A DrugSense publication

http://www.drugsense.org

Table of Contents

* Breaking News (12/30/24)

* Feature Article

Policing for Profit: The Drug War's Hidden Economic Agenda
By Eric Blumenson and Eva Nilsen

* Weekly News In Review

Heroin

       UK: Drug Deaths Spark Cheap Heroin Fears
       Australia: Killer Heroin Batch

Marijuana

       New Scientist-
Marijuana Special Report: High Anxieties
Let's Be Adult About This.
Drop in With Dr Dave

U.S.  National Drug Control Strategy

Drug Czar: Gingrich 'Irresponsible'

       Solving Drug Epidemic In Nation's Prisons

International News -

    Certification-

      Wants New Way To Get Countries To Fight Drugs
      Editorial: Drug Delusions About Mexico

    Mexico-

      Gangs: New Recruits For Mexican Druglords?
      Druglords Easily Enter The U.S. From Mexico?

* Hot Off The 'Net

* DrugSense Tip Of The Week

By Eric Blumenson and Eva Nilsen

This article summarizes articles by the authors appearing this week in The Nation (March 4,issue) and the University of Chicago Law Review (Winter, 1998).

In 1984, the forfeiture laws were rewritten to funnel 'drug related assets' into law enforcement agencies that seize them.  This amendment offered law enforcement a new source of income, limited only by the energy police and prosecutors were willing to put into seizing assets. The number of forfeitures mushroomed; by 1987 the Drug Enforcement Administration was earning its keep, with seizures exceeding its annual budget.

Local law enforcement benefited from an 'equitable sharing' provision: henceforth if a municipal police officer discovered marijuana growing in a teenager's room, for example, he could request the federal government to forfeit the family's house and return the lion's share of the sale proceeds to his local police force.  In subsequent years, some small town police forces have enhanced their annual budget by a factor of five or more through such drug enforcement activities.

This forfeiture incentive has had two dangerous results.  First, these programs have corrupted governmental policy-making and law enforcement. At the Department of Justice, which has deposited $2.7 billion in its Asset Forfeiture Fund over the last five years, a steady stream of memos exhorts its attorneys to redirect their efforts toward "forfeiture production" so as to avoid budget shortfalls.  One warns that 'funding of initiatives important to your components will be in jeopardy if we fail to reach the projected level of forfeiture deposits.' Another directs U.S.  Attorneys, 'if inadequate forfeiture resources are available . . . divert personnel from other activities.'

A report prepared for the Justice Department suggests that multi- jurisdictional drug task forces select their targets in part according to the funding they can produce, noting that as asset seizures become important "it will be useful for task force members to know the major sources of these assets and whether it is more efficient to target major dealers or numerous smaller ones." Local law enforcement agencies have also turned to asset seizures to compensate for budgetary shortfalls, at the expense of other criminal justice goals.

In the Nation article, we demonstrate that the strange shape of the criminal justice system today -- the law enforcement agenda that targets assets rather than crime, the 80% of seizures that are unaccompanied by any criminal prosecution, the plea bargains which favor drug "kingpins" and penalize the "mules" without assets to trade, the "reverse stings" which target drug buyers rather than drug sellers, the overkill in agencies involved in even minor arrests, the massive shift toward federal jurisdiction over local law enforcement -- is largely the unplanned byproduct of this economic incentive structure.

Second, the forfeiture laws in particular are producing self-financing, unaccountable law enforcement agencies divorced from any meaningful legislative oversight.  The prospect of this kind of self-financing law enforcement branch, largely able to set its own agenda and accountable to no one, might sound promising to Colonel North or General Pinochet, but it should not be mistaken for a legitimate organ in a democracy.  It was an anathema to the framers, who in typically far-sighted fashion warned that "the purse and the sword ought never to get into the same hands, whether legislative or executive," and sought to constitutionalize the principle by establishing a government of separate branches which serve to check and balance each other.

There are by now numerous examples of such semi-independent agencies targeting assets with no regard for the rights, safety, or even lives of the suspects.  In one federal civil rights judgment against an Oakland, California drug task force, we read an officer's admission that his unit operated more or less "like a wolfpack," driving up in police vehicles and taking "anything and everything we saw on the street corner." Recent investigations in Florida, Louisiana, Kentucky, New Jersey, Boston, and Washington State have exposed other police agencies similarly deformed by their dependence on drug war financing.  Such dire results should prompt reform, particularly because a single measure -- mandating that forfeited assets be deposited in the Treasury's general fund rather than retained by the seizing agency []would cure the forfeiture law of its most corrupting effects.

