| Jan. 9, 2004 #332 | ||||||||||||||||
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Table of Contents
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THIS JUST IN (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
(1) MEDICINAL-POT CRUSADER BUSTED (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
Expects to ship more 'product' to Manitoba over next few days | ||||||||||||||||
An Alberta medicinal marijuana crusader is demanding RCMP return the
dope and cash they seized from him Wednesday after his car was
spot-checked in Headingley. | ||||||||||||||||
Grant Krieger, of Calgary, said yesterday Mounties confiscated $7,500
in cash and "product'' -- one pound of marijuana divided up for
delivery to his 28 clients in Selkirk and Winnipeg. | ||||||||||||||||
Krieger, 49, said the officers left him only two grams of pot for
his own personal use, as he is by law allowed to smoke it to control
his multiple sclerosis. | ||||||||||||||||
"That was really nice of the two officers," Krieger said. | ||||||||||||||||
However, he added he'd like RCMP to return what they took from his trunk so he can deliver it to medicinal users in Manitoba. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(2) MONTEL WILLIAMS GOES TO POT (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
On November 3, Montel Williams was briefly detained at Detroit Metro
Airport, where baggage screeners found a glass pipe and residue of a
marijuana by-product in his bags. That's when the talk show host, who
suffers from multiple sclerosis, was outed as a user of the herb for
medicinal purposes. | ||||||||||||||||
In his first interview after the airport discovery, Williams makes no
apologies. In fact, he devotes several chapters to the case for medical
marijuana in his new autobiography, "Climbing Higher," in bookstores
today. He clears the air to TV Guide Online. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(3) LEMAN PUTS MARIJUANA INITIATIVE ON BALLOT (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
JUNEAU - A voter initiative to make marijuana legal under state law was certified Tuesday for the Nov. 2 ballot by Lt. Gov. Loren Leman. | ||||||||||||||||
The initiative would decriminalize marijuana use for people 21 and
older. | ||||||||||||||||
Leman, a Republican and staunch drug opponent, denied certification of
the measure last January after 194 of the 484 signature booklets were
disallowed for technical errors. | ||||||||||||||||
Initiative sponsors filed a lawsuit. Anchorage Superior Court Judge
John Suddock ruled Sept. 23 that many errors were "trivial" and ordered
Leman to count 168 of the booklets. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(4) HEARING NEW VOICES ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
Students immerse themselves in politics at 3-day convention | ||||||||||||||||
Manchester - In all his days spent meeting and greeting his way through
New Hampshire convenience stores and living rooms, Sen. Joe Lieberman
had never been asked that question. So, when a member of Students for
Sensible Drug Policy wondered whether, as president, Lieberman would
repeal the portion of the Higher Education Act that prevented students
with prior drug convictions from receiving federal loans and grants,
Lieberman just didn't know. He'd have to do a little more research,
but his preliminary answer was yes. | ||||||||||||||||
At that response, the Center of New Hampshire Holiday Inn's Armory
conference room burst into a moment of cheering. Lieberman, who until
then had spoken about taxes, jobs and the strength of the middle class,
seemed to have wandered into some common territory. | ||||||||||||||||
The young men and women at College Convention 2004 - some wearing suits and ties, others in hooded sweatshirts and mussed hair - approved. | ||||||||||||||||
The convention, a 31/2-day conference that drew about 1,000 high school and college students from all over the country to Manchester, was truly an opportunity for political immersion. By yesterday afternoon, the students had already heard from presidential candidates, including Lieberman, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Sen. John Kerry, former senator Carol Moseley Braun and libertarian Gary Nolan. They had received tips on activism and campus organizing from former National Organization for Women president Patricia Ireland and had weighed in on subjects like bio-terrorism, campaign financing and intellectual property laws. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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http://www.cmonitor.com/stories/news/state2004/010904_convention_2004.shtml | ||||||||||||||||
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WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
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Domestic News- Policy | ||||||||||||||||
COMMENT: (5-8) (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
The federal government seems to have a double standard regarding its
multi-million dollar anti-drug advertising campaign. On the one
hand, ad agencies are being encouraged and rewarded for attempting
to deceive the public. But when one of those agencies allegedly
deceives their paymasters, that's another story. Two ad executives
have been charged indicted for defrauding the government out of
millions. Who's going to get indicted for defrauding the public
regarding the drug war? | ||||||||||||||||
Another drug war collaborator faced public humiliation last week,
though no criminal charges. George McCrackin, the high school
principal who ordered a drug raid on his students, has left his
post. He remains employed by the school district. | ||||||||||||||||
Typically an ally of the drug war, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice
William Rehnquist is speaking out against mandated sentencing
policies from congress. And in Alaska, a judge is asking whether
urine testing for drugs is appropriate for students suspected of
being under the influence of drugs. | ||||||||||||||||
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(5) TWO TIED TO OGILVY CONTRACT WITH U.S. ARE INDICTED (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
NEW YORK -- A grand jury indicted one current and one former senior
executive of WPP Group PLC's Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency,
alleging the pair worked with unidentified co-conspirators to
defraud the U.S. government. | ||||||||||||||||
The indictment also alleges the duo made false claims while working
on a lucrative account for the Office of National Drug Control
Policy. | ||||||||||||||||
The action surprised Madison Avenue, which largely believed the
matter had been resolved after Ogilvy paid $1.8 million to settle
civil charges in February 2002. At the time, Ogilvy, one of the ad
industry's best-known shops, said it voluntarily withdrew $850,000
in billings to the U.S. because it lacked confidence in the
documentation supporting the figure. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(6) GOOSE CREEK PRINCIPAL LEAVING POST (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
