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Drug News Archives
The Progressive Review August 2000-

EARLIER STORIES

SEPTEMBER 2001

THE SWISS SUPREME COURT has decided that hallucinogenic mushrooms come under food safety regulations, not the drug laws.

FRENCH PUBLIC HEALTH MINISTER Bernard Kouchner has asked for a parliamentary debate concerning the decriminalization of drugs

INCREASE in the amount of land under coca cultivation in Colombia since 1996 when the U.S. began eradicating it: 100%.

*** NORML: New York University is the nation's most marijuana-friendly school, according to The Princeton Review's annual sourcebook, "The Best 331 Colleges." New York University edged University of Colorado at Boulder, University of New Hampshire, University of Oregon and Colorado University to emerge as this year's top school for "higher" learning. On the flipside, Brigham Young University was ranked #1 on Princeton's top twenty list of least pot-friendly campuses. Furman University, Wheaton College of Illinois, the California Institute of Technology and Samford University rounded out the top five. The rankings were derived from the responses of 65,000 college students nationwide, according to The Princeton Review.

*** CRIMINAL LAWS PROHIBITING THE POSSESSION and consumption of marijuana do little to deter its use and may be cost prohibitive, according to the results of a study published by the New South Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. The study found that nearly half of all males and 35 percent of females in New South Wales have used marijuana at some point in their lives, despite the fact that any use of marijuana is punishable by up to two years in jail. More than one in five males had used marijuana in the past year, researchers said. Among former cannabis users, investigators found that the majority stopped using the drug because they no longer "like it." Twenty-five percent said they did so because of health concerns. Less than one in five said they gave up the drug because it's illegal, and only one percent said that prohibition made cannabis "difficult to get a hold of." Among those who had never used marijuana, 47 percent said they abstained because they "didn't think [they] would like it." Health concerns were the second most common reason given; the fact that marijuana is illegal was cited third. Only ten percent of respondents cited "getting caught by the police" as a reason for avoiding the drug.

THE AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION is urging corporate America to drop workplace urine testing, citing evidence that the tests do not pay dividends in decreased accidents and absenteeism or increased efficiency and productivity. The report examines ten years of research and empirical evidence on drug use among workers, its impact on work performance, and whether urine testing is an effective tool for identifying drug abusers in the workplace. Among the report's findings:

- "Lost productivity" studies claiming that drug users cost businesses up to $100 billion each year are based on dubious comparisons of household drug use and income, with no analysis of actual productivity data.

- The moderate use of illicit drugs by workers during off-duty hours is no more likely to compromise workplace safety than moderate off-duty alcohol use.

- A recent survey of 63 Silicon Valley companies found that urine testing reduces, rather than enhances, worker productivity.

- Although some federal employers and private businesses are required by law to test employees in specific safety-sensitive occupations, most employers are under no obligation to conduct drug testing. Yet according to a 1996 survey, 81 percent of Fortune 500 firms conducted urine tests on their employees.

AUGUST 2001

NORML: Nearly 80 percent of multiple sclerosis and spinal cord patients enrolled in British research trials obtained clinical benefit from marijuana extracts, according to data presented by a London researcher during this year's annual meeting of the American Academy of Pain Management. "Somehow a million years of evolution between cannabis and humans have come up with an amazing medicine," announced keynote speaker Geoffrey Guy, Chairman of GW Pharmaceuticals, a London company licensed to cultivate and test medical marijuana in clinical trials. The company is currently evaluating several cannabis-based medicinal extracts in double blind, placebo controlled randomized trials to determine each strain's quality, safety and efficacy. Trial subjects self-administer the extracts via a sublingual spray.

AN ESTIMATED 40,000 PEOPLE gathered Saturday at the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition's 12th Annual Freedom Rally to show their support for reforming US marijuana laws and reflect upon last week's tragic terrorist attacks. Many in attendance waved flags and chanted "USA" throughout the daylong event, held at the historic Boston Common. Others wore black armbands and observed a moment of silence in memory of the victims of Tuesday's "Attack on America."

TONY BRIDGES, KNIGHT RIDDER: French authorities have taken what they consider a more pragmatic approach to drug policy. While voluntary and court-ordered treatment, as well as education and prevention, are still part of the national strategy, they've also implemented a controversial policy known as harm reduction. Harm reduction is simply the philosophy that people are going to use drugs no matter what anyone does. So, to keep those people from succumbing to the dangers of use -- overdoses, AIDS and criminal lifestyles -- the government gives them a means to satisfy their habit safely. In France, a nation with an estimated 175,000 heroin addicts, that means needle exchanges, government-subsidized Subutex (a methadone alternative) and safe places to shoot up. Maestracci said it has contributed to fewer overdose deaths and a decreasing AIDS infection rate. France also has a much lower crime rate than the United States, which experts there attribute, in part, to the easy availability of Subutex. In 1970, lawmakers passed an act that mandated treatment options for those arrested on drug use charges. That sparked 20 years of arguments over the best way to implement the policy. Then, in the early '90s, with AIDS becoming a national epidemic, France began to consider needle exchanges. That led to talk of heroin substitutions and eventually to the new policy of harm reduction. MORE

DRUG POLICY FOUNDATION: During a visit to Washington, Jamaican Prime Minister Percival Patterson said he found the National Ganja Commission's recommendation to decriminalize marijuana "persuasive." Sensitive to U.S. opposition, Patterson added that "I want to make it absolutely clear that we are not considering legalizing in the sense of making it legal for people to grow, to sell, to export. It is for private use, and, of course, it will have to be confined to adults."

NORML: Governments may abolish criminal penalties for pot possession and other drug crimes without breaching international treaty obligations, according to a legal study published this week by a London think-tank. "For many years a major impediment to drug reform has been the belief that UN conventions restrict any change," said Roger Howard, chief executive of DrugScope, which published the study. "This study dispels the myth that [governments] are tied rigidly by the UN conventions, and shows we have considerable flexibility within them to radically modernize our drug laws." The authors concluded that there exist no provisions in the conventions requiring nations to use criminal laws exclusively to control personal drug possession. Instead, the study's authors recommended that governments would be better off sanctioning drug users with civil fines rather than criminal arrest and imprisonment. Such policies have already been implemented in Italy, Portugal and Spain. "Eleven U.S. states and numerous municipalities have already decriminalized small amounts of marijuana," explained NORML Foundation Legal Director Donna Shea. "National decriminalization of marijuana would not be a violation of the UN conventions."

WASHINGTON POST: Sixty-one percent of high school children and 40 percent of middle school kids say drugs are used, kept and sold in their schools, according to a survey released by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. The center, a nonprofit institute associated with Columbia University in New York, also noted that neither of the two most popular American systems for controlling drug abuse by school-age children works very well. The most popular, Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.), shows "little evidence . . . of any extended impact," the center concluded. Another frequently used approach, based on harsh penalties for even minor drug abuse, often discourages students from turning in substance abusers, it said.

ANDREA BILLUPS, WASHINGTON TIMES: Among the nation's youths ages 12 to 17, an estimated 13.2 million turn to drinking, smoking and drug use each year. By the time many of those students reach their senior year in high school, their youthful experimentation has become a habit with 86 percent still smoking cigarettes, 83 percent continuing to get drunk and 76 percent continuing to use marijuana, researchers at Columbia University's National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse said in a study.

DANIEL WHITAKER, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: In years past, people caught smoking marijuana in the south London neighborhood of Brixton could expect to be arrested. But now, police are giving them a warning, confiscating the drug, and sending them on their way. Britain, which has long had the strictest policies in West Europe on narcotics use, is showing signs of a possible relaxation in official attitudes toward marijuana. While Britons remain divided on whether cannabis should be legalized, the six-month experiment with lenient enforcement in Brixton has some wondering whether Britain may eventually follow other Western European countries in relaxing attitudes toward so-called 'soft' drugs. The new policy experiment reflects a trend in British society toward acceptance of marijuana consumption - and an acknowledgement that the punitive approach taken over the past few decades may have been misguided.

"If I were king for a day and was going to learn from history, I would, in fact, decriminalize drug possession ... We decriminalized the possession of booze. We criminalized other substances and demonized those who use them and, in the process, created an outlaw class that includes everybody from a senator's wife to the addict curled up in a storefront doorway." - Norm Stamper Chief of Police, Seattle, 1994-2000

NORML: Marijuana offenders are referred for federal prosecution in greater numbers than any other drug offenders, according to a study released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Authors reported that of the 38,288 suspects referred to U.S. attorneys in 1999 by federal law enforcement agencies, nearly one-third were involved with marijuana. Twenty-eight percent were suspected of powder cocaine violations, 15 percent for crack, 15 percent for methamphetamine, and seven percent for opiates. About 84 percent of all suspects referred were eventually charged in federal court. "Despite the government's denials, these statistics show that America's 'war on drugs' is primarily a war on marijuana smokers," said NORML Executive Director R. Keith Stroup. The study also found that the total number of drug defendants nearly tripled from 1984 to 1999. Drug prosecutions now comprise 32 percent of the total federal criminal caseload, authors reported.

DYNCORP IN PEACE AND WAR

JARED KOTLER, ASSOCIATED PRESS: Airport police last year discovered a substance testing positive for heroin in a packet being sent to the United States by the main U.S. private contractor in the drug war in Colombia, the nation's police chief said Monday. Gen. Ernesto Gilibert said the public prosecutor's office is closely examining the evidence, found in two one-ounce vials containing samples of aircraft engine oil being sent to the United States by the Colombia office of Dyncorp, a Reston, Virginia-based company . . . Dyncorp provides pilots and mechanics who operate a fleet of fumigation planes and escort helicopters in Colombia on contract for the U.S. State Department. The aircraft fly spraying runs over coca fields and are a key element in a $1.3 billion U.S. aid program to eradicate the crop used to make cocaine.