The issuance of drug war dividends to law enforcement is but one part of an anti-drug mobilization that has continued, at escalating levels, for almost 30 years.  Despite a succession of failures to "win" the war on drugs, the government's response has always been simply more of the same -- more money thrown into this war (now $50 billion per year), more arrests (now about 500,000 per year for marijuana possession alone), and more prisoners (60% of federal prisoners are incarcerated for drug offenses).  This heavy law enforcement emphasis has never flagged, and the forfeiture laws help explain why: police and prosecutorial agencies that make drug law enforcement their highest priority are extravagantly rewarded for doing so by the forfeiture laws.  For law enforcement officials, however irrational the drug war may be as public policy, it remains superbly rational as a bureaucratic strategy.

Heroin

UK: Drug Deaths Spark Cheap Heroin Fears

Australia:	Killer Heroin Batch

McCaffrey's party line is that drug use in the United States is down, therefore the drug war is succeeding.  This claim is based entirely on questionable estimates of the number of casual users.  More reliable data- purity and street price of heroin point to a glut, which may have quite different implications.  As noted last week, the number of overdose deaths is skyrocketing in port cities around the world

Just for confirmation:

DRUG DEATHS SPARK CHEAP HEROIN FEARS

Exclusive:	Police admit seizures are doing little to stem the flow

of imports

FIVE people have died of drug overdoses in a single week in the west of Scotland as a flood of cheap heroin pours into the country.

The death toll brings the number of heroin-related deaths since the beginning of this year to 16 and signals a rise in danger for drug users.

The figures forecast that by the end of 1998 more than 120 deaths will occur in and around the Glasgow area, reversing the three-year trend that has seen drug fatalities fall from an all-time high of 105 in 1995.

[snip]

Pubdate:	Fri, 20 Feb 1998

Author:	Karen McVeigh

Source:	The Scotsman

Website:	http://www.scotsman.com

Contact:

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n119.a07.html

KILLER HEROIN BATCH

TWO people have died and 27 have collapsed in one of Melbourne's worst heroin overdose outbreaks.

A new super-potent batch of the drug stretched the city's ambulance service to the limit in the 24 hours to 9am yesterday

[snip]

Source:	Herald Sun (Australia)

Contact:

Pubdate:	Sat, 21 Feb 1998

Author:	Mark Buttler

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n121.a02.html

Marijuana

New Scientist- Special issue on Marijuana

Marijuana Special Report: High Anxieties
Let's Be Adult About This.
Drop in With Dr Dave

This special issue of New Scientist is a major plus for our side.  There isn't room to consider all the articles in this newsletter.  A trip to the New Scientist website is strongly advised.

It's still too early to tell, but if a good investigative reporter goes to work, the news that pressure was put on the WHO to suppress a report favorable to cannabis may turn out to be as big a news item as the report itself.  It should not surprise anyone familiar with the tactics of the US prohibition establishment that they twisted the arm of WHO, just as it doesn't surprise those familiar with marijuana that it's miles safer than either alcohol or tobacco.

HIGH ANXIETIES

What the WHO doesn't want you to know about cannabis

Health officials in Geneva have suppressed the publication of a politically sensitive analysis that confirms what ageing hippies have known for decades: cannabis is safer than alcohol or tobacco.

According to a document leaked to New Scientist, the analysis concludes not only that the amount of dope smoked worldwide does less harm to public health than drink and cigarettes, but that the same is likely to hold true even if people consumed dope on the same scale as these legal substances.

The comparison was due to appear in a report on the harmful effects of cannabis published last December by the WHO.  But it was ditched at the last minute following a long and intense dispute between WHO officials, the cannabis experts who drafted the report and a group of external advisers.

[snip]

insiders say the comparison was scientifically sound and that the WHO caved in to political pressure.  It is understood that advisers from the US National Institute on Drug Abuse and the UN International Drug Control Programme warned the WHO that it would play into the hands of groups campaigning to legalize marijuana.

[snip]

Source:	New Scientist

Pubdate:	Thu 19 Feb 1998

Contact:

Website:	http://www.newscientist.com/home.html

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n116.a02.html

This editorial in New Scientist, perhaps because of a European bias in interpreting recent news, considers cannabis decriminalization almost a done deal.  Their expectations of NIDA, expressed in the last paragraph, suggest that they don't have a clue about the ferocity with which all branches of the US government will fight to keep marijuana illegal.

LET'S BE ADULT ABOUT THIS

Politicians will just have to bite on the bullet--dope will be decriminalised

When Olympic officials decided last week to give errant snowboarder Ross Rebagliati his gold medal back, the cheers drowned out the boos.  It was a minor scandal involving a minor sport, but it spoke volumes about the world's shifting relationship with its favourite illicit drug.

[snip]

What's changed today is that our attitudes towards illegal drugs are becoming more sophisticated and discriminating.  After thirty years of research into the harmful effects of cannabis, there can be no hidden dangers left to discover.

