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Table of Contents

* Breaking News (11/23/24)

* Feature Article

     Harm Reduction and Hepatitis C: (Part 3)

     What must we do, to change what we do...?

     Joey Tranchina, M.A. and Tom O'Connell, M.D.

* Weekly News In Review

Marijuana-

     UK: Lords To Study Cannabis Risks

Tobacco-

     Reinventing American Tobacco Policy: Sounding the Medical
     Community's Voice

Law Enforcement-

     No Charges In Candy Bar Shooting

     Day of Humiliation

Drug Testing-

     Oral Drug Test Screens For Use Of Marijuana

     Court Clears Drug Tests To Protect PresidencyMarkG

Corrections-

     Planned Intake Center Reshapes Prisons

     State Prisons Spin Out Of Control

Forfeiture-

     Seizure of hotel sets precedent

     Brokers Put on Notice Over Laundering

International News -

     Prisons Plan To Sterilise Needles For Drug Users

UK: Drugs Tsar Targets Jails And Schools

     Colombian Army Suffers One Of Worst Defeats In Combat With
     Rebels

* Hot Off The 'Net

     Suppressed World Health Organization Report Posted
     Electronic Law Library

* DrugSense Tip Of The Week

&

* Quote of the Week

     William F. Buckley

Harm Reduction and Hepatitis C:

What must we do, to change what we do...?

Joey Tranchina, M.A.  and Tom O'Connell, M.D.

Our collective first reaction to HCV, has been to do what we did for HIV, only more.  Just as in Sinclair's novel, "The Jungle," -- the more plant management pushed the slaughterhouse assembly line, the more workers pushed themselves, with the mantra "I will work harder." More work fails to address the epidemic for the same reasons the meat packers failed -- an inappropriate plan for a significantly different situation.

We must, of course, continue exchanging syringes, counseling and referring our clients to ever more threadbare services, but we must also realize that those activities alone won't halt progression of the HCV epidemic.

How do we know that measures taken to contain HIV will fail to prevent the spread of HCV? If what we've been doing for ten years, which has demonstrably reduced spread of AIDS, did the same for HCV- 80 to 90% of NEP clients wouldn't be infected.  This is not to say that participation in a syringe exchange doesn't reduce the chance of HCV infection- excellent studies in Washington state demonstrate significant reductions in new HBV & HCV.  Yet, even with participation in exchange we are speaking about a population that is overwhelmingly HCV positive and one that continues to become infected at an alarming rate.

We know that syringe exchange offers access to a hard-to-reach and hidden community of men and women living at great risk of blood borne disease and other maladies.  Most of them are isolated and stigmatized; well beyond reach of conventional medical interventions.  Targeted outreach remains essential, and syringe exchange is the most efficient contact point for the simple reason it offers something drug injectors want and need.

How can we use this access to slow the epidemic of HCV infections?

We must examine the reasons standard syringe exchange practice has failed to have a similarly dramatic effect on spread of HCV:

1) Injection is inherently high risk behavior- there is no evolutionary precedent for parental drug administration- and humans have limited native defense against blood borne pathogens.

2) HCV is a different virus, more persistent in the environment and orders of magnitude more abundant in the blood of infected individuals.

3) Most IDUs have already been infected with HCV before reaching a NEP. This virus is routinely acquired early in an injector's career.  A Seattle study suggests that 30% people who inject become infected from their first experience.  What possible intervention would protect such young people, who have never even heard of a syringe exchange?

One of us (JT) has discussed this issue, for over a year, with many experienced outreach workers, most significantly Dave Burrows in Australia.  To the questions: "What could be done to enable uninfected injectors to protect themselves from HCV infection? What can we do to effectively prevent regular injectors from infecting novice partners who begin injecting with them?" Our unfortunate answer is PROBABLY NOTHING.