JAMES RIDGEWAY, VILLAGE VOICE: Ben Johnston, a Texas aircraft mechanic working in Bosnia for a Pentagon contractor, is charging in Texas federal district court that he was fired because he ratted out fellow workers who were swapping underage girls as maids and sex slaves, and dealing in illegal firearms as well. The employer, Dyncorp, denies the charges, which are being made under RICO, federal racketeering laws. Johnston claims that when he alerted his Dyncorp supervisor, the manager told him "to mind his own business." He says his three-year contract was abruptly cancelled and he was fired without notice after reporting these activities to the Army Criminal Investigation Command in March 2000. The suit alleges that Dyncorp employees purchased the passports of women and girls from Serbian Mafia members, who brought them into Bosnia from other Eastern European countries.

KICKING THE DRUG WAR HABIT: A list of 40 leaders around the world who who support some form of legalization or decriminalization.

ECONOMIST: In the rich world, it is the poor who are most likely to become involved in the drugs trade and therefore end up in jail. Nowhere is this more shamefully true than in the United States, where roughly one in four prisoners is locked up for a (mainly non-violent) drugs offence. America's imprisonment rate for drugs offences now exceeds that for all crimes in most West European countries. Moreover, although whites take drugs almost as freely as blacks and Hispanics, a vastly disproportionate number of those arrested, sentenced and imprisoned are non-white. Drugs policy in the United States is thus breeding a generation of men and women from disadvantaged backgrounds whose main training for life has been in the violence of prison. Removing these harms would bring with it another benefit. Precisely because the drugs market is illegal, it cannot be regulated. Laws cannot discriminate between availability to children and adults. Governments cannot insist on minimum quality standards for cocaine; or warn asthma sufferers to avoid ecstasy; or demand that distributors take responsibility for the way their products are sold. With alcohol and tobacco, such restrictions are possible; with drugs, not. This increases the dangers to users, and especially to young or incompetent users. Illegality also puts a premium on selling strength: if each purchase is risky, then it makes sense to buy drugs in concentrated form . . . To legalize will not be easy. Drug-taking entails risks, and societies are increasingly risk-averse. But the role of government should be to prevent the most chaotic drug-users from harming others-by robbing or by driving while drugged, for instance-and to regulate drug markets to ensure minimum quality and safe distribution. The first task is hard if law enforcers are preoccupied with stopping all drug use; the second, impossible as long as drugs are illegal. A legal market is the best guarantee that drug-taking will be no more dangerous than drinking alcohol or smoking tobacco. And, just as countries rightly tolerate those two vices, so they should tolerate those who sell and take drugs.

LINDA DOHERTY & BRIGID DELANEY, SIDNEY MORNING HERALD: The NSW Police Commissioner, Mr Peter Ryan, says Australia is losing the war on drugs - a contradiction of the Prime Minister's upbeat assessment that law enforcement measures are "already paying off." Mr Ryan said that despite large heroin seizures in the past 18 months there was a rise in cocaine use, and an "enormous spread" of amphetamines. "I think we are [losing the war], and so is every other country. We're not winning; that is the point." . . . The NSW and South Australian directors of public prosecutions said medically prescribed heroin should be trialled on a limited basis. The Queensland Chief Justice, Mr Paul de Jersey, last month floated the need for "creative, possibly even radical new measures." The NSW Director of Public Prosecutions, Mr Nicholas Cowdery, QC, said the overwhelming legal view was that drug addiction was a health and social problem "which cannot be effectively dealt with by the criminal justice system".

DANIEL FORBES, SALON: Channel One, the company that beams TV news programs and commercials into thousands of schools in the U.S., has broadcast dozens of news segments that contained anti-drug messages in the past three years -- and received millions of dollars' worth of ad credits from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy for doing so, Salon has learned. The arrangement, in which taxpayers' money was used to underwrite a covert anti-drug message shown to millions of school children in the guise of a supposedly objective news program, appeared to violate the ONDCP's publicly stated policy that news and editorial pieces would not be eligible for the ad credit program.

Getting high on marijuana means you're rebellious, while getting drunk on beer means you're a good old boy. But ask any cop whether he'd rather go into a house full of people high on marijuana or one full of people drunk on beer. They'll tell you they'd much rather deal with people on marijuana. - Rep. Barney Frank

TIME MAGAZINE reports that 45 million people in Europe have tried marijuana, according to a European Union research project. Most are young.

GLENDA COOPER, WASHINGTON POST: Drug offenders spend a year more in prison on average than they did 15 years ago, and drug offenses now make up about one-third of federal criminal cases -- both the result of tougher drug sentencing, according to new figures from the Department of Justice Bureau of Statistics . . . Changes in federal statutes mean that from 1984 to 1999, prison terms imposed on drug offenders increased from 62 months to 74 months on average. Almost 90 percent of drug defendants were convicted, and the vast majority were convicted of drug trafficking. Less than one in 20 were convicted of simple possession of drugs. Of the 38,288 suspects referred to federal prosecutors for alleged drug offenses during 1999, 31 percent were involved with marijuana, 28 percent cocaine powder, 15 percent crack cocaine and 15 percent methamphetamine. The rest were involved with opiates and other drugs. Just over half were younger than 30, and most were importers, manufacturers and large-scale dealers. Racial differences were stark: 86 percent of crack cocaine offenders were black, and 72 percent of methamphetamine offenders were white. Cocaine was spread widely through all ethnic groups.

DRUG REFORM COORDINATION NETWORK: In a Barry McCaffrey fever dream come true, America's world-class chess players will soon be getting drug tests before every tournament. Three years ago in an article in Chess Life magazine, the then drug czar proposed drug testing for tournament chess players. McCaffrey met with ridicule at the time, but over the weekend, the US Chess Federation, meeting at its annual conference in Framingham, Massachusetts, voted to make drug testing of chess players a reality.

REUTERS: Canada became the first country in the world on Monday to allow terminally ill patients to grow and smoke their own marijuana, overriding protests from doctors who said the decision could put them in an awkward situation . . . Anyone with a terminal illness expected to live less than a year will be allowed access to marijuana on the production of a doctor's
certificate.

A FEDERAL JUDGE DISMISSED a drug charge against a Virginia couple after a federal prosecutor requested the charge be dropped. Assistant U.S. Attorney Hugh Ward's motion asking for the charge to be dismissed without prejudice against David M. Stonebreaker, 34, and Pamela L. Whitmore Stonebreaker, 32, did not specify the reasons. The judge had based his decision on a finding that Falco, a German shepherd used as a drug-sniffing dog by the Knox County Sheriff's Department, is wrong more times than he's right when searching vehicles in the field.

NORML: Federal drug enforcement agents recently destroyed several acres of hemp growing on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, located in the southwest corner South Dakota. The seizure was the second time in two years law enforcement officials have forcefully prohibited members of the Oglala Lakota Nation from cultivating hemp. Lakota Nation tribal leaders had tried to persuade authorities to call off the raid, arguing that federal and state police had no legal authority to seize their plants. Oglala Sioux Tribe President John Yellow Bird Steele maintains that hemp cultivation is protected under provisions of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which ratified the Lakota Indian Nations' right to grow food and fiber crops on tribal lands. "The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 did not divest the Lakota People of our reserved right to plant and harvest whatever crops we deem beneficial to our reservation," Steele wrote in a July 18 letter to Michelle Tapken, U.S. Attorney for South Dakota. "Therefore we regard the enforcement of our hemp ordinance and prosecution of our marijuana laws as tribal matters to be handled by our Oglala Sioux Tribal Public Safety Law Enforcement Services." The Lakota Nation passed an ordinance in 1998 permitting tribal members who are part of land use associations to cultivate hemp. The ordinance defines industrial hemp as Cannabis sativa plants containing less than one percent THC. The tribe intended to use this year's crop for fiberboard and other building materials.

LA TIMES: Rep. Asa Hutchinson, one of the House prosecutors in former President Clinton's impeachment trial, has won Senate confirmation to lead the Drug Enforcement Administration . . . The lone dissenting vote came from Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., who said, among other things, that he disagreed with Hutchinson's support of "the escalation of the drug war in Colombia." Not voting was Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

THE TOP EXECUTIVE of Progressive Corporation has donated $7 million to the American Civil Liberties Union. Officials say it's the largest gift ever by an individual. Peter Lewis earmarked $5 million of yesterday's grant for the organization's drug-policy litigation project, which is challenging such practices as drug testing in schools and restrictions on medical marijuana.
The ACLU of Ohio Foundation and the national ACLU received a million apiece. Lewis is chairman of the auto insurer in the Cleveland suburb of Mayfield. He's been an ACLU member since 1972.