Leader Embroiled in Controversial Drug Raid Asks to Be Reassigned | ||||||||||||||||
Stratford High School's principal is stepping down two months after
a controversial drug raid thrust the Goose Creek school into the
national spotlight. | ||||||||||||||||
George McCrackin will be reassigned to a position at the school
district office, not at another school, Berkeley County School
Superintendent Chester Floyd said Monday. McCrackin is taking some
time off before he and Floyd meet to decide how to "best utilize his
experience and talent," Floyd said. | ||||||||||||||||
McCrackin also will be helping the district prepare to defend itself
in two lawsuits filed since the Nov. 5 raid caught on tape and shown
repeatedly on national television. | ||||||||||||||||
In the lawsuits, students allege police went too far when they
entered the school with weapons drawn and had students, most of whom
were black, lie down in a hallway while officers and drug dogs
searched for contraband. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(7) CHIEF JUSTICE ATTACKS A LAW AS INFRINGING ON JUDGES (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 -- Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist criticized Congress in unusually pointed terms on Wednesday for a recent law that places federal judges under special scrutiny for sentences that fall short of those called for by the federal sentencing guidelines. | ||||||||||||||||
The legislation, enacted last spring as a little-noticed amendment
to the popular Amber Alert child protection measure, "could appear
to be an unwarranted and ill-considered effort to intimidate
individual judges in the performance of their judicial duties," the
chief justice said in his annual year-end report on the federal
judiciary. | ||||||||||||||||
"It seems that the traditional interchange between the Congress and
the judiciary broke down" when the amendment passed without any
formal evaluation from the judiciary, he added. | ||||||||||||||||
At its most recent meeting, in September, the Judicial Conference of
the United States, a group of 27 judges who make policy for the
federal courts, voted unanimously to ask Congress to repeal the
amendment. Congress has not acted on the request from the
conference, which the chief justice heads, and the prospect that it
will do so appears slight. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(8) JUDGE EYES HIGH SCHOOL DRUG POLICY (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
A federal judge weighing the lawsuit of a North Pole High School student whose assistant principal had planned to expel him under the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District's drug and alcohol policy is considering whether a urinalysis is a valid method for determining whether a student is under the influence at school. | ||||||||||||||||
In a case that prompted the school district to change its drug and alcohol policy before the start of this school year, U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline is considering lengthy arguments made by lawyers for student Anthony Frey, his father and the district. | ||||||||||||||||
The Freys sued the district in July, claiming that school staff
violated Anthony's constitutional rights when they ordered him to
take a rapid-eye exam after he attended the last day of school in
May with red eyes and completed paperwork to expel him after his
father, Martin Frey, refused to allow him to take a urine test
ordered by an assistant principal. | ||||||||||||||||
Anthony Frey claimed that his eyes were red because he had been up late studying for final exams, not due to any alcohol or drug use. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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Law Enforcement & Prisons | ||||||||||||||||
COMMENT: (9-12) (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
Drug war corruption can erupt anywhere, even come in the guise of
the friendly DARE officer. That role model to children in a
Massachusetts town is also being investigated for skimming funds
from the police department. | ||||||||||||||||
Though no one in the Dallas Police Department has been punished in
the ongoing fake-drugs scandal, officers have been remarkably
tight-lipped about what really happened. The Dallas Morning News
took a look at a police deposition regarding the case which had not
been previously made public. | ||||||||||||||||
A Minnesota neighborhood learned how the drug war really works. When
a new resident was suspected of drug dealing, police didn't do
anything. The dealer was being paid as an informant by police as his
undercover actions depressed local property values. And, Alabama
prison officials say they need and extra $94 million this year, and
even that won't solve all the system's problems. | ||||||||||||||||
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(9) CHELMSFORD POLICE AWAIT RESULTS OF DARE OFFICER PROBE (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
CHELMSFORD - The Police Department is still awaiting the outcome of a grand-jury investigation into the actions of Officer Mike Horan, who was placed on paid administrative leave in November. | ||||||||||||||||
Horan was relieved of his duties as the department's DARE officer
because of the results of an internal investigation, which is still
ongoing. Police have declined to reveal the nature of the probe, but
sources told The Sun Horan may have stolen as much as $20,000 from
the DARE program and possibly other programs. | ||||||||||||||||
Horan, 29, has been a Chelmsford police officer for nearly five
years and has run the anti-drug program at the McCarthy and Parker
middle schools for the last three. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(10) EARLY ON, FAKE-DRUG QUESTIONS (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
Prosecutors were dissatisfied with explanations from Dallas police
about a series of bogus drug seizures in fall 2001 and remain unsure
whether officers ever performed field tests on the substances,
according to testimony from the district attorney's | ||||||||||||||||
Questions about the veracity of police detectives' accounts of the
drug cases are just one detail to emerge from daylong and
often-contentious questioning of First Assistant District Attorney
Mike Carnes for a deposition about the role of the district
attorney's office in the fake-drugs scandal. | ||||||||||||||||
A copy of the deposition, which has not been made public, was
obtained Tuesday by The Dallas Morning News. | ||||||||||||||||
In the October 2003 deposition, which is related to a lawsuit filed on behalf of dozens of people falsely arrested on drug charges, Mr. Carnes said prosecutors met in November 2001 with narcotics detectives who performed field tests on the seized substances. | ||||||||||||||||
The purpose of the meeting was to determine how the detectives
received false positives on field tests, which are done immediately
after drug seizures. More thorough lab tests later found that large
quantities of powder packaged as cocaine or methamphetamine were
bogus. | ||||||||||||||||
Under questioning by the plaintiffs' attorney, Don Tittle, Mr.