[snip]

Campaigners and pressure groups can be forgiven for trading propaganda, but we should expect world famous scientific organisations like the US National Institute on Drug Abuse to evaluate honestly the research that has been done.

Source:	New Scientist

Pubdate:	Thu 19 Feb 1998

Author:	David Concard

Contact:

Website:	http://www.newscientist.com/home.html

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n116.a10.html

DROP IN WITH DR DAVE

I've included part of the revealing interview with David Smith, MD because he tells us so succinctly in his own words how the founder of the Haight- Ashbury Free Clinic sold out to drug prohibition.  He apparently wants users arrested and sentenced to treatment.

To find out what is happening on the front lines of marijuana addiction and treatment, Jonathan Knight spoke with David Smith, founder and president of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinics in San Francisco.

[snip]

NS: Should cannabis be made legal?

DS: I'm an opponent of marijuana legalisation.  I don't want people to go to jail, I want them diverted to treatment, but I also don't want more marijuana available in the street.  If marijuana were legalised I believe the tobacco companies would be the main distributors of it.  And they would target youth as they did for tobacco.  You would have the equivalent of Joe Camel for marijuana.

I prefer medicalisation: demand reduction through education and treatment.  For example, 80 per cent of the people in the criminal justice system have drug abuse problems but only 5 per cent get any treatment now.  Medicalisation puts much greater emphasis on treatment. If you get busted for smoking while driving, you get diverted to treatment, not jail.  We've gone about as far as we can go with the criminal justice approach.

[snip]

Source:	New Scientist

Pubdate:	Th, 19 Feb 199

Contact:

Website:	http://www.newscientist.com/home.html

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n116.a06.html

U.S.  National Drug Control Strategy

Drug Czar: Gingrich 'Irresponsible'

Solving Drug Epidemic In Nation's Prisons

In a surprisingly political rebuttal of Newt's opportunistic posturing, McC defended the administration's proposed ten year plan.  This plan leans heavily on recent writings by Califano, Kleiman, and DuPont.  The interpretation of history on which it's based can be found in Jonnes' execrable "Narcs & Hep-Cats."

DRUG CZAR: GINGRICH 'IRRESPONSIBLE'

WASHINGTON--The White House drug policy chief says House Speaker Newt Gingrich is playing party politics in the war on drugs.

[snip]

Barry R.  McCaffrey, head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, reproached Gingrich as "irresponsible" for declaring that the administration's long-term plan to reduce illegal drug use was dead on arrival in Congress.

[snip]

The jousting over drug policy began Saturday when President Clinton, in his weekly radio address, outlined his plan to reduce the number of Americans using drugs by half over the next decade.  The administration has budgeted $17.1 billion for next year to expand prevention programs, hire more border patrol agents, drug agents and police, and treat more prisoners

[snip]

This SF Chronicle editorial swallows Kleiman's thesis advanced in the Washington Post last year along with CASA's latest claims.  What makes them think a prison system that has been corrupted enough to allow the drugs inside prisons can't also be corrupted to nullify testing? This is yet another bonanza for prison spending and a source of graft for prison officials.

SOLVING DRUG EPIDEMIC IN NATION'S PRISONS

One component of President Clinton's anti-drug proposal has so much merit that it must not get lost in the details of the huge plan or in the sharp, partisan rhetoric that already engulfs the proposal.

Among the many recommendations in the $17 billion drug-reduction strategy is one that would expand drug testing and treatment in prisons.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich, coming out of the shadows after a long, close- mouthed hiatus, has pronounced Clinton's drug-reduction proposal ``dead on arrival in this Congress'' because it's a ``hodgepodge of half-steps and half-truths.'' It is important that the public knows that among those recommendations Gingrich wants to obliterate is one that could both cut nationwide drug use and crime and ease overcrowding at prisons.

Source:	San Francisco Chronicle

Pubdate:	Sunday, February 22, 1998

International News

Certification-

US Wants New Way To Get Countries To Fight Drugs

Editorial:	Drug Delusions About Mexico

The upcoming need to certify Mexico focuses attention on policy failure South of the Border.  McCaffrey is pushing for a multi-national treaty to ultimately replace the embarrassing certification process.  This harmonizes with Clinton Administration's plan institutionalize the drug war over a ten year period.

A related editorial in the Boston Globe touched on the hypocrisy of certification while failing to draw the obvious conclusion that drug prohibition in the US aggravates many of the problems they listed.

U.S.  WANTS NEW WAY TO GET COUNTRIES TO FIGHT DRUGS

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration, weary of the bruising annual debate with Congress over whether to certify that Mexico and other nations are cooperating in the war on illicit drugs, wants to drop that process altogether and replace it with an international treaty.

