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DrugSense Weekly
November 10, 2000 #174


Table of Contents

* Breaking News (12/30/24)


* Feature Article


    Early Reactions and Results Regarding Tuesdays Election
    By Chuck Thomas

* Weekly News in Review


Drug Policy-

COMMENT: (1-2)
(1) The Drug War on the Ballot
(2) Shaking up Drug Policy?
COMMENT: (3-7)
(3) Citizen Dan
(4) Club Drugs Finding Their Way into the Upstate
(5) Salt Lake City Drops D.A.R.E.
(6) Everett Follows Seattle's Lead, Drops Drug Tests for Most Jobseekers
(7) Treating Opioid Dependence -- New Data and New Opportunities

Law Enforcement & Prisons-

COMMENT: (8-10)
(8) Congress Urged to Get Tough on Abusive Police
(9) 4 Oakland Officers Charged With 49 Felonies In Misconduct Probe
(10) Deal Puts L.A. Police Under Supervision of Washington
COMMENT: (11-13)
(11) The Muddled Profiling Case
(12) Deaths Raise Questions About SWAT Teams
(13) Ex - Tenn. Cop Indicted in Wrong Raid
COMMENT: (14-15)
(14) O'Connor's Son is Facing Drug Charge
(15) High Court Gets Debate Over Police 'Impounding' a Home

Cannabis & Hemp-

COMMENT: (16-17)
(16) Tenth Amendment - Up in Smoke
(17) UK: Web: Cannabis Laws 'Too Strict' Say Doctors
COMMENT: (18-19)
(18) First Defense Witness Called At Kubby Trial
(19) Growers Hit Streets For Pot-Harvest Labor

International News-

COMMENT: (20-24)
(20) UK: Book Review: Smoke Without Fire
(21) Big World Banks Sign Pact to End Laundering
(22) White Powder in Reichstag Toilets, Red Faces in Berlin
(23) UK: Cocaine Found Inside Houses of Parliament
(24) Colombia: Murder Linked to Drug Rip-Off

* Hot Off The 'Net


    FEED Magazine Announces Special Feature "The Future of Drugs"

* This Just In


    DrugReform.org Offers Drug Policy Ballot Results.

* Quote of the Week


    Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918)


FEATURE ARTICLE    (Top)

Early Reactions and Results Regarding Tuesdays Election
By Chuck Thomas
Marijuana Policy Project
http://www.mpp.org/

The drug policy reform movement got a major boost from many of this year's election results.

First, the drug policy reform ballot initiatives passed by a landslide in every state except Massachusetts and Alaska.

Click here for detailed results: http://www.drugreform.org/results.tpl

In sum, Colorado and Nevada removed criminal penalties for using and obtaining medical marijuana, Utah and Oregon curtailed their property forfeiture laws, and, most importantly, Prop 36 received 61% of the vote in California, replacing prison sentences with drug treatment for non-violent drug possession offenders.

Unlike the coercive "drug court" model, Prop 36 removes the possibility of jailing an offender who relapses or otherwise does not maintain abstinence.  It was strongly opposed by drug court judges, prison guards, and U.S.  Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey.

Unfortunately, Massachusetts failed to pass an initiative which would have both curtailed property forfeiture laws and offered treatment instead of prison.  In addition, Alaska failed to pass an initiative which would have allowed marijuana to be sold like alcohol.

Simply put, the wording of the Alaska initiative was beyond what the voters are ready to accept.  Nevertheless, the fact that an initiative calling for complete legal access to marijuana -- and even the possibility of reparations for people previously penalized for marijuana offenses -- was able to get nearly 40% might enable reformers to successfully argue that the public clearly are ready to support more modest reform, such as removing criminal penalties for simple possession or cultivation.

Indeed, in a small but important contest, voters in Mendocino County, CA, passed an initiative to allow adults to grow up to 25 marijuana plants for their own use.  (State and federal prohibition will still apply, but it is an important symbolic victory -- plus, Mendocino County growers may no longer have to fear their local law enforcement officials.)