Carnes said he was dissatisfied with the detectives' explanation.
And he said prosecutors never did receive a satisfactory answer to
how the false positives occurred. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(11) WHEELER DEALER (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
Eventually, Danny Johnson started calling a sheriff's deputy by the name of Patrick Johnson (again, no relation). Both men had worked in the courthouse for a while, and Danny Johnson knew that the deputy was a narcotics investigator. For a while, he didn't get anywhere complaining to the deputy, either. But then, in April 2001, according to both men's testimony, the deputy told Johnson a secret: Felix was an informant buying drugs for a big undercover operation the deputy had set up. The constant parade of cars was people selling methamphetamine to Felix, who was being paid a fee to buy | ||||||||||||||||
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Far from being relieved, Johnson was enraged. Over the previous nine
months, the sting had turned his neighborhood into a slum. "What if
a deal had gone bad?" he rages. "What if someone found out he was an
informant and got angry? Those kids are out there on the playground
[across the street] every day. What if something went bad? What if
some grade-schooler got shot?" | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
Felix took a job as a carny for a brief time as a way of meeting a few people, and was quickly very busy. He earned $50 for each marijuana buy, and $100 for meth. In addition, each time the two met, Johnson would give Felix $300 in unmarked "buy money." Over the nine months the operation lasted, Felix was paid more than $17,000 for making buys. Assuming that money rewarded 170 transactions, he would have received more than $51,000 in buy money as well. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(12) STATE PRISONS CHIEF SEEKS $94M BUDGET HIKE (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
Panel Grills Campbell On Overcrowding, HIV Treatment For Inmates | ||||||||||||||||
MONTGOMERY - Prisons Commissioner Donal Campbell has asked Gov. Bob
Riley for a $94 million budget increase next year, and even that
amount won't fix all of the state's corrections problems, he told
lawmakers Tuesday. | ||||||||||||||||
The department, which received $250 million from the state in its
2004 budget, is under numerous court orders to improve conditions
for prisoners. | ||||||||||||||||
Efforts to settle at least one of those cases - a court order to
remove state prisoners from county lockups - have led to new
overcrowding and dangerous conditions for guards and inmates,
according to documents given to lawmakers. | ||||||||||||||||
The Legislature's Joint Prison Committee met Tuesday to hear from
Campbell and other agencies working with state inmates. | ||||||||||||||||
Campbell was peppered with questions about such things as managing
prison populations and the treatment of HIV-infected prisoners at
Limestone Correctional Facility near Capshaw. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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Cannabis & Hemp- | ||||||||||||||||
COMMENT: (13-17) (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
Supporters of medicinal cannabis in Wisconsin are getting political help form an unlikely source this year. Republican State Rep. Gregg Underheim, who chairs the Assembly's Health Committee has just introduced a bill that would allow physician's to prescribe cannabis. Underheim cites a recent battle with prostate cancer as his reason for supporting the legalization of medicinal cannabis. | ||||||||||||||||
Meanwhile a political scandal apparently involving drugs and
organized crime is brewing in British Columbia. Two senior
ministerial assistants, David Basi and Bob Virk have been implicated
in the case, which drew wide public attention as a result of police
raids on their Parliamentary offices. Police have refused to comment
on the case other than to say that it sprung out of a more
widespread investigation into organized crime and the lucrative
cannabis trade. | ||||||||||||||||
Sad news from Denmark this week, where residents of the well-known
anarchist enclave of Christiania decided to tear down the hashish
stalls of their infamous "Pusher Street" in an attempt to stem
further police raids against the community. Christiania, which is
home to about 1000 residents, was originally established by the
hippie counter-culture within the boundaries of an 18th Century
fort. | ||||||||||||||||
From California a comprehensive story about the good work of Mike and Valerie Corral and their upcoming lawsuit against the federal government in regard to raids against WAMM, a medicinal cannabis co-op. And lastly this week we go to Suffolk England for the story of a man who built an addition to his house using hemp. The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire; burn mother**er, burn! | ||||||||||||||||
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(13) CANCER CHANGES WISCONSIN LAWMAKER'S MIND ON DRUG (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