Among people, who continue to inject, a significant percentage will become HCV infected no matter what we say, teach, or do.  HCV is problematic even in hospitals where up to 30% of kidney dialysis patients are HCV positive, along with an high percentage of dialysis nurses; therefore, it's easy to understand why adequately sterile injection conditions can't be achieved by needle exchange customers.  As always, social class and economic status will affect the conditions under which one injects, but HCV will spread even given the relatively sanitary injection practices of more privileged IDUs.  The best answer seems to be that there is no safe way to inject drugs.  After many lengthy discussions with many thoughtful and experienced workers, these are our recommendations:

o Discourage injection, by encouraging any other means of drug use. Anything that lowers the number of injectors or reduces frequency of injection reduces opportunity for spread.

o Demand that all NEP clients have access to anonymous HCV testing , with appropriate and competent pre & post test counseling.  Ideally, this would be accompanied with an offer of vaccination for Hepatitis A & B and combined with referral to treatment, as indicated.

o Teach the truth: there is no safe use of alcohol by HCV positive patients.

o Teach clients the risk they pose to their partners if they help them to inject --- the risk from the overwhelmingly HCV positive cohort of established IDUs to newbies, who have never injected is extreme.

o Begin outreach to snorters, to alert them to HCV risk in sharing straws.

o "Wash your hands." Cleanliness offers a significant --- and often difficult to achieve --- barrier to infection, but the standard is VERY high.

o Advocate for inclusion of drug users, former users and substitute drug users at all levels of HCV treatment, including liver transplants and clinical trials.  The standard for retention should not be drug status, but compliance with protocol.

o Recognition of the intimate connection between HCV and autoimmune disorders will provide better medical care for needle exchange clients.

o Recognize the critical impact of nutrition on the health of HCV positive people

o Expand the mission of existing HIV Organizations to incorporate the needs of Hepatitis C patients.

o Demand an adequate funding stream for HCV treatment, prevention, research and care.

o Help develop an activist core of HCV positive patients,to become experts in their disease.  Our experience with HIV and AIDS demonstrates that knowledgeable patients and advocates receive more appropriate treatment. This unfunded epidemic requires informed advocates for their own health care.

Marijuana

UK: Lords To Study Cannabis Risks

This is far more hopeful than the studies proposed on this side of the Atlantic.  Given the history of such commissions always recommending that cannabis laws be softened, if not repealed, the probability that this one will come to similar conclusions is high.  The presure generated by such a report would be enormous in the present political climate.

LORDS TO STUDY CANNABIS RISKS

THE scientific risks of taking cannabis for medical and recreational purposes are to be examined by a Lords investigation, it was announced yesterday.

[snip]

The inquiry by the Lords Committee on Science and Technology, half of whose members are medically qualified, will be advised by Leslie Iverson, visiting Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford University, who specialises in the effects of drugs on the brain.  The two key questions to be addressed are:"How strong is the scientific evidence in favour of permitting medical use?" and "How strong is the scientific evidence in favour of maintaining prohibition of recreational use?"

[snip]

Source:	The Independent

Pubdate:	Friday, 6 March 1998

Author:	Anthony Bevins, Political Editor

Contact:

Website:	http://www.independent.co.uk/

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n158.a04.html

Tobacco-

Reinventing American Tobacco Policy: Sounding the Medical Community's Voice

In this exercise in futility, three medical luminaries attempt to discuss tobacco policy without any reference to drug prohibition.  The result is an unfocused vilification of cigarette makers devoid of a single coherent policy recommendation, despite the ambitious title.

REINVENTING AMERICAN TOBACCO POLICY

1998 may be the most important moment in the history of the tobaccowars, a moment when America chooses between a path toward social repair or one toward irrevocable public loss.

[snip]

The extent that the tobacco industry has gone to secure special privilege and protect itself, individually andcollectively, from liability from past and future health effects from tobacco use has raised a red fag in the public health community.  With such a glaring difference between what is right and wrong for the public, Congress should have little difficulty in choosing a course that contains no deals and no trades.  We support tobacco legislation by Congress, but are opposed to granting any concessions to the tobacco industry

Pubdate:	Thu,18 Feb 1998

Source:	JAMA Vol.  279, No 7

Koop EC, Kessler DC, Lundberg, GN.

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n157.a10.html

Law Enforcment-

Day of Humiliation

No Charges In Candy Bar Shooting

Two more cases of trigger-happy cops on drug cases shooting at innocent (black) citizens.  As usual, the shootings were given official OKs and both victims were lucky to have escaped with their lives.

DAY OF HUMILIATION

Ellis Elliott was awakened suddenly by an insane pounding on the metal door of his Bronx apartment.  It was clear that someone was trying to break the door down.

Terrified, Mr.  Elliott leaped naked from his bed and grabbed the unlicensed .25-caliber pistol he kept in a night stand.