Beyond the initiatives, there were many other significant outcomes:

* U.S.  Rep. Bill McCollum (R-FL) lost his bid for a U.S. Senate seat. McCollum was one of the most vicious drug warriors in Congress, where he chaired the crime subcommittee and regularly held hearings to tout his harsh drug policies.  He also introduced an anti-medical marijuana resolution in 1998, prompting medical marijuana civil disobedience in his Capitol Hill office.  Having given up his House seat to run for the Senate, McCollum will soon be out of a job.

* U.S.  Rep. James Rogan (R-CA) lost his re-election race in the House. Rogan had been pro-medical marijuana when he served in the California, but flip-flopped when he came to D.C.  three years ago, in order to appease the House Republican leadership.  There was also civil disobedience in Rogan's office when he voiced his support for McCollum's resolution in 1998.  (He was the only House impeachment manager to lose his re-election.)

* U.S.  Sen. John Ashcroft (R-MO), a consistent champion of tough drug sentencing laws, also lost his bid for re-election.

Perhaps some of the politicians who are still fortunate enough to be employed will begin to see a trend here.

Finally, it's noteworthy that the number of votes received by both Ralph Nader (who supports drug decriminalization) and Libertarian Harry Browne (who supports the repeal of all drug prohibition laws) is much larger than the number of votes separating Bush and Gore in that state (i.e., less than 1,800 votes).

Because Gore's drug policy positions have been every bit as bad as Bush's, many voters in Florida had refused to vote for Gore, choosing Nader or Browne, instead.  Interestingly, if only 10% of Browne's 18,000 votes -- or 2% of Nader's 100,000 votes -- had gone to Gore, then he would have carried Florida.  It may be reasonable to assert that Gore's punitive, inflexible drug policies are what cost him the presidential election.


WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW    (Top)


Domestic News- Policy

COMMENT: (1-2)    (Top)

Our cut off for news items reviewed for this issue of the Weekly coincides with the closing of polls, so with the exception of our Feature Article above our COMMENT on election results will have to wait.  The major trend since '96 has been incremental drug policy change via ballot initiative.  Dan Baum (Rolling Stone) and Alan Bock (WorldNet Daily) provided overviews of this year's initiatives.


(1) THE DRUG WAR ON THE BALLOT    (Top)

This Month, Citizens Nationwide Petition For More Humane Policies

THIS FALL, OPPONENTS OF THE WAR ON DRUGS take their case directly to the people: They have successfully placed initiatives on the ballot in five states to reduce the incarceration rate of nonviolent users.  The most ambitious marijuana initiative is Alaska's, which would eliminate all pot-related penalties.  In Colorado and Nevada, voters are expected to approve the legalization of marijuana use for medical reasons.  This would bring the number of states with such laws to nine, including Maine, Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Hawaii and California...

[snip]

The most subversive and potentially most influential initiative may be California's Proposition 36, which would do away with jail time for most people convicted of small-time possession of any drug.  Under Proposition 36, they would have three chances to get off drugs before facing a prison sentence.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Thu, 23 Nov 2000
Source:   Rolling Stone (US)
Copyright:   2000 Straight Arrow Publishers Company, L.P.
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.rollingstone.com/
Author:   Dan Baum
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1663/a04.html
Related:   http://www.mapinc.org/props.htm


(2) SHAKING UP DRUG POLICY?    (Top)

Although the two major-party candidates make much of their differences, the likelihood of major changes in policy from what the current administration offers is fairly low.  ..

The best likelihood of the beginning of a major change in settled national policy arising from this year's election might come from initiatives at the state level....

But several drug-law reform initiatives are on state ballots with decent chances of passage.

[snip]

The politicians, for any number of reasons, aren't going to do it.  But through ballot initiatives, the people are demonstrating a certain healthy skepticism about the drug war and those running it.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Fri, 03 Nov 2000
Source:   WorldNetDaily (US Web)
Copyright:   2000, WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.worldnetdaily.com/
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1654/a02.html
Related:   http://www.mapinc.org/props.htm


COMMENT: (3-7)    (Top)

Change in the prism through which the media examines drug issues has been evolving- slowly but undeniably.  A reporter who has played a key role in that change was himself scrutinized by Ken Krayeske.

An illustration of this changing emphasis: a reporter writing on club drugs seeks a harm reduction viewpoint- and produces a far more informative and accurate piece than usual.