After doctors removed his cancerous prostate, Gregg Underheim was
frozen by uncertainty: Had the cancer spread? Would he need
chemotherapy and, if so, would the treatment itself make him
miserably ill? | ||||||||||||||||
Underheim, chairman of the Assembly's Health Committee and a Republican, began thinking of others who had waged brave and painful battles with cancer. Some, like his father, had lost the fight. | ||||||||||||||||
He also engaged in an internal debate about whether those suffering
from cancer should be allowed to use marijuana for medicinal
purposes, to cope with the pain of the cancer and the nausea often
caused by the treatment. | ||||||||||||||||
That consideration alone was a major shift for a legislator who in
the late 1990s was quoted in High Times magazine opposing the
legalization of marijuana. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(14) BC RAID OPENS UP OLD POLITICAL WOUNDS (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
A political scandal that is swirling around the legislative building
in Victoria has reached into Burnaby. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
Last Sunday (Dec. 28), as part of an ongoing investigation into the
illegal drug trade, the RCMP commercial crime section removed more
than 30 boxes of materials from where Basi worked in Collins'
office, plus the office of the Bob Virk, a ministerial aide to
Transportation Minister Judith Reid. | ||||||||||||||||
Basi was fired by Premier Gordon Campbell and Virk was suspended
with pay. | ||||||||||||||||
No charges have yet been laid in the case, however, police
spokesperson Sgt. John Ward confirmed the investigation revolves
around allegations of organized crime and drugs. | ||||||||||||||||
"I can say in general that the spread of organized crime just in the
past two years has been like a cancer on the social and economic
well-being of all British Columbians. Today, the value of the
illegal marijuana trade alone is estimated to be worth in excess of
$6 billion. We are seeing major increases in organized-crime-related
murders, beatings, extortion, money laundering and other activity
which touches many innocent lives," Ward said. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(15) RESIDENTS, DRUG DEALERS OF DANISH HIPPIE ENCLAVE TEAR DOWN (Top)HASHISH STANDS | ||||||||||||||||
Residents who openly bought and sold hashish at a famous hippie
enclave in Copenhagen abruptly demolished their booths on Sunday,
trying to head off a Danish government crackdown on illegal drug
sales. | ||||||||||||||||
Drugs are illegal in Denmark, but sales of hashish in the enclave,
called Christiania, are tolerated. Residents banned the sale of
harder drugs in 1980. | ||||||||||||||||
Many of Christiania's residents think the drug crackdown will lead
to the eviction of 1,000 residents and the realization of government
plans to redevelop the 84-acre area for upscale housing. Residents
said they were trying to pre-empt any government action by
dismantling Pusher Street, as the hashish-selling area is known. "We
don't want (Pusher Street) to be a lever for the government's
illegal and amoral plans to close our Christiania," they said in a
statement. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(16) DOPE'S NEW HOPE (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
On a wall in the back room of her Westside office, Valerie Corral
points to pictures of her deceased friends. "She died just a few
months after the raid," Valerie says, pointing to a photo on the
wall of a woman smoking from a glass pipe. | ||||||||||||||||
The raid that Valerie refers to, conducted by the Drug Enforcement
Agency in September of 2002, shut down the marijuana farm that she
and her husband Mike had operated in Davenport. The pictures that
now hang in her office, at the Wo/men's Alliance for Medical
Marijuana, include photos of 20 people she says have died since the
raid - after the couple could no longer provide marijuana from the
farm to those who smoke the drug to help relieve various medical
ailments. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Dec. 16 that the 1970
Controlled Substances Act, which outlaws marijuana, may not apply to
sick people who have a doctor's recommendation to use the drug. The
ruling applies to the seven Western states in the 9th Circuit's
jurisdiction, including California, that have approved medical
marijuana laws. | ||||||||||||||||
Under the December ruling, the three-judge panel ruled that prosecuting medical marijuana users under the Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional if the marijuana is being used for medical purposes and is not sold or transported across state lines. | ||||||||||||||||
That's the same argument the Corrals cite in their legal fight
against the U.S. Department of Justice in response to the raid of
their farm. Their lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San
Jose on behalf of WAMM in April of 2003 and calls for an injunction
against future raids on medical marijuana operations. WAMM, which
was founded by the Corrals in the early ' 90s, is joined by the