[This may mean that the ACLU will become more active in fighting the war on drugs than it has been in the past]

DRUG TESTS BECOMING LARGELY FOR LOW INCOME JOBS

JULY 2001

BBC: Peter Lilley, the former deputy leader of the Conservative Party, is calling for cannabis to be legalised and sold through special off-licences. In a pamphlet published by the Social Market Foundation think tank, Mr Lilley argues the law on cannabis use is "unenforceable and indefensible. We are forcing cannabis users into the arms of hard drugs pushers. It is that link I wish to break." Peter Lilley The former cabinet minister believes one of the biggest handicaps of the Tories' general election campaign was the perception that the party's policies were negative and punitive. Drug pressure groups have welcomed the comments but the government dismissed them saying it would maintain the ban on cannabis. MORE

NORML: Portuguese police may no longer prosecute marijuana or other minor drug offenders under a new law. The law change, adopted by the Portuguese government last November, reflects the European Union's growing tolerance toward drug use and non-violent drug users, and its support for harm reduction policies. Under the new law, police will treat the possession of up to a ten-day supply of cannabis or narcotics as an administrative rather than a criminal offense. Drug offenders will be evaluated by a special commission composed of physicians, lawyers, and social workers who will refer them to counseling or treatment. The commission may also impose a fine. Any pot or narcotics found by police will be confiscated. The Portuguese model is similar to existing drug decriminalization policies in Spain and Italy. Earlier this year, Belgium and Luxembourg endorsed reforms exempting marijuana smokers from criminal penalties. Presently, only four EU nations -- Finland, France, Greece and Sweden -- maintain criminal penalties for marijuana consumption. EUROPEAN MONITORING CENTER

NORML: Canadian officials gave final approval to regulations that will allow qualified patients to grow and possess marijuana for medicinal purposes. The new guidelines take effect on July 30. Health Minister Allan Rock said that Wednesday's decision was a "landmark in our ongoing effort to give Canadians suffering from grave and debilitating illnesses access to marijuana for medical purposes. This compassionate measure will improve the quality of life of sick Canadians." Canada is the first country in the world to adopt a federal regulatory scheme for the possession and use of medical marijuana. Under the new law, terminally ill patients or those suffering from symptoms associated with a serious medical condition may apply for a federal license allowing them or their designated caregiver to possess up to a 30-day supply of marijuana. Non-terminal patients must possess the recommendation of a general practitioner and a medical specialist certifying that they have found all alternative therapies to be ineffective.

NORML: Colorado physicians are free to recommend the medical use of marijuana to their patients in accordance with state law, lawyers for Kaiser Permanente have determined. Attorneys for the HMO were asked by doctors to review the issue after the governor and attorney general warned that physicians who endorse marijuana therapy to a patient face the risk of federal prosecution.
Under Colorado's new medical pot law, patients may legally possess and grow marijuana if their physician provides written documentation that they "might benefit from the medical use of marijuana." "Using their own judgment, doctors can sign or not, depending on what they think is the right thing to do," said Steve Krizman, a Kaiser spokesman in Colorado. Kaiser Permanente is America's largest not-for-profit health maintenance organization.

LIBERTARIAN PARTY: A few weeks ago, a 75-year-old Wisconsin farmer with severe arthritis, glaucoma, and diabetes was sent to jail for growing marijuana. His 80- year-old brother also faces charges for the same crime. Over the past few years, two Old Order Amish men, a Rabbi of the Year, and a 9-year-old boy have been charged with selling drugs "When a crime wave is being fueled by Geritol, you have to surmise that something is wrong with the law itself," said Libertarian Party director Steve Dasbach. "And when the Amish are riding get-away buggies after making drug deals, you know the profit margin in illegal drugs has become so ridiculous that even otherwise law-abiding people can be corrupted."

[Although it also may have inspired the joke: "What goes 'clop, clop, clop, bang, bang, bang, clop, clop, clop?'" Answer: an Amish drive-by shooting]

CAMPUS DRINKING

JUSTIN LETO, PENN STATE UNIVERISTY: In the 1960s, students entering college to escape the draft or returning from the Vietnam War rioted against curfews, visitation rules, dorm mothers, and the general "establishment" in addition to the war. Prior to the demonstrations, college officials had acted in loco parentis, or in place of students' parents. The practice had originated from the 17th and 18th centuries when a "college aged" student could have been as old as a high school freshman is today. The courts agreed with the students in the sixties, and administrators, for the most part, began recognizing students as adults, and butted out of their social lives. For the last 15 years, however, in loco parentis has been making a comeback at American universities. As a result, student riots have again flared up at college campuses across the country - this time over restrictions on alcohol and the enforcement of underage drinking. The Uniform Drinking Age Act of 1984 forced states to raise the drinking age from 18 to 21 or forfeit federal highway funding. As all 50 states passed legislation to comply, college and town officials were faced with the sobering reality that alcohol consumption had become a criminal offense for nearly 75% of their undergraduate populations. Over 15 years later the debate over the drinking age is where it was in 1984 . . .

At Michigan State University, 68 percent of students surveyed said the full-scale riot that broke out at their campus in 1998 was a result of too many restrictions placed upon them by the university . . . Over 1998, Michigan State University led the nation with 856 arrests for alcohol violations, up 30% from 1996 figures. CNN dubbed the riots, the "Right to Party" movement. The Mifflin Street Block Party, a 30-year tradition in Madison, Wisconsin ended as a riot in 1996. That year, the University of Wisconsin Madison ranked 3rd in alcohol arrests at 412. . . .

The circumstances at Penn State were much the same leading up to the first major riot in 1998. Penn State President, Graham Spanier, focused on reducing "binge drinking" soon after he began presiding over the university in 1995. Kegs were officially banned from dorms in February 1997 . . . alcohol advertisements from college newspapers, causing thousands of dollars of lost advertising revenue to Pitt News and The Daily Collegian. In spite of these efforts, a major riot erupted in a stretch of the downtown dubbed, Beaver Canyon, during State College's annual Arts Festival the following summer. Come fall, black helicopters with spotlights flew overhead and shined lights into apartment windows and on parties.

During the same time, multiple fraternities were busted in underage drinking raids. Plain clothed officers, armed with fake student ID cards supplied by the university, lied about their affiliation with law enforcement to gain entry to the houses. State College Police Chief, Tom King, made it clear that alcohol enforcement had become the Borough's priority. "We will take action on any crime, but especially alcohol-related crimes. We always strictly enforce alcohol laws," King said . . . Three years and two riots later, the beat goes on. MORE

GUARDIAN, LONDON: Portugal has forced back the frontiers of drug liberalization in Europe with a law which, at a stroke, decriminalizes the use of all previously banned narcotics, from cannabis to crack cocaine. The new law takes a socially conservative country far ahead of much of northern Europe in treating drug abuse as a social and health problem rather than a criminal one. Vitalino Canas, the drug tsar appointed by the Prime Minister, Antonio Guterres, to steer the law into place, said it made more sense to change the law than ignore it, as police forces do in The Netherlands and now experimentally in the Brixton area of south London. "Why not change the law to recognize that consuming drugs can be an illness or the route to illness?" Mr. Canas said. "America has spent billions on enforcement but it has got nowhere. We view drug users as people who need help and care."

JUNE 2001

DRUG REFORM COORDINATION NETWORK: "We're Jeff and Tracy. We're your good neighbors. We smoke pot." So reads the large, bold-face type at the top of a full-page advertisement that appeared in an Oregon alternative weekly, the Willamette Week. Beneath the bold type is a photo of the Oregon couple -- a normal looking pair -- and more text detailing their views about the normality of marijuana smoking and their struggle to find a media outlet that would let them air their views. The couple, Jeff Jarvis and Tracy Johnson, both 39, of Bend, Oregon, only wanted to publicize their position that marijuana users are normal people, too, but because of the refusal by various media to air their ad, their effort has grown into a full-fledged local media frenzy. At first, Jarvis and Johnson went to local rock radio stations seeking to air a 30-second spot (reproduced in the print ad), but none would touch it. The rejections didn't stop there. The ad agency that handles advertising for the Portland mass transit agency, Obie Media, nixed that plan. And Portland's leading newspaper, the Oregonian, rejected a Sunday print ad as "unsuitable for publication."

DRUG REFORM COORDINATION NETWORK: The Ciudad Juárez newspaper El Diario reported that, according to Mexican journalist Carlos Loret de Mola, author of a forthcoming book about the drug trade, Mexico's drug economy is almost twice as large as that country's largest legitimate economic sector, the oil exports. The annual income of the four "cartels" that dominate the traffic in Mexico would, if divided equally among them, amount to more than 17 times the annual income of Carlos Slim, Mexico's wealthiest man, for each cartel, writes Loret. Similarly, Loret concluded that profits from the cartels are three times greater than those of Mexico's 500 largest companies combined. According to El Diario, Loret's figures on the drug trade are derived from official and unofficial sources, as well as secret data compiled by the Mexican police agency CISEN and obtained by Loret. According to one CISEN document obtained by Loret, if the drug trade were to suddenly disappear in Mexico a hemispheric economic crisis would quickly ensue, with the US economy contracting by as much as a fifth and the Mexican economy reduced by more than half. The drug traffickers "have the ball in their court," Loret told El Diario, warning that to deal with the narco-economy could create political costs that no one wants to confront. Again citing secret CISEN documents, Loret warned that "such is the weight of the narcotics traffic in the Mexican economy that to uproot it would provoke an economic collapse."

CALIFORNIA'S PROPOSITION 36, the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act is going into effect. Passed by a 61% majority of voters last November, the measure will divert an estimated 36,000 drug offenders from prison into court-ordered drug treatment each year. At present, California leads the nation in incarcerating drug offenders, locking them up at a rate twice the national average, and this phase shift in the state's approach to arrested drug users is bound to create some bumps during the transition.

