interview with Jane Marcus, "NewsHawk of the Month," and thanks to DrugSense DrugNews Screeners Don Beck and Kevin Fansler.)
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Tuesday, December 1, 1998:
The NORML Foundation Weekly Press Release (Premiere British Medical Journal Pronounces Marijuana Safer Than Alcohol, Tobacco; Louisiana Drug Testing Statute Unconstitutional, Federal Judge Rules; Body Shop Hemp Product Line Continues To Meet Opposition Abroad; DEA To Rule Shortly On Reclassifying Synthetic THC)
Governor's budget highlights crime, schools (The Associated Press omits the cost of corrections, and the percentage increase, in a story about Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber's biennial budget proposal.)
DARE Losing Out In Metro Area (The Rocky Mountain News, in Denver, says at least four metropolitan-area police departments are dropping their Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, although it is still expanding statewide. The Boulder County sheriff's office, Boulder police and Wheat Ridge police are replacing DARE with homespun courses that allow more flexibility. Louisville police scrapped DARE two years ago. Russ Ahrens, executive director of the statewide DARE program, said 88 police departments in Colorado used DARE in 1996. That figure is now 102.)
Study Contrasts NY Prison, Education Priorities (The Washington Post says research conducted by the Justice Policy Institute and the Correctional Association of New York and released today showed that New York state has increased spending on prisons in the last decade by nearly as much as it has decreased spending on higher education. Spending for city and state universities has fallen since 1988 by $615 million, to $1.48 billion, while funding for the Department of Correctional Services has risen by $761 million, to $1.76 billion. New York's spending pattern reflected a national trend of prison expansion. States spent 30 percent more on prison budgets and 18 percent less on higher education in 1995 than they did in 1987.)
Switching Sides - Win At All Costs series (The sixth part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about its two-year investigation showing that federal agents and prosecutors break the law routinely. Agents sometimes must make deals with the devil - criminal informants - to fight crime. The temptations to become partners with these criminals can be great. And the safeguards to prevent their defections are few. Abuses are common. For example, more than a dozen New York mobsters have been acquitted after juries learned the FBI conspired with criminals to commit crimes.)
A Troubling Pioneer - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its investigation showing that federal agents and prosecutors break the law routinely. Daniel Mitrione, an FBI agent in the bureau's South Florida offices from the mid-1970s to early 1985, was the first FBI agent ever charged with joining a Colombian drug-smuggling ring - a ring he was duty bound to try to shut down. But because of prosecutorial misconduct, another man went to prison for a bomb he allegedly planted under a car.)
Unique Way Of Solving Mystery - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its investigation showing that federal agents and prosecutors break the law routinely. When three civil rights activists were reported missing and probably murdered near Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1964, the FBI's traditional investigative techniques failed to discover where the bodies were buried. So the FBI hired Gregory Scarpa, a New York mobster, who tortured the truth out of an alleged Ku Klux Klan member.)
Surprise Response To Newspaper Ad - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its investigation showing that federal agents and prosecutors break the law routinely. Kenneth R. Withers, 33, a seven-year veteran of the FBI who was charged in June 1994 with trying to sell 100 pounds of heroin he'd stolen from the bureau's evidence room, is still awaiting trial.)
Giving In To The Temptation - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its investigation showing that federal agents and prosecutors break the law routinely. Rene De La Cova, the DEA agent who had served an arrest warrant on Manuel Noriega after the US invaded Panama, was sentenced to only three years in prison for laundering money. Ordinary people would have received 20.)
Agents Can't Keep Hands Off Drug Evidence - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its investigation showing that federal agents and prosecutors break the law routinely. When federal agents broke up the "Blue Thunder" heroin ring in New York City in 1991, the biggest crooks included at least two agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration who were involved in the arrests. The agents, through illegal arrests and seizures, destroyed the lives of innocent people.)
Medical research showing cannabis' neuroprotective effects (A list subscriber cites a July 1998 National Academy of Sciences report.)
Today's Congressional testimony by Dershowitz on police perjury (A list subscriber says Harvard law professor Allen Dershowitz ripped police perjury and the drug war in testimony before the House Judicial Committee's impeachment hearings, which were supposed to emphasize the seriousness of lying on the witness stand. Dershowitz noted it was absurd to be concerned with the President lying about a sexual affair when hundreds of thousands of cops commit outright perjury in drug cases, and such perjury is allowed by prosecutors and judges who know the cops are lying but ignore it.)
Testimony of Alan M. Dershowitz before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee (A transcript of the Harvard law professor's comments details numerous cases of law enforcement officials who were caught lying but never prosecuted for perjury. "I believe that no felony is committed more frequently in this country than the genre of perjury and false statements." Cases often are decided "according to the preponderance of perjury.")
Court - Short-Term Guests Not Protected From Unreasonable Police Searches (An Associated Press article in The Saint Paul Pioneer Press says the US Supreme Court reinstated two Minnesota men's cocaine convictions today, ruling that short-term guests at someone's home generally are not constitutionally protected against unreasonable police searches. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist wrote for the court that "An overnight guest in a home may claim the protection of the Fourth Amendment, but one who is merely present with the consent of the householder may not.")
Court Rules Guests Lack Privacy Rights (The Reuters version)
The Prison-Industrial Complex (An article in the December issue of The Atlantic Monthly, by Eric Schlosser, notes real crime in the United States is falling while the correctional population continues to swell with nonviolent drug offenders. Lots of people are making a living - or a killing - on the phenomenon.)
The Swiss Fix (A letter to the editor of The Washington Monthly responds to the October issue's article about Joseph Califano and CASA, pointing out that the crime and violence Califano attributes to drug abuse is really caused by prohibition, as the experience of Switzerland's heroin-maintenance experiment shows.)
Congress Steps Up Aid for Colombians to Combat Drugs (The New York Times inadvertently notes that while the nation is lulled to sleep by zippergate, the stories that should be covered are being widely ignored. A recent congressional initiative to increase aid to Colombia, spurred by direct appeals to conservative Republicans from the Colombian national police, has more than doubled drug-fighting money to Colombia and made the country a top recipient of US foreign aid. Critics fear that the huge jump in aid and the heightened US interest in attacking the drug trade at its source will lure Washington into intervening in the civil war between Colombia's armed forces and the nationalist guerrillas that The New York Times calls "leftist.")
US Pledges Military Cooperation to Colombia (The New York Times says US Secretary of Defense William Cohen and Colombia's new president, Andres Pastrana, announced Monday that the two countries would increase military cooperation in the war on some drugs, including a pledge to increase Pentagon training of Colombia's armed forces and to share more aerial and satellite intelligence data. The increasing aid and cooperation has blurred the line between the two wars Colombia is fighting, raising concerns among some human rights advocates that the United States is involving itself in Colombia's civil war.)
Veterans Of The CIA's Drug Wars (The December issue of High Times says despite last spring's orgy of coordinated condemnation of Gary Webb's "Dark Alliance" series in the San Jose Mercury News about the CIA-Contra-cocaine scandal in the 1980s, media prostitutes at the Washington Post, New York Times, and Face The Press were reduced to purveying the truth after the CIA made its belated admission last November that Webb was essentially correct.)
Hitman's Victim Had Links To Drug Gang (According to The Times, in London, police said yesterday that Solly Nahome, a Hatton Gardens diamond dealer and financial adviser to one of London's most powerful underworld gangs, was shot dead on his doorstep.)
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Monday, November 30, 1998:
Five States Now Demand Medicinal Marijuana (A staff editorial in The Sacramento Bee says a congressional confrontation seems unavoidable between the long-standing federal law that finds no medicinal purpose for marijuana and five Western states who strongly disagreed in the Nov. 3 elections.)
Legal marijuana measure progresses - "Our mission is popular with Alaskans" (A letter to the editor of The Fairbanks Daily Newsminer says Alaskans for Drug-Abuse Medicalization, a group seeking to decriminalize marijuana and end criminal treatment of drug addiction in favor of medical treatment, failed to meet the constitutionally imposed one-year deadline for signature gathering and must forgo placement on the August 2000 primary ballot. Another effort is being planned.)
Surrendering To A Calling (The Dallas Morning News portrays Dale Stinson, who retired from the DEA after concluding that the federal government wasn't really interested in eradicating narcotics traffic. He became an Anglican pastor at St. Paul's Church in Midland, Texas.)
Selling Lies - Win At All Costs series (Part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about the newspaper's two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law routinely. Prosecutors thrive on inmates in federal prisons who routinely buy, sell, steal and concoct testimony and then share their perjury with federal authorities in exchange for a reduction in their sentences.)
Inmate Exploited Prosecutors' Need For Witnesses - Win At All Costs series (Part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about the newspaper's two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law routinely. With prosecutors' help, Jose Goyriena, who was serving a 27-year prison sentence in Florida for cocaine smuggling, sent four men to prison for life with perjured testimony in exchange for a sentence reduction.)
Feds Finally Use Safeguards But Only To Protect Their Own - Win At All Costs series (Part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about the newspaper's two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors pursue justice by breaking the law routinely. There is a system in place to keep prisoners from trading lies for leniency. Informants are supposed to be given polygraph tests to determine if they are telling the truth. But that safeguard is often ignored unless the person being accused is a law enforcement official.)
A Crowd On This 'Bus' - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year investigation showing that federal agents and prosecutors pursue justice by breaking the law routinely. Israel Abel said that among the dozens of witnesses who testified against him at his 1992 Miami drug smuggling trial were several people he'd never laid eyes on.)
Jail Guards Smuggled Contraband, Paper Says (The Chicago Tribune account of The Miami Herald's scoop about a yearlong, secret probe by police and the FBI, which found that Miami-Dade county jail officers took part or looked the other way as marijuana and cocaine were brought to inmates in exchange for cash, jewelry and sporting equipment.)
Drug War Costing More Than It Saves (An eloquent and original op-ed in The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, in Florida.)
The Age Of Ritalin (Time magazine's cover article examines Americans' rapidly increasing use of methylphenidate to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children. Production of Ritalin has increased more than sevenfold in the past eight years, and 90 percent of it is consumed in the United States.)
Ritalin - How Does It Work? (Time magazine says surprisingly little is known about how Ritalin acts on the brain or why it helps people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. For that matter, even ADHD is still something of a mystery to doctors. The National Institutes of Health tried to cut through some of the confusion last week by playing host to a consensus conference to determine what - if anything - the experts agree on.)
Swiss Reject 'Legalizing' Illicit Drugs (A New York Times article in The Orange County Register says nearly 74 percent of voters in Switzerland rejected the "Droleg" referendum Sunday.)
Voters Turn Down Legalization Of Narcotics (A different New York Times version in The International Herald-Tribune)
Swiss Voters Reject Legalization of Marijuana, Heroin and Cocaine (The actual New York Times version)
Fearing Change To User Haven, Swiss Reject Legalizing Drugs (An Associated Press version in The Daily Herald, in Illinois)
Swiss voters just say No to legalizing narcotics (The Toronto Star version)
Swiss Voters Reject Legalisation Of Heroin And Other Narcotics (The version in The Examiner, in Ireland)
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Sunday, November 29, 1998:
California NORML Conference - Pismo Beach Feb. 13-14 (A press release from California NORML publicizes "Organizing to Legalize - Medical Marijuana and Beyond.")
Medical Marijuana And The Legal Mess (A letter to the editor of the Orange County Register says efforts to limit the scope of Proposition 215 has resulted in needy patients not being able to get marijuana through any legal channels, and being forced to get it through the black market. This is what the voters wanted to put and end to. "In reality, our courts want to keep drug dealers in business and put those in need in jail. This isn't what I voted for when I voted in favor of Prop. 215.")
Rep. Bono Gets Burned For Honesty (The Chicago Tribune says the widow of the late Sonny Bono wishes she hadn't told The Associated Press on Friday that the Congressman and former pop singer had a prescription drug problem.)
Pot law confusion blooms - Patients, police ask about enforcement (The Anchorage Daily News discusses the uncertainties about how Proposition 8, Alaska's medical marijuana law, will be implemented.)
Raising ire - Area group supports legalization of drugs (The Fort Worth, Texas, Star-Telegram says that at a time when school districts, law enforcement agencies and parents are wringing their hands about how to halt the escalating use of heroin and other illegal drugs among young people, members of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas aren't afraid to stir things up or share their unpopular viewpoint. Police call their opinions dangerous.)
DA Stoutly Backs Grand Jury No-Bill In Pedro Oregon Navarro Shooting (A Houston Chronicle update on the aftermath of the shooting death of Pedro Oregon Navarro by Houston prohibition agents who broke into his home without a warrant says Mayor Lee Brown has called for a federal investigation and the police chief has fired the six officers involved, but District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr. doesn't think the six should be prosecuted. In recent interviews, Holmes denied allegations that he soft-pedaled the case because it involved law enforcement.)
Prison Tour Doesn't Sway Lawmakers (The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says four of the five Wisconsin legislators who toured a private prison in Whiteville, Tennessee, where Wisconsin inmates had been abused, said Saturday they saw no reason to stop sending inmates to prisons run by the Corrections Corporation of America. When the assault occurred, the prison had 556 Wisconsin inmates. On Friday, it held 1,024. Under its contract with the company, Wisconsin will pay $18.4 million a year to imprison 1,200 inmates in Whiteville, about $15,333 per inmate per year.)
Special Prosecutor Will Join Inquiry Into Drug Task Force (According to an Associated Press article in The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, a circuit judge in Clarksville, Arkansas, says he will appoint a special prosecutor to look into allegations of misconduct related to the evidence room of the Fifth Judicial District Drug Task Force.)
Changing His Story To Fit The Case - Win At All Costs series (Part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about the newspaper's two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law routinely.)
The Damage Of Lies - Win At All Costs series (Part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about the newspaper's two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law routinely. Lying has become a significant problem in federal court cases because the rewards to federal law enforcement officers can be so great and the consequences so minimal. Perjurers are seldom punished; neither are the law enforcement officers who ignore or accept their lies.)
Fish Tale Was One Of Many Stretches - Win At All Costs series (Part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about the newspaper's two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law routinely.)
Thwarting Attempts To Check On Witness - Win At All Costs series (Part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about the newspaper's two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law routinely.)
A Question Of Whom To Trust - Win At All Costs series (Part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about the newspaper's two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law routinely.)
He Committed The Murder - Or Did He? Win At All Costs series (Part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about the newspaper's two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law routinely. Thomas Farese was convicted of murder in 1994, two years before his attorneys learned that the same informant who claimed he had confessed had also given government agents an almost identical statement when implicating another man in the same murder.)
Probe - Miami Jailers Smuggled Drugs (According to the Associated Press, The Miami Herald said Sunday that a yearlong, secret probe by police and the FBI found that Miami-Dade county jail officers took part or looked the other way as marijuana and cocaine were brought to inmates in exchange for cash, jewelry and sporting equipment. At least 15 corrections employees and 20 alleged drug dealers are scheduled to be arrested.)
Voters Speak Out On Medical Marijuana (Syndicated San Jose Mercury News columnist Joanne Jacobs writes in The York Daily Record, in Pennsylvania, that politicians are having a hard time getting the message behind November's election victories for medical marijuana. Our nation's capital is the site of the most outrageous attempt to keep the people from being heard. If the District of Columbia votes are recorded, Congress can veto the law. So the only point of blocking the vote-counting is to make sure the sense of the people isn't expressed.)
Crime Drop Mirrors Falling Popularity of Crack Cocaine (St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist Lance Williams theorizes that what's responsible for the nation's recent drop in juvenile crime is the decline in the use of crack cocaine. It's not the drug itself that sparks violence, he suggests, but the frequency of purchases from an illicit market.)
Black passengers targeted in Pearson searches? (Toronto Star columnist Royson James says a survey of Air Canada flights from Jamaica to Toronto reveals that black passengers are far more likely than white travellers to be searched by Canada Customs - 56 percent compared to 10 percent. The survey results are expected to be introduced in a Brampton court Monday by lawyers defending an Ottawa man who was charged with importing 710 grams of marijuana from Jamaica. McLeod says his law firm, Hinkson & Sachak, will argue that the Charter rights of blacks are being systematically violated by the practice of "racial profiling" by customs officials.)
New Fix For Brain Damage Is Cannabis (The Sunday Telegraph, in Australia, notes the recent report in The Lancet about researchers discovering that dexanabinol, a synthetic cannabinoid, can limit the brain damage caused by head injuries.)
Dutch town goes to pot for festival - Marijuana lovers converge yearly (An Associated Press article in The Houston Chronicle previews the 11th annual Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam sponsored by High Times magazine, and follows a group of aficionados who travel to the Cannabis Castle in Oosterhout, Holland, a museum, restaurant and nursery where the Sensei Seed Company hybridizes the world's most prized varieties of marijuana.)
Sweden Increasingly Alone In The Fight Against Drugs (Svenska Dagbladet, in Sweden, suggests Sweden's promotion of its rabidly harsh drug policies is "tempering" an EU commission currently attempting to formulate a less punitive European Community drug policy.)
Drug Czar Asks For Debate Of Cannabis As Medicine (An Associated Press translation of a German Press Agency article in Rheinische Post says the German drug czar, Christa Nickels, a member of the Green Party, has asked Sunday for a debate on the acceptance of medical marijuana. "The suffering of patients with illnesses such as MS, cancer or AIDS could be eased with cannabis," she said. "Cannabis is really a soft drug.")
Crime Is Key as Swiss Vote on Legalizing Hard Drugs (The New York Times previews today's "Droleg" referendum in Switzerland.)
Swiss vote on decriminalization of all drug use (The transcript of a CBS News broadcast says voters in Switzerland today rejected the "Droleg" referendum by a ratio of three to one.)
Swiss Reject Proposal To Legalize Drugs (The CNN version)
Swiss Reject Legalization of Drugs (The Associated Press version)
Swiss Voters Block Bid To Legalize Narcotics (The Reuters version)
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Saturday, November 28, 1998:
Cannabis Club Re-Opens To Sell Hemp Products (The Orange County Register notes the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, shut down by a federal judge pending its appeal, has reopened at 1755 Broadway to provide hemp goods and such services as photo identification cards that protect medical marijuana patients from prohibition agents.)
Pot Club Says It Will Reopen In Oakland (A slightly different San Francisco Chronicle version)
Cannabis Buyers' Co-op To Reopen, But Not Sell Pot (The Associated Press version in The Los Angeles Times)
Drug Push Is On (A letter to the editor of The Omaha World-Herald, in Nebraska, from Susie Dugan, the director of PRIDE-Omaha, reiterates a patently false but widely repeated drug-warrior lie promoted by the DEA, that there are "10,000 studies" showing marijuana to be harmful.)
Political, Social, Religious Aspects Of The Rasta Life (The San Jose Mercury News tries to explain the Rastafarian religion. Leonard E. Barrett, author of "The Rastafarians," estimates there are 800,000 Rastas worldwide, more than 2 million if one counts followers of the lifestyle but not the faith. No one has tracked the growing number of Rastafarians in the United States. It was second-generation converts in Jamaica who instituted dreadlocks and ganja.)
Double Standard on Drug Sentences (Atlanta Constitution columnist Cynthia Tucker writes in The San Francisco Chronicle that the United States is no better off for a shameless double standard that celebrates the privileged athlete, actor or businessman who licks his drug habit in a ritzy sanitarium, while imprisoning the crackhead too broke to afford drug treatment. That policy guarantees a permanent underclass.)
Prof 'Masterminded' Pot Operation (The Victoria Times-Colonist, in British Columbia, recounts the prosecution of University of Victoria sociology professor Jean Eleanor Veevers, 55, who pleaded guilty Friday to cultivating marijuana and possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking. Sentencing was delayed by Justice Dean Wilson of the provincial Supreme Court.)
Illegal Medicine - Kitchener Organization Dispenses Marijuana to Chronic Pain Sufferers (A feature article in The Kitchener-Waterloo Record, in Ontario, focuses on 23-year-old Jeannette Tossounian of Kitchener and her club, MUM - Marijuana Used for Medicine - which dispenses the illegal herb to about 50 registered members.)
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Friday, November 27, 1998:
Prosecutor In Pot Case Suspended, Investigated (The Associated Press says Assistant US Attorney John Lyons, the prosecutor in a marijuana smuggling case in San Francisco against a onetime member of Thailand's Parliament, has been suspended for a month during an investigation of his conduct. The lawyer for Thanong Siriprechapong, who is charged with smuggling four tons of marijuana into the United States, accuses Lyons of concealing the fact that a US Customs agent who was the chief investigator and sole grand jury witness for the prosecution took a $4,000 kickback from an informant.)
Prisons - Shootings by Guards in 24 of 31 Cases - Seven of Them Fatal - Were Unjustified, Investigators Say (According to The Associated Press, a report released Wednesday by an independent panel in response to a Los Angeles Times request filed under the California Public Records Act, concluded that two dozen shootings of inmates at Corcoran State Prison from 1989 to 1995 were unjustified.)
NORML Benefit in Las Vegas on Saturday Nov. 27 (The Las Vegas Review-Journal publicizes an evening of local entertainment at Legends Restaurant & Lounge.)
Is Pacifism a Mental Problem? (Terry Mitchell, director of the Greenpanthers, protests pacifists' "control" of the marijuana-law-reform movement.)
Medical marijuana initiatives shift the front of the drug war (An op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer by Mike Gray, author of "Drug Crazy," says the electoral earthquake that rocked the Republican Party this month also jolted the foundations of another prominent ideological temple - the federal drug war establishment. No longer can politicians count on automatic support for the war on marijuana users.)
How a DC Referendum Wound Up in Limbo - Marijuana Ballots May Never Be Tallied (The Washington Post presents a history, including recent developments, of Initiative 59, the medical marijuana initiative quashed by a voice vote in the House of Representatives. This week, the Justice Department announced it would fight the ACLU's lawsuit seeking to certify the election results.)
Binge Drinking Tied to Rise in Russian Death Rate (An Associated Press article carried by foxnews.com says a British and Russian study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health suggests an increase in binge drinking in Russia over the last decade has played a large role in the rise in sudden cardiac deaths and deaths due to violence, accidents, and alcohol poisoning.)
Cocaine Flood Raises Fears Of HIV Upsurge (The Australian says cheaper and purer cocaine is flooding Sydney. A survey commissioned by the federal government, titled the Illicit Drug Reporting System, to be released today, reveals that six in 10 heroin users surveyed have injected cocaine in the past six months, while one in five has injected cocaine daily - an eight-fold increase from last year.)
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Thursday, November 26, 1998:
CBS' 60 Minutes "Smoking to Live" on-line (Paul Stanford of the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act initiative campaign says the 1991 television special on medical marijuana, updated and re-broadcast with Morley Safer on July 12, 1998, can now be viewed in real-time at the crrh.org web site.)
New Leaf For Pot Club (The Orange County Register interviews medical marijuana patient Marvin Chavez, recently convicted for distributing pot in connection with his role as founder of the Orange County Cannabis Co-op. In response to the district attorney's office doing anything and everything it can to make sure Proposition 215 is narrowed down to the size of a needle's eye, the cooperative has gone underground.)
A Late Bloomer Joins the Marijuana Debate (A patronizing and intellectually dishonest feature article in The New York Times about Lynn Zimmer, the sociology professor at Queens College in New York, and the recent book she co-authored, "Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts - A Review of the Scientific Evidence," claims that "academic experts" have not been favorable when reviewing the book, "calling it a well-researched compilation of opinion that occasionally leaves out information that might cast marijuana in a negative light," without even citing the source of such alleged nonsense, or mentioning that even the Journal of the American Medical Association admitted the book was "'extraordinarily well-researched.")
Weekly Action Report On Drug Policies, Year 4, Number 39 (A summary of European and international drug policy news, from CORA in Italy)
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Wednesday, November 25, 1998:
US Drug Policy is Sound, Despite What Molly Ivins Might Think (A factually challenged and intellectually tortured op-ed in The Oregonian by a shill from the White House drug czar's office responds to the syndicated columnist's recent apostasy on the drug war.)
Cigarette Price Hikes May Ignite Inflation Surge (According to The San Jose Mercury News, an economist at the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics said Tuesday's 45-cent-per-pack increase in the price of cigarettes probably will push up consumer inflation about 0.2 percentage points in December.)
Viagra Gets Expanded Health Warnings (The San Jose Mercury News says the Food and Drug Administration is adding new labels warning that men with heart problems and very high or very low blood pressure should be carefully examined before getting a prescription for Pfizer's new anti-impotence drug. Since it was approved in April, 130 deaths have been linked to Viagra out of 3 million men who have used it. The FDA said Tuesday it still considers Viagra "safe" - the problem is the sexual activity it facilitates.)
Court Awards Smuggler $50,000 (The New Brunswick Telegraph Journal says a New Brunswick court has awarded a convicted cocaine smuggler nearly $50,000 because of injuries he suffered when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police cruiser carrying him to court smashed into another police car four years ago.)
Blitz Fails To Halt Drug Flow (According to The Herald Sun, Mick Palmer, the Australian federal police commissioner, admitted yesterday that the country's biggest-ever heroin haul last month had not dented local supply of the drug, or increased its price.)
Melbourne Mayors Call For ACT Heroin Trial (The Canberra Times says mayors from 10 inner Melbourne communities called yesterday for the Australian Capital Territory's proposed heroin maintenance trial to proceed as part of a plan to minimise the harm caused by illegal drugs. The plan signed by the mayors also sought the "gradual spread" of the caution system, under which small-time cannabis users receive warnings rather than criminal charges.)
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Tuesday, November 24, 1998:
The NORML Foundation Weekly Press Release (Marijuana Arrests For 1997 Most Ever - FBI Data Confirm Clinton's Marijuana War To Be Toughest In Nation's History; Medical Marijuana Patient Linda Jean Marlowe Freed From Jail.)
Scoreboard - This week's winner and losers - Medical marijuana users lose (Willamette Week, in Portland, notes the National Institutes of Health last week refused once again to sponsor human medical trials on cannabis.)
Complaint forms now in other languages (The Oregonian says that after months of prodding by city officials and citizen advisers, the Portland police bureau has translated its citizen complaint form into Cambodian, Chinese, Spanish, Laotian, Vietnamese and Russian. According to the newspaper, any group or person interested in obtaining the form can call the internal affairs division at 503-823-0236.)
Marijuana Arrests (A letter to the editor of The Los Angeles Times from Rob Kampia of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, DC, notes 695,201 people were arrested for marijuana in the United States in 1997 - 87 percent of arrests were for simple possession.)
