December 9, 1998 #077 |
|
A DrugSense publication
|
http://www.drugsense.org/dsw/1998/ds98.n77.html
|
Do you find this Newsletter useful? Can you help us with a donation? Please
see: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm You can donate on-line quickly and
easily! Or see below for other options.
|
|
- * Breaking News (01/20/25)
-
- * Feature Article
-
Protecting your privacy during a drug-war strip search
by James E. Gierach
- * Weekly News in Review
-
Prisons-
The Prison-Industrial Complex
Column: Our Prisons Have Bigger Problems
Jail Guards Smuggled Contraband, Paper Says
Editorial: Shipping Inmates No Solution
Law Enforcement-
Selling Lies - Win At All Costs series
Policy-
Editorial: Eye at the Keyhole
School Board To Ask The U.S. Supreme Court To Reinstate Drug Testing
Customs Service Drug Searches Prompt Outrage, Lawsuits
Book Review of "Whiteout": The C(ocaine)I(mportation)A(gency)
Medical Marijuana-
Groups Seek Results of Marijuana Vote
Pot Center Founder Fights Charges
Cannabis Buyers' Co-op to Reopen, But not Sell Pot
RX: Marijuana
International News-
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
-
Family Watch
Breaking News stories
- * Quote of the Week
-
William Lloyd Garrison
- * Fact of the Week
-
Prohibition Pollutes
|
FEATURE ARTICLE (Top)
|
Protecting your privacy during a drug-war strip search
by James E. Gierach
|
Do you look like a drug dealer or a drug courier?
|
If so, don't be surprised if anti-drug agents tread upon your privacy
rights. It could happen to any American but there are steps you can take
to protect yourself.
|
The first line of defense against drug-war intrusion into your life --
whether visiting Aunt Martha over the holidays or returning from a
Caribbean vacation through New York's Kennedy International Airport or
Miami International Airport -- is not to "look like" a drug dealer or
courier. Narcotics agents have developed -- based upon years of
experience, training, and hit-or-miss success -- what they call
"drug-courier profiles." These profiles are pigeonholes into which drug
agents can place anybody. Unwary citizens may not be sensitized to these
profile "tells" but drug agents are trained specialists.
|
When a U.S. Customs agent, MEG (Metropolitan Enforcement Group) trooper,
or DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) agent sees a person whose appearance,
demeanor or baggage meets a drug-courier "profile," the anti-drug agent
reacts. The hair on the back of the neck stands on end, Adrenalin speeds
to the agent's stomach and the face turns flush. (Not all agents'
reactions fit this profile.) To an educated drug cop, a profile match
engenders suspicion. The trained agent thinks, "Here's a person who is,
or probably might be, a traveling drug-dealer or courier."
|
If you are a citizen who fits an officer's drug hunch, and the hunch is
susceptible of verbal articulation that "sounds like" one of the written
profiles -- bingo, you lose. "Put your hands on the wall, spread your
feet," "May we look through your personal belongings?" Once you fit a
profile in an agent's mind, you are at full risk of drug-dealer treatment
-- presumed innocent, suspected guilty and handled accordingly.
|
Considering the risks that attend a drug-war-profile fit, one should ask
oneself, "Self, just what does a drug-dealer courier look like?" Drug
dealers come in all colors, heights, weights, sexes and sizes. Drug
dealers can look "cool" or klutzy, lackadaisical or intense, wealthy or
poor, stylish or slobbish, native or foreign. And therein lies the
problem.
|
It's hard not to look like a drug dealer. In fact when done well, one set
of drug-courier profiles fits all. Looking at the matter from the drug
agents' perspective, if American commoners could figure out what drug
dealers "looked like," so they could look "straight" to the anti-drug
police, then, so could the drug dealers and couriers.
|
Therefore, the second line of defense may be more effective than the
first. The second defense against drug agents is to be careful where you
travel.
|
It is well known that drugs are carried to the United States from Mexico,
South America and the Caribbean like clockwork. Drug police do not know
less than the rest of us. Therefore, a loving husband should think twice
before taking his wife to a drug-rich port of call. A husband must
realize that he must bring his wife home through a U.S. port of entry
such as O'Hare International Airport or other points subject to the
jurisdiction of customs drug-police.
|
The difficulty will self-imposed travel restrictions, aside from missing
a few dream vacations, is that drug war puts more drugs everywhere.