GABY HINSLIFF & EUAN FERGUSON, GUARDIAN: Three of the leading contenders for the Tory leadership broke with the party's traditional hard line opposition to drugs by calling for a major debate on the legalization of cannabis. In a dramatic attempt to outflank the Labor Party over its refusal to engage in debate on the issue, the leadership contenders all signaled their willingness to reflect public opinion on the use of 'soft' drugs. David Davis was the first to break the party line, arguing that politicians owed it to anxious parents to be open about drugs. His stance was backed by his leadership rivals Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Ancram, both seen as traditionalists but anxious to shed any image of stuffiness. Only Michael Portillo refused to discuss drugs directly. However, he gave a strong hint of his sympathies in a statement, saying that he wished to foster 'the broadest and most stimulating debate' on policy for 25 years. The new twist in the Tory contest not only turns the party's drugs policy upside down but poses a serious challenge to Tony Blair, with Labor now the only party resisting even discussing a change in the law.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE: The justice ministry has said drug use is no longer considered a crime in Portugal and will no longer be punished by a prison sentence. Instead 18 specialized drug commissions, which start operating on Monday, will check people apprehended for their level of drugs use and set them appropriate fines or other penalties. Recreational drug users will be fined but addicts will be ordered to seek treatment in detoxification clinics.

SUEDDEUETSCHE Z, GERMANY: Twenty-five per cent of those between ages twelve and twenty-five have had drug experiences, twice as many as eight years ago. Cannabis and marijuana are preferred. More alcohol is being drunk, but fewer cigarettes smoked.

STUDENTS FOR A DRUG-FREE WHITE HOUSE: The Bush administration is denying financial aid to students who won't answer questions about their drug records. If you committed mass murder, you still get aid, but if you got caught 20 years ago with half a joint, and don't want to volunteer that information now... you're outta luck (60,000 students losing aid this year alone). Since this comes from a man who spent an entire campaign refusing to talk about his own drug history, this new group has made a simple request to the White House: "President Bush, if you deny federal funds to students who won't talk about their drug histories, it's only fair that you forego your federal salary until you are willing to come clean with your own drug past."

SALON: An injunction handed down against a group of New Orleans party promoters charges that glow sticks -- along with pacifiers, Vicks Vaporub and dust masks -- are "drug paraphernalia," and their presence on a dance floor is a sign that illegal drug activity is taking place. In response, the promoters have banned glow sticks from their clubs, along with chill rooms, where partiers might go to catch their breath (or where they might, in the eyes of the authorities, go to take their drugs), and massage tables (where God knows what nefarious activities might occur). The injunction seems to imply that if you take away the chill rooms and the glow sticks, you take away the drugs. It's bafflingly backward logic, but then again, the federal government's war on drugs hasn't always made sense . . . In this new era, even promoters who try to stop drug use are vulnerable. Call the cops on a drug-using patron and you've marked yourself as the owner of a drug operation. Hire an ambulance as a precaution against overdoses, or let a harm-reduction group like Dance Safe distribute literature, and you've done the same thing . . . "The government is engaged in an outright war on night clubs, which they hope will make it appear that they are doing something to stop the drug epidemic," says Will Patterson, who runs the Electronic Music Defense and Education Fund.MORE

DRUG REFORM COORDINATION NETWORK: With the DEA trumpeting the dangers of Oxycontin, a powerful time-release opioid effective in pain relief, and local media across the country jumping on the bandwagon, patients, doctors and the drug's maker are reporting increasing problems for pain patients seeking access to the drug. "I hear it every day," Skip Baker of the American Society for Action on Pain. "Because of this scare, people are having to drive hundreds of miles to find a physician to prescribe Oxycontin." The scare is reaching epic proportions, with cops and newspapers across the country eagerly scanning the horizon for any sign of the new narcotic nemesis. "Hillbilly heroin... could become a problem in Texas," the Ft. Worth Star Telegram warned last week, citing "pharmaceutical drug diversion investigators." But, the paper added, "few to no reports" of Oxycontin abuse have been logged. In Evansville, Indiana, meanwhile, police "are watching out for" Oxy and "fear it's on the way," the Evansville Courier & Press reports. Police have seized "at least a couple of tablets in recent months," the paper notes. Milwaukee is also at risk, the Milwaukee Journal reports, even though a major metropolitan emergency room had not seen any Oxycontin overdoses. "We're the last to know, I guess," said one hospital worker. These reports are merely the latest manifestation of a drug panic underway since the spring . . . According to a Boston University study, 120 people have died from Oxycontin-related causes -- out of six million prescriptions last year. MORE

NICK DAVIES, GUARDIAN: On April 3 1924, a group of American congressmen held an official hearing to consider the future of heroin. They took sworn evidence from experts, including the US surgeon general, Rupert Blue, who appeared in person to tell their committee that heroin was poisonous and caused insanity and that it was particularly likely to kill since its toxic dose was only slightly greater than its therapeutic dose. They heard, too, from specialist doctors, such as Alexander Lambert of New York's Bellevue hospital, who explained that "the herd instinct is obliterated by heroin, and the herd instincts are the ones which control the moral sense ... Heroin makes much quicker the muscular reaction and therefore is used by criminals to inflate them, because they are not only more daring, but their muscular reflexes are quicker." Senior police, a prison governor and health officials all added their voices. Dr S Dana Hubbard, of the New York City health department, captured the heart of the evidence: "Heroin addicts spring from sin and crime ... Society in general must protect itself from the influence of evil, and there is no greater peril than heroin." The congressmen had heard much of this before and now they acted decisively. They resolved to stop the manufacture and use of heroin for any purpose in the United States and to launch a worldwide campaign of prohibition to try to prevent its manufacture or use anywhere in the world. Within two months, their proposal had been passed into law with the unanimous backing of both houses of the US Congress. The war against drugs was born . . . The Swiss in 1997 reported on a three-year experiment in which they had prescribed heroin to 1,146 addicts in 18 locations. They found: "Individual health and social circumstances improved drastically . . . The improvements in physical health which occurred during treatment with heroin proved to be stable over the course of one and a half years and in some cases continued to increase . . . In the psychiatric area, depressive states in particular continued to regress, as well as anxiety states and delusional disorders . . . The mortality of untreated patients is markedly higher." They also reported dramatic improvements in the social stability of the addicts, including a steep fall in crime . . . There is room for debate about detail. Should we supply legalised drugs through GPs or specialist clinics or pharmacists? Should we continue to supply opiate substitutes, such as methadone, as well as heroin? Should the supply be entirely free of charge to guarantee the extinction of the black market? How would we use the hundreds of millions of pounds which would be released by the "peace dividend"? But, if we have any compassion for our drug users, if we have any intention of tackling the causes of crime, if we have any honesty left in our body politic, there is no longer any room for debate about the principle. Continue the war against drugs? Just say no. MORE

RAYMOND CUSHING, ALTERNET, May 31, 2000: The term medical marijuana took on dramatic new meaning when researchers in Madrid announced they had destroyed incurable brain tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis. The Madrid study marks only the second time that THC has been administered to tumor-bearing animals; the first was a Virginia investigation 26 years ago. In both studies, the THC shrank or destroyed tumors in a majority of the test subjects. Most Americans don't know anything about the Madrid discovery. Virtually no major U.S. newspapers carried the story, which ran only once on the AP and UPI news wires, on Feb. 29, 2000. The ominous part is that this isn't the first time scientists have discovered that THC shrinks tumors. In 1974 researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice -- lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia. The DEA quickly shut down the Virginia study and all further cannabis/tumor research, according to Jack Herer, who reports on the events in his book, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes." In 1976 President Gerald Ford put an end to all public cannabis research and granted exclusive research rights to major pharmaceutical companies, who set out -- unsuccessfully -- to develop synthetic forms of THC that would deliver all the medical benefits without the "high." . . . The news broke quietly on Feb. 29, 2000 with a story that ran once on the UPI wire about the Nature Medicine article. This writer stumbled on it through a link that appeared briefly on the Drudge Report web page. The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times all ignored the story, even though its newsworthiness is indisputable: a benign substance occurring in nature destroys deadly brain tumors. MORE

MARK STEYN, NATIONAL POST, CANADA: What most Britons, Australians, Western Europeans and even Canadians would regard as [incredible] is that 18-to-20-year-olds in America cannot legally buy a beer. So Jenna and Barbara are obliged to have "fake ID." To the average National Post reader, "fake ID" probably sounds fairly exotic - the sort of thing you see in thrillers, where the guy needs to get out of town in a hurry, meets a furtive-looking fellow down by the waterfront, hands over $10,000 in small bills, and says he'll need it by Thursday. But, in America, fake ID is now as common as, well, real ID. In college towns, getting a false driver's license is as easy as getting a haircut. If you're a manufacturer of small 2"-by-3" cards or you own a photo booth, you'll be able to retire on the swollen fake ID market. And the economic benefits don't stop there. Fake IDs have prompted the development of machines that can detect fake IDs. The shares of one such company, Intelli-Check Inc., went up 20% on the news of Jenna's latest run-in with the law. These developments are relatively recent. Until 1984, some states had a legal drinking age of 21, some of 18, and some had no restrictions at all. But then a lunatic control freak in the Federal Transportation Department decided she knew better than anyone the age at which people could drink. And, although she lacked the constitutional authority to legislate in this area, she had some financial muscle. She informed all 50 states that she would take away the federal government's highway funding from any jurisdiction that refused to raise the drinking age to 21. South Dakota went all the way to the Supreme Court, but the crazed regulatory megalomaniac won and took her legal team out to celebrate, presumably with Diet Coke. The maniac's name was Elizabeth Dole, and two years ago she resurfaced, as a Republican presidential candidate. On the stump, the helmet-haired Mrs. Dole conceded that she wasn't happy with the legal drinking age of 21 she'd forced on the nation. No, these days Nurse Ratched thinks it should be 24 . . . In Quebec, they have the same relaxed attitude to alcohol that distinguishes the Catholic countries of Continental Europe. You can drink at 18, the bars are open till 3 a.m., and the danseuses nués weigh under 250 lbs. The jurisdictions that have the least alcoholism are those where drinking is most socially acceptable and integrated into family life. In Quebec and France, they enjoy drinking. In England and Ireland, they enjoy getting drunk. In the U.S., they enjoy getting drunk on insane stigmatizatory regulation of alcohol. MORE

