| April 29, 1998 #044 | ||||||||||||
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A DrugSense publication | ||||||||||||
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Table of Contents
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FEATURE ARTICLE (Top) | ||||||||||||
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For six weeks beginning May 7, The San Francisco Public Library will
host "Human Rights and the Drug War," a powerful exhibit using
photographs of 100 current prisoners and their families to put a human
face on policy. | ||||||||||||
The exhibit coincides with the 50th Anniversary of the UN Declaration of
Human Rights, a document intended to set a standard for the policies of
all nations. In practice, human rights abuses have largely been
considered to be an exclusive problem of Second and Third World nations,
with the Western Democracies, particularly the United States assumed
exempt from consideration. If that assumption is set aside, the war on
drugs is found to be a source of serious human rights abuse within our
own borders: | ||||||||||||
Article 5: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment." The Eighth Amendment to US
Constitution also forbids cruel and unusual punishment, including
excessive bail and fines. | ||||||||||||
US drug policy requires Draconian mandatory sentences disproportionate
to the offense. Federal mandatory minimums sentence first-time
nonviolent drug offenders to terms from five years to life without
parole- longer terms than violent criminals convicted of murder, rape or
robbery (who retain eligibility for parole). | ||||||||||||
Article 10: "Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an in dependent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him." The US Constitution also guarantees a jury trial for both criminal (Sixth Amendment) and non-trivial civil suits (Seventh Amendment). | ||||||||||||
Sentencing guidelines and mandatory minimum laws tie judges hands; the
nature of drug "crime" dictates that physical evidence be replaced by
hearsay testimony; charges of "conspiracy," in which each person is
liable for the entire offense regardless of involvement, favor plea
bargaining over public trial. | ||||||||||||
Recent Supreme Court interpretation of civil asset forfeiture law allows
one's life savings to be seized without charge of a crime; property
under $500,000 can be forfeited administratively through summary
judgment without judicial proceedings or jury trial. An accused, thus
impoverished on the eve of his criminal trial may be unable to afford a
lawyer. (161) | ||||||||||||
Article 12: "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with
his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his
honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the
law against such interference or attacks." The US Fourth Amendment
protects people from "unreasonable searches and seizures" by requiring
that "no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause supported by Oath
or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched,
and the persons or things to be seized." | ||||||||||||
Zealous drug policy enforcement has increasingly caused US citizens to
suffer loss of privacy: phone taps, urine testing, computer, garbage and
mail searches, searches of bank records and utility bills- even
infra-red scanning of dwellings. Employees are subject to random drug
testing without probable cause or warrant. There are police drug sweeps
of neighborhoods which block public roadways and detain search people
and vehicles with dogs. | ||||||||||||
Fitting a "profile' stereotype such as racial or ethnic appearance, hair
length, auto bumper stickers, etc. may single one out for harassment.
Possession of $100 cash may be reason for police seizure as suspected
drug income. Buying garden supplies from a store under police
surveillance has led to a home search. "Drug" warrants are issued on
hearsay evidence and served with battering rams. (216) | ||||||||||||
Article 16.3: "The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of
society and is entitled to protection by society and the state." The US
Fourth Amendment lists "The right of the people to be secure in their
persons, houses, papers, and effects." | ||||||||||||
Families are major casualties of the Drug War. Children are traumatized
by seeing their parents handcuffed face down on the floor while angry,
armed men in dark suits brandish weapons and tear up the house. They are
also injured when the family car, home, and bank accounts are taken, or
when parents are sent to prison for decades. They are also How do
parents support a family from prison, financially or emotionally? How
can an inner city community survive with a third of its adult male
population stigmatized by a criminal record? (131) | ||||||||||||
by Mikki Bach | ||||||||||||
WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW | ||||||||||||
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Needle Exchange COMMENT: (Top) | ||||||||||||
After years of stonewalling, federal officials finally accepted solid