Therefore, nearly every travel destination -- foreign and domestic -- is
drug suspect. This truism brings us to the third- and last-strike
defense of the weary, drug-free travelers by which the travelers can
protect themselves against privacy intrusion by the drug police and avoid
uninvited bodily- cavity searches.
|
In October, the government announced that U.S. Customs agents will give
suspected drug couriers an alternative to mandatory strip searches. A
suspect can avoid strip search by consenting to be x-rayed at a hospital.
To civil libertarians and old-time Americans, it may not seem like much
of a concession, but in the prevailing drug-war, strip-search
environment, it's a very decent thing to do.
|
James E. Gierach
9759 Southwest Highway
Oak Lawn, IL 60453
(708) 424-1600
|
|
WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW (Top) |
|
Prisons
|
COMMENT: (Top) |
Expansion of the nation's prisons resulting from the drug war has always
been the single issue most likely to force public recognition of the
policy's intrinsic insanity. That this process may finally be underway
is suggested by Eric Schlosser's devastating expose of prison growth in
Atlantic Monthly. The entire text is must reading for all with an
interest in drug reform.
|
Despite its small circulation, Atlantic Monthly is widely read by
editorial writers and columnists. Molly Ivins joined Cynthia Tucker in
commenting favorably on Schlosser's article. Look for more impact from
this piece over time
|
THE PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
|
Correctional Officials See Danger in Prison Overcrowding.
OthersSee Opportunity.
The Nearly Two Million Americans Behind Bars --
The Majority of Them Nonviolent Offenders Mean Jobs for Depressed Regions
And Windfalls for Profiteers
|
[snip]
|
Today the United States has approximately 1.8 million people behind bars:
about 100,000 in federal custody, 1.1 million in state custody, and
600,000 in local jails. Prisons hold inmates convicted of federal or
state crimes; jails hold people awaiting trial or serving short
sentences. The United States now imprisons more people than any other
country in the world -- perhaps half a million more than Communist China.
The American inmate population has grown so large that it is difficult to
comprehend: imagine the combined populations of Atlanta, St. Louis,
Pittsburgh, Des Moines, and Miami behind bars.
|
[snip]
|
Source: | The Atlantic Monthly |
---|
Copyright: | 1998 by The Atlantic Monthly Company |
---|
Volume: | 282, No. 6; pages 51 - 77 |
---|
Note: | This is part 1 of 3. |
---|
|
|
OUR PRISONS HAVE BIGGER PROBLEMS THAN ESCAPEES
|
AUSTIN -- So six prisoners break out of Huntsville, one gets away and the
Texas Department of Corrections responds by suspending a work program for
prisoners. Not that the work program had anything to do with the escape
-- the prisoners were in the recreation yard at the time. But why should
we expect TDC to make any sense? Nothing else about the American prison
system does.
|
In the current issue of `The Atlantic Monthly' is "The Prison-Industrial
Complex," a major investigation of just how out of control and
increasingly corrupt the system is.
|
[snip]
|
Source: | Ft. Worth Star-Telegram (TX) |
---|
Copyright: | 1998 Star-Telegram, Fort Worth, Texas |
---|
Columnist: | Molly Ivins is a columnist for the 'Star-Telegram.' |
---|
|
|
COMMENT: (Top) |
The next two items underscore two hardly novel ideas: first, that large
prison bureaucracies encourage corruption and abuses; second, shipping
of inmates away from their families and into areas of diminished
accountability is a step in the wrong direction.
|
JAIL GUARDS SMUGGLED CONTRABAND, PAPER SAYS
|
MIAMI, FLORIDA -- An investigation of Miami-Dade County jails found that
officers helped smuggle contraband to inmates, a newspaper reported
Sunday.