county and city of Santa Cruz in the suit. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(17) UK COUNTRY PROPERTY: A BUILDER'S GUIDE TO THE HIGH LIFE (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
Ralph Carpenter and his wife, Jenny, live in Britain's first home built from wacky baccy or, as they prefer to call it, cannabis hemp. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
'We lead a double life, as the house is actually split in two: one
half is original, 17th-century, brick-and-timber built, the other is
our 21st-century hemp-and-timber home,' he explains. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
The Suffolk housing project was completed in December 2001, and its two homes are being closely monitored for energy performance. Carpenter has more hemp projects planned for East Anglia. | ||||||||||||||||
A hemp home may have no hallucinatory qualities but these owners are
quietly ecstatic. | ||||||||||||||||
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International News | ||||||||||||||||
COMMENT: (18-21) (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
Featured this week is an article from conservative columnist Robert
Novak which bemoans Bolivia's escape from Washington's drug-war
orbit. Novak, in his Chicago Sun-Times piece last week, noted while
the White House publicly boasts of cuts in coca production, a
"recent classified National Intelligence summary reported there is
not any scenario" where "aggressive" coca eradication will continue
in Bolivia. Painting Evo Morales (the popular coca farmer turned
political leader) as a radical leftist bent on turning Bolivia into
an anarchy ripe for exploitation by drug cartels, Novak admitted
that the success of Morales and the Bolivian coca farmers' movement
is a "backlash to U.S.-sponsored coca eradication." | ||||||||||||||||
The supply of heroin is increasing in western Australia, prompting
fears that overdoses would be on the rise, as well. Addiction
clinicians there report upswings in detoxification admissions and in
implants of opiate-blocking naltrexone. As the heroin dry spell
began some three years ago, experts then warned the shortage itself
would cause problems such as increased amphetamine and cocaine
addiction. | ||||||||||||||||
Last week in Vancouver, Canada, two of the six police officers convicted of beating drug suspects in a deserted park were sentenced to house arrest, the others sentenced variously to probation, or discharged entirely. A closed hearing next week before Vancouver police Chief Jamie Graham for the six officers will determine what -- if any -- action is taken by the city police department. | ||||||||||||||||
And in Toronto, six narcotics officers were accused by the RCMP of
taking the law in their own hands. In a press conference this week
led by RCMP Chief Superintendent John Neily, the Toronto officers
were accused of lying in court, making up false search warrants,
falsifying police records, and fabricating evidence. As a result,
the prosecutions of some drug cases were compromised because of the
allegations against the six officers, admitted Neily, though he
declined to say how many. | ||||||||||||||||
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(18) BOLIVIA'S DRUG CRISIS WORSENING (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
While the Bush White House publicly brags about reduced coca production in South America's Andean region, there is dismay behind the scenes in the U.S. intelligence community. A recent classified National Intelligence summary reported there is not any scenario under current conditions that will continue aggressive eradication in Bolivia of the crop used to produce cocaine. That threatens the unraveling of the U.S. anti-drug program based in Colombia. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
U.S. preoccupation with the Middle East and Central Asia ignores what is happening next door amid rising influence of a new clique of leftist, anti-American leaders. Evo Morales, Bolivia's rising radical, and Fidel Castro, Cuba's dictator, both were in Caracas Dec. 21 and 22 to meet with Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez. That was preceded by Jimmy Carter's visit to Bolivia, where the former president, praising Morales as an ''impressive'' leader with a great future, undermined U.S. counter-drug policies. | ||||||||||||||||
These ominous developments have not been mentioned publicly by
official Washington. ''White House hails drops in coca cultivation
in Bolivia, Peru,'' trumpeted the State Department propaganda
apparatus on Nov. 25. A close reading of the handout reveals that
coca production in Bolivia, not linked with Peru, actually increased
in 2003. | ||||||||||||||||
Beyond numbers, the official U.S. line has little to do with
reality. The backlash to U.S.-sponsored coca eradication in Bolivia
was behind the violent ouster Oct. 17 of Washington's friend in La
Paz, President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. U.S. officials who have
been there believe the momentum is rising. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
Here is a latter-day domino effect. Dissenting officials in the U.S.