evidence that needle exchange reduces spread of HIV without increasing
drug use to the point where HHS Secretary Shalala was forced to endorse
it in principle. | ||||||||||||
However, fear of a conservative backlash prevented the Administration
from also approving use of federal funds. This ambivalence was
excoriated by both sides and, far from putting the issue to rest, may
guarantee continued interest in it for a long time. | ||||||||||||
Soros' money will help existing programs and the reluctant federal endorsement should help to start new ones. Those considerations, plus the ongoing opportunity for criticism of policy add up to a net plus for reform, especially since federal funding would probably have been accompanied by self-defeating regulatory strictures anyway. | ||||||||||||
I WAS WRONG! NEEDLE-EXCHANGE PROGRAMS WORK | ||||||||||||
Sooner or later, anyone who makes a living offering up opinions gets
asked the same question: ''Have you ever changed your mind?'' After the
ink is dry, after the column is sent into the electronic ozone, have you
ever disagreed with you? There must be so me primal anxiety behind this
frequent inquiry. I suppose people all share a high school nightmare of
being exposed, seen mentally unzipped, caught changing our minds in
public. But since the only way to avoid changing a mind is by closing
that mind, it happens. Today I disagree with me, or rather with the me
that once opposed needle-exchange programs. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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CLEAN NEEDLES, NO MONEY | ||||||||||||
CLINTON'S latest policy response to a national epidemic -- the spread of
AIDS among intravenous drug users -- is little more than a political
fix. In one breath, the administration is declaring that needle-exchange
programs do help curb the spread of AIDS -- but that no federal funds
should be spent on this approach. | ||||||||||||
This half-and-half solution, intended to resolve internal policy
disagreements among the president's advisers, puts politics ahead of
public health. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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CLINTON SPINELESS ON NEEDLE FUNDS | ||||||||||||
IT IS tempting to blame the Paula Jones scandal for Bill Clinton's cowardice, but it wouldn't be fair. Clinton has always been a coward. | ||||||||||||
Clinton's gutless refusal to fund programs that save lives by providing
clean needles to drug addicts was not an inevitable result of a weakened
presidency. Even if Clinton were not hounded by charges of sexual
misconduct, he would be an unlikely savior of poor heroin addicts. They
don't have the money to make campaign contributions and they don't have
the demographics the president's pollsters like to see. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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GINGRICH BLASTS CLINTON NEEDLE EXCHANGE STANCE | ||||||||||||
THIS WEEK, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other top Republicans blasted
President Clinton for endorsing needle exchange programs to prevent AIDS
among drug users, even though Clinton will not allow federal funds for
such programs. "What's a little heroin or cocaine among friends?"
Gingrich said sarcastically at a news conference in which he lambasted
Clinton on drugs and teen smoking, Reuters news service reported.
"There's no such thing as a healthy heroin addict." | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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NEEDLE-FUNDING REFUSAL DISAPPOINTS SATCHER | ||||||||||||
The surgeon general says he wishes the decision had been made without
the political overtones. | ||||||||||||
Washington-The nation's new surgeon general said Friday the he is
disappointed as a scientist by the Clinton administration's decision to
bar federal funding for AIDS-fighting programs that give clean needles
to drug users. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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CLEAN NEEDLES MAY BE BAD MEDICINE | ||||||||||||
The Clinton administration on Monday endorsed the practice of giving
clean needles to drug addicts in order to prevent transmission of the
AIDS virus. "A meticulous scientific review has now proven that
needle-exchange programs can reduce the transmission of HIV and save
lives without loosing ground on the battle against illegal drugs,"
Secretary of Health and Human Services announced. | ||||||||||||
The administration is not unanimous, however; the drug czar, Gen. Barry
McCaffrey, who opposes needle exchange, was out of the country Monday.
Who's right? As recently as a month ago, HHS had resisted
needle-exchange programs. "We have not yet concluded that needle
exchange programs do not encourage drug use." spokeswoman Melissa
Skolfield told the Washington Post March 17. By Monday the department
had reached that conclusion, though the scientific evidence that needle
exchanges don't encourage drug use is as weak today as it was a month
ago. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
Service, a nonprofit group in Washington.