JERUSALEM POST: If your joints are going to pot, a hashish derivative may be your salvation. A doctoral student at the Hebrew University's School of Pharmacy in Jerusalem has discovered that a substance taken from the hallucinatory drug can be effective as an anti-inflammatory drug for rheumatoid arthritis. For her work with hashish as a therapeutic agent, Susanna Tchilibon - a 32-year-old immigrant from Milan - has been named a winner of one of this year's Kaye Prizes for Innovations and Inventions at the university. The prizes were awarded during the 64th meeting of the university's board of governors. Tchilibon said that hashish (cannabis), which is derived from the Indian hemp plant, has been used since ancient times for treating various ailments, such as malaria, constipation, and rheumatic pains. The plant has both psychoactive and non-psychoactive constituent elements. She investigated the metabolism of the major non-psychoactive material in cannabis, called cannabidiol, and found that an acid derived from CBD, code named HU-320, is a potent anti-inflammatory agent. HU-320 is comparable to the known drug indomethacin, but without the known and considerable gastrointestinal side effects caused by that drug. Tchilibon added that use of hashish or marijuana (another hemp plant derivative) has never been shown to cause those side effects. A patent based on her work has been registered via the university's Yissum Research Development Company.

JOHN DERBYSHIRE, NATIONAL REVIEW: The fuss over the Bush gals trying to buy booze with fake IDs has shed some interesting light on the current state of our morality . . . Consider the things we do let people do before age 21. We let them drive, vote, marry, enter into contracts, run up lines of credit, start businesses, buy shares, scuba dive, skydive, fight for their country, own firearms, declare themselves 'gay´ and have abortions without parental consent. In fact, we let them do anything at all. At age 18, Americans are adults . . . who may not buy a drink for three more years. . . . America's 200-year cultural war between, on the one hand, the thin-lipped, snooping, prohibiting, intolerant rooters-out of heresy and impurity that arrived on the Mayflower, and on the other hand the wild, fighting, drinking, smoking, shooting . . . Scotch-Irish of the frontier has at last been won, by the Puritans.

PHILIP J. HILTS, NY TIMES: A Wyoming jury has awarded $6.4 million to the family of a man who killed three relatives and himself after taking the antidepressant Paxil. Though many lawsuits have claimed that antidepressants in the same class of drugs, which includes Prozac and Zoloft, have caused suicidal or violent behavior, this is the first case a plaintiff has won, lawyers in the case said . . . The drugs have been shown to successfully treat depression and reduce the risk of suicide that comes with severe depression. The issue in lawsuits has been whether the drugs themselves or the illnesses they are meant to treat are to blame for patients' violent or suicidal behavior. The drug makers say that when a patient has become violent or suicidal, it has been because the illness has overcome the effect of the drug and the patient's natural inhibitions. But researchers who have testified in the cases have said that, even though the drugs are effective in most cases, in some patients the drugs cause agitation and violence . . . The family's lawyers, James E. Fitzgerald of Cheyenne and Andy Vickery of Houston, told the jury that the fault was not so much in the drug itself but in the company's failure to sufficiently warn doctors and patients that the effects of the drug could include agitation and violence. Mr. Vickery said in a telephone interview that in Germany, warnings are included on the packages of at least two drugs in this class, Prozac and Paxil. The Prozac package warns that the drugs could lead to suicide attempts. The Paxil package says a sedative should be taken with the drug. Those warnings are not on packages in the United States, but the insert for doctors says, under the heading "suicide," that "close supervision of high-risk patients should accompany initial drug therapy." MORE

NOTE: The catch with these drugs, some observers argue, is that while they are generally effective, in a small number of cases they can produce dangerous and destructive results. This story has particular importance since a number of widely publicized mass school killings involved youth who were on anti-depressant drugs. This aspect of the story, however, has been largely unnoted by major media.

NORML: Nevada legislators overwhelmingly approved legislation to dramatically reduce Nevada's toughest-in-the-nation marijuana law and authorize pot's medical use. Nevada's legislature is the first in 24 years to eliminate jail time and criminal records for minor marijuana offenders, and the ninth state since 1996 to legalize the use of medical marijuana under a doctor's supervision.

STANTON PEELE, RECONSIDER QUARTERLY: People who repeatedly abuse drugs or drink as a way of escaping or dealing with life's pressures do so because they can't cope. But why do we, in the land of the free, make the inability to productively cope with life a crime? Addiction is a way of coping with life, albeit a largely destructive way -- of artificially attaining feelings and rewards people feel they cannot achieve in any other way. As such, addiction, while not a crime, is no more a treatable medical problem than are unemployment, lack of coping skills, or degraded communities and despairing lives. The only remedy for addiction is for more people to have the resources, values, and environments necessary for living productive lives. More treatment will not win our badly misguided War on Drugs. Nor will imprisonment. These approaches only distract our attention from the real issues of addiction. That otherwise critical and skeptical drug reformers are accepting compulsory treatment plans, despite treatment's dismal success record, shows how much the therapeutic society has been oversold and how much its assumptions remain unexamined. We will not benefit from increased substance abuse treatment (over already record levels) in the American justice system. Unfortunately, we may need to experience even more negative consequences of our treatment fixation before we become convinced of this. Alternately, we may simply have lost the ability to discern that something called "therapy" can be so harmful. We might need to run seminars with Americans whose lives have been ruined by coerced 12-step treatment just as we need to present to Americans people whose lives have been ruined by drug laws -- to make clear the dangers of the therapeutic state.

WASHINGTON POST: Taking emergency action, the U.S. Sentencing Commission yesterday sharply increased the guideline penalties for selling the party drug ecstasy. Beginning May 1, the punishment for importing or selling the "hug drug" will be more severe than for peddling powder cocaine. The new sentencing guidelines to be followed by federal judges will roughly triple the likely prison term for sale of 200 grams of ecstasy -- about 800 pills -- from 15 months to five years. The penalty for sale of 8,000 pills will rise from 41 months to 120 months . . . A group of leading neuroscientists and drug policy specialists operating under the umbrella of the Federation of American Scientists this week criticized proposed sentencing guidelines as "grossly disproportionate" to the dangers presented by ecstasy. While stating that abuse of the drug poses risks, the group said there was "no justification" in terms of policy or pharmacology for an increase in punishment.

MORE http://washingtonpost.com

U.S. SENIOR DISTRICT JUDGE JOHN L. KANE: In order to deal successfully with drug abuse, this nation must abandon its failed policies and rhetoric of misinformation. We must permit the several states to resume their role as laboratories of democracy in which policies and programs suitable to their individual needs and conditions can be implemented. It is essential, not merely for the promulgation of a rational drug policy, but also for the restoration of a viable state of freedom. I suggest that federal drug law should be severely cut back. The importing of illegal drugs should continue to be a federal crime and the regulation of manufacturing drugs for distribution in interstate commerce should likewise be a federal concern, but the several states should regulate sales and decide what activities are criminal, such as selling or inducing minors to take drugs and which drugs, if any, should be prohibited. In sum, the policy should be to end the black market, end the free-booting financing of law enforcement by forfeiture and treat those drug and alcohol abusers who want to be treated. At the present time, our national drug policy is inconsistent with the nature of justice, abusive of the nature of authority and ignorant of the compelling force of forgiveness. Our drug laws, indeed, are more mocked than feared.

DRUG REFORM COORDINATION NETWORK: In "Youth, Drugs, and Resilience Education," a study published in the Spring 2001 issue of the Journal of Drug Education, Berkeley researcher Dr. Joel Brown concludes that the nation's school drug education programs are ineffective, but that programs such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education and Life Skills Training continue to garner funding because powerful special interest groups shape and distort the drug education agenda. The federal government spends $2 billion annually for research and program support, with total annual spending nationwide nearing $5 billion, Brown found. And it is a player with an ax to grind: Under the 1994 Safe and Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act, which turned "zero tolerance" into officially mandated abstinence-based or "no-use" drug education policy, alternative approaches were shut out and flaws in favorite programs such as DARE downplayed. The federal government isn't the only actor with vested interests, Brown found. The field of drug education is filled with exaggerated claims of effectiveness based on flawed research, as scientists who make those claims vie to develop potentially profitable programs. And, in the incestuous world of drug education research, the same small clique of researchers often sit on panels evaluating their own and their colleagues' work. MORE

http://www.drcnet.org/wol/187.html#cerdstudy

MAY 2001

MEDIA AWARENESS PROJECT: Of the 15 countries in the European Union, a total of seven do not punish personal consumption of any drug or only impose administrative fines. With regards to cannabis, tolerance is near complete: only Sweden, France, Finland and Greece maintain penalties. Some countries want to go even further and call for legal medical marijuana, as is the case with Catalonia. Nevertheless, almost every country maintains penalties for the sale of drugs. In Greece, the possession of small quantities of drugs (including cannabis) for personal use can result in between five days and five years in prison. Finland does not distinguish between personal use and possession, which can be punished by up to two years in prison. Likewise, in Sweden consumption or possession of cannabis is punishable by up to six months in jail. France is the least harsh of the four restrictive European Union countries. Although penalties remain on the books, a 1999 directive recommends that simple consumers not be prosecuted and that drug treatment be proposed instead.