Justices Expand On Pot Decision (The Denver Post says a divided Colorado Supreme Court explained Monday why it refused to allow a marijuana initiative on the November ballot. The two dissenting justices suggested the decision could erode the initiative process.)
Hiding The Facts - Win At All Costs series (Part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about the newspaper's two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law hundreds of times.)
Few Of Case's Twists, Shady Deals Revealed In Court - Win At All Costs series (Another installment in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about federal agents and prosecutors routinely breaking the law.)
Federal Misconduct Creates An Incident In Costa Rica (Another installment in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about federal agents and prosecutors routinely breaking the law.)
Feds Buy Into Deal With Known Drug Trafficker - Win At All Costs series (Another installment in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about federal agents and prosecutors routinely breaking the law.)
Smuggler Sells Out His Lawyer To Strike A Deal - Win At All Costs series (Another installment in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about federal agents and prosecutors routinely breaking the law.)
Medical Marijuana Patient Jean Marlowe Released from Jail! (A bulletin from NORML says federal district judge Lacey Thornburg released Jean Marlowe - detained since Nov. 9 - from jail during a sentencing hearing today in Asheville, North Carolina, and sentenced her to six months of home confinement for receiving a package of marijuana from Switzerland, which she had obtained for her personal medical use.)
Mexico Seizes Three Hotels From Drug Cartel (According to Reuters, Reforma newspaper said Tuesday that Mexican police, with the help of US agents, have seized about $200 million in assets from the so-called Juarez cartel, including three luxury hotels, two of them in the Caribbean resort of Cancun.)
Dutch To Extend Free Heroin Hand-Outs To Addicts (According to Reuters, the Netherlands' health ministry said on Tuesday it would extend an experiment to distribute free heroin to hard-core addicts after a three-month pilot scheme proved a success.)
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Monday, November 23, 1998:
Tell The Whole Story (A letter to the editor of The Bulletin, in Bend, Oregon, protests the newspaper's recent biased editorial about Keith Green and his anti-marijuana article in the Archives of Ophthalmology.)
Feds Sought Bigger Drug Deal To Ensure A Stiffer Prison Sentence (Part of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series about the newspaper's two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law hundreds of times. The government entrapped Michael Staufer into a bigger LSD deal than he could really handle, just so they could double his prison term.)
Federal Sting Often Put More Drugs On The Streets - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law hundreds of times. Not only did Rodney Matthews have the government's permission to fly 700 kilograms of cocaine into a remote Houston airstrip on New Year's Eve in 1989. He had their permission to sell it, too.)
Informant Lured Him Into A Costly Deal - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law hundreds of times. Bobby Thomas, who had no prior criminal record, was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison after being entrapped into drug trafficking by a professional government informant.)
Drug Charge Beaten, But At High Price - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law hundreds of times. John Gardner, a 33-year-old Pittsburgh postal employee, was arrested on drug charges in 1989 after a government informant with an expensive drug habit talked him into buying drugs to help feed the informant's drug habit.)
Fighting To Prove Innocence Led 3 To Stiffer Sentences (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law hundreds of times. Three men, all about 60 years old - Loren Pogue, George Pararas-Carayannis, and Beryl L. Johnston, who were entrapped by government sting operations were successful in their careers and active in their communities. After refusing plea bargains and fighting to prove their innocence, their lives are ruined, their assets gone. Two are serving long prison terms. The third expects to begin serving his sentence soon.)
Trapped Into Trying To Settle Vendetta - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law hundreds of times. Qubilah Shabazz, daughter of assassinated black leader Malcolm X, was arrested in June 1995 and charged with plotting to kill Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, the man she thought murdered her father 30 years before. The story behind the headlines was even more bizarre.)
A Sting Gone Awry - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law hundreds of times. Seven small companies employing more than 100 people went bust after "Operation Lightning Strike," an expensive government sting operation that at first yielded no results. So the government set out to entrap the little guys to save face.)
Assistant principal gets 30 years for dealing drugs near his school (An Associated Press article found at Tampa Bay Online says Willie James Young Jr., 52, an assistant principal at North Miami Community Middle School, was sentenced Monday to 30 years in prison for trying to buy 66 pounds of cocaine from undercover drug agents two blocks from his middle school.)
An After-Hours Lifestyle Can Mess Up Your Style At Work (The St. Louis Post-Dispatch surveys lifestyle protection laws around the nation. In states with no such legal protections, your company can use what you do on your own time to determine how well you perform your job. Only three states - New York, North Dakota and Colorado - have statutes protecting employees from job discrimination based on any legal activity they choose to engage in after work. In half the states, the only protected after-hours activity an employee can engage in is smoking. In his just-published book, "Job Discrimination II," Jeffrey Bernbach, an attorney in New York City who specializes in workplace law, writes that an employer might terminate workers for such offenses as "drinking six martinis before dinner or riding your Harley-Davidson or taking herbal medications for your arthritis, which may label you as a 'health nut,' or even seeking counseling to get through a bad relationship, divorce, or the death of a loved one.")
On the Hill, Barring Democracy (Washington Post columnist Dick Evans contrasts the noble words about democracy posted at the web site of US Representative Robert L. Barr Jr. with the Georgia Republican's ignoble quashing of Initiative 59, the District of Columbia medical marijuana initiative.)
Five states approve medical marijuana (The American Medical News says the success of all five medical marijuana initiatives in the Nov. 3 elections means doctors must now decide whether they want to recommend the drug to patients. Under the new laws, physicians need only write their recommendation in patients' medical records. Patients can then request a copy to protect against prosecution.)
The Online Drug War - A virtual breeze comes to Washington (USA Today columnist Sam Vincent Meddis heaps praise on the Drug Reform Coordination Network online library and the web sites and organizations that belong to it, including Common Sense for Drug Policy, the Lindesmith Center, NORML and DrugSense. "The Internet is starting to level the playing field between drug warrior and reformer.")
DEA Agent From Texas Slain In Colombia Bar Fight (The Dallas Morning News says Frank Arnold Moreno, 37, was shot once in the chest about 1 am outside the El Divino bar in downtown Bogota after what one US Embassy official called "a bar brawl.")
NT Drugs Shock - They're Rife Among Pupils (According to The NT News, in Australia's Northern Territory, a national survey taken in 1996 suggests that students' cannabis use in the territory was as prevalent as tobacco use, though no more prevalent than in other states or the Australian Capital Territory. The survey found 75 per cent of 17-year-old males had used cannabis at some time in their lives, and half had used cannabis in the seven days before the study.)
DrugSense Weekly, No. 75 (The weekly summary of drug policy news leads with a feature article by Keith Stroup, director of NORML - So, no one goes to jail for marijuana offenses and they don't arrest medicinal users, about the case of Jean Marlowe. The Weekly News In Review features such articles about Medical Marijuana as - Chavez found guilty in pot club bust; Democracy takes a blow for medical marijuana; Research on medical marijuana still politicized; In England the Lords say yes to medical marijuana, the government no and police arrest patient. Articles about Drug War Policy include - Reform of drug policy - an idea whose time has come; MAMA says education not law enforcement; Family of Mexican slain by Texas police files suit; Arrests soar in crackdown on marijuana; Poppy seeds - everything you wanted to know about growing poppies in your backyard; Bribery of informants questioned in court; Supreme Court looks at need for warrants in auto searches; Drug testing loses a round in Louisiana; No one shows up for national drug testing conference; Home drug test marketers still pushing home testing; Nearly 10 percent of truckers fail Oregon drug test; Random drug testing comes home. Several International News articles include - Germany appoints a czarina who wants to treat drug use as a health matter; Germany moves to open drug injection rooms; Germany moves to begin heroin prescription trials; Australia federal and local elected officials call for heroin trials; England debates whether to expel students involved with drugs or not; Colombia - a new start or the same old problems. The weekly Hot Off The 'Net points to - Prosecutorial abuse examined in ten part series; Marijuana Policy Project analyzes arrests and incarceration of marijuana offenders. The Quote of the Week cites Abraham Lincoln. The Tip Of The Week points to - USA Today conducting on-line poll on drug testing now! The Fact Of The Week notes a Yahoo! online poll supports marijuana law reform by a whopping 84 percent to 15 percent margin.)
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Sunday, November 22, 1998:
Nearly 10% Of Truckers Fail Oregon Drug Test (The Los Angeles Times version of yesterday's news about Oregon State Police randomly detaining and urine-testing professional truck drivers in Southern Oregon fails to explain why such unconstitutional infringements wouldn't be tolerated in California.)
Drag Net - Cigarette Buyers May Go Online To Avoid New Taxes (The San Jose Mercury News says that when the 50-cent-per-pack cigarette tax increase mandated by Proposition 10 kicks in on January 1, authorities in California fear many tobacco aficionados will find ways of avoiding the tax - even if it means breaking the law. The state already loses up to $50 million a year in unpaid cigarette taxes. Armed with an editor's credit card, a reporter bought three cartons of Marlboro, Kools and Lucky Strike cigarettes for $18.50 per carton from Riverbend Discount Cigarettes, located on the Allegany Indian Reservation in Salamanca, New York. "We haven't made an estimate yet as to what the impact is going to be" under Proposition 10, said Monte Williams of the California Board of Equalization.)
Pro Bono (A staff editorial in The San Francisco Examiner says Mary Bono's revelation that her husband Sonny died because of his dependence on prescription drugs underscores the insanity of this country's "war on drugs.")
Police Officers Are Wearing Badges Of Dishonor (The Los Angeles Times focuses on the rise and fall of Ralph Riley, a Georgia policeman convicted of drug-war corruption, to examine the growing nationwide problem of cops being convicted of serious crimes, most of them involving drugs. The number of federal, state and local officials serving time in federal prisons, mostly for drug-related offenses, has multiplied five times in four years to nearly 550 this year, according to government data.)
Dealer Goes Undercover on Underworld Odyssey (The Los Angeles Times says that when Roberto Rodriguez went on the lam in 1989 after being sentenced to 12 years in prison, he embarked on an odyssey through the drug underworld of the Americas that ultimately led to revelations of official corruption in several US cities.)
Two Years Later, CIA-drug Controversy Continues (The San Jose Mercury News notes two years have passed since the newspaper ignited a firestorm of controversy with its "Dark Alliance" series, primarily written by Gary Webb, which exposed the CIA-Contra-cocaine scandal. The US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee is expected to hold hearings next year.)
Marijuana Isn't A Harmless Drug (An op-ed in The Boston Globe by Alan Leshner, the director of the US National Institutes of Health, makes a claim that New Scientist previously said "cannot be taken seriously," and asserts other long-discredited research supports his contention that "marijuana is not a benign drug, and its use should not be encouraged," as if that justified busting almost a million Americans a year.)
New FBI Report Reveals More Marijuana Arrests in 1997 Than Any Other Year in US History (The Marijuana Policy Project, in Washington, DC, says there were 695,201 marijuana arrests last year, 87 percent of which were for possession.)
The 'Win At All Costs' series list (An index hyperlinked to all the stories making up The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's 10-part series published Nov. 22 through Dec. 13, about the prevalence of perjury and other malfeasance federal prosecutors routinely engage in.)
Out Of Control - Win At All Costs series (The first part of a 10-part series by The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says a two-year investigation by the newspaper has found that during the past 10 years, federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law hundreds of times. They lied, hid evidence, distorted facts, engaged in cover-ups, paid for perjury and set up innocent people in a relentless effort to win indictments, guilty pleas and convictions. New laws and court rulings that encourage federal law enforcement officers to press the boundaries of their power provide few safeguards against abuse. Victims of this misconduct sometimes lost their jobs, assets and even families. Some remain in prison because prosecutors withheld favorable evidence or allowed fabricated testimony. Some criminals walk free as a reward for conspiring with the government in its effort to deny others their rights.)
From Beginning Of Cases To End, Rule Changes Led To Misconduct - Win At All Costs series (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette continues its 10-part series about its two-year investigation that found federal agents and prosecutors have pursued justice by breaking the law hundreds of times. New laws and court rulings over the past two decades have made it easier for federal law enforcement officials to arrest, convict and imprison the guilty.)
Poll on Drug Testing of Students (List subscribers alert you to USA Weekend online and call-in polls continuing through Nov. 26. Is it unreasonable to require urine tests of high school students in order for them to join clubs or athletic teams?)
Hemp seed - perfect for the munchies (The Toronto Star says hemp seed has long been a food source in Europe and Asia, and has undergone a resurgence in North America in the last five years. Outlawed in Canada in 1938 because of its association with marijuana, hemp has made a comeback thanks in part to Health Canada allowing its commercial cultivation. Hemp seed is good for you - it contains essential fatty acids, is of much higher quality than flax seed, and is 22 percent protein.)
Uphill Struggle On Trail Of Record Heroin Bust (The Sun Herald, in Australia, says that despite an international hunt, police have yet to identify the criminal masterminds behind last month's record heroin seizure in Australia.)
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Saturday, November 21, 1998:
Police check shows one trucker in 10 testing positive for drugs (According to The Associated Press, the results are in from last October's 48-hour check of 367 truck drivers along Oregon's southern border. Nearly one in 10 drivers tested positive for "drug" use, according to an Oregon State Police report )
Oregon accepts tobacco settlement (The Oregonian says Attorney General Hardy Myers announced Friday that Oregon would join 45 other states in accepting an agreement with the tobacco industry to end court battles over the costs of medical treatment for smokers. Under the agreement, the state would receive an estimated $2.1 billion during the first 25 years, then about $81 million a year in perpetuity - assuming smokers continue choosing to pay exorbitant new taxes levied on them without their consent.)
Bus shuttles passengers to visit loved ones in distant lock-ups (A Salem, Oregon, Statesman Journal article syndicated by The Associated Press notes the state of Oregon doesn't pay for families to visit inmates at the remote Snake River Correctional Facility near Ontario, so a private business began just over a month ago, offering a 24-hour, 830-mile round-trip bus trip allowing relatives from the Willamette Valley to spend a few hours visiting loved ones behind bars.)
Voters And Drug Policy Collide (Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer writes in The San Francisco Examiner that what makes the war on drugs so nutty is that it's more about maintaining the coercive power of anti-drug bureaucrats than treating those who suffer from serious drug abuse. Voters have been vilified as naive, but that appellation belongs to a war-on-drugs crusade that has filled our jails while leaving illegal drugs more plentiful and cheaper. It drives the anti-drug bureaucracy mad that voters in six states have now decided to ever so slightly challenge its total grip on the awesome power of government, but it bodes well for our representative system of government.)
DARE study (A list subscriber posts the URL for an Adobe Acrobat .pdf version of the report titled "Attitudes and Beliefs about DARE - A survey interview with full program graduates in Cedar City, Utah," by Joseph Donnermeyer of Ohio State University.)
Newspaper - federal prosecutors break law to pursue convictions (The Associated Press says a two-year investigation has culminated in a 10-part series beginning Sunday in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that shows federal agents and prosecutors around the country have repeatedly broken the law over the past decade in pursuit of convictions. The newspaper said it found examples of prosecutors lying, hiding evidence, distorting the facts, engaging in cover-ups, paying for perjury and setting up innocent people to win indictments, guilty pleas and convictions. Federal officials rarely were punished for their misconduct. Some victims went to prison because prosecutors withheld favorable evidence or allowed fabricated testimony, while some criminals walked free as a reward for conspiring with the government.)
Update on Jean Marlowe's case - please don't call the prosecutor (A news release from NORML says Jean Marlowe, a medical marijuana patient in Mill Spring, North Carolina, will be sentenced Tuesday for receiving a package of cannabis from Switzerland.)
Califano implicates pot in alcohol deaths (Joseph Califano of CASA is quoted on television's "Politically Incorrect" saying the antiemetic qualities of cannabis prevent drunks from throwing up, killing them.)
Loerrach Applies To Join The New Drug Project (According to a translation excerpted from Stuttgarter Zeitung, in Germany, the district of Lorraech has made formal application to the German Ministry of Health for permission to establish safe injecting-rooms for addicts. The Catholic Workers Party recently asked for 50,000 marks to plan such clinics.)
55% Of Smuggled Cocaine World Wide Being Transported By Express Services (According to an article translated from Die Welt, in Germany, German Customs authorities say private transport services such as FedEx, UPS, and DHL are being used "to a considerable extent" for the international transport of illegal drugs. Of the total European air-freight traffic in 1997, around 40 percent was done by couriers, 27 percent by air-freight and 33 percent by parcel post. 55 percent of smuggled cocaine discovered was being transported by express services; 11 percent by air freight, and 34 percent by parcel-post. The figures for marihuana were: 40 percent for express services; 38 percent via air freight, and 12 percent via parcel post. 88 percent of the hashish was being transported by air-freight.)
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Friday, November 20, 1998:
MAMA crusade urges clear-eyed look at crutches, cures (A Cox News Service article about Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse and its founder, Sandee Burbank of Mosier, Oregon, an anti-drug abuse crusader who also crusades for legal medical use of marijuana and a re-examination of the nation's get-tough drug laws.)
Pot Trial Guilty Verdict (The Long Beach Press-Telegram says a jury in Orange County, California, found medical marijuana patient Marvin Chavez, the founder of a local medical marijuana dispensary, guilty Thursday of eight of 10 counts of drug-sales and drug transportation.)
Cannabis Club Co-Founder Convicted (The Regional Review version)
OC Cannabis Club Activist Found Guilty (The Los Angeles Times version)
Pot-Club Founder Convicted (The Orange County Register version)
Medical-Pot Activists Protest Conviction Of Co-Op Founder (The Orange County Register says advocates for patients who use marijuana as medicine condemned the conviction of Marvin Chavez Thursday and vowed not to let their fight fade away. Some particularly ineffective activists wore cannabis-leaf leis and lit up pipes outside Orange County Superior Court in Westminster, about 100 feet from the Police Department.)
Deputy DA Goes Out With A Victory (The Orange County Register notes Deputy District Attorney Carl Armbrust capped his 26-year career Thursday by convicting Orange County Cannabis Co-op founder Marvin Chavez of selling marijuana.)
Chavez Faces Prison (A staff editorial in The Orange County Register says it is not surprising that the jury in the Marvin Chavez case returned the verdicts it did, given its instructions, not to consider Proposition 215. Those instructions were unfortunate for two reasons - Mr. Chavez's personal fate, given that he now faces up to seven years in prison, and, more broadly, because they deprived the jury of the opportunity to offer some guidance to confused officials and patients as to just how the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 should be implemented.)
Verdict In, Jury Still Out On Prop. 215 (Los Angeles Times columnist Dana Parsons says he doubts the jurors or police or judge or even the prosecutors who convicted medical marijuana patient Marvin Chavez really thought he was a threat to anyone. He suspects prosecutors are really trying to stamp out a social movement toward liberalizing marijuana usage, but they won't say that, because it butts heads with the public's will.)
SJC Deals Blow To State Law Imposing Tax On Drug Dealers (The Boston Globe says the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled 7-0 yesterday that the state's "controlled substances tax" constitutes double jeopardy when applied in concert with a criminal prosecution.)
Federal court strikes down Louisiana drug test law (The Associated Press says a federal judge in New Orleans on Friday struck down a Louisiana law requiring random drug testing of elected officials, saying the state failed to show a special need to single them out.)
How Drug Testing Has Changed The Job Market (The Christian Science Monitor says the rise of mandatory drug testing at businesses across the United States during the past decade has radically changed the size and makeup of many companies' applicant pools. After all, who wants to work for a company committed to reducing its productivity by nearly 20 percent?)
Drug-Test the Chess Club? (USA Weekend says school districts around the United States are increasingly requiring high-school students to submit to urine tests in order to participate in extracurricular activities.)
Saying 'No' To Drug Surveys (The Colony Leader, in Texas, says Lewisville Independent School District officials have refused to administer a Texas A&M University drug-use survey for students in grades seven through 12, saying the survey is unscientific and too easy to manipulate.)
Champion Shop Pulls Out Of Cannabis Cup Contest (The Associated Press says the unspecified winner of last year's "Cannabis Cup" in Amsterdam, Holland, withdrew from this year's competition Friday, saying the annual marijuana-cultivation competition sponsored by "High Times" magazine had become a "commercial circus" in which only about 20 of Amsterdam's 356 coffeeshops could afford to participate.)
First Question - What Are The Implications For Health? (A translation of excerpts from an article in Frankfurter Rundschau, in Germany, says the newly appointed federal 'drug czar,' Christa Nickels, will proceed on the principle that addiction is a sickness. The new 'Red-Green' federal government will have a more liberal drug policy than its predecessor, and will follow the example of the Swiss, emphasizing education and assistance, not punishment.)
The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 68 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original summary of drug policy news and calls to action, including - Federal court to decide on legality of testimony for leniency deals; Amnesty International report - too many children incarcerated in America; Government health officials deny marijuana and pain study, again; Swiss to vote on drug legalization; Australian officials call for heroin maintenance; Methadone support and advocacy network request for proposals - RFP; Philadelphia Bar Association holding medical marijuana forum Dec. 1; And the winner is . . .; plus an editorial by Adam J. Smith, Thanksgiving in a time of drug war)
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Thursday, November 19, 1998:
The NORML Foundation Weekly Press Release (Government Health Officials Deny Marijuana and Pain Study, Again; House of Lords Backs Prescription Cannabis, But Parliament Balks; Drug Testing Negatively Impacts Employee Productivity, Study Concludes.)
Groups want to snub out tobacco deal (The Oregonian says the three most influential anti-smoking organizations in Oregon are urging Attorney General Hardy Myers to reject a $206 billion multistate tobacco settlement - the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society and the American Lung Association.)
Tobacco sales to minors increase despite pressures from authorities (According to the Associated Press, the Oregon Human Resources Department said Wednesday that the Oregon Office of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs reported minors were able to buy tobacco 29 percent of the times they tried this year, up from 23 percent in 1997. The state inspections involve youths 14-16, accompanied by police, who try to buy tobacco products.)
The C(ocaine)I(mportation)A(gency) (Seattle Weekly reviews the book, "Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs, and the Press," by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, calling it more than just a history of the US government's role in international drug dealing. Whiteout is an encyclopedia of covert psychological and sociological research and experimentation performed on unknowing subjects since the early 1900s. And it's the kind of expose that people like Katherine Graham, former publisher of The Washington Post, don't think should be available in bookstores.)
Marvin Chavez Trial Update - Jury's Still Out (A local correspondent says there has been a full day of deliberations in the trial of the founder of the Orange County Patient Doctor Nurse Support Group.. It seems jurors are having a hard time defining what a "sale" is.)
Jury reaches verdict in trial of Marvin Chavez (A local correspondent says the medical marijuana patient and founder of the Orange County Patient Doctor Nurse Support Group has been convicted of eight out of 10 charges.)
Marvin Chavez Verdict (Another version from a different local correspondent. Sentencing will be Jan. 8.)
Judge Breyer Raises Interesting Questions . . . (Ellen Komp of The 215 Reporter says US District Court Judge Charles Breyer, the person officiating the federal government's dispute with the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative and other Northern California medical marijuana dispensaries, asked a federal prosecutor Tuesday if the Clinton Administration would be "fashioning an appropriate response" to what he called the "handwriting on the wall" - the passing of medical marijuana initiatives in five states besides California.)
The Poppy Paradox (The San Luis Obispo County NewTimes recounts the bust of local medical marijuana activists and cultivators Tom Dunbar and Jo-D Harrison - for growing poppies - amid a discussion about the peculiar laws that let people buy, sell and grow the ubiquitous Papaver somniferum, but only if they don't know it's the opium poppy.)
San Francisco Cabbies, NORML Persuade Supervisors to Reconsider Drug Testing Proposal (A press release from California NORML follows up on two of its previous bulletins - the first, about a new report that shows drug testing workers reduces productivity nearly 20 percent, and the second, about California NORML testifying before a San Francisco Board of Supervisors committee about a proposal to require urine testing for Communication Workers of America and San Francisco taxi drivers.)
Hemp Shampoo Maker Sues For Defamation (The Los Angeles Times says Alterna Inc., of Westwood, California, filed a civil suit against Glenn Levant of DARE America, Inc., the private organization that promotes the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, alleging Levant made false and malicious statements when he said that the company's Alterna Hemp Shampoo "is a subterfuge to promote marijuana" because its ads feature a cannabis leaf.)
Cal Poly Survey Linked Alcohol, Violence (The San Luis Obispo County Telegram-Tribune says a 1996 survey found that 80 percent of students who reported they were victims of unwanted sexual intercourse had consumed alcohol or other drugs. Quotes from several people suggest the real problem is alcohol, but the newspaper annoyingly refuses to break down the figures for "alcohol" and "other drugs.")
Prescription drugs contributed to Sonny Bono's death (The Associated Press says the widow of Sonny Bono, Mary Bono, who replaced him as a US representative from California, told TV Guide that he was taking 15 to 20 pills a day for chronic back pain and neck problems, and the prescription drugs contributed to his death in a skiing accident last January.)
Sonny Bono's widow blames drugs for his death (The Reuters version)
Tobacco Agreement Criticized (The San Jose Mercury News says that with Friday's deadline to approve the $206 billion tobacco settlement fast approaching, California health professionals and anti-smoking advocates lambasted Attorney General Dan Lungren Wednesday, saying it does little to stop the industry from recruiting new smokers and will cover less than 50 percent of the state's smoking-related health costs.)
Dutch student sent home after drug bust (The San Antonio Express-News says a Dutch foreign exchange student was yanked out of a high school math class Thursday in Universal City, Texas, and charged with possession of drug paraphernalia after his host parent called police Nov. 2, suspecting his mail from back home contained more than warm wishes. Something that wouldn't get a second look back home will get his visa terminated in America.)
Former Sheriff's Deputy And Wife Are Indicted On Drug Charges (The Houston Chronicle says Lawrence Rhea Underwood, a former Harris County sheriff's deputy who was fired when cocaine was found in his system, and his wife, Lisa Jannell Underwood, were indicted Wednesday on charges of possessing methamphetamine and cocaine.)
Smoke-Out Seen As Joke (A letter to the editor of The Houston Chronicle responds to yesterday's news of a 28 percent increase in cigarette smoking among college students over the last four years, saying the increase shows the utter hypocrisy of lawsuits demanding billions in damages from tobacco companies. It also ridicules the vast education efforts to stem the tide of smoking and, in effect, reduces the Great American Smoke-Out to a giant joke.)
Number Of Pregnant Smokers Dropped 26 Percent In '90s (The Associated Press says a study released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found 13.6 percent of pregnant women smoked in 1996, down from 18.4 percent in 1990.)