[snip]

The proposed anti-drug treaty would create a Western Hemisphere alliance to fight the production and transportation of drugs and set up a secretariat to make sure that alliance members comply with its provisions.

[snip]

Source:	San Jose Mercury News

Contact:

Pubdate:	Mon, 16 Feb 1998

Author:	Stanley Meisler - LA Times

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n113.a01.html

This article also appeared in the LA Times as "U.S.  Wants Drug Treaty to Replace Certification" on Mon, 16 Feb 1998

DRUG DELUSIONS ABOUT MEXICO

During the Vietnam War, Senator William Fulbright of Arkansas lamented an ''arrogance of power'' that he regarded as the true source of that war. The stakes today are different, but when a foreign leader such as Mexico's President Ernesto Zedillo complains about the annual humiliation of having to be certified..

[snip]

.....  Washington has a considerable interest in Mexico's struggles to
establish a multiparty democracy, achieve social justice for marginalized groups such as the Indians of Chiapas, reduce crime, and cauterize the corruption that infects Mexico's political system.  The certification process, with its arrogant assumption of US superiority, can only cast doubt on the possibility of Yanqui solidarity with Mexico's struggles.

Source:	Boston Globe (MA)

Contact:

Website:	http://www.boston.com/

Pubdate:	19 Feb 1998

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n120.a12.html

Mexico-

Gangs:	New Recruits For Mexican Druglords?

Druglords Easily Enter The U.S.  From Mexico?

Two articles from the Orange County Register indicate that cross-border cooperation in the drug war is not limited to government agencies, but extends to criminal organizations as well:

O.C.  GANGS: NEW RECRUITS FOR MEXICAN DRUGLORDS?

Authorities are worried about that prospect since last week's indictments of 10 San Diego men in an ambush that killed 7.

It was a crime that shocked Mexico and reverberated into Southern

California:	A brutal, gangland-style ambush that targeted a drug dealer

but instead took the lives of the highest-ranking Roman Catholic prelate in Mexico and six others.

U.S.  authorities last week said they believe that the contract assassins were members of a San Diego gang.

[snip]

Source:	Orange County Register (CA)

Contact:

Pubdate:	Thu, 19 Feb 1998

Author:	Guillermo X.  Garcia

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n120.a03.html

DRUGLORDS EASILY ENTER THE U.S.  FROM MEXICO?

Mexico's most-wanted druglords travel regularly to the United States, moving across the border into California with ease, a top Mexican anti-drug official charged Wednesday.

Mariano Herran Salvatti,the special prosecutor for crimes against health, said law-enforcement officers had found video footage showing one of the brothers crossing the frontier and it "was clear he was going from the United States to Mexico."

[snip]

Source:	Orange County Register (CA)

Contact:

Pubdate:	Thu, 19 Feb 1998

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n120.a05.html

Of particular interest is the legal archive of attorneys that specialize in drug law at:
http://www.norml.org/legal/nlc.html
A handy URL that we hope is never needed.  It offers searches by state, name etc.

TIP OF THE WEEK

HOW TO WRITE A LTE THAT GETS PUBLISHED as easy as 1, 2, 3, 4.

OK so we have you in action and writing an occasional letter to the editor (LTE) but you would like to see more of your dynamite prose published?

Here are the "secrets" to dramatically increasing your publication rate.

1) visit the following web sites and read through letter writing tips and style guide:
http://www.mapinc.org/style.htm
http://www.mapinc.org/3tips.htm

2) Visit our archive of hundreds of published Letters to get a feel for what works and what a successful LTE looks like.
http://www.mapinc.org/lte/

3) Write a letter.  It's extremely hard to get published without taking this all important and often overlooked step.  It's also surprisingly easy if you "Just DO it."

Plagiarism from the above archive is not only encouraged it is considered a very highly regarded art form.

4) Send it to the newspaper(s) you choose.  Need an Email address? See http://www.mapinc.org/resource/email.htm

Do these 4 simple steps and send out at least one letter a week and we guarantee that you will soon see your name in lights (or at least in ink).

We wish to thank all our contributors and Newshawks.

NOTICE:

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C.  Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

REMINDER:

Please help us help reform.  Send any news articles you find on any drug related issue to

PLEASE HELP:

DrugSense provides this service at no charge BUT IT IS NOT FREE TO PRODUCE.

We incur many costs in creating our many and varied services.  If you are able to help by contributing to the DrugSense effort please Make checks payable to MAP Inc.  send your contribution to:

The Media Awareness Project (MAP) Inc.
d/b/a DrugSense
PO Box 651
Porterville,
CA 93258
(800) 266 5759

http://www.mapinc.org
http://www.drugsense.org