government believe Bolivia is becoming what the Pentagon calls an
''ungoverned area.'' They fear that Colombia's narcoterrorists will
switch their growing and processing operations to Bolivia, making
irrelevant U.S. counter-drug policy in Colombia. That prospect is
privately viewed by Colombian officials as fully realistic and as a
catastrophe, returning the situation in the Andes to where it was in
the bad old days of the 1980s. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(19) FEARS AS HEROIN DROUGHT EASES (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
Heroin is back on the streets of Perth after a three-year dry spell. | ||||||||||||||||
Health, drug treatment experts and police reported yesterday an increase in availability of the drug in the past six months. | ||||||||||||||||
Dr George O'Neil, who has put opiate-blocking naltrexone implants in
981 West Australians since August 2000, said the number of people
attending his clinic in recent months for detoxification and
implants had doubled. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
Dr O'Neil said most patients in the past two years had an addiction
to opiate derivatives such as morphine, but patients were now
getting addicted to heroin again. | ||||||||||||||||
Royal Perth Hospital toxicologist and emergency department
specialist Frank Daly confirmed that the Perth heroin shortage
appeared to be over. | ||||||||||||||||
He said two to three people a week were being treated for suspected
heroin overdose in the hospital's emergency department. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
WA Police Service organised crime Det-Supt Jim Migro said an increase in the amount of heroin being seized by police indicated it was more available. Just over half a kilogram of the drug was seized by organised crime officers in 2002, compared with 2.3kg last year. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(20) TWO VANCOUVER POLICE OFFICERS SENTENCED TO HOUSE ARREST (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
Judge troubled by conduct of officers after the offence | ||||||||||||||||
VANCOUVER - Two of the six Vancouver police officers who assaulted
three men in Stanley Park last year were sentenced Monday to spend
60 days and 30 days respectively under house arrest. | ||||||||||||||||
Of the other four officers who admitted assaulting the men, one was
given a suspended sentence and six months probation, one was placed
on probation for nine months, one was given a conditional discharge
and one was given an absolute discharge. | ||||||||||||||||
The stiffest sentence was handed out to Duncan Gemmell, 39, who will
serve his 60-day conditional sentence at home under a nightly 8
p.m.-to-7 a.m. curfew. | ||||||||||||||||
Another officer, Gabriel Kojima, 23, was handed a 30-day conditional
sentence. | ||||||||||||||||
Gemmell received the most serious sentence because he was the oldest, most experienced of the six officers, Vancouver provincial court Judge Herb Weitzel concluded in his oral reasons for sentence. | ||||||||||||||||
The judge, who also imposed six months of probation and 40 hours of
community service on Gemmell, found the officer should have stopped
the violence but instead allowed it to escalate. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
The judge found that even though police acted out of frustration --
the victims all have criminal records for drugs -- it was not a
heat-of-the-moment situation. | ||||||||||||||||
"Saner minds should have prevailed," the judge said. "Instead, the
level of violence increased." The judge blamed police for allowing a
"mob mentality" to take over that night. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
The six officers will face a disciplinary hearing next week --Jan.
15 and 16 -- that will be headed by Vancouver police Chief Jamie
Graham. The hearing will not be open to the public. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
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(21) VETERAN OFFICERS FACE 40 CHARGES (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
Took Law Into Their Own Hands, Says RCMP | ||||||||||||||||
Grim Chief Fantino Insists Problem Is `Isolated, | ||||||||||||||||
Six Toronto police veterans have been accused of taking the law into
their own hands and acting like the drug dealers they were supposed
to catch. | ||||||||||||||||
The longest and costliest investigation into alleged corruption in the Toronto force has resulted in the six officers being accused of committing 22 Criminal Code of Canada offences - a total of 40 individual charges - while investigating the illicit drug trade with the central field command drug squad between 1997 and 2002. | ||||||||||||||||
The officers - with a combined 113 years of service - allegedly lied in court, made up bogus search warrants, falsified internal police records and fabricated potential evidence in their notebooks, RCMP Chief Superintendent John Neily told reporters yesterday. | ||||||||||||||||
"Police officers are not above the law," Neily said, at times
sounding like an outraged judge, as Toronto police Chief Julian
Fantino looked on grimly. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
Neily was unable to say how many drug cases were put in jeopardy
because of the allegations against the police officers, but he said
the pertinent findings of the task force had been forwarded to the
justice department. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
In a later interview, he stressed that anyone who feels they were
wrongly convicted in cases involving the officers should pursue the
matter with the courts. | ||||||||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
HOT OFF THE 'NET (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
RACIAL BIAS IN THE DRUG WAR | ||||||||||||||||
Pacifica Radio and the Drug Truth Network present a 2 hour special
on racial bias in the drug war on Tuesday, Jan. 13th. | ||||||||||||||||
"Racial Bias in the Drug War" will air on KPFT, 90.1 FM in Houston,
Tx. and live, online at http://www.kpft.org/ Air time is 11 AM to
1 PM EDT, 10 AM to Noon CDT and 8 AM to 10 AM PDT. | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
RUSH TO JUDGEMENT | ||||||||||||||||
The Drug Policy Alliance has released a Rush Limbaugh animation and
companion poll. Titled "Rush to Judgment," it is the first and only
nationwide referendum on Mr. Limbaugh's drug use. | ||||||||||||||||
Please view the animation at http://www.DrugPolicy.org/Rush/ and then vote on whether Rush should be left alone or jailed. The national media - and Rush himself - will be made aware of the poll results. | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE 2003 BIENNIAL CONFERENCE AUDIO ONLINE | ||||||||||||||||
Select audio recordings from the recent DPA biennial conference