In the rest of the European Union, and Switzerland, the path undertaken is that of decriminalized consumption. Some countries, like Spain and Italy, impose administrative fines. Others, like Great Britain, leave the door closed to opiates. And there are those, like Belgium and Luxembourg, that provide exemptions specifically for cannabis, making it the least penalized drug in the European Union . . . Ireland does not penalize consumption and possession is penalized with a fine. In Germany "insignificant quantities" are not prosecuted and amounts considered insignificant vary depending on the locality. In Denmark, possession of small quantities typically results in a warning. Austria also stipulates the amount of drugs allowed for personal use.

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE: Thousands of current and future college students who have been convicted of drug-related offenses - and admit it - are ineligible for federal tuition aid for at least one year under a 1998 law that is being fully implemented for the first time. The law is nearly impossible to adequately enforce, government and college officials say, and has produced an unlikely alliance of critics - groups such as the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators and the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws - who say it amounts to double punishment for drug offenses and unfairly penalizes low-income students . . . To have their eligibility reinstated, students must participate in a federally approved drug-rehabilitation program, which includes two surprise urine tests.

CRIMES COMMITTED WITH FIREARMS, until 1990 extremely rare in Great Britain, have increased by 40% between 1997 and 200: from 4,903 to 6,843. Most of these involve gangland battles for new or bigger slices of the drug market.

DRUG REFORM COORDINATION NETWORK: African-Americans make up only 8% of Seattle's population and only 6-7% of the city's drug-using population, but account for 57% of adult drug arrests. Seattle police arrest around 4,000 people on drug charges each year. Those are among the findings of a Harvard University School of Government study of 1999 drug arrests. The study pointed toward two key reasons for the racial disparity, both involving police tactics. First, the study said, police devote more resources to cracking down on low-level open-air drug markets, notably around Pike Place Market, than to outlying neighborhoods. Second, police have relied on "buy and bust" arrests that target sellers rather than the predominantly white drug buyers. From 1997 to 1999, 83% of heroin overdoses occurred among whites, and drug treatment providers told the study's authors that a majority of Seattle heroin users were white, yet in 1999, blacks accounted for 54% of all heroin arrests. "It's white guys in their 30s who are dying, but it's black guys who are going to jail," one drug treatment provider told the researchers.
HARVARD STUDY

MARK MACKINNON, GLOBE AND MAIL, CANADA: Justice Minister Anne McLellan said she is "quite open" to a debate on whether marijuana should be legalized, or at least decriminalized, in Canada. Speaking one day after MPs in her own party and others said they wanted to begin such a discussion, Ms. McLellan said it is "absolutely" time for Ottawa to consider whether some illegal "soft" drugs should continue to be banned. Her comments pushed the government closer than it has ever been to loosening the rules around possessing and using marijuana. The House of Commons has passed a unanimous motion to create a committee to examine the issue of non-medical drugs in Canada. Members of all five parties said they see the committee as a chance to raise the marijuana issue. MORE

NORML: Two of the world's leading medical journals have thrown their support behind amending North America's drug laws. Editors of the Canadian Medical Association Journal argue in their current issue that the recreational use of marijuana should no longer be a criminal offense. They say that the health and social risks posed by marijuana are minimal compared to the negative consequences of a criminal arrest and record, and urge Parliament to amend the law. They write: "The possession of small quantities [of marijuana] for personal use should be decriminalized. The minimal negative health effects of moderate use would be attested to by the 1.5 million Canadians who smoke marijuana for recreational purposes. The real harm is the legal and social fallout . . . A separate editorial appearing in the March 31 issue of The Lancet - the United Kingdom's top medical journal - further criticizes the futility of drug prohibition and America's present anti-drug strategies. Entitled "Rethinking America's 'War on Drugs' as a public health approach," editors call upon U.S. politicians to "redirect many of the resources currently used for law enforcement," and pursue harm reduction strategies such as expanded treatment for addicts. The editors write: "Since the 1970s, the USA has spent billions in a largely futile effort to stem the influx of drugs, imprisoned hundreds of thousands of men and women, many with long sentences for minor offenses, and poured billions into media and school-based education campaigns of questionable effectiveness. The alternative is to treat drug abuse as a public health problem. ... Study after study has shown that treatment and prevention help far more people at far less cost than do current measures. It is time for America to move beyond its moral crusade and adopt a public health approach to the problem of drug abuse, an approach that is likely to be much more successful and certainly more humane."

NORML: Medical marijuana dispensaries in northern California and elsewhere throughout the state remain open despite the Supreme Court ruling stating there exists no medical exemption for the manufacture and distribution of marijuana under federal law. According to the San Francisco Examiner, medical marijuana proprietors "reacted with a shrug ... and said they plan to continue holding regular hours until someone tells them otherwise." The Oakland Cannabis Buyer's Cooperative -- which was the sole defendant in the Supreme Court case -- also remains open as a patient resource center, but no longer distributes medicinal marijuana. California NORML Executive Director Dale Gieringer said it would be a "serious mistake" for the federal government to try and close the state's medical marijuana dispensaries. "The clubs provide a valuable service to their members and their communities," he said. "Not only do they provide countless thousands of patients with relief from otherwise intractable illnesses, but they also promote public safety by taking the marijuana traffic out of the hands of street dealers."

GREEN PARTY OFFICIALS blame the defeat of the "Medical Marijuana" issue by the Supreme Court on the Democratic Party and the Clinton - Gore administration that brought the issue to the court and pushed to shut down medical co-ops and support groups. "Clinton-Gore attacked the Buyers Cooperatives, which helped many cancer, AIDS and other patients and pushed the attack to the Supreme Court," Tim McKee, a member of the Green Party National Committee said. He added "Clinton, the leader who claimed "I didn't inhale" and Al Gore, who told Rolling Stone and MTV, that he smoke marijuana in college, courted the gay, cancer and AIDS community for votes, now have dealt this popular movement a great set back."

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR: Each day tens of thousands of trucks now pass into the US from Mexico - 5,000 through Laredo's checkpoints alone. The traffic, which has increased exponentially since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, has given smugglers a virtually unlimited number of ways to spirit narcotics into the US. A decade ago, critics predicted that NAFTA would lead to increased drug trafficking along the 1,100-mile border. Today, there's at least some evidence that they're right: Narcotics are pouring in. The US Customs Service, for instance, has tripled the amount of drugs it has seized since NAFTA became a reality in 1994. Even more dramatic, the US Border Patrol confiscated 352 percent more marijuana last year from trucks than it did in 1999. "Our seizures continue to go up, but that doesn't seem to be stopping or putting the hurt on [drug traffickers]," says John Smietana Jr., who oversees the Border Patrol's anti-smuggling unit in Laredo. "It just means a whole lot more dope is getting though. If we catch 10 percent of it, they see that as the price of doing business."

DREAD POT DECISION

NY TIMES: The ruling did not overturn the state initiatives or address any question of state law. Rather, the court ruled that marijuana's listing by Congress as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act meant that it "has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States." . . . The question before the Supreme Court today was a relatively narrow one: not the validity of the California initiative itself but of the federal courts' response to the government's request for an injunction . . . Given the narrowness of the question before the court, the decision today left a number of questions unanswered. Among these were the availability of a medical necessity defense to individual patients who grow or possess marijuana for their own use, as opposed to a mass distributor like the Oakland cooperative, as well as whether state governments could carry out their medical marijuana initiatives by going directly into the distribution business. Two states, Nevada and Maine, are considering such a system. Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Oregon and Washington, in addition to California, Nevada and Maine, have also passed medical marijuana initiatives in the last few years. Advocates for medical marijuana said that this campaign would continue, with many noting that nearly all marijuana prosecutions are handled at the state rather than federal level . . . When he was governor of Texas, President Bush said that he was personally opposed to legalizing marijuana for medical use but that states should have the right to decide for themselves. "I believe each state can choose that decision as they so choose," he said in October 1999, according to an article in The Dallas Morning News that Justice Stevens cited in his opinion.

MARIJUANA POLICY INSTITUTE: Nearly 99% of all marijuana arrests in the nation are made by state and local (not federal) officials. Thus, properly worded state laws can effectively protect 99 out of every 100 medical marijuana users who otherwise would have been arrested and prosecuted -- regardless of the Supreme Court's ruling in the Oakland case . . . Even though patients and distributors may be penalized for violating federal marijuana laws, states are not required to have laws that are identical to federal law, nor can the federal government require state law-enforcement officials to enforce federal laws.