This slow evolutionary change does have an impact: two sacred cows are increasingly questioned; at least in some parts of the country.

Another example: this cautious endorsement of opioid maintenance in an NEJM editorial would have been considered (unprintable) heresy only a few years ago.


(3) CITIZEN DAN    (Top)

Mention Dan Forbes to most people and they'd draw a blank.  But the Office of National Drug Control Policy certainly knows who Dan Forbes is.  In January, Forbes, 44, broke the story on Salon.com about how the ONDCP secretly gave financial incentives to television networks to insert the government's zero-tolerance War on Drugs message into the scripts of prime- time shows.  Forbes, a graduate of Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, with experience in social work and acting, wrote and researched most of the story from his Brooklyn apartment.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Dec, 2000
Source:   High Times (US)
Copyright:   2000 by Trans-High Corporation
Page:   78
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.hightimes.com/
Author:   Ken Krayeske
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1655/a05.html
For a first-person account, see:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n000/a233.html
Related:   http://www.mapinc.org/campaign.htm


(4) CLUB DRUGS FINDING THEIR WAY INTO THE UPSTATE    (Top)

The idea of a higher high was enticing.

So, after drinking a few beers at a Greenville nightclub on Halloween night, Joseph "Cannon" Outz accepted a soda-bottle cap full of "home brew" from a friend and downed it with orange juice.

An hour after drinking what he would later discover was Blue Nitro, the 21-year-old Berea resident collapsed into a seizure and began choking on his own vomit.  He survived only after paramedics were able to restore his breathing.

[snip]

Emanuel Sferios, founder and national director of Dance Safe, which encourages education while not condoning the use of drugs, said most of the Ecstasy found in the United States is made in Europe...

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sun, 05 Nov 2000
Source:   Greenville News (SC)
Copyright:   2000 The Greenville News
Contact:  
Website:   http://greenvillenews.com/index.htm
Author:   Andy Paras
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1663/a08.html
Related:   http://www.mapinc.org/raves.htm


(5) SALT LAKE CITY DROPS D.A.R.E.    (Top)

Maverick Mayor Rocky Anderson Calls The School Anti-Drug Program "An Absolute Fraud"

ON JULY 11TH, SALT LAKE CITY MAYOR ROSS "ROCKY" Anderson cut off funding to D.A.R.E.  (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), ending the city's thirteen-year association with the controversial drug-education program.

[snip]

It has not been shown, however, that the program actually works.  A raft of peer-reviewed studies, one spanning ten years, have demonstrated that current and former D.A.R.E.  students are as likely to use drugs as those who never took the course.  D.A.R.E. declined to speak with ROLLING STONE.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Thu, 23 Nov 2000
Source:   Rolling Stone (US)
Copyright:   2000 Straight Arrow Publishers Company, L.P.
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.rollingstone.com/
Author:   Dan Baum
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1663/a05.html
Related:   http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm


(6) EVERETT FOLLOWS SEATTLE'S LEAD, DROPS DRUG TESTS FOR MOST JOBSEEKERS    (Top)

Everett has become the latest municipality in the state to drop a requirement that everyone applying for a local government job be tested for illegal drugs.

As in Seattle, which dropped a similar requirement last month, the change was made because of a state Court of Appeals ruling that the Seattle ordinance was an invasion of privacy that violated the state Constitution.

Drug-testing policies also have been revised in Tacoma and Bellingham since the court ruling in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

[snip]

Source:   Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA)
Copyright:   2000 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.seattle-pi.com/
Pubdate:   Thu, 02 Nov 2000
Author:   Associated Press
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1653/a05.html
Related:   http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm


(7) TREATING OPIOID DEPENDENCE -- NEW DATA AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES    (Top)

Heroin use in the United States has grown considerably over the past decade.  Approximately 3 million Americans have used heroin, (1) a fact that has led to increasing concern about heroin-related problems such as overdose, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection, unemployment, and crime.

[snip]

However, if it is implemented properly, I believe that office-based opioid maintenance can greatly increase the availability of a highly effective and much-needed treatment.  Increasing the access of patients dependent on opioids to high-quality treatment should become an important goal of the medical profession and of society.