[snip]

Panicked, Mr.  Elliott fired a warning shot over the top of the door.That shot was answered by a fearful barrage of gunfire.  Mr. Elliott dived behind a table and squatted there, trembling.

[snip]

Somehow they invaded the wrong apartment.  Mr. Elliott, 44, had never been in trouble with the law and is due to serve on a Bronx grand jury in the spring.

It was an honest mistake, the police would later say.

[snip]

Source:	New York Times

Pubdate:	Sunday, 8 Mar 1998

Column:	In America, Bob Herbert

Contact:

Website:	http://www.nytimes.com/

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n164.a05.html

NO CHARGES IN CANDY BAR SHOOTING

NEW YORK, March 4 (UPI) -- A grand jury has decided not to file charges against a white U.S marshal on a drug stakeout who shot a black New York City teenager who was carrying a silver-wrapped Three Musketeers candy bar.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown says William Cannon and his partner did nothing criminal when they mistook the candy bar for a semi- automatic pistol and shot high school student Andre Burgessin the leg on Nov.  6, 1997,

[snip]

Source:	United Press International

Pubdate:	4 Mar 1998

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n164.a11.html

Drug Testing-

Oral Drug Test Screens For Use Of Marijuana

Greater emphasis on routine testing in prisons has been touted by the prohibition establishment, notably Kleiman and Califano.  A compliant Supreme Court has allowed the door of the schoolhouse to be widely opened.  Now we have a method which removes much of the embarrassment of urine testing.  Look for wider use of testing in the coming months.

ORAL DRUG TEST SCREENS FOR USE OF MARIJUANA

Beaverton's Epitope and its partner have added to the sophisticated methods available

Drug testing for marijuana just became as simple as sucking a lollipop.

Thanks to a Beaverton biotech company and its Pennsylvania partner, the nation's first high-tech marijuana test using oral fluid is moving closer to reality.  The U.S. Food and Drug Administration this month approved the new test, which uses a lollipop-like collection device made by Epitope Inc.

[snip]

Source:	Oregonian, The

Pubdate:	Sat, 28 Feb 1998

Author:	Steve Woodward of The Oregonian staff

Contact:

Website:	http://www.oregonlive.com/

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n150.a02.html

Court Clears Drug Tests To Protect Presidency

The theory that routine drug testing of certain White House employees would "protect" the Prez and Al Gore proves that Reefer Madness is alive and well in Washington sixty-one years after passage of the MTA.  It wasn't announced if the rules would be changed to include interns.

COURT CLEARS DRUG TESTS TO PROTECT PRESIDENCY

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court allowed random drug testing yesterday of certain federal employees, to protect the safety of the president and vice president.

[snip]

The suit was brought by Arthur Stigile and Ellen Balis, economists with the OMB..(who)....  said that hundreds of interns and visitors had access to the Old Executive Office Building who were not required to go through the "humiliating" experience.

[snip]

The government responded that the search was justified as a means of protecting the safety of the president and vice president.

Source:	Boston Globe (Reuters)

Pubdate:	Tue, 3 Mar 1998

Contact:

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

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n153.a04.html

Corrections-

Planned Intake Center Reshapes Prisons

From their famed "prison blues" (prisoner manufactured denim fashions), to a shiny new intake center, Oregon- also a major participant in Unicor, has become a veritable laboratory for testing new ways to exploit prisoner-generated revenue.  Given projections on prison growth in the near future, one can see why.

PLANNED INTAKE CENTER RESHAPES PRISONS

OREGON CITY - Two guards in gun-metal gray jump suits and polished black boots get the word first.

The Blue Bird is on its way in.

[snip]

A blue-and-white bus, with the manufacturer's "Blue Bird" emblazoned in silver letters across the front, quickly disgorges the two dozen newest initiates to the state's burgeoning prison population.

[snip]

Oregon prison administrators have hustled furiously for four years to comply with ballot measures calling for longer prison sentence sand requirements that inmates log the same 40-hour work weeks that most voters do.  Taken together, the initiatives have swelled testate's inmate population to record numbers and created a morediverse, and therefore more difficult to manage, mix of prisoners.

[snip]

The department forecasts that Oregon's prison population will top15,000 within a decade.  Accommodating those inmates will mean building as many as seven new prisons by 2007.