|
A yearlong, secret probe by police and the FBI claimed that jail officers
looked the other way or took part as marijuana and cocaine were brought
to inmates in exchange for cash, jewelry and sporting equipment, The
Miami Herald said.
|
[snip]
|
Source: | Chicago Tribune (IL) |
---|
Copyright: | 1998 Chicago Tribune Company |
---|
Author: | From Tribune News Services |
---|
|
|
SHIPPING INMATES NO SOLUTION
|
As Wisconsin prison chief Michael Sullivan admits, housing inmates out of
state, originally a stopgap measure, is now a permanent feature of state
corrections policy. That development bodes no good.
|
[snip]
|
The Wisconsin Legislature must keep in mind that the congestion problem
is almost entirely of its own making. A rising crime rate is not driving
the problem; in fact, crime is not rising. Rather, the Legislature's
penchant for passing tougher and tougher laws is responsible.
|
[snip]
|
Source: | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI) |
---|
Copyright: | 1998, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. |
---|
|
|
Law Enforcement
|
COMMENT: (Top) |
It takes an incarceration industry producing a steady stream of
convictions to keep our prison-industrial complex in prisoners. Last
week we introduced a remarkable series, detailing many of the unsavory
deals which prosecutors routinely make with felons in order to obtain
those convictions.
|
A critical case challenging many of these practices is now wending its
way toward the Supreme Court. Don't get your hopes set too high.
|
SELLING LIES
|
By `Jumping On The Bus,' Prisoners Earn Time Off Sentences At
Others' Expense
|
The business served a small but eager clientele.
|
From an office in Atlanta, Kevin Pappas, a former drug smuggler, sold
prisoners confidential information gleaned from the files of federal law
enforcement officers or, in some instances, from the case files of other
convicts.
|
By memorizing confidential data from those files, the prisoners could
testify to events that only an insider might know and help prosecutors
win an indictment or a conviction.
|
Well-heeled prisoners paid Pappas as much as $225,000 for the
confidential files, and in exchange for their testimony, prosecutors
would ask judges to reduce the prison terms of these new-found witnesses.
|
Pappas and Robert Fierer, an Atlanta lawyer, called their company
Conviction Consultants Inc., but a group of defense lawyers in Georgia
had another name for it: "Rent-a-rat."
|
[snip]
|
Source: | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA) |
---|
Copyright: | 1998 PG Publishing |
---|
Pubdate: | Mon, 30 Nov 1998 |
---|
Author: | Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer |
---|
Note: | The series is also being printed in The Blade, Toledo, OH |
---|
Other Segments published last week:
Unique Way Of Solving Mystery
A Question Of Whom To Trust
Fish Tale Was One Of Many Stretches
|
|
Drug War Policy-
|
COMMENT: (Top) |
The Supreme Court continued its disgraceful piecemeal surrender of the
Bill of Rights with a typical 5-4 reversal of a lower court ruling which
had the temerity to suggest that people are entitled to some privacy
within their homes. Any mention of "drugs" seems be enough to persuade
the "Supremes" to come down on the side of fascism.
|
Keeping that fascism in mind, it's difficult to be very sanguine about
the ultimate outcome of the next case, in which a local Indiana school
board is asking for still more authoritarianism.
|
EYE AT THE KEYHOLE
|
The Supreme Court again has narrowly interpreted privacy rights, ruling
on Tuesday that people who visit someone's home only briefly or to do
business do not have the same protection against police searches as do
overnight guests. The ruling - that such visitors have no reasonable
expectation of privacy - no doubt will give comfort to those who want to
expand police rights to search suspected criminals. However, it 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.
|
Source: | Chicago Sun-Times (IL) |
---|
Copyright: | 1998 The Sun-Times Co. |
---|
|
|
SCHOOL BOARD TO ASK THE U.S. SUPREME COURT TO REINSTATE DRUG TESTING
|
The Anderson School Board's decision to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to
reinstate the school corporation's drug testing policy could mean legal
fees close to $60,000.
|
That figure assumes the justices would agree to hear the case.