Pubdate:   Thu, 02 Nov 2000
Source:   New England Journal of Medicine (MA)
Copyright:   2000 by the Massachusetts Medical Society
Contact:  
Feedback:   http://www.nejm.org/general/text/InfoAuth.htm#Letters
Website:   http://www.nejm.org/
Author:   Patrick G.  O'Connor, M.D., M.P.H., Yale University School of Medicine
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1661/a09.html


Law Enforcement & Prisons

COMMENT: (8-10)    (Top)

A report from the Civil Rights Commission confirmed what the news and other prestigious studies have been saying for the past two years: American law enforcement has an image which is becoming more tarnished every day.  As if to confirm that impression, scandals- one old and the other new- made news in two large West Coast cities.


(8) CONGRESS URGED TO GET TOUGH ON ABUSIVE POLICE    (Top)

Washington - Police misconduct remains an "incessant problem in the United States, and the failure to wipe out abuse and brutality requires wholesale changes, such as giving citizens the right to sue renegade departments, the U.S.  Commission on Civil Rights concluded yesterday.

The commission, reviewing the progress and setbacks in police reforms of the last two decades, found that better policing has often come at a "terrible price'' for minority communities, which seem to bear the brunt of the abuse.

[snip]

Civil rights groups yesterday applauded many of the commission's latest findings, but police groups questioned the report's conclusions -- and the timing.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sat, 04 Nov 2000
Source:   San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright:   2000 San Francisco Chronicle
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1660/a05.html
Related:   http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm


(9) 4 OAKLAND OFFICERS CHARGED WITH 49 FELONIES IN MISCONDUCT PROBE    (Top)

OAKLAND--Four Oakland police officers were charged Thursday with felonies including assault, kidnapping and filing false reports in a crackdown on alleged police misconduct.

The officers, who called themselves "The Riders" on their late-night patrols through West Oakland, face a combined 49 felony charges for alleged misconduct.

[snip]

Alameda County Dist.  Atty. Tom Orloff said 23 cases--mostly involving drug possession charges--in which the officers were involved have been dismissed.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Fri, 03 Nov 2000
Source:   Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright:   2000 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.latimes.com/
Author:   Associated Press
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1657/a10.html


(10) DEAL PUTS L.A. POLICE UNDER SUPERVISION OF WASHINGTON    (Top)

Bid to determine abuses: Officers to record ethnic background of those they stop

Nearly 10 years after the brutal beating of black motorist Rodney King by police officers and in the wake of the Rampart division's corruption scandal, the city of Los Angeles announced yesterday it has cut a deal with the U.S.  government over its out-of-control police force.

The deal makes the LAPD the largest police department in the United States to fall under federal supervision.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Thu, 02 Nov 2000
Source:   National Post (Canada)
Copyright:   2000 Southam Inc.
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.nationalpost.com/
Page:   A2
Author:   Araminta Wordsworth, staff writer
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1653/a08.html
Related:   http://www.mapinc.org/rampart.htm


COMMENT: (11-13)    (Top)

The NYT updated an already controversial New Jersey case by reporting that the judge set off a storm of protest by dropping charges against two state troopers.

Two police shootings in other venues also continued to resonate; a Los Angeles Times article questioned the use of SWAT teams to serve drug warrants and in Tennessee, a rare indictment was handed down following the recent fatal shooting of a black retiree.


(11) THE MUDDLED PROFILING CASE    (Top)

It is time for federal prosecutors to step in and take control of the New Jersey case in which two state police officers shot at four unarmed black and Hispanic men on the New Jersey Turnpike.

[snip]

This questionable history makes it clear that the attorney general's office has no credibility on this case.  The people of New Jersey deserve to have this critical case brought to trial in a just manner. At this stage, federal prosecutors may be best able to deliver that result.

Pubdate:   Sat, 04 Nov 2000
Source:   New York Times (NY)
Copyright:   2000 The New York Times Company
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.nytimes.com/
Section:   Opinion
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1657/a01.html
Also see Chronology at: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1641/a08.html
Related:   http://www.mapinc.org/racial.htm


(12) DEATHS RAISE QUESTIONS ABOUT SWAT TEAMS    (Top)

Police:   Accidents, Deaths And Raids At Wrong Addresses Put Pressure On
Departments To Disband Groups.  Officers Defend Paramilitary Units As Effective When Used Properly.