JEFF TAYLOR, REASON: US drug laws are draconian and quirky, but still fairly predictable. France seems to fallen into outright buffoonery with the prosecution of pot activists for wearing a T-shirt with a pot leaf on it. Jean-Pierre Galland, president of the Cannabis Information and Research Collective, and Laurence Duffy, head of the campaign group's Lyon branch, each face a year in prison for violating article 630 of the French public health code. The law bans French citizens from "portraying in a favorable light and promoting or inciting the consumption of any product classed as a banned substance." REASON

APRIL 2001

NORML: America now spends twice as much money annually to combat illegal drugs as it spent fighting the Persian Gulf War, yet there is no evidence indicating that existing policies are either working or cost-effective, charge authors of a newly released study by the National Research Council. "It is unconscionable for this country to continue to carry out a public policy of this magnitude and cost without any way of knowing whether, and to what extent, it is having the desired result," said Charles Manski, chief author of the report, and a Board of Trustees Professor in Economics at Northwestern University. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy commissioned the study in 1998.

According to the report, drug enforcement activities -- which comprise the bulk of federal and state anti-drug efforts -- have grown exponentially since 1980. Authors note that there are now 12 times as many drug offenders in state prisons than there were in 1980, and that police arrest approximately 1.6 million Americans per year on drug charges, three times as many as they did 20 years ago. Government funding to pay for these activities has grown from 1.5 billion in 1980 to nearly 20 billion today. Nevertheless, "the nation is in no better position to evaluate the effectiveness of enforcement than it was 20 years ago, when the recent intensification of enforcement began," the report said.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY of five European cities finds Gronigen in the Netherlands with the lowest rate of drug use among those over 15 years, despite that country's more relaxed drug laws. In fact Newcastle and Dublin both showed 30% use while in Gronigen only 19% were using drugs. Other cities were Bremen (25%) and Rome (23%).

JASON VEST, ALTERNET: Almost immediately after the Peruvian Air Force shot up a Baptist-owned Cessna bearing nothing more intoxicating than missionaries, the United States -- whose Central Intelligence Agency provided Peru with the Cessna's intercept data -- moved quickly to put the bulk of the blame on the Peruvians. But even if it turns out that a CIA-employed aircrew was not as heroic in trying to stop the downing as "intelligence sources" have spun, the point is strangely moot; because according to U.S. law, no official of the American government can be held responsible for the errant shoot down of an aircraft suspected of drug smuggling in the Andes. REST OF THE STORY

PEW CENTER: Nearly three-quarters of Americans say we are losing the drug war, and just as many say that insatiable demand will perpetuate the nation's drug habit. Yet this deep sense of futility has not generated more momentum for alternative anti-drug strategies, like establishing more treatment programs for drug users or decriminalizing the use of some drugs. The public still gives higher priority to traditional get-tough approaches, such as interdicting drugs at the border and arresting dealers in this country, although declining numbers regard those tactics as effective . . . While some states have moved to roll back so-called mandatory minimum sentences for non-violent drug offenders, nearly as many people say this is a bad idea (45%) as think it is a good idea (47%). Interdiction continues to be seen as the most effective anti-drug policy, although like other such strategies, it is viewed as less fruitful than a decade ago. But the public is more compassionate than condemnatory when it comes to the users of illegal drugs, as opposed to those who profit from the drug trade. A majority of Americans (52%) believe that drug use should be treated as a disease, compared to 35% who favor treating it as a crime.

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Dutch authorities plan to open two drive-thru shops next year where ``drug tourists'' can legally buy marijuana and hashish. The officials in Venlo say they want to make it easier on Germans who flock to the southern Dutch border town for drugs by opening two coffee shops with drive-thrus selling drugs such as marijuana and hashish. They also want to keep the ``drug tourists'' from lingering in the Netherlands, where so-called soft drugs are legally sold in small quantities. Drug tourists draw street dealers selling illicit harder drugs, creating ``an environment that generally makes ordinary people feel unsafe,'' said Venlo spokeswoman Tamira Hankman.

DRUG REFORM COORDINATION NETWORK: People arrested on federal ecstasy charges will soon face more severe penalties than cocaine traffickers, the US Sentencing Commission decided. The commission acted at the direction of Congress, which last year passed an anti-ecstasy bill that called on the commission to set tough new standards. The commission's decision did not come for lack of effort by harm reduction activists, doctors, and scientists. "MDMA is less likely to cause violence than alcohol, less addictive than cocaine or tobacco, and less deadly than heroin," New York University psychiatrist Julie Holland told the commission. Holland, who works in Bellevue Hospital's psychiatric emergency room, added, "I see alcoholics and crack addicts every time I go to work. I do not see people whose lives have been ruined by MDMA. Not only are MDMA-related cases a small percentage of all drug-related emergency room visits," Holland testified, "but a large percentage of these cases are not life-threatening. The most common adverse effects from acute MDMA intoxication are anxiety or panic reactions."

MARCH 2001

NORML: Swiss government officials recently endorsed draft legislation that recommends police stop enforcing laws prohibiting the cultivation and sale of small amounts of marijuana. The move comes on the heels of a nationwide poll indicating that more than one-quarter of the population has used the drug, and that 54 percent favor liberalizing marijuana laws. "Decriminalizing the consumption of cannabis and the acts leading up to this takes account of social reality and unburdens police and the courts," lawmakers representing the seven-member Federal Council announced. Council members proposed the law change after consulting with the country's cantons, political parties, and export commissions, and finding strong support for softening Parliament's stance on marijuana. Officials stated that the proposed policy would also tolerate the creation of private establishments, similar to so-called Dutch coffee-shops, that would sell small amounts of marijuana. In recent years, several European nations - including Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain - have stopped enforcing criminal laws prohibiting the possession and use of marijuana. Last January, Belgium became the latest European country to decriminalize marijuana. German courts have also ruled that minor marijuana possession should not be a criminal offense, but federal legislators have yet to amend the law to reflect that sentiment.

NORM: For the second time in three years, the UK House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology is urging Parliament to hasten their efforts to legalize marijuana-based medications, and is demanding they exempt medical marijuana patients from criminal prosecution until such drugs are developed. "In the absence of a viable alternative medicine, ... we consider it undesirable to prosecute genuine therapeutic users of cannabis who possess or grow cannabis for their own use," committee members affirmed in a ten-page report released yesterday. "This unsatisfactory situation underlines the need to legalize cannabis preparations for therapeutic use" . . . THREE OUT OF FOUR AMERICANS believe we are losing the war on drugs and support changing federal law to allow physicians to prescribe medical marijuana, according to the findings of a nationwide poll released by the Pew Research Center. Though a majority of Americans voiced their discontent with present drug policy, most seemed reluctant to try alternative strategies such as abolishing mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders. However, a majority did support treating drug use as a health issue rather than as a criminal offense.

CYNTHIA COTTS, VILLAGE VOICE, DECEMBER 20: It's a libel action with all the elements of a political thriller. Two left-wing publishers use the Internet to accuse a powerful Mexican banker of pushing cocaine from his Caribbean beach front - and the banker hires Vernon Jordan's law firm to sue for libel in New York. Turning the tables, the defendants hire top First Amendment lawyers and prepare to put the drug war on trial in the media capital of the world . . . The Banamex lawsuit denies all the allegations, right down to the money laundering and the bribes, and says the drug "smear" has hurt the bank's ability to do business. "Banamex is one of the oldest, most respected, and largest banking institutions in Mexico, and the bank's chairman, Roberto Hernández, is a man of the highest moral character," says Thomas McLish, a lawyer with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, a powerful lobbying and law firm in the nation's capital. "The portrayal of Banamex and Hernández being involved in narcotics trafficking is utterly false and [the defendants] know it to be false." "Everything I have printed I know to be true and I have documented with the facts," says Al Giordano, publisher of The Narco News Bulletin, a Web site that covers the drug war in Latin America . . . Giordano has sought advice from Thomas Lesser, a Massachusetts lawyer who put the CIA on trial in 1987, in the course of defending Abbie Hoffman and Amy Carter on a campus protest charge. Lesser calls the Banamex suit a "heavy-handed attempt to silence criticism." No one on the defense team understands why Akin Gump brought this suit in New York, where the allegations are likely to attract more publicity. Says Garbus, "They're shooting themselves in the foot." . . . One more twist: The judge assigned to the case is Harold Baer, who was pilloried in 1996 when he threw out a car search in Washington Heights even though it had turned up 80 pounds of heroin and cocaine. Tom Lesser predicts, "it's going to be a long, interesting trial."

DRUG REFORM COORDINATION NETWORK: The war on drugs may be actually increasing, not decreasing, teen drug use. Or it could be having no impact at all. Such are the responses provoked by a study released by the European School Survey Project which compared drug use between American teenagers and European teenagers. It found that a much higher percentage of American teenagers consume illicit drugs than do their European counterparts.

The study was conducted by questioning tenth graders. 110,000 teens from Europe and the US participated in the questionnaire. One of the ironies of the drug war is that where it was been waged most loudly and enthusiastically is precisely the place where teen drug use is now most entrenched. Conversely where drug war rhetoric is comparatively mute, teen usage of illicit drugs is much lower. In the Netherlands, for example, which has the most liberal drug policy in Europe and where marijuana is effectively legal, marijuana use among teens is actually lower than in the United States. The survey found 28% of Dutch teens smoked marijuana as compared with 41% of American teens, and 23% of American teens had experimented with other illicit drugs as compared with only 6% of European teens.

But when it comes to legal drugs, such as cigarettes and alcohol, teen usage is much higher in Europe. Thirty-seven percent of European teens had smoked cigarettes in the past month as compared with only 26% of Americans. Sixty-one percent of European teens had consumed alcohol as compared with only 40% of Americans.