|
Board member Irma Hampton Stewart, who is a lawyer, cast the only
dissenting vote as the board decided Tuesday night to appeal a U.S. 7th
Circuit Court of Appeals ruling to the Supreme Court.
|
[snip]
|
Source: | Indianapolis Star (IN) |
---|
Copyright: | 1998 Indianapolis Newspapers Inc. |
---|
|
|
COMMENT: (Top) |
The following story is further evidence of how drug policy has eroded
individual liberty in the "land of the Free." The racial overtones are
traditional, the warrantless arrest at the airport is the modern touch.
|
CUSTOMS SERVICE DRUG SEARCHES PROMPT OUTRAGE, LAWSUITS
|
Complaints: | Innocent Travelers Say They Were Unfairly Stripped, Prodded |
---|
And Humiliated, But Officials Cite 'Reasonable Suspicion.'
|
WASHINGTON- Returning to Chicago from Jamaica, Gwendolyn Richards was
plucked from a line of air travelers by a Customs Service inspector and
ordered into a bare, windowless room. During the next five hours, she was
strip-searched, handcuffed, X-rayed and probed internally by a doctor.
|
The armed customs officer who led Richards in handcuffs through O'Hare
International Airport and drove her to a hospital for examination
suspected she might be smuggling drugs. They found nothing.
|
[snip]
|
Source: | Orange County Register (CA) |
---|
Copyright: | 1998 The Orange County Register |
---|
Author: | Connie Cass, The Associated Press |
---|
|
|
COMMENT: (Top) |
Cockburn and St. Clair's expose of CIA skulduggery on behalf of drug
suppliers is probably a very good read. Unfortunately, the Agency has
lied so much about its activities, it will take historians, working at
least 50 years in the future, to begin to reconstruct the truth about
the Cold War, if such is ever possible.
|
"WHITEOUT," THE C(OCAINE)I(MPORTATION)A(GENCY)
|
Drug dealing only begins to tell the story of the CIA's handiwork.
|
If the only thing you know about the US Central Intelligence Agency is
that a 1996 San Jose Mercury News report accusing the CIA of contributing
to the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles was dismissed by government
officials and mainstream journalists as African-American hysteria, you're
likely to take their word for it. The US government helping the Contras
purchase weapons with the proceeds of crack sales by gang members in
South Central Los Angeles?
|
Yeah, right.
|
[snip]
|
Pubdate: | Thursday, 19 November, 1998 |
---|
Source: | Seattle Weekly (WA) |
---|
Copyright: | 1998 Seattle Weekly |
---|
Note: | BOOK REVIEW, WhiteOut - The CIA, Drugs, and the Press by |
---|
Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair (Verso, $17)
|
|
Medical Marijuana
|
COMMENT: (Top) |
While the media in general has yet to awaken to the sweeping election
success of medical marijuana on Nov.2; some sources have noticed and
commentary is starting to appear. The anti-democratic (with a small d)
maneuver of Bob Barr turned the DC fiasco into a public relations plus
for reform, but the overall theme is that despite the election
victories, patients can expect to be hassled everywhere, just like in
California after 215.
|
GROUPS SEEK RESULTS OF MARIJUANA VOTE
|
The D.C. chapter of the League of Women Voters and eight other area
organizations filed court papers this week calling for a judge to release
and uphold the results of the Nov. 3 referendum on the medical use of
marijuana.
|
The groups sided with the American Civil Liberties Union and the D.C.
government, which contend that Congress illegally interfered with the
local election process. At issue is a congressional amendment that bars
the District from spending money on any initiative that would "legalize
or otherwise reduce" penalties for users of marijuana.
|
Source: | Washington Post (DC) |
---|
Copyright: | 1998 The Washington Post Company |
---|
Compiled from reports by staff writers Paul W. Valentine, Bill
Miller, David Montgomery, Alan Sipress, Philip P. Pan and Victoria
Benning and the Associated Press.
|
|
COMMENT: (Top) |
Speaking of California, in San Jose prosecutors still want to send Peter
Baez to state prison to join David Herrick, now serving an unjust
four-year term as the result of a similar "sting" using a phony patient.