MODESTO--No one disputes that Alberto Sepulveda was doing exactly as he was told in the seconds after a police SWAT team burst into his family's home early on the morning of Sept.  13.

[snip]

"Is it worth putting an entire family at risk, for what is sometimes a small amount of drugs, or small-time dealers?" asked Kraska, a professor of criminal justice at Eastern Kentucky University who has found that police deployment of paramilitary squads has jumped more than 900% since 1980.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Wed, 01 Nov 2000
Source:   Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright:   2000 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.latimes.com/
Author:   Rebecca Trounson, Times Staff Writer
Related:   Drug War Toll From Police Shootings Continues to Rise -- How Many
Dead? Nobody Knows Because Congress Doesn't Care:
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/156.html#policeshootings
Related:   http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1643/a08.html


(13) EX - TENN. COP INDICTED IN WRONG RAID    (Top)

LEBANON, Tenn.  (AP) -- A former police officer who led a drug raid on the wrong house that resulted in the death of an innocent man has been indicted by a grand jury.

Steve Nokes was charged Friday with criminal responsibility for reckless homicide, tampering with evidence and aggravated perjury.

John Adams, 64, was shot and killed Oct.  4 when five officers burst into his home and Adams fired at them with a sawed-off shotgun, according to police.

[snip]

Prosecutors said it was Nokes' fault that officers entered the wrong house.  They said Nokes, who didn't enter the house, also lied on the affidavit to get a search warrant for the raid.

Adams was black, and Nokes and two of the officers on administrative leave are white.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sat, 04 Nov 2000
Source:   Associated Press
Copyright:   2000 Associated Press
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1660/a06.html
Related:   http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm


COMMENT: (14-15)    (Top)

In Ohio, an item about a state official's son should provoke interest; not only because of who was arrested- but because of how drugs happened to be found.

Another case involving police aggression in seeking drug evidence will be heard by the Supreme Court.  Don't bet on individual rights here; they found a stash, didn't they?


(14) O'CONNOR'S SON IS FACING DRUG CHARGE    (Top)

ATHENS, OH - A son of Ohio Lt.  Gov. Maureen O'Connor is due in court next week to face a felony cocaine possession charge.

Alex J.  Kipp, 21, of Akron, faces a maximum prison sentence of 12 months and a $2,500 fine, but his attorney said yesterday he is unlikely to do jail time for a fifth-degree felony, if convicted.

[snip]

According to police, Mr.  Kipp was pulled over at 10:35 p.m. for allegedly running the traffic signal.  A police dog routinely used in such stops reportedly sniffed out the drugs.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Wed, 01 Nov 2000
Source:   Blade, The (OH)
Copyright:   2000 The Blade
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.toledoblade.com/
Author:   Jim Provance
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1645/a01.html


(15) HIGH COURT GETS DEBATE OVER POLICE 'IMPOUNDING' A HOME    (Top)

Keeping Occupants Out Until Search Warrant Obtained Is At Issue

WASHINGTON -- The state of Illinois asked the Supreme Court yesterday to let police officers bar people from entering their homes during the time it takes to get a warrant to search for drugs or other illegal items that can readily be destroyed.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Thu, 02 Nov 2000
Source:   San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Copyright:   2000 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.uniontrib.com/
Author:   Linda Greenhouse, New York Times News Service
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1646/a06.html


Cannabis & Hemp-

COMMENT: (16-17)    (Top)

It's taken a while- since California and Arizona approved medical use in '96- to be precise; but Richard Pearl- writing in Liberty Magazine- has framed the issue perfectly; and (surprise) it's not merely about medical use.

In Britain, popular support for medical use is widespread and a recent poll suggests that its physicians are more outspoken and knowledgeable on the subject than their American counterparts.


(16) TENTH AMENDMENT - UP IN SMOKE    (Top)

The United States Supreme Court recently issued a stay which prevents the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative from providing medical marijuana to those who qualify according to California Law 11362.5, sometimes called the Compassionate Use Act and better known as Proposition 215.