A Slave Of Smoke In An Anti-Smoke Land (The New York Times examines extreme anti-smoking attitudes in America through the eyes of a widow whose husband died from smoking and lung cancer, leaving her with two daughters who hate her because she herself can't quit smoking. Medical experts say nicotine has a powerful effect on the chemistry of the brain, improving mood and in some cases masking depression.)
There Are None So Blind As Ophthalmologists Who Don't Want to See (Richard Cowan of marijuananews.com debunks the recent "research" about cannabis and glaucoma, by Keith Green, PhD, of Georgia, with a devastating line-by-line rebuttal of the original Nov. 13 Augusta, Georgia, Chronicle story on which the AP story was based.)
Cannabis Co-Op Man Arrested (The Guardian, in Britain, says Colin Davies, of Stockport, Greater Manchester, the founder of a co-operative intended to supply free cannabis to people with multiple sclerosis and other illnesses, has been arrested on cultivation-related charges.)
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Wednesday, November 18, 1998:
AIDS increasing among minorities, women (The Associated Press says AIDS-related deaths in Oregon dropped 62 percent from 1996 to last year, from 238 to 90, according to the annual AIDS/HIV report released Tuesday by the state Health Division. However, a greater percentage of women and minorities have contracted the disease. No mention is made of what proportion of new cases were attributed to intravenous drug users sharing needles.)
Medical-Pot Advocate's Trial Now In Jury's Hands (The Orange County Register says the outcome of the trial of Marvin Chavez, founder of the Orange County Patient, Doctor, Nurse Support Group, on trafficking charges, could determine police conduct in future medical-marijuana cases.)
Final Arguments Made In Pot Case (The version in The Long Beach Press-Telegram)
NORML Opposes Drug Testing of Taxi Drivers (A press release from California NORML follows up on its bulletin Monday about a new study showing companies that drug test employees have lower productivity. California NORML will cite the study Thursday at a hearing before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors' Housing and Neighborhood Services Committee. At issue is a proposal to require urine testing for employment and renewal of licenses for Communication Workers of America and San Francisco taxi drivers.)
Alterna Hemp Hair Care Company Sues President Of DARE America In Support of Salons - Alterna Seeks Public Retraction of False Statements (A company press release says the lawsuit was prompted by a statement in the Nov. 6 Los Angeles Times by Glenn Levant, president and founding director of DARE America, Inc., which nationally promotes the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, or DARE. Levant said Alterna was "promot[ing] an illegal substance.")
War on Crime (The San Francisco Bay Guardian describes the The San Francisco Police Department's use of SWAT-style equipment to carry out a drug raid Oct. 30 on a Western Addition housing project. At a Nov. 4 police commission meeting, a train of furious and sobbing residents from the raided housing complex - all of them African American - described how officers slapped them, stepped on their necks and put guns to their heads while other officers ransacked their homes. Weeping and terrified children, some as young as six, were handcuffed and separated from their parents. SFPD narcotics lieutenant Kitt Crenshaw said the operation was designed to "put fear in the hearts" of a gang called the Knock Out Posse. "The raid went off, more or less, without a hitch," Crenshaw said. "I feel bad for the innocent women and children that were there, but in a way they do bear some responsibility for harboring drug dealers.")
Session On Drug Tests Is A Bust (The Deseret News, in Utah, says a national school-athlete drug-testing conference came to Salt Lake City Monday, but no Utah school representatives showed up, and only about two dozen officials from neighboring states attended. American Bio Medica Corp., a pharmaceutical and drug-testing company, funded the appearance of Randall Aultman, the retired principal of Vernonia High School in Oregon, where random drug-testing of athletes was endorsed by the US Supreme Court in 1995.)
Common sense and drug woes (Houston Chronicle columnist Thom Marshall previews a local presentation on drugs and the drug war by Sandee Burbank of Mosier, Oregon, founder of MAMA, Mothers Against Misuse And Abuse. Sandee believes that education and individual common sense can be far more effective than the government's oppressive war on drugs.)
Congressman's Son Sentenced In Marijuana Conspiracy (Reuters says Randall Todd Cunningham, 29, of San Diego, the son of US Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, was sentenced Tuesday to two-and-a-half years in prison for his role in a conspiracy to distribute marijuana.)
Oregon's Kin File Suit Against City, 6 Officers (The Houston Chronicle says the family of Pedro Oregon Navarro filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Tuesday against the city of Houston and six Houston police officers, alleging the officers acted as "judge, jury and executioner" when they killed the Mexican immigrant in a botched drug raid July 12."I think the forensic, physical and photographic evidence will clearly point to a man who was not in a position to resist, did not resist, had no reason to resist and was gunned down, indeed probably executed, without cause," Oregon family attorney Richard Mithoff said at a news conference.)
Congress Lands A Historical Blow To Democracy (River Cities Reader columnist Jenny Lesner provides an Iowan's perspective on Congress's decision to quash Initiative 59, the District of Columbia medical-marijuana ballot measure.)
NYC Parade Permit Law Is Struck Down (The Boston Globe version of Monday's news about a federal judge ruling that New York City unconstitutionally stymied the Million Marijuana March. US District Judge Leonard Sand said guidelines that allow police to delay their response to permit requests raise a "risk" of censorship.)
Two soldiers arrested after fleeing pot deal (According to the Associated Press, the soldiers from Fort Polk, Louisiana, were stopped for speeding and told police they were trying to flee "drug peddlers" from whom they had taken money without delivering marijuana.)
Study Finds A Sharp Rise In Smoking Among College Students (According to The Chronicle of Higher Education, a study released in today's Journal of the American Medical Association says the smoking rate among students at four-year colleges rose by 28 per cent from 1993 to 1997. In previous studies, students were less likely to smoke than adults or peers who were not in college. In the new study, however, 25 per cent of the students surveyed said that they had become regular smokers while they were in college.)
28% Jump In College Smokers - Researchers Alarmed (The Los Angeles Times version)
Trial Of Marijuana Crusader Delayed By Wait For Ruling (The London Free Press, in Ontario, says the trial of multiple sclerosis patient Lynn Harichy, for sitting on the police station steps and lighting up a joint, was postponed again yesterday, to Feb. 3. The Ontario Court of Appeal continued to ponder its long-awaited decision in the medical marijuana case of Terry Parker, a 43-year-old Toronto epileptic who won the first round of a constitutional challenge to Canada's ban on medical marijuana after being busted for cultivation in 1996.)
Heads In Clash With Minister On Drugs (The Times, in Britain, says Estelle Morris, the Schools Minister, defended the government's new guidelines recommending that schools not adopt a zero tolerance approach. The minister's suggestion that possession of drugs should not automatically lead to exclusion caused disquiet among some heads who felt that she had created a conflicting message for pupils.)
Christa Nickels New Federal Drug Czar (According to a translation and summary of an article from Schwaebische Zeitung, in Germany, the former state health minister said she would be tackling drug addiction as a health problem rather than a law-enforcement problem, and that a bill would be drafted to establish safe injection rooms for addicts.)
Countdown To The First Fixing Rooms (A translation of excerpts from an article in Sueddeutsche Zeitung, in Germany, says an "emergency room" will be opened in Sshwabingen next summer with the support of the red-Green coalition government. However, the Catholic Party threatens to force a referendum over the proposal.)
DrugSense Weekly, No. 74 (The weekly summary of drug policy news features a special edition, "The Pendulum Swings Toward Reform," linking news with original commentary. The Feature Article discusses the Swiss vote on complete decriminalization of drugs later this month. The Weekly News In Review includes Medical Marijuana news articles and editorials such as Get your hands off those ballots; A man caught in a Kafkaesque trap; Mainstream voters buying into medical marijuana; Pot politics - Lords back cannabis use for patients suffering pain. Other articles on Drug War Policy include Nixon had it right; A big-time bust; Report criticizes probe of Texas border shooting; Transcript - Jesse Ventura on "Meet the Press." International News includes And what if the state should take charge; Weighing pot legalization; Drugs Tsar tells customs to go soft on cannabis smugglers; Drug reform - US says yes; Vetter wants to give Heroin to sick addicts; Heroin on prescription as addiction solution urged; War on drugs has failed; Editorial in The Lancet - Dangerous Habits. The weekly Hot Off The 'Net features UK Cannabis Internet Activists. The Quote of the Week cites Thomas Jefferson. The Tip of the Week gives you the URL for the recent NORML conference. The Fact of the Week notes letters to the editor are the second most read feature in print media.)
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Tuesday, November 17, 1998:
Defendant In Pot Trial Testifies (The Long Beach Press-Telegram says Marvin Chavez, a medical marijuana patient and founder of the the Orange County Patient Doctor Nurse Support Group, took the stand in his trafficking trial Monday and told jurors that his activities were part of a mission of mercy for those needing the drug for severe pain. Undercover detective Hector Rios admitted he was lying when he said Chavez had asked for a donation when the defendant provided medicinal marijuana Jan. 8.)
The Chavez Trial (A staff editorial in The Orange County Register says the most interesting comment during Marvin Chavez's trial came from Hector Rios, an investigator with the District Attorney's Office. Asked by defense attorney James Silva if he had studied the new medical-marijuana law, Proposition 215, now section 11362.5 of the California Health and Safety Code, before joining the undercover investigation of Mr. Chavez, Mr. Rios said he hadn't and the to this day he has no idea what the medical-marijuana law says in any detail.)
The Drug War Isn't About Combating Use (Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer says the drug warriors' recent battle against medical-marijuana initiatives was motivated by the fact that, without the war on marijuana, the budget for the war on drugs would be much smaller.)
Arrests Soar in Crackdown on Marijuana (The New York Times says New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's "zero tolerance" policies have led to a record number of arrests on marijuana charges. Law enforcement officials project that at the current pace, the New York City Police Department could chalk up eight times the number of arrests this year from just six years ago. "We are asking the Legislature for an increase of 23 judges citywide to address the larger caseloads," said Mai Yee, a spokesperson for the Office of Court Administration. No word on how many new jails will be needed, or how many real criminals are freed to make room for pot smokers. Plus - Giuliani quotes.)
Experts say hundreds of thousands of cases hinge on ruling (The Dallas Morning News notes lawyers for Sonya Singleton on Tuesday will ask a federal appeals court in Denver to rule that prosecutors who offer leniency in exchange for testimony against others are guilty of bribery. If the court agrees, legal experts say it could throw the war on some drugs into immediate upheaval. Hundreds of thousands of cases could be dismissed, and law enforcement could be stripped of its most powerful investigative tool. Singleton's chances of winning are good, according to analysts. Since July, four separate federal courts, including a Denver appeals court, have ruled that it is illegal for paid informants to testify during a trial.)
Court to decide legality of rewarding informants (The Dallas Morning News version)
Family Of Mexican Slain By Texas Police Files Suit (Reuters says family and friends of Pedro Oregon Navarro, an illegal Mexican immigrant shot and killed by police during a botched drug bust, sued the city of Houston Tuesday, seeking unspecified damages.)
Random Drug Testing Comes Home (The New York Times recounts the experiences of Sunny Cloud, an insurance saleswoman and single mother in Marietta, Georgia, whose discovery that her son smoked cannabis led her to distribute the first at-home urine-testing kit for worried parents. Last month, the Food and Drug Administration approved the latest of these kits, the QuickScreen at Home Drug Test made by Phamatech, a San Diego manufacturer.)
Exposing drug-war pseudo-scientists (A physician and list subscriber responds to the recent propaganda about cannabis and glaucoma published in the Archives of Ophthalmology by suggesting the reform community desperately needs a credible and recognized source of unbiased scientific information concerning the health and social effects of drugs and drug policies. This group would serve as a "rapid response truth squad" which ideally the media would learn to consult prior to publishing articles about "new drug studies" and the like.)
More Anti-Medical Marijuana Research Propaganda (A bulletin from the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies says an opinion piece in today's New York Times by Jim McDonough of the White House drug czar's office makes several factual misrepresentations of Dr. Donald Abrams' medical marijuana study.)
Justices considering drug search legalities (The Houston Chronicle says the US Supreme Court on Monday delved into the constitutionality of the war on some drugs by agreeing to decide whether police need a warrant before searching a car suspected of having been used in a cocaine deal. The case, from Florida, questions the extent to which police may examine the automobiles they impound while investigating illegal drug activity. While courts have upheld the right of police to seize the vehicles, a question remains whether officers may then search them without first getting a judge's permission.)
NPR poll on marijuana through Friday (A list subscriber urges you to vote on a "legalization" poll sponsored on the web by National Public Radio.)
Study finds side-effects to new anti-depressants (According to a Canadian Press article in The Halifax Daily News, a review published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal today says antidepressants such as Prozac, hailed since the 1980s for having no unpleasant side-effects, can actually cause everything from nausea and insomnia to anorexia, diarrhea, nervousness, anxiety, and agitation. Researchers found that the newer drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are no safer or more effective than other drugs used for treating people with severe depression.)
Give A Second Chance, Says Minister (The Times, in Britain, says government guidelines to be published tomorrow will tell educators that children who experiment with drugs should not be expelled from school automatically, despite some parents' desire for zero tolerance. The new guidelines, produced in consultation with Keith Hellawell, the government's drugs czar, aim to reduce expulsions, which have doubled in the past five years to more than 12,000 a year in state schools.)
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Monday, November 16, 1998:
It's Time For New Tactics In America's War On Drugs (Syndicated columnist Molly Ivins writes in The Star-Telegram, in Fort Worth, Texas, that she thinks we're starting to see a major change in the old 'Zeitgeist' on the issue of drugs. This is one of those seismic shifts when the unsayable suddenly becomes sayable, when we notice that the emperor is wearing no clothes. The main problem with the war on drugs - you've probably noticed - is that we're losing. We're also seeing the start of a consensus that it's time to try something else.)
Judge Finds New York Parade Rule Unconstitutional (Reuters says a federal judge, ruling on a lawsuit brought by a member of the Million Marijuana March, which was denied a permit to march down Fifth Avenue in New York City, struck down part of the city's parade ordinance because it could be used to restrict free speech. US District Judge Leonard Sand said a provision of the ordinance was unconstitutional because it failed to set a deadline for the approval of parade permits. The lack of a time frame could allow the police department to delay action on granting a permit, stopping or altering some marches.)
Study Finds Companies With Drug Testing Have Lower Productivity (A press release and abstract from California NORML summarize a new study by Edward M. Shepard and Thomas J. Clifton of the Le Moyne College Institute of Industrial Relations, "Drug Testing and Labor Productivity - Estimates Applying a Production Function Model." The survey of a sample of 63 firms in the computer and communications equipment industries found that both pre-employment drug testing and random drug testing had a significant negative effect on worker productivity.)
It's An Entirely New Game In Colombia (An op-ed in The Chicago Tribune by Eric Farnsworth, a former White House policy adviser, summarizes the official view that Ernesto Samper was the devil incarnate and Colombia's new president, Andres Pastrana, will be a US ally in the war on some drug users.)
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Sunday, November 15, 1998:
Pot and glaucoma (A scientifically illiterate staff editorial in The Bulletin, in Bend, Oregon, finds undue significance in the recent survey of the literature on cannabis and glaucoma published by a biased Georgia professor who failed to address, among other things, the science evidenced in court rulings that Elvy Musikka and Robert Randall have a right to use marijuana because it's the only thing that preserves their eyesight. The newspaper imagines Measure 67's backers are happy that the vote on the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act occurred almost two weeks ago.)
Re - Pot and Glaucoma (A letter sent to the editor of The Bulletin notes Bob Randall receives 300 cannabis cigarettes per month from the federal government for his glaucoma, about 10 cigarettes per day, while Keith Green at the Medical College of Georgia thinks marijuana is bad medicine based on his contention that patients need 12.)
2 Lawmen Who Favor Marijuana Are Elected (Actually, according to the Associated Press, Norman Vroman, the district attorney-elect of Mendocino County, California, and Tony Craver, the sheriff-elect, favor only decriminalization of the herb, and that won't stop them from busting or prosecuting people.)
Hemp fest - a sobering show of potential (The San Francisco Examiner covers the San Francisco Industrial Hemp Expo '98, examining the economic potential and broad range of uses for industrial hemp, as well as some historical background. Vendors included Jason Davis and his mom, Rose Marie Reeder, who drove down from Oregon to peddle Hemp Pops. The lime-green candy, which is made in Switzerland, tastes a bit like marijuana without the attendant brain buzz. Reeder said the confection is popular with baby boomers such as herself. She quit smoking grass long ago but still has a nostalgic feel for the flavor. "I brought one to my Bible study group," she said. "And they fought over it.")
New Bar Has LA Waiting To Inhale (A Los Angeles Times feature article on O2, Los Angeles' first oxygen bar, which is co-owned by Woody Harrelson, the hemp promoter and former bartender on television's "Cheers.")
Goatherd's Killing Calls For Changes (A staff editorial in The Chicago Tribune comments on the report by the US House of Representatives on the killing of Esequiel Hernandez Jr., an 18-year-old goatherder from the tiny border town of Redmond, Texas, by camouflaged US Marines on an anti-drug mission. The House report is missing one crucial ingredient - a proposal for legislation or policy changes to ensure that such a tragedy never occurs again.)
Herbal remedies starting to take root (The Bergen Record, in New Jersey, takes note of last week's special edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, which focused on alternative medicine, with a feature article about the herbal remedy market. One in three Americans is said to use herbal remedies, a $4 billion industry. Warner-Lambert and other pharmaceutical giants are starting to put out their own products, making the market "mainstream." Doctors are beginning to bone up on the approximately 200 medicinal herb products available, if only to know how to advise patients who use them. Meanwhile, the FDA - and some in the business - bemoan the lack of government regulation.)
Activist wants young to focus on personal rights (A letter to the editor of The Centre Daily Times, in Pennsylvania, by convicted marijuana possessor Julian Heicklen, the civil liberties activist and retired Penn State professor, rejects a previous letter writer's suggestion that his weekly marijuana-smoking protests were subtle and indirect.)
Drug toll worsens, political willpower still missing (Vancouver Province columnist Jim McNulty notes British Columbia's death toll from so-called heroin overdoses has passed 300 for the year, overlooking the exponentially greater toll from cigarettes and alcohol. Government officials who are about to discuss the issue should read up on European successes with harm reduction, which includes safe-injection sites in Germany, Switzerland and Holland. In Frankfurt, drug overdose deaths fell to 31 in 1996 from 147 in 1991. Trafficking, smuggling, drug-related crime and costly court appearances have all been reduced. Canadians ignore these victories and continue to rely on the failed, criminal-based "War on Drugs.")
May the Lords be with us (Columnist Jim Meek in The Halifax Chronicle-Herald, in Nova Scotia, marks the occasion of the British House of Lords' recommendation that marijuana be legalized for medical purposes with an essay on prohibition that recognizes most people have a natural inclination to alter consciousness, or "get off.")
Reputed Jailed Druglord Slain In A Vendetta-Style (The Chicago Tribune says Jose Orlando Henao Montoya, the imprisoned leader of the Norte del Valle drug gang in Colombia, was shot six times in the head by Jose Manuel Herrera Moncada, a fellow inmate and brother of Helmer Herrera, one of the leaders of the Cali drug cartel who was also recently assassinated while serving time. Supposedly, the murder had all the hallmarks of a personal vendetta to avenge the murder of Herrera.)
Heroin To Be Distributed First In Hamburg And Frankurt (A translation of an article from Siegener, in Germany, says Federal Health Minister Andrea Fischer told the German newsmagazine, Der Spiegel, that preparations were already well advanced for a heroin-maintenance trial program in the two cities.)
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Saturday, November 14, 1998:
DARE Right to be Dropped (A letter to the editor of The Statesman Journal, in Salem, Oregon, applauds the decision by the Salem-Keizer School District to reduce the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program.)
Grand jury returns no indictment in death (The Oregonian notes law enforcement officials are still able to get a grand jury in Portland to do anything they want, including sanctioning the murder of a mentally ill man.)
WSU hosts conference on alcohol and violence (The Associated Press says people at more than 100 colleges and universities in 41 states and one Canadian province tuned in Friday to a national conference originating at Washington State University in Pullman that focused on recent campus riots related to alcohol. One speaker noted the first reference to a student alcohol riot was in 1355, when students and townspeople in Oxford, England, rioted for three days after accusing a tavern owner of watering down the wine.)
Tobacco Settlement Would Give State $4.02 Billion (The Seattle Times says that's how much Washington state stands to gain over the next 27 years from the nation's biggest tobacco companies under a 30-state, $200 billion agreement that is being negotiated to settle fraud and antitrust lawsuits.)
Tobacco Accord Would Aid SJ (The San Jose Mercury News says a proposed $200 billion nationwide settlement with the tobacco industry would generate an estimated $23 billion for California over the next 25 years, including roughly $287 million for San Jose.)
Top Marijuana County Now Has Sympathetic Views In High Places (An Associated Press article in The Herald, in Everett, Washington, notes voters in Mendocino County, California, recently elected Norman Vroman, an ex-con, as the new district attorney, and Tony Craver as the new sheriff, who also backs the decriminalization of cannabis.)
California County's DA, Sheriff Hold Soft Stance On Pot (The Associated Press version in The Dallas Morning News)
Tobacco Sellers Near State Line Welcome Prop 10 (An Associated Press article in The San Jose Mercury News says California's new ballot measure adding 50 cents to the cost of a pack of cigarettes could raise the price of a 10-pack carton to as much as $30. Because cartons are available for around $21 at several businesses just across the state line, retailers in Arizona, Nevada and Oregon expect Californians will start buying and smuggling cigarettes.)
Suit filed over pot initiative (The Denver Post says backers of a medical marijuana ballot initiative filed suit late Friday against Colorado Secretary of State Vikki Buckley, requesting that she be ordered to immediately certify the measure for the 2000 general election ballot. The lawsuit in Denver District Court claims proponents submitted 56,067 legally valid signatures earlier this year, 1,825 signatures more than the constitutionally required minimum to have it placed on the Nov. 3 ballot.)
No Threat From Oregon (A letter to the editor of The Houston Chronicle says the Houston prohibition agents who broke into the home of Pedro Oregon Navarro without a warrant and shot him 12 times from behind used the innocent man for target practice.)
FBI Chief Meets With Oregon Family (The Houston Chronicle says FBI Director Louis Freeh met with the family of Pedro Oregon Navarro Friday about the federal investigation into his fatal shooting by Houston police. Freeh said he didn't know when the FBI and federal grand jury investigation would be completed.)
Shooting Probe Still Devoid Of Solutions (A staff editorial in The San Antonio Express-News says the new Congressional report on the killing of Ezequiel Hernandez Jr., a 19-year-old goatherd in Redford, Texas, by US Marines on a drug interdiction mission, won't prevent future tragedies if the problems identified in the report aren't addressed.)
Bellaire Files Lawsuit to Force Slain Teen's Family to Accept Offer (The Houston Chronicle says the parents of 17-year-old Travis Allen signed a $90,000 settlement on July 25 in the wrongful death suit they filed in 1996. But two days later, the Allens and one of their lawyers, Graydon Wilson, told US District Judge David Hittner that the parents were bullied into accepting the ostensibly meager sum by the mediator and the opposing lawyers. A police officer in Bellaire, Texas, fired two shots into the boy's back while he was immobilized, allegedly under the influence of "drugs.")
Hemp Legalization Attempt (The San Jose Mercury News says the Kentucky Court of Appeals on Friday sent Woody Harrelson's marijuana possession case back to Lee County District Court, agreeing that Kentucky's ban on industrial hemp was too broad, but leaving unanswered a question about whether the seeds planted by Harrelson were capable of producing cannabis plants.)
Woody Harrelson Hemp Case Returned To Lee District Court (The Lexington Herald-Leader version)
Court - Delete pot smoking expulsions from student's records (Tampa Bay Online says the 2nd District Court of Appeal found Friday that the Pinellas County school system in Florida had not "even a scintilla of evidence" that two St. Petersburg High School seniors went to class intoxicated when it expelled them for smoking marijuana on the way to school. In the past two years, 90 Pinellas high school students were disciplined for violating the school district's zero-tolerance policy on alcohol. Numbers were not immediately available for other drug violations.)
Medical Marijuana Research News (A bulletin from the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies says NIH, the National Institutes of Health, has rejected Dr. Ethan Russo's second MAPS-supported application to study the use of marijuana in the treatment of migraine sufferers.)
Marijuana Benefits Disputed (The Globe and Mail, in Toronto, notes the propaganda published recently about cannabis and glaucoma, in the Archives of Ophthalmology, by Keith Green, a professor of ophthalmology at the Medical College of Georgia.)
Colombian Says US Mishandled Bust (An Associated Press article in The Houston Chronicle says Colombian President Andres Pastrana accused the United States of mishandling a drug bust on a Colombian air force plane in Florida, saying US officials should have told his government before the plane took off from Colombia that it carried cocaine. Pastrana also questioned why US authorities seized the plane at the Florida airport, rather than trying to gain more information by tracking the shipment to its final destination.)
Cannabis Beats Fags, Grog (The NT News, in Australia's Northern Territory, notes the influential British medical periodical, The Lancet, says the evidence indicates cannabis is less of a threat to health than tobacco or alcohol.)
Heroin Trials Urged (The Advertiser, in Australia, says a group of state and federal politicians, as well as the nation's lord mayors, came together for the first time yesterday in Adelaide to issue a united call for controlled heroin-maintenance trials. The group will compile a direct submission to Prime Minister Howard, urging him to relax his opposition.)
UK Report Recommends Medical Trials Of Cannabis (The British Medical Journal notes a report published this week by the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee recommended that cannabis should be reclassified as a schedule 2 drug, allowing research and prescription by doctors on a named patient basis.)
Lords Reckon It's High Time For A Change (The New Scientist version)
Website Of The Week - http://www.ukcia.org/ (The British Medical Journal recommends the site of UK Cannabis Internet Activists. Edited by partisans, but responsibly, it incorporates links to information from many reputable sources. The Oregon Cannabis Tax Act site also gets a mention.)
Dangerous Habits (A staff editorial in The Lancet says the British scientific journal is qualifying its opinion of three years ago, that cannabis smoking, even long-term, is harmless. The medical evidence available still suggests moderate indulgence in cannabis has little ill-effect on health, but decisions to ban or to legalise cannabis should be based on other considerations.)