in New Jersey are now available online. | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
CBS 60 MINUTES - MORE THAN THEY DESERVE | ||||||||||||||||
The population in federal prisons has quadrupled from 43,000 inmates in 1987 to 173,000 today - at a cost to taxpayers of $4 billion a year. | ||||||||||||||||
How did that happen? In the wake of the cocaine epidemic of the 1980s,
Congress passed harsh sentencing guidelines and mandatory-minimum
sentencing laws - requiring federal judges in most cases to impose long
jail terms on anyone convicted of drug trafficking, no matter how small
their crime. | ||||||||||||||||
But now, objections to the drug laws are coming from an unexpected
source - federal judges themselves. Normally reluctant to speak out on
political matters, federal judges by the dozens have protested harsh
drug laws. | ||||||||||||||||
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/31/60minutes/main590900.shtml | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
CULTURAL BAGGAGE RADIO SHOW | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
Running for US senate seat in the state of California. Author of "Why
Our Drug Laws Have Failed, and What We Can Do About It - A Judicial
Indictment of the War on Drugs." | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
One of America's most well-known drug war hostages walked out of
federal prison in Southern California on December 10. Todd McCormick
had served nearly four years for his role in an early post-Proposition
215 medical marijuana grow operation in Los Angeles. | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
LEGALIZATION INITIATIVE TO BE ON NOVEMBER BALLOT IN ALASKA | ||||||||||||||||
Analysis by Richard Cowan, Posted January 7, 2004 | ||||||||||||||||
Yesterday, the very prohibitionist Alaskan Lt. Governor, Loren Leman, had the unpleasant duty of certifying the 28,783 petition signatures required to place an initiative on the November 2 ballot that will legalize cannabis for adults in Alaska. | ||||||||||||||||
I think that this initiative has an excellent chance of passing,
but the prohibitionists will tell any lie to defeat it. | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
ABC NIGHTLINE - AMERICA IN BLACK AND WHITE | ||||||||||||||||
Thursday, Jan. 08 | ||||||||||||||||
The get tough approach isn't anything new in the war on drugs but it
cost one man his job. Correspondent Jim Wooten looks at the story of a
complicated drug bust in Goose Creek, South Carolina. Some think
Principal George McCrackin went too far in his drug-fighting tactics at
Stratford High School last fall - others think the incident was a
racially charged. | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
GRANITE STATERS FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA REPORT ON DEMOCRATIC CONTENDERS | ||||||||||||||||
MANCHESTER, NEW HAMPSHIRE -- Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana
(GSMM) has issued its final report card on the presidential candidates'
stands on medical marijuana. For the first time in any presidential
campaign, a majority of contenders for the Democratic presidential
nomination have said they would end the Drug Enforcement
Administration's (DEA's) raids on medical marijuana patients and
caregivers. | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
LETTER OF THE WEEK (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
OBFUSCATION, DELAY, DECEIT | ||||||||||||||||
By Jay Bergstrom | ||||||||||||||||
Re "Pot measure stuck at starting line," Dec. 26: Regarding our
cannabis laws, it is quite clear that obfuscation, delay and deceit
will continue to rule the day. The bad faith dealings will continue for
the foreseeable future, or at least until all of the users are
incarcerated or dead. | ||||||||||||||||
Cannabis is harmless, yet even medical use is denied. This is truly reefer madness. It is cannabis prohibition that is lethal. | ||||||||||||||||
California decriminalized cannabis in 1975 and then legalized medical
use in 1996. These tepid moves have been effectively neutralized by
prohibitionists dependent on the drug war for their paychecks. In a
free country the right of a citizen to control what he ingests would be
sacrosanct. But instead of freedom, here we have the appetite police in
charge of our diets. | ||||||||||||||||
"Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our
bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now." -- Thomas
Jefferson | ||||||||||||||||
Jay Bergstrom, | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
FEATURE ARTICLE (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
MAP Beyond The Numbers | ||||||||||||||||
By Bob Merkin | ||||||||||||||||
The Media Awareness Project was as busy as ever in 2003. Thousands
of articles about the drug war were again archived, and thousands of
letters challenging the drug war were again published. But for the
first time in the organization's history, the total number of
published letters to the editor (PUB LTEs) critiquing the drug war
declined from the previous year. See http://www.mapinc.org/lte/ for
many statistics regarding MAP and published letters. | ||||||||||||||||
This decrease caused some discussion among MAP volunteers and
supporters, about what, if anything, is going wrong. | ||||||||||||||||
I think we're doomed to reach wrong and misleading conclusions if we
try to assess MAP solely quantifiably and statistically. Nobody
loves number-crunching more than I do, but not every important thing
yields meaningful answers by numerical analysis. All Caruso's
recordings have been in digital numerical form since about 1970, and
subjected to massive amounts of numerical analysis, but nobody's
come up with a numerical explanation of why Caruso was the greatest
operatic voice of the 20th Century. Lots of answers just aren't in
the numbers. | ||||||||||||||||
On another list we've been discussing the consequences of monopolies
in the cable TV industry -- specifically, that Comcast seems to have
banned MPP's paid reform ads, and there's probably not much that
anybody can do about it. Likewise, we all know that during the last
five years, Clear Channel has aggressively hosed up nearly every
important commercial radio station in the USA and Canada. When the
largest single group of ABC-TV affiliates, headquartered in
Baltimore, got pissed off at Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect,"
suddenly one decision in Baltimore blacked out Maher in about twenty
U.S. cities. | ||||||||||||||||
In the print media this concentration of ownership has been going on
for a long time. (The Boston Globe now belongs to The New York
Times, etc. etc. etc.) This undoubtedly is going to increase the
phenomenon of "templating" -- stripping formerly independent
newspapers of their local quirks, personalities and policies.