Federal law states that there is no medical use for marijuana and any use of it is illegal under federal statute.  About that there is no disagreement.  What is in dispute is related to whether or not 535 members of Congress have the right to make medical decisions for every single man, woman, and child in America and overrule the medical judgement of physicians.

[snip]

In none of those enumerated powers does it give Congress the power to regulate what plants may be grown, what medicines may be used, or what laws a state or people of a state can pass, as long as those laws do not take away the rights and responsibilities of the Constitution. Plainly, any regulation of this sort must be done at the state level, if at all.

The Court would do well to remember the words of James Madison, the father of the Constitution and the principle author of the Bill of
Rights:   "The ultimate authority...  resides in the people alone."

[snip]

Pubdate:   Fri, 01 Dec 2000
Source:   Liberty Magazine (US)
Copyright:   2000 Liberty Foundation
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.libertysoft.com/liberty/index.html
Author:   Richard Pearl
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1663/a01.html


(17) UK: WEB: CANNABIS LAWS 'TOO STRICT' SAY DOCTORS    (Top)

More than half of doctors believe the laws on cannabis are too strict and one in three want the drug legalised, a survey has found.

Eight out of 10 doctors say they would prescribe cannabis to patients with serious illnesses such as multiple sclerosis (MS) or cancer, if they were allowed to.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Wed, 01 Nov 2000
Source:   BBC News (UK Web)
Copyright:   2000 BBC
Feedback:   http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/talking_point/
Website:   http://news.bbc.co.uk/
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1643/a04.html


COMMENT: (18-19)    (Top)

Back in California, at the historic Kubby trial, the first defense expert provided testimony which- if believed by the jury- amply rebuts the charge of growing for sale.

Elsewhere in California, an article in the Sacramento Bee filled in more details on how large "gardens" sponsored by Mexican criminal gangs are replacing local entrepreneurs.


(18) FIRST DEFENSE WITNESS CALLED AT KUBBY TRAIL    (Top)

Jurors in the trial of medical-marijuana advocate Steve and Michele Kubby heard about the technical aspects of marijuana cultivation Tuesday as the first day of defense testimony began at Placer County Superior Court.

[snip]

Logan testified that Kubby's 107 mature plants, which were seized Jan. 19, 1999, by narcotics agents at their Olympic Valley home, would not exceed the yield allowed under the Bay Area standard.  Kubby's garden would produce less than 31/2 pounds, Logan said.

"I think this was for personal use," Logan testified.  "I think the yield is well within the guidelines."

[snip]

Pubdate:   Thu, 02 Nov 2000
Source:   Tahoe World (CA)
Copyright:   2000 Tahoe World
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.tahoe.com/world/
Author:   Brucke Schuknecht, World News Service
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1648/a03.html
Related:   http://www.mapinc.org/kubby.htm


(19) GROWERS HIT STREETS FOR POT-HARVEST LABOR    (Top)

MEXICAN CARTELS RECRUIT, IMPORT WORKERS

Miguel Alvarado, 19, said he was pushing his ice cream cart on Fruitridge Road in Sacramento when a more lucrative opportunity came calling.  Two men had stopped to buy ice cream that mid-September day. One excitedly told him he could earn $100 a day, "plus commission," if he'd just accompany them to the mountains.  Alvarado insisted that they said he would work cutting pine trees.  But according to a statement he later gave Colusa County sheriff's investigators, he soon learned otherwise.

[snip]

Wheeler, the chief deputy sheriff in Colusa County, said all seven suspects held in the local case appeared to be low-level laborers who wound up wandering in the mountains as their supervisors got away.  The workers said they never got paid.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sun, 05 Nov 2000
Source:   Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright:   2000 The Sacramento Bee
Contact:  
Feedback:   http://www.sacbee.com/about_us/sacbeemail.html
Website:   http://www.sacbee.com/
Author:   By Peter Hecht, Bee Staff Writer
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1664/a06.html


International News

COMMENT: (20-24)    (Top)

Those with a serious interest in the evolution of current global drug policies- and their intellectual underpinnings- should at least read this review of three pertinent books- if not the books themselves.