Adverse Effects Of Cannabis (The Lancet publishes an Australian review of the medical literature on the adverse effects of cannabis, which finds a lot of evidence that cannabis is harmless, but rehashes discredited "research" from Sweden and other drug warrior bastions - unreplicated elsewhere and unsubstantiated by the epidemiological literature - suggesting, for example, that cannabis just might cause an increase in automobile accidents or a significant increase in schizophrenia cases.)
Marijuana Special Report: Let's chill out (New Scientist, in Britain, says the biggest obstacles everywhere to the reform of medical marijuana laws are political.)
Drugs - Cacophony in the European Union (A translation of an article from Le Figaro, in France, seems surpised that, on the eve of the European Week for the Prevention of Drug Addiction, which begins Monday and continues through the 22nd of November, legislation varies from one country to the next. In France, the debate on decriminalisation of certain substances has never been able to be conducted calmly.)
Bytes: 143,000 Last updated: 3/4/99
Friday, November 13, 1998:
"Cannabis Conversations" at Reed College (A bulletin from Portland NORML publicizes a public seminar on medical marijuana 7 pm Friday, Dec. 4, in Portland. Speakers include Dr. Tod H. Mikuriya of Berkeley, the author of "Marijuana: Medical Papers (1839-1972)" who was formerly in charge of marijuana research for the federal government; and Dr. Rick Bayer, the chief petitioner for the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act.)
Internal police report says police gave man CPR (According to The Associated Press, Portland police say they gave CPR to Richard "Dickie" Dow after beating him senseless. But witnesses say they're lying.)
Oregon could gain $2 billion from national settlement (The Associated Press says Oregon stands to gain as much as $2 billion over 25 years under a new national tobacco settlement, some of which could be used to shore up the Oregon Health Plan, the state's low-income health-insurance program.)
Southern California news briefs (According to The Associated Press, Los Angeles prohibition agents seized 54 marijuana plants Tuesday night and arrested Josh Bempechat, who said police refused to look at a note from his doctor showing he needs marijuana for medicinal purposes.)
Cast Of Characters In The Chavez Trial (Alan W. Bock, the senior editorial writer for The Orange County Register, shares his impressions of the judge, defendant, prosecutor and defense attorneys at the trial of Marvin Chavez, the medical marijuana patient and founder of the the Orange County Patient Doctor Nurse Support Group.)
No Prop. 215 Defense (The Orange County Register summarizes Thursday's proceedings in the trial of Marvin Chavez.)
Young Voters Rule (Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page suggests in The San Jose Mercury News that Jesse Ventura's upset victory in the Minnesota governor's race heralds the rise of an alternative party that appeals to young people. Minnesota had the highest voter turnout of any state in this off-year election, largely because of Ventura, who opposes current drug policy and favors industrial hemp.)
Maryland Orders Drug Tests For Addicts On Parole - 25,000 to Face Biweekly Checks, Escalating Penalties (The Washington Post says Maryland has begun ordering every drug addict released on parole or probation to report for urine tests twice a week in an ambitious attempt to force about 25,000 criminals statewide to undergo drug treatment and kick their habits, or face a series of quick, escalating punishments. More than a million tests annually might be required, compared with the 40,000 tests the state administered last year.)
Actor's Hemp Case Returns to Trial (The Associated Press says the Kentucky Court of Appeals on Friday sent Woody Harrelson's challenge to the state's prohibition on industrial hemp back to Lee County District Court, where he was first cited for marijuana possession after he planted four hemp seeds in June 1996.)
MD Scoffs At Medical Marijuana (The Associated Press says a study published Thursday in the American Medical Association journal, "Archives of Ophthalmology," by Keith Green, a Medical College of Georgia professor of ophthalmology, claims it is a "fallacy that marijuana is of any value at all in the treatment of glaucoma." Plus commentary from list subscribers.)
Study casts doubt on marijuana's effectiveness as glaucoma treatment (The CNN version - plus more commentary from list subscribers)
White House Fact Sheet on Honoring, Protecting Law Enforcement (A White House press release on US Newswire says President Clinton signed two bills into law today, one providing college scholarships to the families of police killed in the line of duty, and another increasing penalties for "drug traffickers" who possess, brandish, or discharge a gun when committing a crime.)
House Report Assails Agencies In Shooting Of Teen Near Border (The Chicago Tribune notes a 249-page report released Thursday by the US House of Representatives blames the shooting death of 18-year-old Esequiel Hernandez Jr. on negligence by the Justice and Defense Departments, who set the stage for the May 1997 homicide of the West Texas teenager as he herded his family's goats near a Marine Corps drug-interdiction mission. The report also accuses the two departments of obstructing investigations.)
Lawmaker Faults Justice, Defense In Goatherd's Death (A lengthier version of the same article, attributed to The Associated Press.)
Negligence Alleged In Fatal Border Shooting (The San Antonio Express-News version in The Orange County Register)
Cover-Up Alleged In Death Probe (The Houston Chronicle version)
Are you willing to pay for more police officers? (Constable Mark Tonner, a Vancouver Province columnist, wants your feedback about whether an overwhelming police presence is necessary to "impose order" on the east side of Vancouver, British Columbia, and whether you agree with him that if voters knew a tax increase would be devoted solely to police patrols, they'd authorize more than the one per cent the city proposes.)
Drugs Taint Mexican City (A Chicago Tribune article in The San Jose Mercury News says a "full-scale drug war" has broken out in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, home to more than 1 million people. To hear police officers tell it, there is not much they can do. Despite an army of Mexican and US law enforcement officials stationed along the border, authorities from both countries say their actions are doing little to stem the flow of drugs into the United States.)
The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 67 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original summary of drug policy news and calls for action, including - 84 percent of mandatory minimum drug sentences in Massachusetts served by first-time offenders; Protesters in District of Columbia call for release of I-59 results; Students fight back against Higher Education Act drug provision; Medical marijuana signature gatherers harassed by sheriff in Florida; Oregon police illegally tapped agricultural supply store's phones - perhaps for years; British House of Lords committee calls for medical marijuana access; New German government to consider legalizing cannabis; Quote of the week; And an editorial by Adam J. Smith, Remembering veterans, ignoring lessons)
Bytes: 120,000 Last updated: 11/21/98
Thursday, November 12, 1998:
War On Drugs Has Failed (The Province, in Vancouver, British Columbia, says Canadian and US civic officials at a conference in Seattle agreed that the war on some drug users has been a dismal failure and new tactics are needed. However, Seattle Mayor Paul Schell probably spoke for a lot of derelict public officials when said he didn't wish to "inflame the situation" by suggesting that drug use be decriminalized.)
Losing The Border War On Drugs (An Associated Press version in The Herald, in Everett, Washington)
Stinging The Defense (A staff editorial in The Orange County Register notes Marvin Chavez's trial on 10 counts of marijuana sales - or, depending on your point of view - of trying to implement Proposition 215 - resumes today, although Superior Court Judge Thomas Borris has already ruled that the defense may not use a Prop. 215 defense on the first two charges. On four other charges the defense will argue that police engaged in illegal entrapment.)
SCU law professor tackles another high-profile issue (A San Jose Mercury News feature article focuses on Gerald Uelmen, the Santa Clara University law professor who is helping the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative appeal a federal shutdown order, and also aiding in the defense of Peter Baez, the co-founder of a San Jose medical marijuana dispensary.)
Smoke From The West - Five States Now Demand Medicinal Marijuana (The Sacramento Bee says the favorable votes for medical marijuana this month in Arizona, Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Nevada make a "congressional confrontation" seem unavoidable.)
Tobacco-Tax Backers Claim Victory (The San Jose Mercury News says propoents of California's Proposition 10, which raises cigarette taxes 50 cents a pack beginning Jan. 1, declared victory Wednesday and began anticipating their spoils. At the same time, it was reported that tobacco firms had tentatively agreed to raise the price of a pack 35 cents nationally as part of a $200 billion deal to settle lawsuits against them, meaning the average $2.55 cost of a pack of cigarettes in California could soon hit $3.40.)
Officers Will Be Exonerated (A letter to the editor of The Houston Chronicle about the six Houston prohibition agents who were let off by a grand jury after breaking into the home of Pedro Oregon Navarro without a warrant and killing the innocent man suggests nobody is safe because police know such episodes will be white-washed.)
Pot Smokers Vs. Uncle Sam (The Hartford Advocate, in Connecticut, describes the class-action lawsuit filed by Philadelphia civil rights attorney Larry Hirsch seeking to end the US government's ban on medical marijuana.)
Get Your Hands Off Those Ballots (Washington Post columnist Steve Twomey again blasts Congress for prohibiting the release of results for Initiative 59, the District of Columbia medical marijuana ballot measure. "A city that sought to settle an issue by the most democratic means possible, a vote of its people, has been thwarted by 535 men and women who surely view themselves as the very symbol of liberty." Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr., the Georgia Republican who proposed the amendment that aborted Initiative 59, didn't return a phone call seeking clarification of how Congress might square the murder of an election with America's image as the model of modern democracy. But why should Barr call back? He doesn't have to explain himself to city residents. They're not his constituents.)
Home Rule And Initiative 59 (A letter to the editor of The Washington Post says the District of Columbia Election Board is mistaken that the congressional rider in the fiscal 1999 DC budget prevents funding to count ballots for the medical marijuana initiative. The appearance of Initiative 59 on the ballot is purely an election matter having nothing to do with implementing the law. It is strictly a matter of voter rights at this point.)
DrugSense Focus Alert No. 88 - the NORML Conference on C-Span II (DrugSense alerts you to a broadcast likely to be repeated later in the day, and gives you what you need to send a "thank you" to the network for featuring the reform event.)
$200 Billion Tobacco Settlement Expected (The San Jose Mercury News says sources close to the negotiations between a group of attorneys general from eight states, including California, and four companies said the deal would call for the companies to pay about $200 billion over 25 years, including a large upfront payment, in part to cover costs associated with Medicaid treatment of sick smokers. In related news, tobacco companies won a key legal battle Tuesday as a federal appeals court refused to reconsider a decision barring the US Food and Drug Administration from regulating cigarettes and smokeless tobacco.)
States Strike $200 Billion Tobacco Deal (The Arizona Republic version)
JAMA theme issue on alternative medicine (A list subscriber posts the URL for this week's special issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, noting all of the articles are relevant to cannabis.)
Researchers take a serious look at herbal therapies (The Oregonian version)
Marijuana for Christmas? (List subscriber Dave Ford publicizes a special deal on his widely praised book, "Marijuana - Not Guilty As Charged.")
Reviews of "The Fix," by Michael Massing (A list subscriber posts several critiques gleaned from amazon.com, the online bookseller. "The Fix" makes a case for the return of the community-based drug treatment clinic model that was a cornerstone of US drug policy under President Nixon.)
Book Review - "Ending the War on Drugs - A Solution for America," by Dirk Chase Eldredge (A list subscriber posts a couple of articles, from Booklist and Kirkus Reviews, about a conservative Republican's proposal for carefully controlled "legalization.")
Book Review - "Romancing Mary Jane" (FFWD Weekly, in Calgary, Alberta, says "Romancing Mary Jane - A Year in the Life of a Failed Marijuana Grower," by Michael Poole, recounts the author's immersion in the cannabis culture of British Columbia and paints a markedly different picture than that of your local police force.)
Colombia Fires Air Force Officers (The Associated Press says five members of the Colombian air force were arrested Thursday after US authorities seized a Colombian air force plane in Florida carrying more than 1,600 pounds of cocaine.)
Brit Panel Backs Medical Marijuana (The Associated Press version of yesterday's news about the report released by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology recommending that physicians be allowed to prescribe medical cannabis.)
Cannabis Pills (The Times version)
Lords' Call For Medical Cannabis Rejected (The Times, in Britain, says George Howarth, the Home Office Minister, ruled out a call from the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee for doctors to prescribe cannabis now. The peers said thousands of people suffering muscle spasms and terminal cancer could benefit from the drug's painkilling properties.)
Judge Warns Against Lifting Cannabis Ban (Yahoo! News says Old Bailey Judge Graham Boal QC was presiding over the case of a 27-year-old man who smoked the herb heavily on a daily basis who was charged with butchering a young artist with a kitchen knife in an unprovoked attack outside a London pub. Commenting on the report issued by the House of Lords, the judge said, "In the current debate on whether cannabis should continue to be a prohibited substance, perhaps more attention should be given in some quarters to cases such as this." The defendant was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1989.)
Judge Warns On Cannabis (The version in The Irish Independent)
Heroin On Prescription As Addiction Solution Urged (According to The Irish Times, a member of the National Drugs Strategy Team, Father Seen Cassin, said yesterday that a Swiss project prescribing heroin to addicts had "significantly good" results, and the Government should consider new approaches to the drug problem, including prescribing legal heroin.)
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Wednesday, November 11, 1998:
Meth lab cleverly hidden in blackberry thicket near county fairgrounds (The Associated Press characterizes as "clever" a man in Central Point, Oregon, who allegedly built and operated a methamphetamine lab within the confines of the Jackson County Expo Park, the site of the Jackson County Fair.)
Defense Attorneys Contend That The Cannabis Co-Op Leader Was Entrapped (An Orange County Register update on the trial of Marvin Chavez says Superior Court Judge Thomas Borris changed his mind Tuesday and ruled that the founder of the Orange County Cannabis Co-Op may not invoke Proposition 215 to defend himself against pot-sale charges. Defense lawyers at Chavez's trial plowed on in the wake of the decision by mounting an entrapment defense.)
The Chavez Trial Defining 'Caregivers' (A staff editorial in The Orange County Register provides more details about the trial of Marvin Chavez, particularly the unresolved issue of who qualifies as a "caregiver" under Proposition 215.)
Santa Clara County Approves Pot Clubs With Strict Limits (The San Francisco Chronicle says the Board of Supervisors of Santa Clara County, California, voted 4 to 0 yesterday to extend the county's medical marijuana ordinance indefinitely, after adding more regulations to it. Although no medical marijuana dispensaries now exist in Santa Clara County, officials will allow them in unincorporated areas if they meet strict regulations, and pay more than $6,000 in fees.)
County Makes Pot Law Tougher (The San Jose Mercury News version)
Medical Marijuana Initiatives Passed (Three letters to the editor of The Los Angeles Times lead with AIDS patient Peter McWilliams' tearful thanks to the newspaper for endorsing the reclassification of cannabis to Schedule II.)
Ex-Sheriff Jailed In Drug Case (The Tulsa World says Burlen Glenn, the former sheriff of Latimer County, Oklahoma, remained in Haskell County Jail Tuesday in lieu of $500,000 bail after his arrest last week on charges of arranging to buy one pound of methamphetamine for $10,000 from an undercover prohibition agent.)
Nothing Keeps A Driver And His License Apart For Long (The Tulsa World says the newspaper's review of thousands of DUI cases shows that Oklahoma drunk drivers by law have a right to drive, no matter what the body count, no matter how destructive, and no matter how many times they are caught.)
Beyond Rehabilitation? (The Tulsa World says a review by the newspaper of more than 10 years of DUI cases from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Cleveland counties suggests that court-ordered substance-abuse treatment is the exception, not the rule. Out of more than 50,000 drinking and driving cases in those three counties since 1988, court records indicated that fewer than 1,500 offenders were ordered into treatment programs, even though two out of five drunk drivers supposedly have "chronic drinking problems.")
Slain Man's Family Wants Police Shooting Re-Examined (According to The Tulsa World, a police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, says he was only trying to protect himself when he fatally shot an armed Edwin Levall Vines outside a "drug house" last week. However, the dead man's family, backed by the Tulsa chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, wants an investigation by the city's Citizens Review Board because some witnesses said Vines was not armed and had his hands in the air when he was shot.)
Sheriff Seeks Outside Probe (According to The Tulsa World, in Oklahoma, Delaware County Sheriff Jim Earp said Tuesday that he had asked a state agency to take over an investigation looking into whether Undersheriff Bill Stout tampered with drug evidence. Stout was suspended last week after three deputies said Stout brought more methamphetamine to a court hearing than what was actually seized.)
Redford slaying probe blasted (The San Antonio Express News says a congressional report to be made public today is critical of a Justice Department investigation into the death of Esequiel Hernandez Jr., the 18-year-old goatherder in Redford, Texas, who was shot last year by camouflaged US Marines on a drug-interdiction mission along the US-Mexico border. "They simply did not do their job," said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, of the Justice Department's investigation. "A number of actions were taken to prevent justice from being carried out.")
Lawyer to depict drug as a weapon (The San Antonio Express-News says prosecutors plan to make a unique legal argument against a man in New Braunfels, Texas, charged with giving cocaine to his 14-year-old daughter. He faces up to 99 years in prison.)
Pot - Medicine Or Malevolence? (The Evansville Courier, in Indiana, is seeking letters to the editor about the advisability of medical marijuana initiatives for Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois. The deadline for submissions is Tuesday.)
Is drug testing students a good idea? (Cityview, in Iowa, recounts the brief history of random urine tests for high school students - a fad begun in Vernonia, Oregon - noting that no school in Iowa currently requires such tests. Randy Aultman, the Vernonia high school principal who instituted the nation's first such program, was in Des Moines Thursday during a nationwide tour advocating student drug testing, and a local audience's response suggests the state will soon require urinalysis of its athletes.)
Cocaine Is Found On Military Plane (The Washington Times version of yesterday's news about the seizure in Florida of 1,639 pounds of cocaine aboard a Colombian air force plane)
Protesters Demand Marijuana Vote Tally (The Washington Post says about 50 people protested yesterday outside the DC Board of Elections and Ethics offices, demanding the release of results from last week's vote on legalizing marijuana for medical purposes.)
Seven Deadly Sins - the student stoner dilemma (An op-ed in Salon magazine by a senior at Virginia Commonwealth University protests the provision in the Higher Education Act of 1998 which prohibits non-violent drug offenders - particularly pot smokers - from receiving federal loans or other financial aid.)
TV Has Become Drug Companies Medium (The Associated Press says that just a year after the federal government relaxed restrictions on prescription drug advertising to consumers, the industry spent $306 million on television advertisements during the first half of 1998, or $5 million more than it spent in all of 1997. Television now accounts for 48 percent of drug company's direct-to-consumer advertising, compared to 44 percent for magazines and 8 percent for newspapers. Advertising is said to be causing demand for drugs to soar - while spending nationwide on health care grew by 4.8 percent in 1997, the lowest rate since 1960, spending on pharmaceuticals increased 14.1 percent on top of a 13.2 percent the year before, the federal goverment reported Tuesday.)
Alternative medicine moves into mainstream (The Miami Herald says Tuesday's special edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association focusing on alternative medicine includes a new study by David Eisenberg of Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, which says four out of 10 Americans used alternative medicine last year to treat mainly chronic conditions, spending an estimated $27 billion out of pocket. There were more visits in 1997 to alternative medicine practitioners than to primary care physicians, and more money was spent on alternative medicine than on patients' expenses for hospitalizations.)
Police say hashish bust biggest ever in BC (According to the Associated Press, Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Tuesday that the seizure last week of 12 metric tons of hash on a fishboat, and another 2.8 metric tons on a mother ship, in Fanny Bay, northwest of Victoria, British Columbia, was the biggest interdiction of its type in provincial history.)
Mexican Authorities Link Massacre Of 19 To Drug Gang (According to an Associated Press article in The Orange County Register, the Mexican attorney general's office said Tuesday that the massacre of 19 people near the northern city of Ensenada Sept. 17 has been linked to the Arellano Felix brothers, who run Mexico's most violent drug gang.)
Mexican Authorities Link Massacre To Violent Drug Gang (A different Associated Press version)
Tijuana Massacre Traced To Drug Deal Gone Bad Between Rival Gangs (The Houston Chronicle version.)
Mexico Nabs Three Ensenada Drug Massacre Suspects (The Reuters version)
New Laws For Police To Search Cars (According to The Daily Telegraph, in Australia, last week's drive-by shooting at the police station in Lakemba has prompted the state government to announce it would introduce legislation into State Parliament this week allowing police the power to erect road blocks, pull over drivers, search their vehicles and demand IDs.)
Drug Boffins Put A Sock In It (The Australian says heavies from the New South Wales Health Department and the office of its minister have issued a decree censoring workers in the drug field, particularly those in the sensitive area of illicit drugs. With an election in the offing, the government is keen to keep the focus on law and order and away from anything that might portray it as soft on drugs.)
IOC Drug Policy Overhaul Predicted (According to The Chicago Tribune, Dr. Ken Fitch, a member of the International Olympic Committee's medical commission, said in Sydney, Australia, that a "radical" overhaul of the IOC's drug policy would take place at a meeting next month, including the removal of some narcotics from the banned list.)
Lords Back Cannabis Use For Patients Suffering Pain (The Guardian, in Britain, discusses the report published today by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology saying doctors should be legally allowed to prescribe cannabis to multiple sclerosis sufferers and other patients who find it helps relieve pain.)
Peers Support Cannabis Use (The Independent version)
Legalise Cannabis For Sick, Say Peers (The Telegraph version)
Lords Call To Make Cannabis Legal For Pain Relief (The Times version)
Out On A Limb Over Beneficial Joints (Guardian columnist Sarah Boseley says the report on medical marijuana published this morning by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology "admits" there is no scientific evidence that cannabis relieves the pain of multiple sclerosis sufferers and others. But the committee believed the evidence from patients themselves, and felt it was wrong that those in pain should have to break the law and that their doctors should be under pressure to connive with them. The committee said that its recommendation was not scientific, but compassionate.)
Cannabis Therapy (A letter to the editor of The Independent, in Britain, from a multiple sclerosis patient who uses marijuana as medicine, implores the government to heed today's report from the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology.)
Let GPs Prescribe The Weed (A staff editorial in The Guardian, in Britain, rejects the British Medical Association's criticism of today's report from the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, which recommends that General Practitioners be allowed to prescribe herbal cannabis for medical use. "The Lords should be congratulated for listening to patients rather than researchers. Knowing why it works would be helpful but making it illegal until we know why is wrong.")
Select Committee on Science and Technology Report (The text of the report on medical marijuana commissioned by the House of Lords says the Government should allow doctors to prescribe cannabis for medical use. "Far from being a step towards general legalisation, our recommendation would make the ban on recreational use easier to enforce.")
Concern Over Drug Testing At Work (Two letters to the editor of The Times, in Britain, rebut an enthusiastic recent op-ed endorsing urine testing of workers for illegal drugs.)
Judge gives 30 days on drug charge (The Bangor Daily News says a judge in Ireland rejected a prosecutor's call for extended jail time and sentenced John Thompson of Frankfort, the town's road commissioner, to 30 days in jail for unlawful trafficking in scheduled drugs. Waldo County Superior Court Justice William S. Brodrick indicated that the Food and Drug Administration had determined that marijuana was less addictive than caffeine.)
Bytes: 303,000 Last updated: 12/3/98
Tuesday, November 10, 1998:
Medicinal pot's win in 5 states stuns backers (An Oregonian article whose headline shows the newspaper's tendency to engage in projection quotes Dave Fratello saying Americans for Medical Rights plans to back campaigns in Colorado, Florida and Maine in 2000. Phil Lemman, executive director of the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, predicts that the Legislature will amend the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act. But Oregon's legislative leaders said they first will monitor the law, which won in 16 of the state's 36 counties.)
Truck drivers now supervising inmate deliveries in cost-cutting plan (The Associated Press says the Oregon Department of Corrections, in order to save money, now allows inmates who help deliver laundry to hospitals, schools and nursing homes to be supervised by truck drivers instead of corrections officers.)
The Chavez Trial (The Orange County Register covers the trial of Marvin Chavez, the medical marijuana patient and founder of the Orange County Patient Doctor Nurse Support Group, on trafficking charges. Judge Thomas J. Borris allowed jurors to hear references to Prop. 215, the medical marijuana initiative voters passed in 1996, but will not make a final ruling as to what laws the jury will be allowed to consider as relevant to the charges until the end of the case.)
Pot Club's Owner Cites Prop 215 (A second article in The Orange County Register on the same trial says Superior Court Judge Thomas Borris has already tentatively ruled that Chavez is legally a caregiver under Prop. 215, but only for two of the 10 sale or transportation charges he faces.)
Letter to Gray Davis (A letter to the Governor-elect of California from California NORML asks the Democratic victor to support efforts to fulfill the mandate of Proposition 215 to assure "safe and affordable" access to medical marijuana for all patients in need; to consider measures to reduce the number of marijuana prisoners, which increased 1,200 percent during 16 years of Republican misrule with no change in marijuana use rates; and to support decriminalizing cultivation of small amounts of cannabis for personal use, as recommended by the state Research Advisory Panel in 1990.)
Justices Let Two Sue Irvine Police (The Orange County Register says the US Supreme Court reinstated the lawsuit by two Orange County men against police in Irvine, California, on the grounds that officers illegally obtained their blood samples after arresting them on suspicion of drunken driving. Attorney Jeffrey Wertheimer, who represents the city of Irvine, said the court's decision would not change police DUI policies.)
Marijuana Vote Secret Pending Dec. 18 Hearing (The Washington Post says US District Judge Richard W. Roberts refused yesterday to order the immediate release of results from last week's vote on a medical marijuana initiative in the District of Columbia in order to take a comprehensive look at the legal issues.)
Drug Courts Reduce Crime And Save Money, Study Says (An Associated Press article in The Seattle Times says the Physician Leadership on National Drug Policy, a bipartisan group of health experts, released findings today from a study on so-called drug courts purporting to show that programs allowing nonviolent offenders to undergo treatment rather than serve time - programs that coerce nonviolent "drug abusers" into rehabilitation instead of prison - help them "kick the habit" while saving taxpayers' money.)
Good News? / Drug Courts (One list subscriber is reticent about criticizing drug courts. Another says they are a desperate measure to save prohibition, and a self-evident pointer to the fact that drug "crimes" are not crimes at all.)
US nabs cocaine-laden Colombian air force plane (According to Reuters, Colombian President Andres Pastrana accepted the resignation of Air Force chief Gen. Manuel Sandoval late Tuesday after a Colombian air force plane was seized at a Florida airport with more than 1,600 pounds of cocaine.)
Colombia Air Force Chief Resigns Over Drug Flap (A different Reuters version)
Customs Agents Find Cocaine On Colombian Air Force Plane (The CNN version)
The Politics Of Prescribed Prohibition (An excellent op-ed in The Canberra Times, in Australia, notes the scientific and scholarly evidence we have about drugs and drug use are routinely overlooked in favour of policies based on ideas that are the intellectual and academic equivalent of a belief in witchcraft. The overwhelming bulk of scientific and scholarly evidence suggests that prohibition has greatly exacerbated the problems associated with drugs, drug use and drug users. Even so there are still those who try to argue that reliance on prohibition has prevented an explosion in availability and usage, and that any change in policy would send out the wrong message. There is no evidence to support this. Indeed, what evidence there is suggests the exact opposite.)