Meanwhile the embattled Oakland club continues to show the flag, despite
being unable to provide marijuana to patients.
|
POT CENTER FOUNDER FIGHTS CHARGES
|
Search excessive, lawyer argues Trying to avoid a long prison term, the
former operator of Santa Clara County's only medical marijuana center
went to court yesterday in an effort to get his charges dismissed.
|
Attorneys for Peter Baez argued that San Jose police officers went beyond
the scope of their search warrants in March when they conducted a
``wholesale seizure of records'' by removing all 265 client files from
the Santa Clara County Medical Cannabis Center. They seek to have
evidence from that search suppressed and the charges against Baez
dismissed.
|
[snip]
|
Source: | San Francisco Chronicle |
---|
Copyright: | 1998 San Francisco Chronicle |
---|
Author: | Todd Henneman, Chronicle Staff Writer |
---|
|
|
CANNABIS BUYERS' CO-OP TO REOPEN, BUT NOT SELL POT
|
Courts: | The group will offer hemp products as it appeals a judge's order |
---|
barring the sale of marijuana.
|
OAKLAND--The Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative says that it will
reopen Monday, offering hemp products, not medical marijuana. The
organization, which dispensed marijuana to about 2,000 member-patients,
was closed last month && federal judge.
|
Closure was sought by the Clinton administration's Justice Department,
which said the distribution of medical marijuana, authorized by a 1996
California initiative, violated federal drug laws. The cooperative is
appealing U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer's order. Meanwhile, it has
obtained permission from Breyer to reopen for patient services as long as
no marijuana is on the premises. The services will include counseling and
educating members about the medical use of cannabis as well as
"cultivation meetings," the cooperative said.
|
[snip]
|
Source: | Los Angeles Times (CA) |
---|
Copyright: | 1998 Los Angeles Times. |
---|
|
|
COMMENT: (Top) |
Dan Baum's piece doesn't dwell on the election; instead, it points out
the real difficulties facing even such a seemingly simple notion as
reclassification of a benign and useful agent to Schedule 2.
|
RX: MARIJUANA
|
Initiatives authorizing the medical use of marijuana passed in five
states in the last election. (Another one would have passed in the
District of Columbia, according to exit polls, but it was consigned to
limbo by a blatantly antidemocratic amendment introduced by
Representative Bob Barr forbidding federal funds to be spent tallying the
vote.) On this subject the words of Dr. Lester Grinspoon, a leading
authority on the drug (he is author of Marijuana: The Forbidden
Medicine) and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, are
apropos: "As the number of people who have used marijuana medicinally
grows, the discussion is turning from whether it is effective to how it
should be made available.
|
[snip]
|
Pubdate: | 14 December 1998 |
---|
Section: | Selected Editorial |
---|
Copyright: | 1998, The Nation Company |
---|
|
|
International News
|
COMMENT: (Top) |
Far off Australia is feeling the impact of aggressive Colombian
marketing of illicit drugs. First they were flooded with cheap heroin
from the golden triangle because it had been displace from North
America Nath America by cheap, pure heroin from poppies grown in
Colombia. Now, Australia is the dubious beneficiary of a cocaine glut in
North America. Ain't interdiction wonderful?
|
COCAINE FLOOD RAISES FEARS OF HIV UPSURGE
|
Cocaine has shed its yuppie image of the 1980s, with an epidemic in its
use among heroin addicts, who are injecting the drug, threatening the
stability of HIV rates in Australia.
|
Cheaper and purer cocaine is flooding Sydney, where it is being sold like
heroin, breaking into new markets in the western suburbs where cocaine
use is just as common as in the more affluent eastern suburbs.
|
[snip]
|
Pubdate: | Fri, 27 Nov 1998 |
---|
Source: | Australian, The (Australia) |
---|
|
|
COMMENT: (Top) |
Meanwhile, in the culprit country, the military will receive a boost
from macho drug warriors in the US Congress, always delighted to buy
military hardware, especially in a good cause like the drug war.