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HIV'S SPREAD IS UNCHECKED AIDS-SLOWING TREATMENTS | ||||||||||||
Eclipse Rising Infection Rate, Study Says | ||||||||||||
Although the number of new AIDS cases in the United States has declined
substantially in recent years, HIV continues to spread through the
population essentially unabated, according to data released yesterday by
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. | ||||||||||||
The first direct assessment of HIV infection trends shows that the recent decline in U.S. AIDS cases is not due to a notable drop in new infections. Rather, improved medical treatments are allowing infected people to stay healthy longer before coming down with AIDS, overshadowing the reality of an increasingly infected populace. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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$1 MILLION PLEDGED FOR NEEDLE EXCHANGES | ||||||||||||
A billionaire financier offered $1 million on a matching basis Thursday
to finance the distribution of clean needles to addicts who inject
illegal drugs. The money pledged by the financier, George Soros, would
go to match increases by other philanthropists and private foundations
for what Soros called "these lifesaving programs." | ||||||||||||
Soros announced last August that he was making another $1 million
directly available for needle-exchange programs. | ||||||||||||
Explaining his decision at the time, he said: "Very few politicians dare to stand up. If they touch the issue, it's like touching a third rail." | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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Medical Marijuana | ||||||||||||
COMMENT: (Top) | ||||||||||||
The Chronicle article is a sad recapitulation of the carnage wreaked
upon medical marijuana programs in the past few months. The reopening of
the San Francisco club demonstrates the importance of friendly local
officials, a point underscored by DA Hallinan's Op-Ed. | ||||||||||||
LEGAL HASSLES EXTINGUISHING POT CLUBS | ||||||||||||
Prop. 215's weak wording doesn't sway cops, agents | ||||||||||||
Less than 18 months after medical marijuana use was legalized in California by Proposition 215, the network of marijuana clubs, co-ops and dispensaries that arose to deliver pot to patients is collapsing. | ||||||||||||
Of 18 medical marijuana providers operating openly seven months ago, six
are out of business and five are facing closure due to criminal or civil
lawsuits. The remaining seven groups are still open and not facing legal
trouble, but there is constant worry that the next knock on the door
could be federal drug agents. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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SAN FRANCISCO MARIJUANA CLUB REOPENS PEACEFULLY TO CHEERS | ||||||||||||
SAN FRANCISCO -- A San Francisco marijuana club reopened under another name yesterday just a day after a court order shut down its predecessor. | ||||||||||||
About 40 patients and supporters cheered as Wayne Justmann, head of security for the new Cannabis Healing Center, unlocked the front door. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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LET HEALTH WORKERS DISTRIBUTE POT | ||||||||||||
By Terence Hallinan | ||||||||||||
THE RECENT SHUTDOWN of San Francisco's Cannabis Cultivators Club and its reopening under new leadership closed a chapter in the continuing debate over medical marijuana. Broader legal questions about the clubs remain. | ||||||||||||
State and federal efforts to close six medical marijuana cooperatives in
California have raised the thorny question of who should be responsible
for distributing medical marijuana to sick patients if the clubs are
permanently shut down. Recently, when 1 suggested city health workers
may be called on to do the job in San Francisco, I did not make the
statement lightly. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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Drug Policy | ||||||||||||
COMMENT: (Top) | ||||||||||||
The GOP pursuit of a "drug free" America, led by Newt is good news for
us. If the public can't understand that the drug war is an inhumane
folly in the light of other developments, it probably never will. It's
also to be expected that the most ardent prohibitionists will feel most
threatened by perception that reform is gaining ground, and will react
accordingly. | ||||||||||||
The other items simply confirm the willingness of drug warriors to
embrace any strategy, no matter how destructive of the environment,
threatening to the public, or invasive of privacy, in their desire to
control human behavior. | ||||||||||||
REPUBLICANS PLAN MAJOR CAMPAIGN FOR DRUG-FREE AMERICA | ||||||||||||
WASHINGTON -- House Republicans are preparing to launch a highly publicized election-year initiative to bring about a drug-free America. | ||||||||||||
In an event planned for next week and to be staged like the House GOP's mass 1994 signing of its Contract With America, more than 100 House Republicans are expected to endorse a dozen wide-ranging anti-drug bills. | ||||||||||||
One bill calls for doubling the Border Patrol to 20,000 and restoring controversial military patrols along the U.S.-Mexico border. | ||||||||||||