Bytes: 62,800 Last updated: 12/23/98
Monday, November 9, 1998:
Drug War Deceptive (A letter to the editor of The Register Guard, in Eugene, Oregon, says it is the government and its emptyheaded mouthpieces who "deceive and scare," not proponents of medical marijuana and opponents of recriminalizing marijuana possession.)
A Man Caught In A Kafkaesque Trap (Alan W. Bock, the senior editorial writer for The Orange County Register, recounts how, instead of obeying the mandate of Proposition 215 and working with Marvin Chavez, the founder of an Orange County medical marijuana dispensary who was trying to operate within the law, local officials arrested him.)
Customs Conviction Muddies Drug Trial (The San Francisco Chronicle says attorneys for Thanong "Thai Tony" Siriprechapong, a former member of the Thai parliament accused of smuggling more than 45 tons of hashish into the United States, have asked that the case be dismissed because the charges are based on false grand jury testimony by a US Customs agent convicted of taking money from a key prosecution witness. The lawyers also said the US attorney's office in San Francisco improperly asked other federal prosecutors to delay bringing criminal charges against the agent in an attempt to protect the hashish case.)
Nicotine called promising for relief of brain disorders (The Miami Herald says research presented Sunday at a Los Angeles conference featuring many of the 20,000 scientists worldwide who study the brain hinted that nicotine-based drugs may one day provide relief for Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia and anxiety disorders.)
Pension? No Problem (A staff editorial in The San Jose Mercury News says Johnny Venzon Jr., in jail awaiting trial on charges that he stole from people while on duty as a San Jose cop, does not deserve a disability pension because of his gambling addiction. He refused treatment - and it was breaking the law and not his gambling that got him fired.)
Examples Of Sentencing In Fatal Drunk-driving Crashes (The Tulsa World cites a number of instances in which drunken drivers in Oklahoma have killed people without being sentenced to jail or prison - and finds some disparity in sentencing, too.)
Blind Obedience Perilous (A letter to the editor of The Houston Chronicle objects to a previous letter writer's seeming endorsement of Houston prohibition agents who broke into the home of Pedro Oregon Navarro without a warrant and killed him.)
Five States' Marijuana Approval Illustrates Gullibility of Voters (A staff editorial in The Omaha World-Herald says voters in five states who elected Tuesday to let marijuana be "prescribed" as a "painkiller" were pawns of a movement to decriminalize the use of marijuana.)
Mandatory Sentencing A Big-Time Bust (The Boston Globe says some original research by the newspaper has turned up figures showing that more than 84 percent of those serving mandatory minimum sentences on drug charges in Massachusetts are first-time offenders in the state. For the most part, these are drug users who are at the bottom of the supply chain. They are also overwhelmingly Hispanic and black. The big-time dealers avoid mandatory minimums because they have information to trade with prosecutors, or money that is forfeited upon their arrest - which makes law enforcement look upon them more kindly. The federal system - which operates under its own mandatory mimimum sentence law - is similarly filled with small-time offenders.)
Pot Politics (A staff editorial in The Times Union, in New York, says the Clinton Administration should reconsider its opposition to medical marijuana. Voters in more states are allowing it, and scientific evidence is on the popular side.)
Undercover troopers arrest 21 for marijuana at Bills-Jets game (The Associated Press says narcs targeting illegal drug users at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, arrested 21 people on minor marijuana charges during Sunday's football game between the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets.)
Judge Won't Release Vote Results (According to The Associated Press, US District Judge Richard Roberts refused on Monday to order the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics to immediately release the results of a Nov. 3 vote to legalize marijuana for medical purposes in the nation's capital, saying the federal government should be given more time to decide whether it wants to act as a party in the case and argue against the release of the vote results.)
Oranges with THC in 'em (A list subscriber posts the URL for a South to the Future article, from The Bay Area Guardian, about a Florida biochemist who claims to have designed a citrus tree that produces THC. Plus the article itself - including the weekly's weak disclaimer.)
Re - Oranges that get you high (A letter sent to the editor of The San Francisco Bay Area Guardian suggests the weekly might have made its hoax a little more transparent, explaining why THC can't be synthesized in oranges. Few of the enzymes involved in cannabinoid biosynthesis have been identified, and cannabinoids are not proteins.)
Research into pain gives hope for chronic sufferers (The Associated Press covers the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, in Los Angeles, with an update on what scientists know about chronic pain and what researchers are currently working on. Low-dose anti-depressants have been found effective among some sufferers of chronic pain syndromes. But there's also great interest in harnessing the body's own natural painkillers.)
Olympic gold medalist Hall cited for marijuana use (CNN and Sports Illustrated say the world's fastest swimmer in 1996, Gary Hall Jr., and two other US swimmers, were cited by the sport's world governing body Monday for drug offenses. Hall was handed a three-month suspension by the doping panel of the international federation for testing positive for marijuana.)
Germany may legalize cannabis (According to The Kitchener-Waterloo Record, in Ontario, the new German government has said it will study the case for making the possession of small quantities of soft drugs such as cannabis legal.)
Four "No"s from the Catholic People's Party (An excerpt from an article in Neue Zuricher Zeitung, in Zurich, Switzerland, says the CDU has recommended that voters reject all four "Droleg" issues on the Nov. 29 ballot regarding the decriminalization - for Swiss citizens - of drugs that currently are illegal.)
And What If The State Should Take Charge of the Market in Prohibited Drugs? (Several articles and writers in Le Temps, in Switzerland, examine the pros and cons to "Droleg," the Nov. 29 Swiss referendum on depenalizing illegal drugs.)
Bytes: 95,500 Last updated: 12/26/98
Sunday, November 8, 1998:
Medical marijuana proponents move toward mainstream (The Associated Press suggests Dr. Rob Killian and supporters of Initiative 692 in Washington state won at the ballot box last week because they put away their tie-dye clothing and cut their long hair. Apparently something more is required in Nevada, where the state attorney general, Frankie Sue Del Papa, says she won't enforce her state's new constitutional amendment - if it's reaffirmed as required in 2000 - without federal approval.)
A Look At The Political Leaders Behind Three Winning Ballot Measures (The Seattle Times suggests Dr. Rob Killian became the prime mover behind Initiative 692, Washington state's medical marijuana ballot measure, because of his cousin's death from AIDS. Previously he had aspired to become the first Mormon senator from Washington state.)
Pot Case Delayed (The Press-Telegram, in Long Beach, California, notes a sick juror delayed the beginning of the trial scheduled for Friday of Marvin Chavez, the founder of the Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support Group.)
California marijuana growers flourish (A sensational and factually challenged article in The Miami Herald says armed and dangerous marijuana growers in Northern California are flourishing and cannabis is the lifeblood of some towns. Marijuana is being cultivated not only in remote, camouflaged plots, but brazenly in cornfields, next to farms and along roads and highways. Pot cultivation has become so rampant in some counties that federal agents often ignore groves with less than a thousand plants.)
Transcript - Jesse Ventura on "Meet the Press" (The Reform Party governor-elect of Minnesota tells NBC that he does not support decriminalization of marijuana at this time, though he does support industrial hemp and medical marijuana. "I believe you've got to fight the war from the demand side, not the supply side. I mean, for goodness sake, we have Stillwater State Penitentiary here and we can't keep drugs out of there, and these people are locked up 24 hours a day. You get people to be smart and intelligent. It's like a business. You don't create a product because of supply; you create it because there's a demand for it.")
Marijuana Is One Of The Least Dangerous Drugs (A letter to the editor of The Boston Globe says it is especially cruel and indefensible to be incarcerating marijuana users when both the National Academy of Sciences and the World Health Organization have concluded that marijuana is one of the least dangerous drugs, legal or otherwise, and creates less of a public health danger than either alcohol or tobacco.)
Be free, but be careful about what you say (A letter to the editor of The Centre Daily Times, in Pennsylvania, from a junior in high school, says retired Penn State Professor Julian Heicklen's pot-smoking protests violate the "undisputed sagacity" of prohibition by "countering the efforts of literally millions to keep children healthy and drug-free.")
Medicinal Weed Makes A Stand In Tallahassee (The Tallahassee Democrat says about 1,500 people signed petitions at polling places Tuesday to put a statewide referendum on the ballot in 2000 legalizing the medical use of marijuana. Fort Lauderdale-based Floridians for Medical Rights needs 435,000 signatures by Aug. 1, 2000, to get the issue on the ballot. So far, statewide volunteers have collected more than 20,000 signatures.)
Groundswell For Medical Marijuana (A staff editorial in The Chicago Tribune says the opponents of medical marijuana have yet to make a convincing case why cannabis should not be available to people who need it to relieve serious ailments. The medical potential of pot is undeniable by now.)
Nearly No Research Done on Pot (The Associated Press notes that, despite ongoing controversy over marijuana's medical efficacy, almost no research is being done on the topic, despite an expert panel established by the Institutes of Health which found in August 1997 that existing research showed some patients could be helped by the herb, principally to relieve cancer patients' nausea after chemotherapy, to increase AIDS patients' appetites, and to help some patients control glaucoma.)
Nixon Had It Right (An op-ed in The Washington Post by Michael Massing, author of "The Fix," says that of the District of Columbia's estimated 65,000 "substance abusers," barely 10 percent can be accommodated by local treatment programs today. It wasn't always like this. A little more than 25 years ago the District fought the drug war successfully with a comprehensive drug treatment system that was considered a model for the nation.)
UK Lords call to legalise cannabis - Lords call for cannabis to be legalised as painkiller (The Observer, in Britain, says a 70-page report to be released this week by the Science and Technology Committee in the House of Lords urges a change in the law to allow cannabis derivatives to be used legally. Labour MP Paul Flynn, whose wife, Samantha, has endured a year of painful chemotherapy which he says could have been relieved if cannabis had been legally available, said yesterday, "This is a major breakthrough. I'm very pleased." However, "The report is defective in that it deliberately excluded evidence that legalising cannabis leads to a reduction in heroin use, because it takes away the need for users to go to the criminal market.")
Drugs Tsar Tells Customs To Go Soft On Cannabis Smugglers (Scotland on Sunday says Keith Hellawell has ordered British customs officers to take a softer approach to cannabis smugglers and to concentrate their resources on interdicting heroin and cocaine.)
Germany Weighing Pot Legalization (According to Reuters, Germany's new coalition government said it will study the case for legalizing possession of small quantities of soft drugs such as cannabis. The Greens, junior partners in the new coalition, have long been in favor of decriminalizing the use of soft drugs but the Social Democrats have so far resisted such a move.)
Bytes: 66,300 Last updated: 11/21/98
Saturday, November 7, 1998:
Final Oregon returns on medical marijuana and recrim (A list subscriber says unofficial final tallies of votes cast in Oregon's election Tuesday show Measure 67 winning with 54 percent and Measure 57 losing by 66 percent - both numbers down a point from previously cited figures.)
Community View - DARE Deserves A Chance (A letter to the editor of The Statesman Journal, in Salem, Oregon, laments the the Salem-Keizer School District's decision to cut the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program from half of its schools.)
Officer gets pension for gambling disorder (The Philadelphia Inquirer says a former cop in San Jose, California, who is serving time in jail for burglary has been awarded early retirement and a $27,000-a-year pension because his addiction to gambling has left him officially disabled. The city's attorney said that disability retirement benefits could be offered for psychiatric reasons that involved an element of drug or alcohol abuse.)
News from Inside (A list subscriber shares a letter from David Herrick, the former San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy and medical marijuana patient sentenced to four years in prison after being denied a Proposition 215 defense. Herrick says the recent news about California prison guards supposedly being ordered not to shoot prisoners in fights anymore doesn't seem to have trickled down to the rank and file yet.)
Mendocino Sheriff, DA Favor Decriminalizing Pot (The San Francisco Chronicle notes the new district attorney and the new sheriff in Mendocino County, California favor decriminalizing the illegal weed. For the past three years, Mendocino has led all other counties in California in the number of marijuana plants seized under a state-run eradication program. Sheriff's deputies say that last year, the department destroyed about 170,000 plants valued at $68 million and so far this year has destroyed about 65,000 plants valued at $26 million.)
Oregon's Home Invaded (A letter to the editor of The Houston Chronicle about the killing of Pedro Oregon Navarro by Houston prohibition agents who broke into the innocent man's home without a warrant says a citizen has the right to defend his home from invasion by any means necessary.)
A Gruff, Grammarless Governor-Elect Jesse 'The Body' In No Rush To Rule (The San Francisco Chronicle says Minnesota's new Reform Party winner, Jesse Ventura, said the drug problem can only be solved by eliminating the demand for drugs because, Ventura said, his mother "told me the drug war today is no different from Prohibition. And I trust my mom." Would somebody please point out to Jesse's mom that Prohibition was not ended by eliminating the demand for alcohol?)
Ex-cops sentenced for bribes (The Daily Southtown, in Chicago, says two former Ford Heights police officers, Odell Boxley and Kerwin Hall, were sentenced Friday to 11 years and three months in prison for accepting bribes from drug dealers whom they allowed to do business in the village. The two faced up to 15 years in prison, but the prosecutor requested the lesser terms because they informed on other corrupt officers.)
Drug dealer comes to the rescue of 81 year old man (A MSNBC broadcast on WBAL says Jerome Golden of Glen Burnie, near Baltimore, Maryland, was freed after a dealer convinced a carjacker at gunpoint to release the man he had taken on a five-hour crack-buying spree.)
District, ACLU Unite Behind Marijuana Vote (The Washington Post says the District of Columbia government and the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge yesterday to overrule Congress and uphold the results of Tuesday's vote on Initiative 59, the medical marijuana ballot measure. A judge will hear arguments Monday.)
Medical Marijuana Gets Five More Votes (A staff editorial in The Rockford Register Star, in Rockford, Illinois, says the Clinton administration cannot ignore the growing public support for patients who need medical marijuana. Voters made it clear Tuesday that a distinction can and must be made between recreational use of chemicals and the therapeutic use of this herb.)
Gingrich to quit Congress (An article by The New York Times and the Tacoma, Washington, News Tribune, notes Newt Gingrich, the speaker of the House of Representatives, has announced he will resign at the end of his current term. No mention is made of Gingrich's role as one of the country's most vehement and ignorant drug warriors. The former pot smoker who once vowed to legislate the death penalty for anyone caught smuggling two ounces of cannabis into the United States was apparently not motivated by nine out of nine reform measures passing Tuesday.)
Drug Reform - US Says Yes (An op-ed in The Canberra Times, in Australia, by Alex Wodak, president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, summarizes the results of the various drug policy referenda around the United States, and suggests the election results are further evidence that support for a rigid "tough on drugs" approach may soon be a political liability.)
CIA Turned A Deliberate Blind Eye To Contras' Drug Smuggling (The Independent, in Britain, notes the Central Intelligence Agency's recent report admitting that it deliberately facilitated cocaine trafficking by its Nicaraguan Contra allies in the 1980s.)
Cannabinoid Is Neuroprotective In Head Trauma (According to the British medical journal, The Lancet, the leading cause of death among young men in the western world has no approved treatment, but clinical results from Israel indicate that dexanabinol, a non-psychotropic synthetic cannabinoid, may be "the most promising neuroprotective agent seen to date", according to Lawrence Marshall, an authority on head trauma at the University of California in San Diego. Phase II clinical trials provide strong evidence that the analogue can reduce intracranial pressure and significantly improve outcome in severe head injury.)
Yardies Linked To £10 Million Trade In Scotland's Heroin Capital (The Scotsman says a network of illegal-drug sellers with direct links to the notorious Yardie gangs of Jamaican criminals operating in the English Midlands, has moved into Fraserburgh, the new heroin capital of Scotland. The arrival of supplies of crack cocaine in the towns and villages along the Buchan coast is threatening to spawn an even more deadly drugs epidemic in the area.)
Vetter Wants To Give Heroin To Sick Addicts (A translation of an article from Stuttgarter Nachrichten, in Germany, says another German politician, Erwin Vetter, the departing Minister for Social Affairs, has broken with his party's hard line on illegal drug users and come out in favor of a Swiss-style heroin distribution trial for the severely addicted.)
Bytes: 75,500 Last updated: 11/23/98
Friday, November 6, 1998:
Much Ado About Nothing (Eugene Weekly says a four-year investigation into a suspected marijuana-growing operation near Coburg, Oregon, led to a 1995 raid on a rural residence by dozens of black-clad, rifle-toting officers who kicked in doors and splintered door frames while a helicopter hovered overhead. Prohibition agents traumatized Byron Stone and his wife, Wanda, leaving Byron 70 percent disabled, but they found only a half-ounce of marijuana allegedly belonging to someone else. Lane County Circuit Judge Jack Mattison dismissed Stone's lawsuit against police before a jury could hear it, saying the "law doesn't always give a remedy" when government action injures innocent citizens.)
Second Message of I-692 - Change Marijuana Listing (A staff editorial in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer notes voters Tuesday approved medical marijuana initiatives by margins ranging from 55 percent to 60 percent in Washington, Alaska, Oregon and Nevada. The greater public interest would be served by listing marijuana as a Schedule II substance, along with morphine, opium and cocaine, as a Drug Enforcement Agency hearing judge recommended 10 years ago.)
Doctors, Patients Curious About Medical Marijuana Law (The Seattle Times says the phone is ringing off the hook at the Green Cross, the Puget Sound medical marijuana dispensary, as patients try to learn more about Washington state's new law. Joanna McKee, the director of the Green Cross, refers callers to their primary care physicians, but even Dr. Rob Killian, who sponsored Initiative 692, concedes that most physicians won't know when to recommend its use.)
Washington State Medical Marijuana FAQ (A list subscriber posts some answers to frequently asked questions about patients' rights and responsibilities under Initiative 692.)
New drug education program appeals to older kids (The Seattle Times says that at a time when the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, or DARE, is coming under fire for questionable effectiveness, the Scope LifeRide program in Kirkland, Washington, is gaining nationwide attention. Created by the Kirkland Police Department and a Chicago motivational speaker, the program is aimed at high school students rather than the middle-school students targeted by DARE. Whether it's any more effective doesn't seem to matter.)
Police Capt. Mickelsen Admits Drug Use, Resigns (The Moscow-Pullman Daily News says Moscow, Idaho, Police Captain Dale Mickelsen resigned today after admitting to using marijuana. No criminal action will be taken.)
Despite Voter Support, Pot Clubs Take Heat - Federal government insists it will keep closing them down (The San Francisco Chronicle surveys the few medical marijuana clubs remaining in California, noting the popular support for medical marijuana evidenced by Tuesday's election in other states has not slowed the federal government's war against the dispensaries.)
The Chavez Case (A staff editorial in The Orange County Register provides an update on the trial of Marvin Chavez, the medical marijuana patient and founder of the Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support Group. On Wednesday afternoon, Judge Borris dealt with whether he would allow the defense attorneys to claim a Prop. 215 defense. A decision will be made after he hears from a witness, the person on whose behalf Mr. Chavez claims he was acting as caregiver.)
Drug Agent Faces New Charges (An Associated Press article in The Orange County Register says Richard Wayne Parker of San Juan Capistrano, a California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement agent set to go on trial this month for allegedly supplying cocaine to two street dealers, was indicted Thursday on additional charges of stealing 650 pounds of cocaine from an evidence locker.)
Jailed Drug Agent Faces New Allegation (The Los Angeles Times version)
Tip Of The Iceberg (A sarcastic letter to the editor of The Las Vegas Review-Journal says the recent vote on legalizing marijuana use for medical purposes sets an alarming precedent. And is only the tip of the iceberg. What will happen if it becomes generally known that commercial use of the hemp plant can adversely affect chemical companies, cotton farmers and other industries such as the lumber and paper producers of this country?)
Pot Initiative Leaves Legal Waters Muddy (The Arizona Daily Star says it's unclear how some law-enforcement officials in Arizona plan to deal with the drug policy reforms enacted for a second time Tuesday by voters. Other local officials, such as Deputy Pima County Attorney Bill Dickinson, in charge of the narcotics unit, said his office plans to let off medical marijuana patients with recommendations from their physicians, but will refer the prescribing doctors to the US Attorney's Office to determine whether they should face sanctions under federal law.)
Dozens Gather To Demand Justice In Oregon Killing (The Houston Chronicle says activists and relatives of those slain previously by Houston police gathered outside the Harris County Criminal Courthouse Thursday, charging that the shooting of Pedro Oregon Navarro was "murder" and calling for the resignation of District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr. and the prosecution of the six prohibition agents who broke into Navarro's home without a warrant and killed him.)
Houston Police Shooting Demands Public Scrutiny (The San Antonio Express-News says the killing of an innocent man, Pedro Oregon Navarro, by prohibition agents in Houston, Texas, who broke into his apartment without a warrant, compels public scrutiny outside of Houston. The Harris County district attorney's refusal to convene a new grand jury suggests that in Houston, and, by extension, Texas, the US Constitution applies only to certain people. The disturbing perception casts a pall on the city, and until the matter is satisfactorily resolved, the pall also hangs over the state.)
Won't Run From Uniformed (A letter to the editor of The Houston Chronicle about the Pedro Oregon Navarro controversy says to give police lots of bullets and let them "show no restraint." In return, the author will teach her children not to run from uniformed officers or to pull guns on them.)
Jailer Faces Drug Charge (The Sun-Herald, in Mississippi, says Gregory Scott Bryant, a Harrison County sheriff's deputy, was fired after being arrested last month on a charge of misdemeanor possession of marijuana.)
Woonsocket officer fired over allegations (According to The Associated Press, The Call, in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, said Friday that Paul J. Girard, a police officer who handled drug cases and was one of the state's first trainers of drug-sniffing dogs, has been fired for allegedly consorting with crack cocaine users and removing narcotics from the force's evidence locker.)
Movie Promotion is Perfectly Legal (A list subscriber forwards an excerpt from a press release issued by Frederick Brewing, the Maryland producer of Hempen Ale. The press release announces a promotional campaign for the hemp-flavored beer by the Baltimore-based agency, the Campbell Group, including a tie-in to the release of the movie, "Very Bad Things," starring Cameron Diaz and Christian Slater, opening Nov. 25. The promotional campaign will also play up the illicit connotations of hemp with print, radio and point-of-purchase materials, while mocking absurd laws on the books across the country such as an Illinois statute that prohibits giving lighted tobacco products to domesticated animals, and California's law against setting a mousetrap without a hunting license. Print ads use the work of "outsider" artists to underscore the campaign's counter-culture message.)
'An Abuse Of Authority' (The Las Vegas Review-Journal covers oral arguments in the appeal to the US Supreme Court by Patrick Knowles, an Iowa motorist sentenced to 90 days in jail when police discovered a pipe and a small amount of marijuana after a routine traffic violation led to a search of his vehicle. Tuesday in Washington, DC, even the "law-and-order" members of the court seemed surprised and skeptical when informed about the broad discretion Iowa now grants its police to search drivers pulled over for routine traffic stops.)
Sniffer Dogs Not Always Right (The London Free Press, in Ontario, says Canada Customs admits its trained dogs sometimes bark up the wrong tree when sniffing out suspected smugglers and luggage. In five per cent of cases, customs officials have a hard time making sense of why the dogs smelled something funny.)
The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 66 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original summary of drug policy news and calls for action, including - Sweep!; District of Columbia - silencing the voice of the voters; Arizona - restoring the will of the voters; Colorado - ballot status uncertain, voters certain; Oregon perspective; Report finds injection-related AIDS ravaging African American and Latino communities - police presence a factor in disease's disproportionate impact Supreme Court hears car search case; DRCNet launching stopthedrugwar.org web site; DRCNet launches new "activism" online discussion group; High school honor student expelled for sipping sangria at internship party; an excellent editorial on American's ivory-tower mass media, Message sent, by Adam J. Smith; and, A message from DRCNet to you.)
Bytes: 116,000 Last updated: 11/15/98
Thursday, November 5, 1998:
The war on the war on drugs (A sour-grapes staff editorial in The Oregonian reacts to the victorious Oregon Medical Marijuana Act by making fun of sick people, misrepresenting the statute and the campaign statements of proponents, and calling on the legislature to eviscerate the new law.)
Re - The war on the war on drugs (A letter sent to the editor of The Oregonian says supporters of Ballot Measure 67, the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, never argued that it includes "glaring flaws" which need a "legislative fix.")
Oregon Passes Vote-By-Mail, Medical Marijuana, Adoption Measures (An Associated Press election summary notes the final tallies for Tuesday's state ballot measures. In Washington, DC, Associate Attorney General Raymond C. Fisher said today the Justice Department would review the medical marijuana initiatives passed in Oregon and elsewhere and discuss them with local law enforcement before making any response.)
Oregon medical marijuana and recrim debate on "Town Hall" from 11/1/98 is online (Paul Stanford of the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act campaign says the recent televised debate broadcast by KATU-2, Portland's ABC affiliate, can be viewed for free in realtime from the crrh.org web site.)
Cronkite and Investigative Reports videos streaming (Paul Stanford of the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act campaign says the 1995 Cronkite Report, "The Drug Dilemma - War or Peace?" with Walter Cronkite; as well as the 1995 Investigative Reports program, "The War on Drugs - RIP," with Bill Curtis, can now be viewed for free in realtime from the crrh.org web site.)
Police killer's housemate convicted of drug, child neglect charges (According to The Associated Press, Jeffery Harlan Moore of Portland, the housemate of Steven Dons, who died in police custody earlier this year after a shootout occasioned by a warrantless break-in by the Marijuana Task Force, faces 10 years in prison.)
Police killer's friend guilty on drug counts (The Oregonian version says Judge Bergman found Moore not guilty of child endangerment for allegedly having his children around guns and ammunition in the house, something many police undoubtedly do, but found him guilty on two counts of child neglect because there was marijuana growing in the house, though marijuana never killed anyone and the only thing that could make it dangerous is prohibition.)
Slain officer Colleen Waibel honored by office in her name (The Oregonian says a police station in Parkrose, a suburb east of Portland, has been named after the Marijuana Task Force agent and DARE officer who was shot and killed during a warrantless break-in last January.)
Police Must Return Seized Medical Marijuana (The Associated Press says the California Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ordered police to give back medicine they seized from a Mendocino County couple, Christopher Brown and Dorlissa Perrine. The office of California Attorney General Dan Lungren had argued that giving the couple's medicine back to them required police officers to act as drug pushers, ignoring the clause in the Controlled Substances Act that allows police to do just that.)