|
CONGRESS STEPS UP AID FOR COLOMBIANS TO COMBAT DRUGS
|
The Clinton administration initially opposed it, and the Colombian
government was taken by surprise. But a recent congressional initiative,
spurred by direct appeals to conservative Republicans by the Colombian
national police, has more than doubled drug-fighting money to Colombia
and made the country a top recipient of U.S. foreign aid.
|
[snip]
|
Pubdate: | Tue, 01 Dec 1998 |
---|
Source: | New York Times (NY) |
---|
Copyright: | 1998 The New York Times Company |
---|
Author: | Diana Jean Schemo |
---|
|
|
COMMENT: (Top) |
Northern Europe is experiencing a concerted dose of uncharacteristic
violence, undoubtedly related to drug war competition for market share.
The following was only one of three high-profile drug related "hits"
reported in the European press last week.
|
A FINANCIAL adviser to one of London's most powerful underworld gangs has
been shot dead on his doorstep by a hitman, police said yesterday.
|
Scotland Yard detectives are investigating links between the death of
Solly Nahome, a Hatton Gardens diamond dealer, and the Adams family. The
clan is credited with extensive interests, including drug trafficking,
across North London.
|
[snip]
|
Copyright: | 1998 Times Newspapers Ltd |
---|
Author: | Stewart Tendler, Crime Correspondent |
---|
|
|
HOT OFF THE 'NET (Top)
|
FAMILY WATCH WEBSITE
|
Founded by Kendra Wright, Family Watch is a network of groups and
individuals concerned about the impact of drug policy on families, women
and children. The goals of the network are to increase communication,
identify opportunities for collaboration and strengthen each of our voices
by joining together in a call for change. They aim to push issues related
to families, women and children to the forefront of the drug policy debate,
and help create progressive policies which preserve the health and
well-being of the family unit and each of its individual members,
particularly the children.
|
|
DID YOU KNOW?
|
The hottest breaking drug related news stories are constantly updated and
available with just a few mouse clicks. Stay aware and informed and when
you feel strongly about an article write a letter to the editor. This may
be the single most powerful action the average
|
See http://www.drugsense.org/ or http://www.mapinc.org/
|
Both of the above web sites have received numerous awards and
recognition. The latest is from STANTON PEELE who gives it his highest
rating.
|
|
QUOTE OF THE WEEK (Top)
|
"Enslave the liberty of one human being and the liberties of the world
are put in peril." - William Lloyd Garrison
|
|
FACT OF THE WEEK (Top)
|
PROHIBITION POLLUTES
|
Since it is illegal to manufacture cocaine, its producers must hide their
facilities in the forests of South America making it impossible to
properly dispose of chemical wastes. It is estimated that the unregulated
manufacture of cocaine results in 10 million liters of sulfuric acid, 16
million liters of ethyl ether, 8 million liters of acetone and from
40-770 million liters of kerosene being poured directly into the ground
in the Andean region, mainly Colombia.
|
Source: | Trade and Environment Database (TED), TED Case Studies: Columbia |
---|
Coca Trade, Washington D.C.: American University (1997).
|
|
DS Weekly is one of the many free educational services DrugSense offers
our members. Watch this feature to learn more about what DrugSense can do
for you.
|
TO SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS:
|
Please utilize the following URLs
|
http://www.drugsense.org/hurry.htm
|
|
|
http://www.drugsense.org/unsub.htm
|
News/COMMENTS-Editor: | Tom O'Connell () |
---|
Senior-Editor: | Mark Greer () |
---|
|
We wish to thank all our contributors and Newshawks.
|
|
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.
|
|
Please help us help reform. Send any news articles you find on any drug
related issue to
|
|
NOW YOU CAN DONATE TO DRUGSENSE ONLINE AND IT'S TAX DEDUCTIBLE
|
DrugSense provides many services to at no charge BUT THEY ARE 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 visit our convenient
donation web site at
|
http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
|
-OR-
|
Mail in your contribution. 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/
|
|