Source:	The Oregonian,

Pubdate:	Mon, 2 Mar 1998

Author:	Dana Tims of The Oregonian staff

Contact:

Website:	http://www.oregonlive.com/

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n153.a08.html

State Prisons Spin Out Of Control

Corcoran Prison Guards Have Advantage,Experts Say

The first piece, an Op-ed, written originally for the Sacramento Bee, was republished in both the San Jose Mercury News, and the San Diego Union-Tribune.  It documents growing dissatisfaction with conditions in California's sprawling prison system.

The second, a more analytical piece in the Orange County Register is probably more correct in suggesting that federal convictions will be hard to come by.

Look for prison issues to loom large in the coming race for governor.

STATE PRISONS SPIN OUT OF CONTROL

THE eight Corcoran State Prison guards indicted last week on federal cruelty charges must, of course, be held personally responsible for their own actions, whatever they were.

But the semi-official line from the state Department of Correction sand Gov.  Pete Wilson's administration -- that if there was wrongdoing, it was solely the misdeeds of rogue guards -- is notacceptable.  There's something more fundamentally amiss with the department.

As any business executive knows, one of the most perilous circumstances is unbridled, unmanaged growth, and the Department of Corrections has been, by a wide margin, the state government's fastest-growing segment.

[snip]

Source:	San Diego Union Tribune (CA)

Author:	(Dan Walters (Sacramento Bee)

Pubdate:	Fri, 6 Mar 1998

Contact:

Source:	San Jose Mercury New (CA)

Contact:

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n161.a06.html

Corcoran Prison Guards Have Advantage, Experts Say

Forfeiture-

Seizure of hotel sets precedent

Brokers Put on Notice Over Laundering

Two articles portend further extension of the legalized extortion known as forfeiture.  In the first instance, the police seem to be penalizing hotel owners for failing to do their (the cops) jobs.

In the second, although brokers themselves seem to be the target of prosecution, can confiscation of shares be far behind?

SEIZURE OF HOTEL SETS PRECEDENT

'Tacit consent' for drug deals alleged

By STEVE BREWER
Copyright 1998 Houston Chronicle

Keith English sells home theater systems, but most days he can catch a real action show right next door.

"It's like watching the TV show Cops," he said, "but it's live."

English works next to the Red Carpet Inn, a hotel at 6868 Hornwood in southwest Houston seized by federal agents Feb.  17. Houston police bust dealers there regularly and there's no dispute the hotel has been used as a drug market.

[snip]

Defense attorneys and legal experts say the seizure -- only the second of its kind in the country -- sets a bad precedent, since there are no allegations the hotel owners took part in any crimes.

Using a broad interpretation of drug forfeiture laws, the U.S.  attorney's office seized the hotel and is attempting to obtain a forfeiture on the grounds that its owners gave "tacit consent" to illegal activity by not stopping it when notified by police and the city.

[snip]

Source:	Houston Chronicle, page 1

Contact:

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n161.a05.html

BROKERS PUT ON NOTICE OVER LAUNDERING

WASHINGTON --- The U.S.  Treasury Department will propose rules requiring securities brokers to report evidence of possible money laundering, as banks now must do Treasury and Securities and Exchange Commission officials said.

The proposal, to be issued in the next three months, comes as criminal prosecutors are stepping up their investigations of securities fraud.  At least two brokers were charged with money laundering following an FBI sting in October 1996 that led to the arrest of 45 stock promoters, company of ficers and brokers.

[snip]

Source:	International Herald-Tribune

Pubdate:	Tue, 03 Mar 1998

Contact:

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n153.a03.html

International News

Prisons Plan To Sterilise Needles For Drug Users

This is one headline we'll never see in the US.  The practical British, acknowledging that drug use in prison occurs, are at least taking measures to reduce AIDS.  Our doctrinaire bureaucrats would fire any warden who suggested such heresy.

PRISONS PLAN TO STERILISE NEEDLES FOR DRUG USERS

PRISONS are planning to introduce a "clean needle" scheme to prevent the spread of hepatitis and HIV among drug-taking inmates.

Joyce Quin, the Prisons Minister, is considering a pilot scheme in which sterilizing equipment would be used on prison wings to cut the risk of spreading disease.  Doctors are already permitted to prescribe condoms to inmates, to reduce the danger of infection among them.