Medical Marijuana Gains Momentum (The San Francisco Examiner says surprise victories for medical marijuana proposals in five states Tuesday mean California's Proposition 215 was no fluke - and the federal government will be under pressure to change its hard-line stance.)
Medical Suffering Is The Issue (A staff editorial in The Los Angeles Times - which opposed Proposition 215 - says it's time for Congress and the Food and Drug Administration to consider allowing the use of marijuana for medical purposes, under the same careful restrictions that apply to prescribing other risky and often addictive substances. The federal government's continued classification of marijuana as a drug with no clinical value is both anachronistic and inhumane.)
New Mendocino sheriff, DA downplay pot users (The Sacramento Bee says voters in Mendocino County, California - where marijuana is the largest cash crop and two generations of pot growers reside in the mountains - may have outdone themselves in 1998, electing a district attorney who spent nine months in federal prison as a tax protestor and a sheriff who downplays the value of marijuana arrests. "I don't have a felony record," emphasized district attorney-elect Norman Vroman Wednesday, noting that he could not practice law in California or be a candidate for political office under such circumstances. "It was a misdemeanor conviction." The sheriff-elect, Tony Craver, said, "I don't smoke marijuana and I don't advocate it and I'm not in favor of it," but decades of eradication efforts and other laws have not succeeded and are drawing time and resources from drug problems that Mendocino County residents find more threatening.)
DARE America Forces Alterna To Remove Hemp Shampoo Ads (A company press release on Entertainment Wire says Alterna Applied Research Laboratories, the manufacturer of hemp hair care products, has been forced this week by the private corporation that administers the government's favorite illegal-drug-use prevention program to remove ads for legal hemp shampoo from more than 100 bus benches in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.)
His Own Little Drug War (The San Jose Mercury News says Tony Bennett, who left his heart in San Francisco and became the darling of the MTV generation in his 60s, has written in "The Good Life" that he used marijuana and cocaine in 1970s Hollywood until he "spiraled into a dangerous drug-filled low" as his personal life unraveled - which could just mean he drank a lot. Apparently he was able to quit using "drugs" without benefit of prison or coerced treatment, however.)
Stillwater Man Gets 30 Years (The Tulsa World says Arthur Lee "Rabbit" Haley, a 60-year-old man who slept through much of his trial, was convicted Wednesday of selling $125 worth of crack cocaine and given a 30- year prison term by a jury in Payne County, Oklahoma.)
Former 'Bad Boy' Of Wrestling Has Surprising Hold On Electorate (The San Jose Mercury News publishes a feature article about Minnesota's new governor-elect, Jesse Ventura of the Reform Party, the one-time "bad boy" of the pro wrestling circuit, action-flick actor, Navy SEAL, talk-radio shock jock - and drug policy reform advocate. However, the newspaper downplays Ventura's stance to the point of misrepresenting it, saying, "He even mused publicly about legalizing prostitution and drugs, although he says he is not suggesting he approves of the idea.")
Two Northern Manhattan narcotics cops acquitted in beating of suspect (The Associated Press says New York Supreme Court Justice Ronald Zweibel, in a non-jury trial, acquitted the two prohibition agents Thursday of charges they brutally beat a Washington Heights man while breaking up a drug deal, fracturing several of his ribs and causing him to be hospitalized. Zweibel did not explain his verdict except to say that he found that the prosecution had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Drug charges against the victim were eventually dismissed, and he has filed a $450 million lawsuit against the city.)
DC Won't Give Results Of Marijuana Referendum (The Baltimore Sun notes Congress, which controls the District of Columbia, squelched the release of election results regarding Initiative 59 because Rep. Bob Barr, a conservative Georgia Republican, did not like the medical marijuana measure.)
What's Congress Smoking? (Washington Post columnist Steve Twomey protests Congress's decision to prevent the results of Initiative 59, the medical marijuana ballot measure, from being certified by the Washington, DC, Board of Elections and Ethics. The fact that Congress has the power to disenfranchise District of Columbia voters doesn't make it right, any more than it was right to make women and blacks powerless, which the Constitution also did, until modern wisdom set in. How do these out-of-towners make peace with their consciences when they do this sort of stuff? They rail about Cuba, Iraq, China and all the other dictatorially smothered establishments, and then turn around and vote with Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. to deny half a million Americans in the capital the simple privilege of deciding for themselves whether to ease a local drug law for humane reasons.)
Medicinal Marijuana Use Undecided In DC (An article in The Collegiate Times, in Virginia, by three members of NORML at VPI & SU, describes the fight for medical marijuana in Washington, DC, the chapter's lobbying for the measure in the capital, and provides some background about the NORML chapter at Virginia Tech.)
DrugSense Weekly, Issue No. 72 (A DrugSense special edition summarizes Tuesday's election victories for the reform cause - Nine for nine - we win everywhere! Kevin Zeese writes, "Perhaps the best examples of how politicians are out of step with the public come from the votes in Oregon and Arizona. In Oregon last year, two-thirds of the legislature voted to recriminalize marijuana possession. This week, two-thirds of the voters rejected that and kept marijuana decriminalization, a policy that has existed since 1973, in place.")
The Ballot Battle - Initiatives Bypass Traditional Lawmaking (A Washington Post roundup on the fate of ballot measures around the nation says it appears that six of every 10 measures passed, the first time a majority of initiatives were approved. Ethan Nadelman, director of the Lindesmith Center, a drug policy reform group in New York, pointed to nine measures around the country that either enabled the medical use of marijuana or rejected efforts to recriminalize marijuana possession, as happened in Oregon. "Yesterday's clean sweep of victories for medical marijuana and drug policy reform herald a new era in the electoral politics of the drug war," said Nadelman. "These results represent a wake-up call to politicians, both those accustomed to engaging in drug war demagoguery and those who have so far been fearful of proposing pragmatic alternatives.")
Election Day Was Not A Bad Day For Tolerance (Syndicated Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman says Tuesday's election shows the real preference among voters is for a third party - one that is willing to live and let live. According to Bill Clinton's pollster, Mark Penn, the percentage of people who agree with the statement "The best government is the government that governs least" has risen from 32 percent to 56 percent in the last 25 years. The clearest evidence of the "leave us alone" trend came from the states that voted on marijuana policy.)
US Tempers Reaction After 5 States OK Medicinal Pot (The Chicago Tribune says that in response to medical marijuana initiatives passed by voters in five states Tuesday, federal authorities seemed to be backing off the fire-and-brimstone rhetoric they used to attack similar measures two years ago. "I think the doctors have been scared by the science," said Jim McDonough, strategy director for the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey. But his dishonesty was evidenced by the continued refusal of the Clinton Administration to withdraw its threat to prosecute doctors who recommend cannabis - McCaffrey v. Conant is still being litigated.)
Voting Acts - Fighting The Disenfranchisement Of America's Future Generations (An op-ed in The Chicago Tribune comments on the recent report by the Sentencing Project and Human Rights Watch about the devastating effects of felony disenfranchisement laws. In many ways, the recent report actually understates the impact of such laws because of juvenile-justice trends. In 41 states that make it easier to transfer children to adult courts, for example, the practical effect will be to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of adults for acts they committed as children.)
Drug Enforcement Administration Proposes Reclassifying Unimed's Synthetic THC Compound, Marinol, Two Days after Marijuana Referendums Pass (A company press release on Business Wire says the DEA today issued a "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" recommending a reclassification of Marinol from Schedule II to Schedule III, admitting it has a "very low potential for abuse" and no illicit market. In addition to currently accepted uses for the synthetic cannabinoid, Marinol now is being tested on people diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.)
Drug Lords Target Nuevo Laredo Cops (According to The San Antonio Express-News, the mayor of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, said Thursday that the border city is under attack and state police are being deployed to combat a wave of drug-related violence that includes the execution of two police officers and the disappearance of two others.)
Jailed Cali Drug Trafficker Killed (The Associated Press says Helmer "Pacho" Herrera, the No. 3 man in the Cali cartel, was killed Thursday in a Colombian prison yard, two years after he surrendered and began fingering ex-associates.)
Why We Must Have Drug Tests At Work (An op-ed in The Times, in Britain, falsely asserts that urine testing employees for illegal drugs achieves its stated objectives, though the writer backhandedly admits that drug abuse is increasing in tandem with the phenomenon. The author claims that within two years it will be almost impossible for illegal-drug users to get a job with larger companies in Britain. The British drugs czar and government ministers have started encouraging drug testing by employers. They are following a quiet revolution, largely unreported because firms have been scared of bad publicity.)
Bytes: 149,000 Last updated: 11/19/98
Wednesday, November 4, 1998:
Oregon Measures 57 and 67 - Update (A list subscriber says pollster Tim Hibbitts has declared yesterday's referendum on recriminalizing marijuana a loser, with more than two-thirds of voters opposed at last count, and the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act a winner, with the tally at 55 percent to 45 percent so far.)
Recriminalization Of Marijuana Defeated, Medical Use Measure Leading (The Associated Press summarizes yesterday's two election victories for Oregon reformers, who raised $636,000 compared to "less than $300,000" by law enforcement officials.)
Medicinal Marijuana Gains Support (A list subscriber forwards a different Associated Press roundup, noting the reporter who quotes him in the article told him Measure 57, which would have recriminalized possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, was defeated in every one of Oregon's 36 counties.)
Medical Marijuana Bill Gaining Approval (The version in The Register-Guard, in Eugene, Oregon, says that in Lane County, more than 64 percent of voters approved Measure 67 in early returns.)
Measure 67 Brings Relief To Many (KOIN Channel 6000, Portland's CBS affiliate, notes the triumph of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, and interviews local medical marijuana patients Craig Helms and Diane Densmore, both previously convicted on marijuana-related charges.)
Oregon Puts Its Stamp On Elections (A typically biased Oregonian summary of yesterday's results from 14 state ballot initiatives barely mentions ballot measures 57 and 67, concerning recrim and medical marijuana, and reiterates opponents' arguments against the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act without citing any arguments by proponents. The most expensive race on the ballot was Measure 59, which would have prohibited public employee unions from using payroll deductions to raise money for political activity.)
Medical Use Of Marijuana Looks Likely (The Oregonian admits Ballot Measure 67, allowing certain sick people to use marijuana on the recommendation of a physician, appeared to be passing late Tuesday. Oregon patients who qualify under the new law will have to wait until at least May 1 before they can apply for registry cards from the Oregon Health Division. But as early as Dec. 3 the law could be used as a defense in court. Meanwhile, Measure 57, which would have recriminalized possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, was being rejected 2-to-1. Multnomah County Sheriff Dan Noelle, a true believer whose contempt for democracy is evident, says "I suspect there will be continued efforts to recriminalize.")
Medical Marijuana Looks Likely (The Oregonian says Measure 67, the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, appeared to be passing late Tuesday. While explaining the mechanics of the ballot measure and noting comments of opponents and supporters, the newspaper quotes the ever-expedient Multnomah County district attorney, Michael Schrunk, reversing himself, saying his office will not back off from prosecuting illegal use of marijuana. Previously, during the campaign, the DA tried to scare voters into opposing Measure 67, saying "These exceptions cancel out the rules and limits, thereby making enforcement of any marijuana laws not only impractical but virtually impossible." Michael Schrunk is a liar.)
Murmurs - The best, worst and weirdest of the November 1998 election campaign (Willamette Week, in Portland, collects some amusing tidbits of information about the just-completed election cycle, including the campaigns in Oregon for medical marijuana and against recrim.)
Officers find marijuana plants and stolen guns at suspect's home (According to The Associated Press, prohibition agents in Douglas County, Oregon, say they found a sophisticated marijuana operation in the home of a suspect killed in a gunfight after wounding two agents. Of course, since the police were the only ones allowed on the scene, and police routinely refuse to videotape their raids, there doesn't seem to be any objective evidence as to what really happened.)
Authorities disclose marijuana haul (The Oregonian version)
NewsBuzz - Bugging Plants (Willamette Week says Portland-area defense lawyers are up in arms after discovering that the Portland Police violated a legal settlement with American Agriculture and have been secretly tracing phone calls to the hydroponics store - perhaps for years - to get leads on suspected marijuana growers. Lawyers are supposed to be told what led police to their clients during the discovery process, but police have never revealed the wiretap. A judicial hearing is scheduled for Dec. 15. If the wiretap is ruled illegal, defense lawyers say they'll move to have possibly hundreds of cases against their clients thrown out. Recall Chief Moose and District Attorney Schrunk!)
Washington among five states to OK medical marijuana (The Seattle Times says supporters of Initiative 692, the Washington state medical-marijuana ballot measure, were savoring the aroma of a decisive victory today as Dr. Rob Killian, the principal sponsor, was heading to Washington, DC, to speak at a news conference calling on a reluctant federal government to reform its marijuana laws.)
Prop 215 Supporters Cheered by Election Results - West Coast Sends a Mandate for Marijuana Reform (A press release from California NORML summarizes yesterday's victories for reform. In California, voters retired gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren, nemesis of Proposition 215, and replaced him with Bill Lockyer as attorney general, a strong supporter of the California Compassionate Use Act of 1996. California NORML also plans to propose legislation to decriminalize personal-use cultivation, as has been successfully tried in Australia and was recommended by the state Research Advisory Panel in 1990.)
Lockyer Will Succeed Lungren After Close Victory Over Stirling (The San Jose Mercury News notes Bay Area Democrat Bill Lockyer, a supporter of Proposition 215, on Tuesday won the race to replace Dan Lungren as California attorney general, beating his Republican rival, Dave Stirling.)
Ex-felon elected as Mendocino District Attorney (The Associated Press says voters in the Northern California county narrowly elected Norman Vroman, a lawyer who served a federal prison term for failing to pay income taxes, and who favors decriminalization of marijuana. Voters also elected as their sheriff Tony Craver, who also favors decriminalizing marijuana.)
Vroman Pulls Off Upset In Mendocino (The Santa Rosa Press Democrat version)
Ex-Con Elected DA In California's "Pot" Country (The Reuters version)
2 Top Athletic Department Officials At CSUN Resign (The Los Angeles Times says that after Cal State Northridge women's basketball Coach Michael Abraham was arrested in the campus gymnasium last week and charged with intent to distribute crack cocaine, the two top officials in the university's athletic department resigned Tuesday, admitting that they knew of allegations of the coach's illegal drug use.)
Alaskan results as of 1:00 am (A list subscriber's early-morning bulletin says Measure 8, the Alaskan medical-marijuana ballot initiative, is ahead by about 58 percent to 42 percent.)
Medical Marijuana Initiative Clears Its First Hurdle (The Las Vegas Review-Journal says Nevada voters asserted their independence Tuesday and decisively approved Question 9, which would allow doctors to recommend marijuana to patients with serious illnesses. Partial returns showed the medical marijuana question was approved by 59 percent to 41 percent. But Nevada voters must approve Question 9 again in 2000.)
24 shots came from 1 officer in Oregon case (The Houston Chronicle says one of the six Houston prohibition agents who broke into the home of an innocent man, Pedro Oregon Navarro, without a warrant, fired his semiautomatic pistol at the 22-year-old man until the magazine was empty, then reloaded and continued firing.)
HPD steps out in Oregon death (Three diverse letters to the editor of The Houston Chronicle focus on the killing of Pedro Oregon Navarro by Houston prohibition agents who broke into his home without a warrant.)
Results of DC Marijuana Vote Kept Secret Pending Court Action (The Washington Post says the DC Board of Elections and Ethics decided yesterday that the election returns for Initiative 59, the District of Columbia's medical marijuana ballot measure, must remain secret to comply with rules passed by Congress. However, an exit poll funded by Americans for Medical Rights found that those who voted on it favored it by 69 percent.)
Marijuana Vote Results Kept Secret (A slightly different Washington Post account)
DC Won't Disclose Vote, Cites Congress' Pressure (The Chicago Tribune version)
Action Alert - National Call-in Day for I-59 (A bulletin from Colorado Citizens for Compassionate Cannabis urges you to call your US representative and two US senators to demand that the votes be counted for Initiative 59, the District of Columbia's medical marijuana ballot measure.)
Wrong Government Message (A letter to the editor of USA Today responds to an op-ed by the White House Drug Czar, General Barry McCaffrey, who wrote that science, not popular votes, should determine marijuana's medical availability. However, the general ignores two important facts. Marijuana was a bona fide medicine in the United States Pharmacopeia until 1940, when it was removed for political rather than scientific reasons. And for 20 years the government has willfully blocked scientific research that would confirm marijuana's medical efficacy.)
Medical Marijuana Wins at Polls (According to an early-morning Associated Press article, voters in Arizona, Nevada and the state of Washington said "Yes" to medical marijuana, while election officials in the District of Columbia said "Shhh." Reform measures are expected to win in Alaska and Oregon, while Arizona voters cleared the way for a second time to let doctors prescribe marijuana and some other illicit drugs for seriously ill patients.)
Medical Marijuana Backed In 3 States (A Washington Post election roundup on ballot initiatives around the country notes voters in Washington state, Nevada and Arizona passed measures yesterday allowing doctors to recommend marijuana for patients with certain illnesses.)
Three States Pass Medical Marijuana (The Associated Press version)
3 States Pass Medical Marijuana (Another Associated Press roundup notes the reform victories in Nevada, Arizona and Washington, and surveys the results of other state ballot initiatives.)
Voters Back Medical Marijuana In 3 States (The Los Angeles Times version)
Medicinal Marijuana Gives Some Hope (Another Associated Press account of yesterday's drug-policy-reform victories notes opponents of medical marijuana in Alaska enlisted former first lady Barbara Bush, but the measure there was endorsed by several medical groups, including the state chapter of the American Medical Association and the Alaska Nurses Association. Meanwhile, in Nevada, the state's attorney general said he would not enforce a medical marijuana initiative unless federal law is changed.)
A Message To Government In Propositions - Back Off (Yet another Associated Press election roundup in The Seattle Times provides an interesting insight on the results of 235 voter initiatives around the nation. Voters said they didn't want the government to intrude on their lives, whether it was to limit abortions, deny drugs to the seriously ill or even tell them where they could gamble.)
Groups call on government to allow medical use of marijuana (The Associated Press covers a news conference today in Washington, DC, where drug policy reform advocates such as Ethan Nadelmann called on the federal government to allow the medical use of cannabis. Should the government continue to stick its head in the sand, medical marijuana reformers plan ballot initiatives in Maine, Colorado and Nevada again, as well as in Massachusetts, Florida, Michigan and Ohio.)
Message From Voters To Washington - Legalize Medical Marijuana - Measures Protecting Patients Pass in Five States, District of Columbia (A news release from the NORML Foundation summarizes yesterday's reform victories in Alaska, Arizona, the District of Columbia, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington state.)
Drug Reform Wins Nine for Nine on Election Day, and More (Another summary of yesterday's election results, by the Drug Reform Coordination Network, notes that in Minnesota, former professional wrestler and talk show host Jesse "The Body" Ventura was elected governor as the candidate for the Reform Party. Ventura has openly discussed the failures of the war on drugs and suggested depenalizing marijuana offenses and prostitution. US Senator Lauch Faircloth of North Carolina, the chairman of the Senate DC Appropriations Committee who was instrumental in quashing the District of Columbia's medical marijuana ballot measure, also lost his re-election bid to Democratic challenger John Edwards.)
Elliott Backs Radical Drug Law Changes (The Advertiser, in Australia, says Mike Elliott, the leader of the Democrats party, has just returned from a visit to Switzerland and Holland and will launch a renewed campaign for radical drug law reform today.)
Bytes: 188,000 Last updated: 1/24/99
Tuesday, November 3, 1998:
Final Oregon Election Results (Links to the official count on Ballot Measure 57 and Ballot Measure 67, from the state government's web site. Includes a link to the state's official election documents on the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act.)
57 Fails - KATU Declares! (A Salem, Oregon, list subscriber says KATU-2, Portland's ABC affiliate, has declared Measure 57 a loser, meaning marijuana will remain decriminalized in Oregon.)
Measure 67! KATU Projects a Winner (A late-night correspondent says Portland's ABC affiliate has also called the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act a winner.)
Oregonians for Medical Rights Toll Free Hotline (Have a question about the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act? Call the sponsors of Measure 67 beginning Thursday at 1-877-600-6767.)
Man killed defending 60 pot plants (The Associated Press doesn't seem to consider that, thanks to Oregon's Draconian marijuana cultivation laws, 63-year-old Lewis Stanley McClendon may have had reason to believe he was about to be hauled off to prison for the rest of his life.)
Corrections officials say prison system stretched to limit after suicides (The Associated Press says four suicides in the past two months by prisoners of the state of Oregon have stretched mental-health-care employees at the Oregon Department of Corrections to the limit. In the last 11 months, prisoners whom the state deems mentally ill in the 8,500-inmate system climbed from 13.5 percent to 17.2 percent, or almost one of every five incarcerated.)
Judge rules search lawful in fatal shooting (The Associated Press says Multnomah County Circuit Judge Linda Bergman ruled Monday that members of the Marijuana Task Force who broke down the door of Portland resident Steven Dons without a warrant were conducting a legal search of a suspected marijuana growing operation when an officer was killed in a shootout last January. Dons died mysteriously in police custody, but his roommate, Jeffrey Moore, 45, was scheduled for trial Tuesday on drug and child endangerment charges because he allegedly knew about Dons' marijuana and guns and allowed his two children, then 7 and 9, near them during a visit.)
Judge finds officers lawful in search (The Oregonian version also does not explain why someone who allegedly had 51 marijuana plants would try to burn the wet greenery in a little wood stove, a process that would take days, even with enough fuel to keep the fire burning, and would permeate the whole neighborhood with an unmistakable odor. The judge in Portland also apparently never heard of the "poison fruit" doctrine, since prohibition agents first became interested in Steven Dons while violating a legal settlement in which they had agreed to stop monitoring customers of American Agriculture, the hydroponics store at Southeast 92nd Avenue and Stark Street.)
I-692 declared a 'W' (A bulletin from Americans for Medical Rights says KIRO in Seattle, citing exit polls, has called Initiative 692, the Washington state medical marijuana ballot measure, a winner.)
Marvin Chavez Trial This Week (A local correspondent covers the trial beginning this week of the founder of the Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support Group. On Tuesday, Judge Frank Fasel transferred the case to Judge Kazuharu Nakino, who rejected a defense motion to disqualify the prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Carl Armbrust, and then transferred the case to Judge Thomas J. Borris. Judge Borris will hear arguments to allow a 215 defense tomorrow. A jury will be selected Thursday morning, and the trial will begin Thursday afternoon. The trial is expected to last seven days.)
Island Voters Support Pot for Medical Uses - Poll (According to The Hawaii Tribune Herald, a public opinion poll carried out for 'Ohana Aloha, an organization of "religious and medical practitioners of cannabis," says voters in Hawai'i also strongly back the legalization of industrial hemp.)
Mix-Up Leads To Release Of Marijuana-Bust Suspects (The Deseret News in Utah says three Mexican nationals and a Salt Lake resident were released after federal prosecutors failed to act on the case within 72 hours. The men were arrested and booked into the Salt Lake County Jail after prohibition agents discovered more than 1,000 plants Oct. 20 in Emigration Canyon that they valued at $700 each.)
Colorado results online (Americans for Medical Rights notes for some reason, votes are being counted for the Colorado medical marijuana initiative that was disqualified after ballots were printed. With 2 percent of precincts counted, Amendment 19 leads 59 percent to 41 percent.)
Grand Juror - Justice Not Done In Oregon Case (The Houston Chronicle says Simon Rodriguez, a retired Internal Revenue Service officer, served as the assistant foreman on the Harris County grand jury that investigated the death of Pedro Oregon Navarro at the hands of six Houston prohibition agents who broke into his house without a warrant and shot the innocent man 12 times. Rodriguez said Monday he is "unsatisfied" that five of the officers involved were cleared and only one was indicted on a misdemeanor charge, and he wanted to talk with federal investigators about the closed-door grand jury sessions.)
Six Officers In Oregon Case Fired (The Houston Chronicle says Houston Police Chief CO Bradford on Monday fired the six prohibition agents who broke down the door of an innocent man, Pedro Oregon Navarro, without a warrant before shooting him 12 times, calling it an "egregious" case of official misconduct.)
Houston Cops Fired (The Orange County Register version)
Oregon Shooting Was A Travesty (Three letters to the editor of The Houston Chronicle about the death of Pedro Oregon Navarro, an innocent man shot 12 times by Houston prohibition agents who broke down his door without a warrant.)
Court Lets Drug Testing Decision Stand (The Indianapolis Star says the US 7th Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously refused to reconsider its Sept. 9 ruling that a drug testing policy at public schools in Anderson, Indiana, is unconstitutional. Under the policy adopted in August 1997, a student who had been suspended for fighting was obliged to take a drug test in order to return to school.)
Assisted Suicide Fails In Michigan Medical Marijuana Passes in 2 States (An Associated Press election night roundup says that with 16 percent of returns counted, 71 percent of Michigan voters were opposing an initiative that would allowing doctors to prescribe lethal doses of medication for terminally ill patients.)
I-59 Count is . . . (A bulletin from Americans for Medical Rights says AMR commissioned a scientific exit poll on the medical marijuana initiative in Washington, DC, that was quashed at the last minute by order of Congress. Among the 88 percent who voted on Initiative 59, supporters outnumbered opponents by 69 percent to 31 percent.)
Medical Marijuana and Drug Policy Reform Win Big (A late-night bulletin from Colorado Citizens for Compassionate Cannabis notes reform victories in Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington state - and Colorado, where the ballots weren't even supposed to be counted.)
Medical Marijuana and Related Initiative Sites (A late election-night roundup from Americans for Medical Rights.)
Drug-abuse seen having no impact on US welfare (Reuters says a team of researchers at the University of California at Berkeley reported Tuesday that welfare recipients may be more likely to abuse alcohol and other drugs, but substance abusers are not more likely to stay on welfare long-term. The findings contradict the widely held notion that alcoholics and other addicts abuse welfare disproportionately.)
Narcotics Division Sends Cosmetics To Lab For Drug Tests (The South China Morning Post, in Hong Kong, says the Body Shop, a cosmetics chain, admitted yesterday it was selling products containing hemp, a type of cannabis, in Hong Kong. A spokesman for the Security Bureau's narcotics division said it had sent samples to a government laboratory for tests, claiming THC is a psychotropical substance and "could affect nerves.")