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., formed the Speaker's Task Force for a Drug-Free America one month ago, and it already has a comprehensive national "battle plan" for reaching its goal within four years. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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DRUG STING'S TACTICS HELPED 'POISON THE PUBLIC,' JUDGE SAYS | ||||||||||||
State agents helped "poison the public" by giving drug dealers huge
amounts of the key ingredient to produce methamphetamine and failing to
recover it, a federal judge said Friday. | ||||||||||||
During a "sting" operation targeting a pair of notorious drug
manufacturing suspects in 1995, the narcotics agents committed crimes
that would justify life in prison "if they did not have badges," said
U.S. District Judge Lawrence K. Karlton. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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PATCH THAT MIGHT KEEP TABS ON DRUG USE WILL BE TESTED IN PHILA. | ||||||||||||
The device would offer ``real-time'' data, rather than after-the-fact
screening. | ||||||||||||
Sweating it out could take on new meaning for drug users caught by the
criminal justice system. | ||||||||||||
The federal government is getting ready to field test in Philadelphia a black watch-sized patch that is being designed to send a signal if the wearer takes drugs. It also has the potential to relay information to authorities about the person's whereabouts, within 150 feet. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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International News | ||||||||||||
COMMENT: (Top) | ||||||||||||
There is a symmetry in the first three articles: the book reviewed in
the first explains the huge jump in illegal drug dollars flowing into
Mexico which allowed the official corruption alluded to in the next two
news stories. | ||||||||||||
There are those who believe that the AIDS epidemic in the US will be
minor compared to what is happening in Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union. | ||||||||||||
The articles about Peru (riverine interdiction) and Colombia (aerial
spraying of herbicides) suggest that America has yet to learn all the
lessons of Viet Nam. | ||||||||||||
NICE GUYS FINISH DEAD a review of: | ||||||||||||
TWILIGHT ON THE LINE | ||||||||||||
Underworlds and Politics at the U.S.-Mexican Border. By Sebastian
Rotella. 320 pp. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. $25. | ||||||||||||
By Richard Rayner | ||||||||||||
EARLY in this vivid study of immigration, crime and graft at the
Mexican border, Sebastian Rotella makes the point that the headlong
growth in the l990's of the drug trade in Mexico, and in Baja
California in particular, was spurred by an American success story.
When the Drug Enforcement Administration blocked Florida as the
prime highway for cocaine, the Colombian cartels responded by
expanding their partnership with some of their old friends in
Mexico, who offered not only a network already established through
their traditional traffic in heroin and marijuana, but a long and
vulnerable land border with the United States. | ||||||||||||
The Mexican drug barons began receiving payment in cocaine instead
of cash, and the Colombians were forced to cede sales turf in
Texas, along the East Coast and especially in California itself.
"Soon the Mexican mafias were supplying 70 percent of the cocaine
consumed-yearly in the United States," Rotella writes, "were
earning between $10 billion and $30 billion a year in profits and,
according to a study by the University of Guadalajara, were
spending $500 million a year exclusively on the bribery of public
officials in Mexico. That figure was roughly double the entire
budget of the Mexican federal attorney general's office and federal
police." | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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$132 MILLION TRACED TO SWISS IN SALINAS CASE | ||||||||||||
LAUSANNE, Switzerland ( AP)-- U.S. investigators have traced $132
million in Swiss banks to the brother of a former Mexican president and
say at least some of the money came from drug traffickers, according to
court documents released Friday. | ||||||||||||
Switzerland's highest court disclosed for the first time details of the
largely secret U.S. case against Raul Salinas de Gortari, the brother of
former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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LAWYER IN DRUG CASE GUNNED DOWN | ||||||||||||
A former lawyer for Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, the jailed former
leader of Mexico's anti-drug campaign, was slain late Tuesday, officials
said. | ||||||||||||
A spokesman for Jalisco State prosecutors said a gunman killed Tomas
Arturo Gonzalez Velazquez, 43, while he waited in his car at a traffic
light in Guadalajara. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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EASTERN EUROPE NEW AIDS REGION, REPORT SAYS | ||||||||||||
MOSCOW - Every minute worldwide, five people between the ages of 10 and 24 become infected with HIV, according to a report released here today. | ||||||||||||