Questions like "Should we ban LTEs from outside our market area?"
which were once answered by thousands of editors in different ways,
now will be answered for a dozen papers all at once by one corporate
executive. | ||||||||||||||||
That's just the weather, and everybody has to duck and dodge it
alike. I'm sure it frustrates out-of-town Soccer Moms as much as it
annoys out-of-town Reformers. | ||||||||||||||||
Though MAP takes huge pride in listing its annual column inches and
translating these into the equivalent value of paid ads, that's
really only a "ghost reflection" of MAP's core significance and
achievement. MAP is in the business of Persuasion, and this can't be
so directly measured. Persuasion is a subtle phenomenon that takes
place AFTER mere publication. | ||||||||||||||||
Persuasion can be measured, but not as directly and precisely as
column inches. I measure it whenever some bailiwick in Massachusetts
has a reform or decrim ballot measure -- and, in the privacy and
anonymity of the voting booth, it passes bigtime. Our LTEs have
reshaped the Meme Pool and the Public Dialogue which, ten or fifteen
years ago, belonged exclusively to the Drug Warriors, simply because
there was no MAP acting as a clipping service and clearing house to
systematically pump Reform Memes into the Ideosphere. | ||||||||||||||||
MAP has empowered, linked and amplified a lot of Big Mouths, and
spewed out an enormous volume of Persuasion and Doubt about The
Official Program. | ||||||||||||||||
I can see mechanical obstacles ahead, but nothing that our passion, determination and cleverness can't overcome. If the weather really gets nasty, we can do what won the USA its freedom, and liberated the Soviet-bloc nations: We can paste up flyers and hand out pamphlets. I was just in newly-free Prague. In the old regime, there were no independent newspapers, private citizens were forbidden from owning presses, photocopy or mimeograph machines; spreading government-hostile ideas by any means was a serious crime. | ||||||||||||||||
The old regime is long gone. | ||||||||||||||||
People are always hungry for ideas which might have possibilities for a better future than this obvious policy catastrophe. People -- the kind of people who effect positive change -- are always curious. | ||||||||||||||||
We don't invent local news and reader interest in drug policy. The
scandals and failures inherent in the War on Drugs will keep putting
drug policy questions on every front page. In what USA or Canadian
city or county does the War on Drugs run smoothly, efficiently,
cost-effectively, accountably, safely, fairly, justly and honestly?
(You'd think there'd be at least one or two ...) This is a machine
with lots of squeaky wheels, and the media supplies not grease, but
a flashlight to see what all the squeaking is about. | ||||||||||||||||
Editors and publishers in the for-profit print media are constantly
driven to consider one question above all others: How can we
increase readership and reader interest? On the Editorial Page,
controversial and challenging LTEs turn an LTE section from a
moribund ink cemetery to a hotbed of community debate. Regardless of
all other changes in the for-profit media, this will always work to
our advantage, and will always keep the doors open to our better and
more eye-catching letters. A warrior-sympathetic editor who lets his
LTE and op-ed page become boring and monotonous will not be rewarded
for his patriotism and civic responsibility. After a merciless
page-by-page private evaluation of the newspaper, he or she will be
transferred or fired, and replaced with someone who promises to
stimulate and increase readership. Our better letters are nutrition
that increases reader interest. | ||||||||||||||||
Except for its wheezy, asthmatic funding, this is the first hint
I've had that MAP is ailing in any way. And I don't see it. To me,
MAP seems to be at this moment tingling, intense, powerful, clever,
lean, radiant and effective. | ||||||||||||||||
Bob Merkin is a print journalist and novelist, author of "Zombie
Jamboree" and "The South Florida Book of the Dead." He lives in
Western Massachusetts. His Internet writing is "Elmer Elevator's
Discount Prep" at http://users.rcn.com/bobmer.javanet/ , and his
drug reform LTEs are archived on MAP at | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
QUOTE OF THE WEEK (Top) | ||||||||||||||||
"Did you know that the White House drug test is multiple choice?"
-- Rush Limbaugh | ||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||
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. | ||||||||||||||||
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Policy and Law Enforcement/Prison content selection and analysis by Stephen Young (), Cannabis/Hemp content selection and analysis by Philippe Lucas (), International content selection and analysis by Doug Snead (), Layout by Matt Elrod () | ||||||||||||||||
We wish to thank all our contributors, editors, NewsHawks and letter writing activists. Please help us help reform. Become a NewsHawk See http://www.mapinc.org/hawk.htm for info on contributing clippings. | ||||||||||||||||
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