Police Are Raided In Fraud Inquiry (An ambiguous article in The Times, in Britain, says the raid came as two Scotland Yard detectives were arrested in a separate investigation and questioned about trafficking heroin, cocaine and cannabis.)
Bytes: 95,900 Last updated: 2/10/99
Monday, November 2, 1998:
Lawmen find 60 mairjuana plants on property of man killed in shootout (The Associated Press says prohibition agents found the plants on the remote Oregon property of Lewis Stanley McClendon, 63, who was killed Friday when officers allegedly returned fire outside his house 17 miles north of Tiller.)
Police detain two 11 years after marijuana intercepted (The Associated Press says Walter McDowell Martin and John Joseph Mullen, the last of 36 suspects sought in connection with the discovery of about 17,000 pounds of marijuana on an Oregon beach 11 years ago, have been returned to Oregon. They were captured in different cities of the Philippines by members of the Philippine Presidential Anti-Crime Task Force and turned over to US Drug Enforcement Administration officials.)
Woman inmate found hanging in cell (The Associated Press says the suicide of Loretta Hill, 26, was the fourth by an Oregon state prisoner in the past two months.)
Poll shows Washington marijuana measure slipping (An item from the web site of KATU, Portland's ABC affiliate, says a poll of 801 voters around Washington state earlier this week shows 47 percent supported Initiative 692, the medical marijuana ballot measure, while 38 percent opposed the initiative.)
KATU Online Poll (A list subscriber alerts others to a poll on medical marijuana at the web site of Portland's ABC affiliate.)
Prop. 215 Maneuvering (The Orange County Register says the trial of Marvin Chavez, founder of the Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support Group, took an unusual turn Monday. Defense attorneys filed a motion to have Deputy District Attorney Carl Armbrust disqualified from prosecuting the case because there is a reasonable possibility that he "will not exercise his discretionary function in an even handed manner and has abandoned his duty to seek justice," based on his statements to reporters and letters in The Register.)
Differing Perceptions Of Contenders For Governor (A letter to the editor of The San Francisco Examiner urges California voters to consign Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren to the trash bin of history for undermining the will of voters who endorsed Proposition 215.)
Medical Pot Users File Class Action Suit (The Bay Area Reporter version of recent news about the lawsuit filed by Lawrence Elliott Hirsch in Philadelphia against the federal prohibition on medical marijuana.)
Authorities consider medical use of marijuana (The USA Today version.)
Home Rule and Initiative 59 (A letter to the editor of The Washington Post says the District of Columbia Election Board is mistaken in thinking that the congressional rider in the fiscal 1999 DC budget, which bans funding for the medical marijuana ballot measure, prevents counting votes.)
235 Voter Referendums Test Mood Of America (The Chicago Tribune surveys the myriad voter initiatives on state ballots around the country, mentioning only one state's medical marijuana initiative.)
Killing Narcotics With Fungus (KTVU-TV Channel 2, Oakland/San Francisco, recounts the US government's new $23 million biological warfare campaign against cannabis, coca, and poppies, noting the target plants are likely will evolve even stronger chemicals to fight to the fungus. Mutated plants could also pass their genes on to other plants or weeds. The so-called "transgene escape" has been shown to create herbicide-resistant super-weeds.)
Kids Who Watch TV More Likely To Start Drinking (The Associated Press says a Stanford University study of 1,533 ninth-graders shows that students who watched lots of television and music videos were more likely to start drinking than other youngsters. Published in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics, the study also showed that teens who rented movies were less likely to start drinking, while playing video and computer games had no effect. The researchers blamed television content rather than, for example, behavioral or genetic variables.)
$63 Million Federal Lawsuit Filed Against George Bush And Others (From The Wilderness, published by Michael C. Ruppert, says Bill Tyree, a former US Army Green Beret who participated in CIA-directed missions to smuggle cocaine into Panama in 1975 and 1976, and who has been serving a life sentence in Massachusetts for the 1979 murder of his wife, Elaine, has filed a lawsuit in US District Court alleging that the CIA, George Bush, the Massachusetts governor and attorney general, and a long-time CIA operative have been part of a decades-long conspiracy to smuggle illegal drugs into the United States. The suit also alleges that the defendants, including George Bush, participated in a conspiracy to obstruct justice.)
On the border, journalists put lives on the line (An Associated Press article in The Seattle Times about Jesus Blancornelas, the Tijuana, Mexico, publisher of the newspaper, Zeta, says the survivor of a bloody assassination attempt continues to expose alleged traffickers in illegal drugs.)
Charges Vowed Against US Agents (According to The Chicago Tribune, the Venezuelan ambassador to the United States said in an interview published Sunday that Venezuela plans to prosecute US undercover agents who took part in Operation Casablanca, a drug money laundering sting operation that led to the indictment of five Venezuelans.)
Two Million Drink At 'Harmful' Levels (According to The Scotsman, "The State of the Nation," a report publisehd today by an unspecified group, says one out of every 20 Britishers is addicted to alcohol, twice as many as are hooked on all other drugs. In addition to the two million harmful drinkers, seven million British residents imbibe more than the recommended government limit. The report also says there are up to 33,000 alcohol-related deaths each year in Britain and about 28,000 hospital admissions due to alcohol dependence or poisoning.)
Tecs in Drug Quiz (The Sun, in Britain, says a Scotland Yard sergeant and constable were arrested in dawn swoops at their homes in South and South East London and questioned last night over allegations that they conspired to supply opium, cocaine and cannabis, stole 12,700, committed robbery and attempted to pervert justice.)
Bytes: 69,300 Last updated: 10/7/98
Sunday, November 1, 1998:
Public Nuisance Or Therapy? Cannabis Clubs (Dr. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard Medical School, writing in Playboy magazine, summarizes the brief history of medical marijuana dispensaries in California. Two models exist for such cannabis clubs - the pharmacy model, exemplified by the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, and the support-group model, exemplified by the San Francisco Cannabis Cultivators' Club. If there is even a kernel of truth to the idea that talking about the stress, setbacks and triumphs in the battle against an illness can help a patient cope and recover, it is clear that the San Francisco model provides the best environment for the dispensing of medicinal marijuana.)
Pot Will Win, Poll Predicts (The Herald, in Everett, Washington, says a new survey commissioned by The Arizona Republic shows Arizona voters, by a thin margin, appear ready to give a second endorsement to the use of marijuana and other illegal drugs for medical treatment.)
Amending the Lynn Pierson Program (A list subscriber notes New Mexico has a medical marijuana law that needs only a little bit of tweaking to make it functional. He posts the text of an amendment that would make the law viable, and says after the election he will be looking for a legislative sponsor.)
A Realistic Prescription To Mix Marijuana And Moderation (An op-ed in The Boston Globe by Thomas W. Clark, a research associate at Health and Addictions Research Inc., suggests teenagers may understand what the National Institute on Drug Abuse has been at pains recently to deny - that there are valid distinctions between soft and hard drugs, and that such distinctions can inform one's choice of psychoactive substance. Teenagers, in short, are not stupid, and though marijuana may not be risk-free, it compares favorably to alcohol and tobacco with regard to health hazards and potential for abuse. Consequently, the attempt to tar it with the same brush as cocaine and heroin is backfiring, undercutting the credibility of both NIDA and beleaguered parents who are asked to instill fear of the "evil weed" into their increasingly skeptical children.)
Iowa traffic stop leads to US Supreme Court case (The Associated Press says a hearing Tuesday in Washington, DC will focus on whether Patrick Knowles' Fourth Amendment rights were violated when police made an unauthorized search of his car after he was cited for speeding. Marijuana and a pipe were found under the front passenger seat.)
Statistics on pregnant women prosecuted for drug use (Some revealing statistics from the November issue of Harper's Magazine begin by noting an estimated 200 American women have been arrested for child abuse since 1977 after using alcohol or other drugs while pregnant.)
Study Shows Subsidized Housing, Not Treatment of Social Ills, Is Crucial to Homeless (According to The New York Times, researchers at New York University have published a report in Tuesday's issue of the American Journal of Public Health challenging the widely held view that the most effective way to end homelessness among families is by first resolving such problems as mental illness and substance abuse. After following hundreds of homeless families in New York City between 1988 and 1993, researchers concluded the real problem is the city's scarcity of subsidized housing.)
Lack Of Needle-Exchange Plan Hurts Minorities (According to The Dallas Morning News, former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders said Saturday at the four-day United States Conference on AIDS in Dallas that the $156 million AIDS package announced by President Clinton lacks a vital component - a needle-exchange program.)
Marijuana and Glaucoma (A sanctimonious editorial in The Archives of Opthalmology, by Paul L. Kaufman, MD, previews the biased article by Keith Green, a Medical College of Georgia professor of ophthalmology, about the potential use of marijuana and cannabinoids in glaucoma therapy, which will be widely publicized Nov. 13 and debunked by reformers the same day through the next week.)
Marijuana Smoking vs Cannabinoids For Glaucoma Therapy (The biased article by Keith Green, a Medical College of Georgia professor of ophthalmology, about the potential use of marijuana and cannabinoids in glaucoma therapy, which will be widely publicized Nov. 13 and debunked by reformers the same day through the next week.)
The War At Home (A lengthy article by Gore Vidal in Vanity Fair analyzes the war against Constitutional liberties waged by American government and media, particularly in the guise of the war on some drugs and counter-terrorism.)
Drugs - Missing The Big Story (The Columbia Journalism Review says that when it comes to press coverage of "the drug issue," the main action is in Mexico. In the United States, the press has been neglecting the battle at home. What's missing is any sustained coverage of the really significant stories, for example, the effectiveness of treatment in reducing addicts' dependence, and the difficulty they have in getting it.)
CIA's Drug Confession (iF magazine, in Canada, says CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz confirmed long-standing allegations of cocaine trafficking by Nicaraguan Contra forces in an historic document released Oct. 8 that was nearly ignored by major news media.)
Still Life with Absinthe - The Tipple Of Choice For Fin-De-Siecle Decadents Tempts A New Generation (The Utne Reader reprints an article from the winter 1997 issue of The Idler in which musician and writer John Moore describes his flirtation with the Green Fairy. Absinthe is commonly believed to cause hallucinations, convulsions, degenerate behavior, and even brain damage. Modern research has shown that wormwood releases a chemical called thujone, which has a molecular structure similar to that of marijuana's active component. It isn't clear whether the thujone in absinthe is sufficient to cause such severe effects, however. It is far more likely that alcohol is the culprit. In 1905, when Swiss farmer Jean Lanfray shot his entire family after a heavy day's drinking, the story made headlines all over Europe, proclaiming him "un absinthiste." He had also consumed several bottles of wine, brandy, and creme de menthe, but that was ignored. The bans began.)
Many Police Thought Dead In Colombia Attack (Reuters says as many as half of the 120 "police" stationed at a "police base" in a remote jungle region of eastern Colombia may have been killed Sunday during an attack by up to 600 guerillas with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.)
Crime And Punishment (Resurgence Magazine, in Britain, features an essay by Brendan O'Friel, the forrner chairman of the Prison Governors Association, pondering what should be done about Britain's rapidly increasing prison population. In the years between the two world wars, a period of high unemployment, the prison population in England and Wales fluctuated between 10,000 and 13,000. The number of people locked up now has passed 65,000 and planners are having to contemplate forecast figures of over 80,000.)
Bytes: 197,000 Last updated: 12/9/98
Saturday, October 31, 1998:
Clinton Anti-Drug Deputy Attacks Marijuana Measures (The Oregonian quotes Donald Vereen, deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, saying "I didn't know you went to the ballot box for medicine," ignoring the fact that that's essentially what Oregonians did when they twice voted for physician-assisted suicide.)
Medical marijuana a mistake (An op-ed in The Bulletin, in Bend, Oregon, by Eric Bush, apparently a law-enforcement official, opposes Measure 67, asking "how much of a victim you would feel like if a person crashed into you or your family while driving down the road, coming from the marijuana store in town," as if the Oregon Medical Marijuana allowed marijuana dispensaries.)
Re - Medical marijuana a mistake (A letter sent to the editor of The Bulletin, in Bend, Oregon, criticizes today's op-ed opposing Measure 67, the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act.)
Suspected Oregon Pot Grower Dies In Shootout, 2 Deputies Hurt (An Associated Press article in The Seattle Times updates yesterday's Associated Press account.)
Initiative 692, Do Right For The Sick (A letter to the editor of The Herald, in Everett, Washington, says opponents of the medical marijuana ballot measure are cruel, illogical and hypocritical.)
Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative Office Re-Opens (California NORML says US District Judge Charles Breyer has allowed the OCBC to resume activities other than the distribution or production of marijuana.)
County Settles Suit Filed by Drug Test Takers (The San Francisco Chronicle says Contra Costa County has agreed to pay $1.2 million to thousands of former welfare applicants to settle a legal challenge to the county's use of a controversial written test to identify substance abusers.)
Campaign ad misleading on marijuana (According to The Anchorage Daily News, a newspaper advertisement paid for by Alaskans for Truth on the Medical Marijuana Initiative Committee says "The American Medical Association and the American Cancer Society have rejected marijuana as medicine." In fact, the cancer society takes a more neutral position, questioning whether marijuana is any more effective than legal medicines, including Marinol, a synthetic form of one of dozens of cannabinoids found in natural cannabis. The newspaper fails to note the AMA also supports research into marijuana.)
Money man gets behind 5 props (A feature article in The Arizona Republic spotlights John Sperling, the founder of the University of Phoenix who has contributed more than $1 million for or against five of the 14 propositions on Tuesday's ballot in Arizona. The initiatives range from medical marijuana to stopping the Legislature from thwarting voters to enabling all voters to participate in candidate nominations.)
Medicinal Marijuana Has Ally In Judge (The Philadelphia Inquirer notes US District Judge Marvin Katz suggested last week that the federal government settle Lawrence Elliott Hirsch's class-action lawsuit challenging medical marijuana prohibition by re-opening the Compassionate IND program under which eight patients still receive 300 joints every month.)
ACLU Sues to Guard Marijuana Measure - Congress Ordered DC Vote Voided (The Washington Post notes the American Civil Liberties Union is challenging an amendment to the District of Columbia appropriations bill inserted Oct. 21 by Representative Robert L. Barr Jr., a Republican from Georgia, which prohibits the District from using money on an initiative that would "legalize or otherwise reduce penalties" for users of marijuana. "The Barr amendment prohibits any initiative that would reduce the penalties for marijuana, but allows any initiative that would increase those penalties," said Arthur Spitzer, the ACLU's legal director. "That is like saying voters can vote for Republicans but not for Democrats, or can vote to build nuclear power plants but not to ban them.")
US, China Team Up In Drug War - Report (According to Reuters, The Washington Post said Saturday that the United States and China established a secret electronic surveillance post in 1995 along China's border with Burma to eavesdrop on narcotics trafficking from the Golden Triangle. In addition, Chinese sources said, the United States has established a secret fund that Chinese officials can access to run the surveillance center and fight drug trafficking.)
Why China Would "Team up" With US in Drug War (Michael Levine, a former DEA agent, now an author and radio talk-show host, says the United States is giving China an excuse to make foreign military incursions into neighboring countries such as Burma under the banner of the "war on drugs," just as the United States has done. The Chinese government also recognizes that, with the rapid growth of capitalism in China, it needs an "acceptable" excuse to continue police-state tactics.)
Swiss Referendum Repeals Prohibition (A list subscriber draws your attention to the "droleg" referendum November 29. Switzerland may repeal the prohibitions on currently illegal drugs. Hard drugs, soft drugs - all drugs.)
Bytes: 55,700 Last updated: 11/7/98
Friday, October 30, 1998:
Illegal, not evil (A letter to the editor of The Bulletin, in Bend, Oregon, criticizes the recent piece opposing the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act written by Michael T. Dugan, saying the Deschutes County District Attorney minimizes the very real agonies with which some people are forced to live.)
Students would elect Kitzhaber, ease up on pot (An Associated Press article in The Bend, Oregon, Bulletin, doesn't give any percentages, but says a mock election this week at 108 Oregon middle and high schools found that students opposed Measure 57, which would recriminalize possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, and favored Measure 67, the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act. Another list subscriber cites The Statesman Journal version, which says students rejected recrim 55 percent to 45 percent, and endorsed medical marijuana 63 percent to 37 percent.)
Two Drug Officers Shot, Wounded In Remote Southern Oregon (The Associated Press doesn't even mention the man who was killed after he shot two prohibition agents from the Douglas Interagency Narcotics Team who were about to serve a warrant for a suspected marijuana grow in a remote home near Tiller, Oregon.)
Two narcs wounded in southern Oregon (A different Associated Press account notes the dead man suspected of growing marijuana made music boxes and grandfather clocks and had previously invited neighbors into his home. No word on whether prohibition agents found anything - apparently they needed time to plant evidence.)
Libertarian's ad takes cues from 'South Park' (The Sacramento Bee gives a favorable review to a cable television advertisement that spoofs "South Park" while promoting the California gubernatorial campaign of Steve Kubby, the medical marijuana patient and activist.)
Marijuana initiative gains support (The Las Vegas Review-Journal says a new statewide survey commissioned by the Review-Journal and KTNV-TV found 52 percent of likely voters favored passage of Question 9 on Tuesday's election ballot. Forty percent opposed passage of the medical marijuana initiative, and 8 percent were undecided.)
An Unwise Exception (A staff editorial in The Daily News Miner, in Fairbanks, Alaska, opposes Ballot Measure 8, the medical marijuana initiative, saying the system envisioned by the proposed legislation is unworkable and inconsistent, given that marijuana would still remain illegal for everyone else.)
Bainter - Buckley Lied To High Court (The Denver Post says Ric Bainter, the Democratic candidate for Colorado secretary of state, on Tuesday accused Republican incumbent Vikki Buckley of lying to the state Supreme Court about completing a court-ordered signature count for Amendment 19, the medical marijuana initiative.)
Court snuffs pot initiative's last-gasp effort - Measure to appear on ballot, but votes won't be counted (The Gazette, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, says the state Supreme Court on Thursday refused to order county clerks to count votes for a proposal to legalize the medical use of marijuana, effectively ending a battle to allow voters to decide the issue Nov. 3.)
Justices won't OK pot vote (The Denver Post version)
Colorado - Next steps (A bulletin from Americans for Medical Rights confirms Amendment 19, the Colorado medical marijuana initiative, officially died yesterday. However, AMR plans to prove the initiative belonged on the 1998 ballot, which will result in its automatic placement on the November 2000 ballot. AMR also expects to initiate other actions to collect damages for this year's expenses.)
Feds Have No Business Meddling With Medical-Marijuana Initiatives (A staff editorial in The Gazette, in Colorado Springs, says the US House of Representatives was practicing medicine without a license when it passed House Joint Resolution 117 earlier this month.)
For The Kids? (A staff editorial in The Gazette, in Colorado Springs, comments on the Colorado state Board of Education denouncing the initiative campaign to legalize marijuana as medicine, saying the reasoning that goes into public policy advocacy by some of our public officials is troubling. "Since when is it the place of the criminal code simply to send a message to our young? Isn't that parents' duty?")
Armed and Dangerous - The bloody police raid at Sallisaw - Investigators mum after cops shoot mother holding child (WorldNetDaily.com suggests prohibition agents committed an atrocity reminiscent of Ruby Ridge while rousting an innocent family in Sallisaw, Oklahoma. Pat Eymer, the mother, is in a hospital recovering from a 45-caliber hollow-point bullet that destroyed most of the bone in her right shoulder. Her children were taken by child protective services and requests to place them with grandparents were refused. Her husband, Steve, has been arrested, along with her cousin, James Hinkle, and his friend, Tammy Bedwell, after police allegedly planted marijuana as evidence. Another person who was on the scene is suspected of setting them up for the raid.)
Farah - The cops are out of control (Syndicated columnist Joseph Farah says the recent incidents in Oklahoma, where police shot an unarmed mother holding her child in her home, in Virginia, where a SWAT team killed a watchman guarding a dice game at an after-hours club and in California, where a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raid on a gun shop resulted in the death of the shopkeeper, provide some hard evidence that police in America may be getting out of control.)
Defendant Rejects Plea, Then Jumps to His Death (The New York Times says 19-year-old Derrick Smith, accused of selling crack cocaine - unlike yesterday's Associated Press version, which said he was charged with possessing marijuana - was offered a plea bargain by a judge in Manhattan Thursday entailing a three- to six-year prison sentence, but voted with his feet.)
Man Facing Drug Trial Leaps To Death At Court (Today's Associated Press version also says Smith was charged with selling cocaine.)
Teen-ager jumps to death from NYC courtroom (A brief Reuters version says Smith was charged with selling crack cocaine.)
Judge Proposes DOJ Establish Program To Distribute Marijuana To Sick Folks (The Legal Intelligencer, in Pennsylvania, recounts the recent news about US District Judge Marvin Katz suggesting that the government re-open the Compassionate IND program in order to settle the class-action medical-marijuana lawsuit brought by Philadelphia public interest attorney Lawrence Elliott Hirsch. Yesterday, the Justice Department asked for 60 days to think it over.)
Medical Marijuana Lawsuit in Philadelphia (A two-part bulletin from the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation includes the text of the federal attorneys' brief saying they will need 60 days to study the feasibility of complying with US District Judge Marvin Katz's suggestion that the government re-open the Compassionate IND program. The press release preceding the brief says it is "news" that a federal judge found the facts pleaded in this case so compelling that at the first pre-trial conference on the matter he suggested a settlement wherein the plaintiffs would receive medical marijuana. Implicit in the judge's proposal is his recognition of two key facts and a profound legal conclusion - marijuana has critical medical value for the treatment of very serious conditions and diseases, that the government recognizes this medical value because it provides marijuana to eight very ill persons, and denial by the government to seriously ill persons of the use of marijuana medically rises to the level of an unconstitutional violation of their rights.)
ACLU suit to ensure vote count on medical marijuana initiative (The Associated Press notes the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit Friday contending Congress' attempts to block the District of Columbia medical marijuana ballot measure violated residents' First Amendment rights. Ken McGhie, counsel for the DC Board of Elections and Ethics, said district employees will make no efforts to avoid tabulating the results. "Counting the ballots on the district's medical marijuana issue will take about 30 seconds of computer time," he said.)
Medicinal marijuana gains support (The Boston Globe says the voter initiatives on ballots around the country have the drug warriors running scared, but Congress' attempt to quash the vote in Washington, DC, has only increased public support for that measure. In the next round of elections, Illinois, Ohio, Maine, and Florida are likely to launch initiatives, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.)
A Way To Ease Suffering (A staff editorial in USA Today endorses medical marijuana initiatives on the ballot in six Western states and the District of Columbia. The No. 1 argument against medical use of marijuana is that any opening will be exploited by those seeking to further depenalize the use of marijuana and other controlled substances. Unquestionably, the promoters of these initiatives include people whose real agenda is broader reform. But that doesn't justify a needlessly rigid ban on a doctor's sincere effort to do what's best for a suffering patient.)
Ballot-Box Prescriptions Risky (USA Today prints the boilerplate op-ed from the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, opposing medical marijuana initiatives around the United States.)
Medical Marijuana on 7 US Ballots (Cable News Network discusses the reform initiatives facing voters in Alaska, Colorado, Nevada, Oregon, Washington state, Washington, DC, and Arizona.)
Former First Lady Barbara Bush Rejects Marijuana as Medicine (A press release on Business Wire says The Drug Free America Foundation Inc., of St. Petersburg, Florida, has taped anti-medical marijuana television and radio advertisements to be distributed to opponents of medical marijuana ballot measures in Alaska, Washington and Oregon.)
Study Says Ecstasy Causes Brain Damage (According to the Houston Chronicle, a report published today in The Lancet says a team from Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore and the National Institute of Mental Health took brain scans of 14 long-term users of MDMA and concluded that the drug damaged the nerves that release serotonin, the naturally occurring chemical that plays a role in mood, memory, pain perception, sexual desire, sleep and appetite.)
Ecstasy 'Harms Brain For Life' (The version in The Guardian, in Britain)
MDMA Neurotoxicity Research (The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies comments on The Lancet report about the supposed toxicity of MDMA. As usual, government "research" and mass media reporting turn out to be dubious on several counts.)
The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 65 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original summary of drug policy news and calls for action, including - Announcements; Study - 13 percent of black men ineligible to vote; Mother holding child shot by police in her home; Medical marijuana goes to voters on Tuesday; Update on Initiative 59 - Washington, DC; Report from Oregon; Court ruling ends reverse marijuana sting operations; Tasmanian government wants possession of marijuana legalized; And an editorial by Adam J. Smith, The 13 percent solution)
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Thursday, October 29, 1998:
Doctor defends medical marijuana - Richard Bayer defines Measure 67 as a health-care rights issue (The Statesman Journal, in Salem, Oregon, asks some relatively good questions and gets some good answers from the chief petitioner for the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act. In response to a question about whether some people might get marijuana who don't really need it, Dr. Bayer notes pain specialists report that less than 1 percent of all addictions occur as a result of receiving pain medication. So even if a person were able to fool a doctor, it would be very rare for such patients to became dependent, and the risk is certainly outweighed by the benefits.)
Backers Of Medical-Marijuana Initiative Roll Out TV Ads (The Seattle Times says backers of Initiative 692 in Washington state have unveiled a $220,000 television campaign in the last week before the election. Opponents have raised only about $12,000, but benefit from a well-funded national anti-drug campaign orchestrated by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy - even though the White House is not supposed to spend its public-education budget influencing the outcome of elections.)
I-692 - Medical Marijuana - Agent Of Terror Or Compassion? (The Statesman-Examiner, in Colville, Washington, does a pro-and-con article about Initiative 692, the medical marijuana ballot measure, with Nora Callahan of the November Coalition featured on the pro side and a rather ignorant addiction specialist, Dr. Susan Garcia-Swain of Seattle on the con side parroting such baseless drug warrior propaganda.as the claim that "sex organs have a tendency to atrophy with the use of marijuana.")
State Will Really Go To Pot (Another misinformed drug warrior gets an insipid letter to the editor published in The Herald, in Everett, Washington, opposing Initiative 692, the medical marijuana ballot measure.)
Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative - good news (California NORML forwards a message saying US district judge Charles Breyer has agreed tomorrow to order US marshals to return co-op officials' office keys and to allow them to resume all activities except for distributing medicine.)
Lungren's 'gestapo' tactics - Spying on doctors, trashing the medical pot initiative (The Sacramento News and Review shows how California Attorney General Dan Lungren, the Republican candidate for governor, has essentially led the assault against the medical marijuana initiative that voters approved in November 1996.)