Those global policies undergird criminal markets generating 8-9% of the world's GDP; several large banks just announced they will cooperate so as to deny those funds re-entry to the legitimate economy.

Anyone believing that will happen would probably be able to shrug off evidence suggesting that elected officials in two Western democracies favor a product unique to those markets- and that its country of origin is governed by someone allegedly tainted by those funds.


(20) UK: BOOK REVIEW: SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE    (Top)

In this exclusive essay from the London Review of Books, Richard Davenport-Hines considers three books which explode some of the myths surrounding marijuana

The Science of Marijuana by Leslie Iversen.  Oxford, 278 pp., $18.99, 6 April, 0 19 513123 1

Drug Diplomacy in the 20th Century: An International History by William McAllister.  Routledge, 344 pp., $16.99, 9 September 1999, 0 415 17989 0

Drugs and the Law: Report of the Independent Inquiry into the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 Police Foundation, 148 pp., $20, 28 March, 0 947692 47 9

"Marijuana has no therapeutic value, and its use is therefore always an abuse and a vice," trumpeted Harry Anslinger, the implacable Commissioner of the US Bureau of Narcotics in 1953:

[snip]

Pubdate:   Thu, 02 Nov 2000
Source:   London Review of Books (UK)
Website:   http://www.lrb.co.uk/index.html
Contact:  
Copyright:   London Review of Books 2000
Author:   Richard Davenport-Hines
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1648/a01.html


(21) BIG WORLD BANKS SIGN PACT TO END LAUNDERING    (Top)

Eleven of the world's biggest banks have unveiled plans to implement a uniform code to stop criminals from laundering illicit profits through the world's financial systems.

[snip]

However, the banks involved concede the initiative may have shortcomings despite its good intentions.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Wed, 01 Nov 2000
Source:   Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright:   The Vancouver Sun 2000
Contact:  
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1659/a06.html


(22) WHITE POWDER IN REICHSTAG TOILETS, RED FACES IN BERLIN    (Top)

"How many of our politicians are drug addicts?" was the headline in Berlin tabloid BZ yesterday after traces of cocaine were discovered in toilets used by elected officials and civil servants in Berlin's Reichstag parliament building.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sat, 04 Nov 2000
Source:   Irish Times, The (Ireland)
Copyright:   2000 The Irish Times
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.ireland.com/
Author:   Derek Scally, in Berlin
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1660/a07.html


(23) UK: COCAINE FOUND INSIDE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT    (Top)

EVIDENCE of cocaine being snorted inside the Houses of Parliament has been discovered.  Several samples collected by The Sunday Times from lavatories at Westminster have tested positive for the drug.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sun, 05 Nov 2000
Source:   Sunday Times (UK)
Copyright:   2000 Times Newspapers Ltd.
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/
Author:   Maurice Chittenden
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1667/a06.html


(24) COLOMBIA: MURDER LINKED TO DRUG RIP-OFF    (Top)

Suspect:   Pastrana Relative Took Cash

The abduction and murder of Colombian President Andres Pastrana's father-in-law in the early 1990s may have been the violent outcome of a $2 million drug money rip-off, according to a Colombian national recently arrested in South Florida in connection with the case.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Fri, 03 Nov 2000
Source:   Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright:   2000 The Miami Herald
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.herald.com/
Contact:  
Authors:   Alfonso Chardy, and Gerardo Reyes
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1655/a06.html


HOT OFF THE 'NET    (Top)

FEED Magazine Announces Special Feature "The Future of Drugs"

FEED Magazine (www.feedmag.com) is proud to announce that it has published the first installment of its latest special issue, "The Future of Drugs".  Throughout the week, FEED will continue to publish fascinating new works on various aspects of the topic.

http://www.feedmag.com/drugs/

Submitted by Jens Flemming


THIS JUST IN    (Top)

DrugReform.org Offers Drug Policy Ballot Results.

Most of the outcomes of drug policy initiatives from around the nation can be viewed at:

http://www.drugreform.org/


QUOTE OF THE WEEK    (Top)

"The last struggles of a great superstition are very frequently the worst." -- Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918)

"A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom," Vol.  II, p. 123, c. 1896.


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