The UNAIDS report also warned that Eastern Europe is set to become "one
of the next epicenters" of the world AIDS crisis, with HIV infection
rates having increased at least six fold since 1994. | ||||||||||||
The report said that 190,000 people in the region are infected, a contagion rate driven by a sharp rise in the use of injected drugs. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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U.S. TEACHES PERU TO PLUG RIVER OF DRUGS | ||||||||||||
IQUITOS, Peru - As Seaman Walter Fitzgerald gunned his Boston Whaler boat out into the Amazon and gently pulled alongside a floating dock as if approaching another vessel, he kept up a steady stream of talk to his Peruvian counterparts, explaining each step in nearly flawless Spanish. | ||||||||||||
Nearby, on land, Warrant Officer Marc Shifanelli crouched in the thick
jungle underbrush, demonstrating to a group of Peruvian police how to
conduct small-unit patrols, including how to carry their AK-47 assault
rifles, with constant reminders not to "aim at anything you don't want
to destroy." | ||||||||||||
Fitzgerald, a U.S. Navy SEAL, and Shifanelli, of the U.S. Army Special
Forces, are part of a group of 30 specialized American military
instructors implementing one of the most ambitious counterdrug programs
the Pentagon has ever undertaken in Latin America. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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COCA, POPPY KILLER MAY HARM AMAZON | ||||||||||||
BOGOTA, Colombia ( AP) - Deep in the jungle, a Turbo-Thrush plane swoops
to within 100 feet of a field of illegal drug crops, lets loose a cloud
of herbicide over the plants and soars skyward again before heavily
armed leftist rebels can open fire. | ||||||||||||
It has become an almost daily - if hair-raisingly dangerous - routine in Colombia as police undertake an ambitious program to eradicate thousands of acres of coca and poppy - the plants used to make cocaine and heroin. | ||||||||||||
Now, at the urging of the United States, Colombia is considering
switching to a more powerful, granular herbicide called tebuthiuron - a
new coca-killer that can be dropped from higher altitudes, out of range
of the gun-toting rebels guarding the crops. | ||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||
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HOT OFF THE 'NET (Top) | ||||||||||||
The Drug Policy Foundation has updated and enhanced their web page. | ||||||||||||
See: http://www.dpf.org/ | ||||||||||||
It now includes the latest grant guidelines. | ||||||||||||
The "War on Drugs Clock" has been enhanced and is "ready for Primetime" | ||||||||||||
and click on the animated moon (indicative of lunacy). This feature
should be linked all over the Internet. It is a powerful visual display
of why we are fighting to change the status quo. | ||||||||||||
The MAP archive of published Letters to the Editor has a new feature
which keeps track of the dollar value of oor volunteer's published
letters posted on our website. We have generated both an item counter
and an estimated value. | ||||||||||||
We display well over $500,000 in ad value and over 600 published letters
and articles to date. | ||||||||||||
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TIP OF THE WEEK | ||||||||||||
We are trying to get as many members as possible to contact their local
bookstores to ask if they can have Mike Grays "Drug Crazy" available. If
not please ask when they will be able to order it and whether they will
stock it. | ||||||||||||
If we can get each member to call 5 bookstores we will have covered nearly every bookstore in the country and we will have sent a powerful message to distributors to stock this book. A reform best seller would be a national first and would gain us some excellent media coverage. | ||||||||||||
Just do it! 5 calls takes about 15 minutes. | ||||||||||||
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QUOTES OF THE WEEK | ||||||||||||
`I'M SO AFRAID -- SEEING PEOPLE'S LIVES JUST FADE' | ||||||||||||
Here are excerpts from the essays written by fifth-graders at Edward Heston
Elementary School. | ||||||||||||
When I walk the streets I see people who could have terrific lives, but
they are happier doing drugs. I'm not going to destroy my future. I can do
more with my life than killing myself with drugs. I am 10-year-old and when
I put myself in that position, I feel so sorry for them.
-- Chanel Joynes | ||||||||||||
I want drug dealing to stop because one of my friends got shot over that.
He was walking down the street and he was looking at the dealers and they
said "Get out of here, leave!" He kept looking and got shot. That's why I
want it to stop. Drugs are getting people killed. One time my brother's
friend got shot because he was working for the drug dealers and he didn't
bring back the right amount of money. He was 13 years old and I went to his
funeral. | ||||||||||||
I see them every day. Where I walk and where I play. Sometimes I'm so
afraid -- seeing people's lives just fade. Drugs take you out of this world
soon. They destroy families and leave a neighborhood in ruin.
-- Tiffany Harrison | ||||||||||||
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