Rally and court date - Marvin Chavez (A list subscriber invites you to attend the trial of the founder of the Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support Group. Meet at 7:30 am Monday, Nov. 11, to hand out FIJA flyers.)
A Real Dope (A letter to the editor of The Las Vegas Review-Journal drips sarcasm as it rebuts a recent op-ed opposing medical marijuana written by the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey. "I'm sure that I can trust the general to tell me how to vote in a Nevada election. After all, my federal tax dollars are paying him handsomely to do it.")
Counties Won't Save Marijuana Votes (The Rocky Mountain News says advocates for medical marijuana patients and Amendment 19 struck out in Denver District Court on Wednesday. Judge Connie Peterson refused to order county election officials to preserve Colorado ballots for possible counting in the event of successful legal challenges to the secretary of state's decision to disqualify the initiative due to an alleged lack of valid signatures.)
Judge Turns Back Pro-Pot Group (The Denver Post version)
State Corrections Officials Tally Inmate Dope Use (According to The Tulsa World, the Oklahoma Department of Corrections says nearly 6 percent of a random sampling of Oklahoma inmates tested positive for illegal drugs. The national average is 9.3 percent. Marijuana was the drug of choice. Of the 266 people on probation or parole who were tested in September, 55 were positive, or 20.68 percent. The newspaper fails to note that, according to the latest National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, only about 6 percent of the rest of the population uses illegal drugs, and fails to ask how prohibition can be enforced in a free society it can't be enforced in prisons.)
HPD Panel Is Reviewing Oregon Case (The Houston Chronicle says the Houston Police Department has completed its internal investigation into the shooting of Pedro Oregon Navarro, an innocent man shot to death by prohibition agents who broke into his house without a warrant. The Internal Affairs Division completed its investigation and turned its findings over to the department's Civilian Review Committee late Monday.)
After Rejecting Plea Bargain, 19-Year-Old Jumps To Death (The Associated Press says Derrick Smith, 19, was charged with possession of marijuana and a judge in Manhattan had just offered him three to six years in prison in exchange for a guilty plea.)
Walk & Roll (A list subscriber forwards details about events scheduled Nov. 1-4 in Washington, DC, dedicated to ending the war on medical marijuana users. An itinerary and contact list provide more details about past and future highlights of the rolling protest traveling from Boston to the District of Columbia. Inspired by a quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln, who allegedly said, "While preparing for my debate with Mr. Douglas, I preferred to go into the woods nearby and sit on a stump with my harmonica and my pipe with my Indian hemp," the Lincoln Memorial Harmonica Convergence is featured at many events.)
The First Medical Marijuana Case (A letter to the editor of The Washington Post from John W. Karr, an attorney, says the newspaper's recent suggestion that the District of Columbia had never prosecuted a medical marijuana patient is wrong - he argued the first such case, United States v. Robert Randall, decided in 1976. It was also the first case in which a federal court recognized medical necessity as a legitimate defense to a marijuana possession charge.)
Drug Or Medicine? Marijuana Faces Test At US Polls (A Reuters roundup on medical marijuana ballot measures facing voters around the United States makes the ridiculous claim that Proposition 215 has been wholly nullified by court closures of cannabis buyers clubs.)
Slew Of Referenda Await USA's Voters (A USA Today roundup about some 235 voter initiatives on the ballot in various parts of the country says 24 states, primarily in the West, allow citizens to place issues directly before voters. This is the 100th anniversary of the citizen process - South Dakota was the first to approve the citizen referendum, in 1898, and Oregon was the first to use it, in 1904.)
Free Contest - Five Copies of "Drug Crazy" (The Drug Reform Coordination Network invites you to enter its online contest by Nov. 12 in order to win a copy of Mike Gray's recent book, possibly the best history of the Drug War ever written for a popular audience.)
Pot for medical use, gets support (The Kitchener-Waterloo Record, in Ontario, publicizes a benefit tonight at Yuk Yuks Comedy Club in Kitchener. The benefit for MUM, a local buyers' club, is called "Oh Cannabis" and features Alan Young, an Osgoode Hall law professor and courtroom cannabis crusader; Dr. Alexander Sumach, hemp lectuer and the head of Hemp Future Study Group; and an array of Canadian comics.)
MUM's the word (A letter to the editor of the Kitchener-Waterloo Record praises Marijuana Used for Medicine, the illicit local medical cannabis buyers' club.)
Drug Users Aim to Supply Pot to Ease Pain (The Guardian, in Britain, says more than 70 potential customers have made contact within a couple of days of the Medical Marijuana Co-operative's launch from a flat in Stockport, Greater Manchester.)
Aerosol Deodorant Kills Boy Obsessed With Smelling Nice (An Associated Press article in The Dallas Morning News says a 16-year-old boy in Manchester, England, died July 29 after months of repeatedly spraying his entire body with deodorant Jonathan Capewell had 10 times the lethal dosage of propane and butane in his blood when he suffered a fatal heart attack.)
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Wednesday, October 28, 1998:
Measure 57 - Marijuana Possession (The Oregonian doesn't make it hard to figure out how it wants you to vote as it describes the state ballot measure that would recriminalize possession of less than one ounce of marijuana.)
Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support Group (A local correspondent says the medical marijuana support group continues to serve patients, despite the prosecutions of Marvin Chavez and Jack Shachter and the seizure of the group's bank account. Please send donations to help with copying costs, postage, phone bills, and so forth.)
An In Depth Look At Question No. 9 (An MSNBC story broadcast by KRNV in Reno about the Nevada medical marijuana ballot measure quotes District Attorney Dick Gammick saying that in California, Proposition 215 "has already broken down, and a movement is under way for repeal," a patently false statement.)
Buckley Lied On Recount, Her Own Workers Allege (According to The Gazette, in Colorado Springs, employees of Colorado Secretary of State Vikki Buckley say they never completed a line-by-line recount of 88,815 signatures submitted for Amendment 19 - contrary to what Buckley told the Colorado Supreme Court after she disqualified the medical marijuana ballot measure.)
Ruling On Leniency Shakes A US Legal Pillar (A New York Times article in The International Herald-Tribune discusses the hearing next month by the 12-member 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals, in Denver, on whether prosecutors' offers of leniency in exchange for testimony against other defendants constitutes bribery. A three-judge panel from the same court disrupted proceedings around the nation in July when it said that was the case in the prosecution of Sonya Singleton, 25, who maintains her innocence from prison after being charged with involvement in a drug conspiracy and money laundering. "In the culture of this country nobody likes a snitch, yet that has become the crux of the criminal justice system," said Steven Zeidman, a professor of criminal law at New York University Law School. "But nobody likes to think about it, and now we're being forced to think about it.")
Officer Charged In Oregon Case Will Go To Trial (The Houston Chronicle says James Willis, a Houston prohibition agent, has been charged with criminal trespass, a misdemeanor, after he and five other cops broke into the home of Pedro Oregon Navarro without a warrant and shot the innocent man 12 times, nine times in the back. Willis' attorney said Tuesday "He's not guilty." "There will be a lot of information that will come out in trial that will shed new light.")
The People Behind The Medical Marijuana Conspiracy (Richard Cowan, writing in marijuananews.com, notes it is a staple of prohibitionist opposition to medical marijuana that the movement is "exploiting" patients. He then shares a poignant tale about a friend in the District of Columbia who was about to go to bed rather late on a cold night last week. When he looked out his window, he saw a man in a wheelchair dragging himself along by his one leg. He was putting up posters that said, "Vote Yes on 59 - Medical Marijuana.")
Medical Marijuana in the Federal Budget (A list subscriber notes Congress recently confirmed Dr. Jane Henney, a cancer specialist, as director of the Food and Drug Administration while inserting the language of Senate Joint Resolution 56 into the federal budget law. This means that the FDA must report back by Jan. 21, 1999 on its "new drug" evaluation process and the "interstate commerce" aspects of medical marijuana.)
Ex-Presidents Rail Vs. Marijuana (The Associated Press says former US presidents Bush, Carter and Ford have responded to a plea by the White House Drug Czar, General Barry McCaffrey, and written an open letter to voters in several states where initiatives have been placed on the ballot that would legalize marijuana as medicine. The rationale offered by the three stooges was that allowing sick people to be treated with cannabis would "undercut public confidence in the safety of medicines.")
States Set to Confront Medical Marijuana (FoxNews says medical marijuana initiatives facing voters in five states are increasing pressure on federal drug policy.)
5 States Face Vote On Medical Pot (The San Francisco Examiner notes the White House is lobbying against medical marijuana measures that will be on the ballot next Tuesday in five states and the District of Columbia. "The goal is to change national policy, but we know we will have to win more battles in 1999 and 2000 before that happens," said Dave Fratello, spokesman for Santa Monica-based Americans for Medical Rights, which is coordinating the initiatives in Alaska, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state.)
Stirring the Pot (abcnews.com covers a press conference in Washington, DC, Tuesday at which the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, criticized the effrontery of voters who think they're more qualified than the FDA to choose which medicines seriously ill patients and doctors should be allowed to use.)
Some depressed people missing brain cells - study (According to Reuters, neurobiologist Joseph Price and colleagues at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri, have reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that people inflicted with depression who also have a family history of depression have a relatively low number of glia cells in the part of the brain known as the subgenual prefrontal cortex. However, since the research as described was carried out on patients with bipolar disorder, it's not clear how the scientists arrived at their conclusions.)
Man Who Grew Dope For Son Sentenced (According to The Kitchener-Waterloo Record, in Ontario, a Kitchener father with a colostomy who said he grew marijuana at home so his son wouldn't have to buy it on the street, escaped a jail sentence Tuesday. Lawyer Aaron Grupp said the man did it because his 15-year-old stepson was using marijuana and wouldn't stop. He didn't want the son exposed to the "dangers of street drugs," which could be cut with unsafe substances.)
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Tuesday, October 27, 1998:
Contributions Lag on Anti-Marijuana Measure (The Statesman Journal, in Salem, Oregon, says proponents of Ballot Measure 57, which would recriminalize possession of less than one ounce of marijuana, have raised only about $20,000, compared to more than $600,000 contributed to the other side. Rep. Floyd Prozanski, a Democrat from Eugene and a staunch opponent of the recrim bill, believes there's a reason lawmakers are distancing themselves from the marijuana measure they originally passed. "They are realizing that they were barking the 'Reefer Madness' mentality.")
Marijuana - Sheriff Is Opposed (An op-ed in The Herald, in Everett, Washington, by Rick Bart, Snohomish County Sheriff, illogically says supporters of Initiative 692, the medical marijuana ballot measure, must be "tugging at voters' heart-strings" because they can't say how many people are in need of marijuana to relieve pain and suffering. Like, isn't that another good reason to stop threatening patients with arrest?)
Those Suffering Could Be Us (A letter to the editor of The Seattle Times by a woman whose pancreatic cancer won't let her keep her pills down urges voters to endorse Initiative 692, the Washington state medical marijuana measure.)
We Should Use Science, Not The Ballot Box, To Minister To Disease (A boilerplate op-ed in The Seattle Times opposing Initiative 692, the Washington state medical marijuana ballot measure, by General Barry McCaffrey, the White House drug czar, is almost identical to his recent op-ed in The Las Vegas Review-Journal.)
Opponents of Ballot Measure 8 (An Alaskan list subscriber posts the text of an advertisement in the Daily Newsminer listing those opposed to the medical marijuana initiative - mostly cops and politicians.)
Voters Favoring Medical Marijuana Initiatives (The Los Angeles Times says that with a week to go, polls show that voters in at least four states and Washington, DC, are poised to allow marijuana to be used legally as a medicine - ignoring the years-long and escalating opposition of the Clinton administration.)
Medical Marijuana Initiatives May Be First Proposals for Relaxing Drug Laws (A Knight Ridder News Service article in The Chicago Tribune seems alarmed that reform bills facing voters next Tuesday in five Western states, plus the District of Columbia, are expected to win handily. Police, prosecutors and federal officials are beside themselves with frustration. The initiatives' popularity raises the question of how, after years of anti-drug ads and horror stories, so many people still view marijuana as a benign force.)
Medical Marijuana Faces Test At Polls (A similarly biased article in USA Today about medical marijuana initiatives facing voters around the United States emphasizes drug warriors' fears rather than sick people's suffering.)
Medical Community United In Support Of Medical Marijuana Reform (A press release from NORML lists more than 40 national and international medical organizations that support medical marijuana research or therapeutic use. The list is a response to claims by opponents of medical marijuana ballot measures around the nation that doctors don't support marijuana as a medicine.)
DrugSense Focus Alert No. 86 - USA Today - Marijuana killer fungus (DrugSense asks you to write a letter protesting Congress' appropriation of $23 million to encourage genetic engineers to wage biological warfare on cannabis, coca and poppies.)
Ruling Against Testimony-For-Leniency Jolts Court (The New York Times discusses the hearing next month by the 12-member 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals, in Denver, on whether prosecutors' offers of leniency in exchange for testimony against other defendants constitutes bribery.)
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Monday, October 26, 1998:
Senior Editor of National Review urges Yes on Oregon Measure 67 (An op-ed sent to mass media around Oregon by Richard Brookhiser, a conservative Republican, recounts his experience using marijuana while stricken with cancer and urges Oregonians to endorse the state medical marijuana initiative.)
Measure 67 - Medical Marijuana - Using the drug reduces suffering (An op-ed in The Oregonian by Dr. Rick Bayer, a chief petitioner for the ballot measure. "Nearly all of us agree that we want more scientific research on marijuana as medicine, but the question remains, what do we do with patients who benefit from marijuana now, but must break the law to use it?")
Voter Power Benefit Sunday 1 November (A bulletin from Measure 67 headquarters publicizes a fund-raiser Sunday night at Berbati's Pan, in downtown Portland, for the Yes on 67 and No on 57 campaigns - for medical marijuana and against recrim. Attractions include Jack Herer, author of "The Emperor Wears No Clothes," a hemp fashion show, and live music. Also, set your VCR to tape the live broadcast at 6 pm Sunday of "Town Hall," apparently featuring a debate on Measure 67.)
Marijuana Initiative Narrows Its Focus (The Spokesman-Review, in Spokane, Washington, interviews some of those in favor of and some of those opposed to Initiative 692, the medical marijuana ballot measure. One local supporter is 72-year-old Republican state senator Bob McCaslin, whose wife slowly died over eight years, eating little more than milk and cereal, in pain all the time.)
Approve I-692 (A staff editorial in The Bellingham Herald, in Bellingham, Washington, endorses Initiative 692, the medical marijuana ballot measure, calling it sensible, straight-forward and long overdue.)
Serious Side-Effects of Pot Club Closure (The South China Morning Post in Hong Kong notes the Clinton Administration has shut down the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, and threatened to turn a 6-year-old cerebral palsy patient and medical marijuana user into a criminal. With medical marijuana initiatives coming up for a vote in six states on November 3, federal authorities are trying their best to have the medical-marijuana movement declared unconstitutional and closed down.)
Report Finds Marijuana the Top Cash Crop in California; Billions Wasted in War on Pot (A press release from California NORML focuses on the locally significant aspects of the recent crop report from NORML estimating the annual value of cannabis grown in the United States. California's marijuana harvest was the largest in the nation in 1997, totaling an estimated 2 million plants. The estimated crop value was between $3.87 billion and $8.26 billion wholesale, or $6.45 billion to $13.8 billion retail. California's second largest agricultural crop was grapes, which brought in $2.6 billion.)
Medicinal Pot Not About Greed (A letter to the editor of The Anchorage Daily News responds to a drug warrior's earlier letter opposing the Alaskan medical marijuana ballot initiative.)
Porno Film Fest Follows Drug Bust - Did Cops Order Videos? (The Salt Lake Tribune says prohibition agents in Layton, Utah, working on a cocaine bust may be busted themselves for allegedly ordering pornographic pay-per-view movies from a suspect's home after he was shipped off to jail.)
Demonstrators Demand Justice In Slaying Of Oregon By Police (The Houston Chronicle says about 200 people marched in Houston Sunday to protest police brutality and a grand jury's decision to let off six Houston prohibition agents who broke down the door of an innocent man, Pedro Oregon Navarro, without a warrant and killed him with 12 shots from behind.)
Community college student dies of caffeine overdose (The Associated Press says a 20-year-old man in Morehead City, North Carolina, took a dare from a fellow student and swallowed most of a 90-pill bottle of over-the-counter caffeine pills, equivalent to drinking as many as 250 cups of coffee.)
Medical Marijuana Documentary Now Online (A bulletin from the Media Awareness Project inclues the URL for the acclaimed recent television special by the Canadian Broadcasting Company, "Nature of Things - Reefer Madness 2." Watch it in real time with RealPlayer.)
Bytes: 48,400 Last updated: 11/1/98
Sunday, October 25, 1998:
Campaign Notebook - Lockyer Campaign's Focus Is Going To Pot (The Sacramento Bee suggests Democrat Bill Lockyer's attempt to be elected as California Attorney General, the seat currently held by Dan Lungren, will be countered by Republican supporters of Dave Stirling challenging Lockyer to admit he smoked marijuana at some point during his years in the legislature.)
Marijuana Rx? (The Denver Post does a relatively fair job representing the views of those for and against medical marijuana in a lengthy collection of articles inspired by Amendment 19, the Colorado ballot measure that was recently ruled invalid by Secretary of State Vikki Buckley. Supporters vow to place another initiative on the ballot during the next election cycle.)
2 opponents of drug laws defy stereotype (Dallas Morning News columnist Steve Blow interviews Suzanne Wills and Rodney Pirtle of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas, who make a persuasive argument that the war on some drugs is causing more harm than illegal drugs themselves.)
Schools re-evaluate DARE program designed to warn students about drugs (The Associated Press suggests the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program and its police instructors are getting kicked out of schools in Massachusetts right and left. "With Massachusetts so outcome-based and accountability oriented, other school districts are going to have to look at" DARE. "I think we did the right thing for the kids," says Diane Delli Carpini, chairman of the Lunenburg School Committee.)
Democratic nominee for DC Mayor Declares Support for Initiative 59 (A representative of the campaign for a medical marijuana ballot measure in the District of Columbia says Anthony Williams has adopted the same position as virtually every other candidate or incumbent. Includes a list of DC groups and VIPs who endorse the initiative.)
Action Alert - Congress tries to suspend DC election (A bulletin from Colorado Citizens for Compassionate Cannabis urges you to write letters and make phone calls protesting the decision by Congress to quash democracy in the District of Columbia rather than tolerate a successful DC medical marijuana initiative.)
DC's Trojan Horse Initiative (An op-ed in The Washington Post by Robert Maginnis of the Family Research Council trots out tired old drug warrior misinformation in an attempt to dissuade District of Columbia voters from endorsing Initiative 59, the medical marijuana ballot measure.)
Bytes: 48,300 Last updated: 10/30/98
Saturday, October 24, 1998:
Medical Views Mixed On Marijuana (The Herald, in Everett, Washington, finds more than a few doctors who recognize the medical utility of cannabis, as well as others who repeat discredited drug warrior propaganda, even to their patients. Focusing on Initiative 692, the Washington state medical marijuana ballot measure, the article includes interesting summaries of very recent reports about medical marijuana in scientific and medical journals.)
Measure 8 - Vote Yes For Medical Reform (A staff editorial in The Anchorage Daily News endorses the Alaska medical marijuana initiative, noting that sick people in 24 states can already smoke marijuana under medical-necessity laws that allow such use for people with desperate needs.)
Measure No. 8 - Voters Weigh In On Medicinal Marijuana (Five letters to the editor of The Anchorage Daily News all support the Alaskan ballot initiative.)
Don't Be Fooled By Pot Measure (Another letter to the editor of the Anchorage Daily News opposes the Alaskan medical marijuana ballot initiative because minors would be allowed to use marijuana with the consent of a parent or legal guardian.)
Pot Backers Not Giving Up (The Denver Post says supporters of Amendment 19, the Colorado medical marijuana initiative, asked the state supreme court on Friday to order county clerks to tally the votes to be cast for and against the controversial initiative on Nov. 3. Coloradans for Medical Rights believes it will be able to show in court early next week that there are enough valid petition signatures that the votes should be counted.)
Mayor's Distance From Oregon Issue Raising Questions (The Houston Chronicle says Houston Mayor Lee Brown is receiving mixed reviews from other city officials for his response to a grand jury letting six prohibition agents off the hook after they broke into the home of an innocent man, Pedro Oregon Navarro, without a warrant and shot him to death. Critics of the one-time chief of police in Portland, Oregon, have questioned why Brown has appeared slow to respond or to take charge on an issue so potentially divisive.)
Initiative 59 - Snuffed Out (A staff editorial in The Washington Post responds to recent news that Congress used an omnibus spending bill to kill the District of Columbia medical marijuana voter initiative even before ballots were cast. "You don't have to be a supporter of Initiative 59 to regard this latest congressional intrusion as an affront to District voters.")
DrugSense Focus Alert No. 85 - Initiative 59 - Snuffed Out (DrugSense asks you to write a letter protesting Congress's decision to prohibit the District of Columbia from tallying votes on a medical marijuana measure.)
US Drug Interdiction Effort Receives $690 Million Boost (The Washington Post says Congress has passed a last-minute bill boosting the United States' budget for interdicting cocaine and heroin entering the country from Colombia. An additional $2 billion for interdiction efforts has been authorized, but not appropriated, in the omnibus spending bill, but the $690 million extra is included in an emergency supplemental appropriations bill signed by President Clinton this week, and will greatly increase the aircraft and ships used by Colombian prohibition agents.)
The Finnish Medical Association supports medical marijuana (A translation of an excerpt from Hufvudstadsbladet, in Finland, about a press conference called by the Finnish Medical Association)
Bytes: 45,100 Last updated: 11/1/98
Friday, October 23, 1998:
Pot Measure Sparks Lively Debate (The Medford Mail Tribune, in Medford, Oregon, covers a debate Thursday night at a Medford church over medical marijuana and Ballot Measure 67, featuring Ed Glick, a chief petitioner and registered nurse, and Molalla Police Chief Rob Elkins.)
Please support I-692 (A letter to the editor of the Everett, Washington, Daily Herald, from a pancreatic-cancer patient, urges voters to endorse the state medical marijuana ballot measure, noting in passing how prohibition, instead of keeping cannabis away from kids, has abdicated to them the easiest access to it.)
Reject Marijuana Measure (A staff editorial in The Daily Olympian, in Olympia, Washington, recommends a "no" vote on Initiative 692, saying the insurmountable obstacle is the federal law that prohibits physicians from prescribing marijuana. Reformers must come up with "a safe, legal and foolproof distribution system.")
One killed in crash of Border Patrol plane (The Associated Press notes the war on some drug users has claimed another victim - this time, a Border Patrol agent in a plane that crashed Friday in remote terrain east of Bellingham, Washington. Walter Scott Panchison, 53, was a 20-year patrol veteran and former Marine fighter pilot.)
Apartments damaged during drug raid (The News Tribune, in Tacoma, Washington, says a Lakewood apartment building went up in flames Wednesday after a SWAT team drug raid by 25 Pierce County sheriff's deputies that left one woman and four men jailed on drug-related charges. Some neighbors said it looked as though the blaze was caused by the stun grenades the SWAT team fired into the units, but prohibition agents suggested those arrested were able to elude 25 police long enough to set the blaze themselves, and might face additional arson charges.)
Sheriff Wants To Cut DARE To Allow Hiring Of More Resource Officers (The Seattle Times says King County Sheriff Dave Reichert wants to cut the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program for fifth- and sixth-graders and put an unspecified number of "school resource officers" into secondary schools instead. The county's proposed 1999 budget would eliminate eight DARE officers from 14 school districts in unincorporated areas, saving $469,923 next year.)
Drug Prohibition Rips The Social Fabric (Eileen Foley, an associate editor for The Blade, in Toledo, Ohio, describes the Clinton Administration's recent shutdown of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, and says it's time for society to reconsider the costs and benefits of prohibition. Drug prohibition has ripped the social fabric, criminalized too many, killed too many, terrorized too many. And it has spawned a vested industry as powerful as its performance is poor. Putting blinders on is a good way to control a team of horses going down a thoroughfare, but only if the blinders are on the horses, not the driver.)
Poll - Alaska medical marijuana initiative leads 50 percent to 46 percent (According to a list subscriber who cites the October 1998 issue of Alaska Digest)
Alaska Ballot Questions Draw "Outside" Interest (Reuters takes a xenophobic look at several Alaskan ballot measures, noting "polls show wide support for" No. 8, the medical marijuana initiative. The $125,000 donated to the No. 8 campaign by the George Soros-supported Americans for Medical Rights is dwarfed by outside contributions to other campaigns from the Utah-based Mormon Church, by a Washington, DC-based group that opposes bilingual education, a Washington-based group headed by conservative Christian activist Gary Bauer, and by animal welfare and pro-hunting activists.)
Money Pours In As Proposition Battles Heat Up (The Arizona Daily Star gives an update on several state ballot measure campaigns, noting the sponsors of propositions 300 and 301, The People Have Spoken, who want to repeal the legislature's nullification of a 1996 medical marijuana initiative, have raised the most money, $1.7 million.)
Radio Station Gets Attention It Wants (The Arizona Republic says "Party Radio" KPTY-FM since June has let fly with sex and drug references aimed squarely at high-school and college audiences, and has promoted itself with a bong give-away. "We are not in any way supporting the use of drugs," program director Byron Kennedy said. "But we realize that drugs are part of kids' lives. We are dealing with their attitudes, things they deal with every day." "We're your radio station, not your role model." The Federal Communications Commission does not consider drug references to be in violation of its broadcast standards.)
Scores Aim Downtown Protest At Police, Jury In Oregon Death (The Houston Chronicle says about 150 to 175 people marched from Market Square to Houston police headquarters Thursday afternoon to protest a grand jury's refusal to indict local prohibition agents who shot and killed an innocent man, Pedro Oregon Navarro, after breaking into his apartment without a warrant.)
Ex-Narcotics Officer Gets 7 Years In Drug Case (The Dallas Morning News says Robert Gollihugh, a former undercover police narcotics officer in the Lavon, Texas, Police Department, was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison for dealing cocaine and two years in state jail for selling amphetamines for a former drug informant. The prosecutor said Mr. Gollihugh was responsible for his actions because he volunteered for undercover narcotics duty knowing that he was a drug user himself. "There's something sinister there," said Assistant District Attorney Aaron Wiley.)