[SNIP]

Source:	Times The (UK)

Pubdate:	Wed, 04 Mar 1998

Author:	Richard Ford, Home Correspondent

Contact:

Website:	http://www.the-times.co.uk/

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n156.a10.html

UK: Drugs Tsar Targets Jails And Schools

This seems meant to prove that despite some softness at the margins, the drug war still survives in England.It also shows that Tony Blair and Bill Clinton have come up with very similar drug policies which are heavy on the testing of vulnerable populations- schoolchildren and prisoners.  Bob DuPont must be ecstatic.

DRUGS TSAR TARGETS JAILS AND SCHOOLS

THE government is preparing its biggest assault on drugs with a plan to take the anti-drug message to children as young as six and to segregate addicted prisoners in Britain's jails.

The strategy will be unveiled in the spring by Keith Hellawell, the former chief constable of West Yorkshire, who was appointed "drugs tsar" by Tony Blair last October.

[snip]

Other measures include compulsory drug testing and treatment for burglars and others who steal to feed their drug habit, and streamlining of government initiatives to cut duplication of effort.

One of Hellawell's priorities is to target children before they fall under the influence of youth drug culture.

[snip]

Source:	Sunday Times (UK)

Author:	Nicholas Rufford - Home Affairs Editor

Contact:

Pubdate:	Sun, 08 Mar 1998

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n165.a04.html

Colombian Army Suffers One Of Worst Defeats In Combat With Rebels

The badly overmatched Colombian Army suffered a major defeat last week. This is sure to put pressure on McC & Co.  to "do something." Military options are limited by the incompetence of Colombia's army and, hopefully, no one wants a Viet Nam style operation involving GIs in Soth America.

COLOMBIAN ARMY SUFFERS ONE OF WORST DEFEATS IN COMBAT WITH
REBELS

FLORENCIA, Colombia -- Low on rations, their radios dead, and pinned down by 400 guerrillas, members of an elite Colombian army counterinsurgency battalion were picked off..

[snip]

The guerrillas also earn millions of dollars annually by taxing coca leaf farmers and providing protection for drug traffickers.

"The reason (for the attack) was obvious.  That is the largest center for the production of coca leaves and coca paste in the world," Echeverri, the defense minister, said Saturday.

Last month, concerns about the rebel threat prompted the Clinton administration to lift U.S.  economic sanctions against the Colombian government.

[snip]

Source:	Houston Chronicle

Pubdate:	Sun, 08 Mar 1998

Page:	24A

Author:	John Otis

Contact:

Website:	http://www.chron.com/

URL:	http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n165.a06.html

Suppressed World Health Organization Report Posted

Suppression of a WHO document by US agencies created considerable fuss when alleged in a recent issue of New Scientist.  The document (WHO Project on Health Implications of Cannabis Use: A Comparative Appraisal of the Health and Psychological Consequences of Alcohol, Cannabis, Nicotine and Opiate Use)can now be read in its entirety at Chris Clay's website:

http://www.hempnation.com/library/recreational/who-index.html

You may also wish to review the evidence supporting Chris Clay's Constitutional Challenge, which will eventually reach the Supreme Court of Canada.  It consists of affidavits and other documents by an impressive group of Canadian and American experts: Senator Sharon Carstairs, P. James Giffen, Marie Andree Bertrand, Eugene Oscapella, Hans-Jorg Albrecht, Patricia Erickson, Diane M.  Riley, Neil Boyd, Bruce Alexander, Eric Single, Dr.  Lester Grinspoon, Robert Randall, Neev Tapiero, Heinz Lehmann, and John P.  Morgan.

http://www.hempnation.com/politics/challnge/motion.html

Electronic Law Library

Check out the sight below It is an electronic law library--mainly labor law but They have a lot of drug war information.  They claim to provide both sides of the trenches but as you wander throughout their site, they certainly seem more on our side of the fence.  Especially check out their "Periodical Reading Room" which has an entire section dedicated to the war on drugs.  It is exciting to find others outside the immediate reform circle talking war on drugs.  Check it out.

http://www.lectlaw.com/rotu.html

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Quote of the Week

"Narcotics police are an enormous, corrupt international bureaucracy ... and now fund a coterie of researchers who provide them with 'scientific support' ...  fanatics who distort the legitimate research of others. ... The anti-marijuana campaign is a cancerous tissue of lies, undermining law enforcement, aggravating the drug problem, depriving the sick of needed help, and suckering well-intentioned conservatives and countless frightened parents." -- William F.  Buckley, 'Commentary' in The National Review, p.  495, April 29, 1983.

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