When asked about the disparity, Kevin Zeese of Common Sense for Drug Policy pointed to the lure of the forbidden as a major factor. "It is worth pointing out that the Dutch, when they made marijuana available for purchase, said one reason they were doing so was to 'make marijuana boring.' Our approach, making marijuana a forbidden fruit where the primary educators on the topic are DARE police officers, has the opposite effect. We make marijuana a magnet for the natural rebellious period of the teen years." But one drug policy analyst, Peter Cohen, a professor at the University of Amsterdam, disagrees. He told DRCNet that the study simply shows the drug policy has no effect on drug use. "All modern studies, if done in a way that allows some comparison at least, do not show a very convincing effect of drug policies at all."

FEBRUARY 2001

NORML: Data from the United States and abroad indicates that removing criminal penalties for marijuana possession will not lead to increased drug use, according to findings published by the British Journal of Psychiatry. "The available evidence suggests that ... removal of criminal prohibitions on cannabis possession (decriminalization) will not increase the prevalence of marijuana or any other illicit drug," authors found. Their study noted that a far greater percentage of Americans age 12 and older (33 percent) report having tried marijuana as do their Dutch counterparts (16 percent), despite the fact that open sale and possession of pot is permitted in the Netherlands. Dutch figures also indicated that decriminalization appears to have had "some success" separating pot from the hard drug market, thereby reducing the number of marijuana users who try other illicit drugs.

PROPONENTS of the student anti-drug education program DARE admitted that its current approach is ineffective at persuading graduates to resist experimenting with illicit drugs. The group announced that it will begin controlled studies this fall on a new DARE curriculum targeting older students. More than 30 studies have been conducted evaluating DARE, almost all of which have concluded that DARE graduates go on to use drugs at similar or higher rates than those students not exposed to the program. Recently, both the US Surgeon General and the National Academy of Sciences issued reports concluding DARE's approach is ineffective. Nevertheless, the program continues to be taught in nearly 80 percent of the nation's school districts, and receives over $230 million in federal and corporate funding . . . KATE ZERNIKE, NY TIMES: DARE - for Drug Abuse Resistance Education - has grown so rapidly since its founding 18 years ago that it is now taught in 75 percent of school districts nationwide and in 54 other countries. Police officers who teach the program have become central figures in the lives of elementary school students, and the program's red logo has taken on iconic status on T-shirts and bumper stickers in thousands of communities. . . . DARE has long dismissed criticism of its approach as flawed or the work of groups that favor decriminalization of drug use. But the body of research had grown to the point that the organization could no longer ignore it. In the past two months alone, both the surgeon general and the National Academy of Sciences have issued reports saying that DARE's approach is ineffective; several cities, most recently Salt Lake City, have stopped using the program . . . More than 30 studies have been conducted of the DARE program, and the two most frequently cited studies both reached the same conclusion: Any effect the program has in deterring drug use disappears as students enter senior year of high school or college . . . Dr. Zili Sloboda said that, as head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, she had been concerned that DARE was not a proven program. But, she and others emphasized, it is far from the only program that does not work - it has simply drawn the most criticism because it is the largest. NORML o NY TIMES

CHRIS SUELLENTROP, SLATE: New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, a Republican, has sent to the state legislature a bill that would decriminalize possession of 1 ounce of marijuana. The New York Times reported today that 10 other states have already done that: Alaska, California, Colorado, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Maine, Minnesota, Ohio, and Oregon . . . Decriminalization treats the possession of small amounts of marijuana (such as 1 ounce) as a civil, rather than a criminal, offense. Offenders are given a citation and fined, and their marijuana is confiscated. Possession of larger amounts is still a criminal offense because it implies an intent to sell. (The laws differ from state to state. Ohio, for example, decriminalizes possession of up to 100 grams, or 3.5 ounces. MARIJUANA LAWS BY STATE

THE RESULTS ARE IN:
WE LOST THE DRUG WAR

KATE ZERNIKE, NY TIMES: American teenagers are far more likely than their European peers to use marijuana and other illicit drugs, but European teenagers are more likely to smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol, according to a study of 31 nations . . . Among the European students, 37 percent had smoked at least one cigarette in the previous 30 days, compared with 26 percent in the United States. Sixty-one percent of the European 10th graders had consumed alcohol in the previous 30 days, compared with 40 percent of the students in the United States. Forty-one percent of 10th graders in the United States had tried marijuana, compared with 17 percent of those in Europe. And 23 percent of the students in the United States had used other illicit drugs, compared with 6 percent of Europeans. NY TIMES:

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Der Spiegel reports that a tenth of Switzerland admits to having used pot. The government wants to legalize it but the police say they fear "waves of drug tourism".

DRUG REFORM COORDINATION NETWORK: A new study published in the American Journal of Public Health has challenged the so-called "gateway theory" and suggests that people born after the 1960s are less likely than baby boomers to progress from using marijuana to hard drugs. The Substance Abuse Policy Research Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the study, which was led by Andrew Golub, Ph.D., of the National Development and Research Institute. "Our study shows that children born before World War II rarely ever progressed to hard substances, and those born since the early 1970s were only about half as likely to progress from marijuana to cocaine powder, crack or heroin, than those who were born in the 1960s," Golub said. "Most importantly, all indications are that the rate of progression to harder drugs may be continuing to decline even today." He continued, "A careful analysis of all of the data suggests that the gateway phenomenon characterized the drug use subculture of some baby boomers, but does not apply in the same manner to the generation that started using marijuana in the mid-1990s." . . .

ACCORDING TO FIGURES released by the New Jersey State Police, drug arrests on the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway have fallen dramatically since the state's racial profiling scandal blew wide open in the summer of 1998. That April, New Jersey state troopers wounded three young, unarmed black and Hispanic men in a stop on the New Jersey Turnpike, unleashing a storm of protest over discriminatory policing. In 1998, the last year of unfettered race-based traffic stops, state troopers filed 1,269 drug counts on the Turnpike and 1,279 on the Parkway. In 1999, as New Jersey arrest practices were scrutinized by the Department of Justice, those figures fell to 494 and 783, respectively, and declined even further last year, to 370 arrests on the Turnpike and 350 on the Parkway. In other words, there has been a two-thirds reduction in drug arrests on New Jersey highways since the state began to take action to halt racial profiling.

DRUG REFORM COORDINATION NETWORK

LENNY SAVINO, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER: The Drug Enforcement Administration touted the success of a 36-nation "major takedown" of drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Latin America last fall, reporting 2,876 arrests. A Knight Ridder investigation, however, found that the numbers were misrepresented and that hundreds of the reported arrests were not supported by evidence. Hundreds more were routine busts for marijuana possession, and some drug-eradication figures are double-counts of a State Department program to burn marijuana plants. And while the DEA said $30.2 million in criminal assets were seized during "Operation Libertador," $30 million of that was confiscated four weeks before the operation began. The DEA official who led the exercise - since promoted to head the DEA's international operations - acknowledges some discrepancies but says the international cooperation that Libertador promoted is what counts. If the DEA's official tallies are generally as unreliable as Libertador's, however, the public is likely either to overestimate the drug war's progress or grow cynical about the United States' very difficult multibillion-dollar drug enforcement enterprise. PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

JANUARY 2001

DRUG REFORM COORDINATION NETWORK: In a new tactic targeting the broader rave culture as well as the popular "club drug" Ecstasy (MDMA, a stimulant with mild hallucinogenic properties), federal prosecutors in New Orleans have indicted three men for organizing a series of raves where large amounts of the drug were allegedly consumed. The raves took place at New Orleans' State Palace theater over a five-year period beginning in 1995. The innovative bust comes as law enforcement officials, legislators, and newspapers nationwide are ratcheting up the noise level about the Ecstasy "menace." . . . That Ecstasy use has become increasingly popular is undeniable. The Drug Abuse Warning Network, which reports emergency room mentions for all sorts of drugs, shows Ecstasy mentions going through the roof, from 68 in 1993 to 2,200 last year. Law enforcement activity also suggests substantial growth in the Ecstasy trade. The DEA seized nearly a million Ecstasy tablets last year, seven times the previous year's number. But US Customs numbers dwarfed the DEA's: Customs seized nearly 10 million tablets in 2000, 3.5 million in 1999 and 750,000 in 1998 . . . US Attorney Eddie Jordan explained that "by definition" raves are parties designed to promote Ecstasy use or enhance the Ecstasy experience. Therefore, he threatened, anyone who uses the word "rave" to market an event could be subject to investigation. In an ominous sign for rave culture across the land, Jordan added that he has heard from other federal prosecutors who want to use the same tactic to "clamp down" on rave organizers in their districts. Local authorities from California to Florida to Illinois and beyond have used a variety of measures to attempt to restrict or ban the dances.

DRUG REFORM COORDINATION NETWORK Last October, DRC Net reported on the shooting death of elementary school student Alberto Sepulveda during a raid by the Modesto, California, SWAT team as it executed a federal search warrant in a methamphetamine trafficking investigation No drugs or guns were found, but the boy's father, Moises Sepulveda, was charged with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine. Now, after three separate investigations by Modesto police and the city attorney, Modesto police can say only that it was an accident. Investigations by the county attorney and the California attorney general, which could result in criminal charges against police shooter David Hawn, are pending. ORIGINAL STORY o DRC NET

STEPHN CASTLE, INDEPENDENT, LONDON: Belgium's cabinet has approved plans to legalise the use of cannabis, while resisting calls for a drugs regime as liberal as that of its neighbour, the Netherlands. After a hot debate, Belgium's coalition government agreed on a compromise making it legal to grow or smoke cannabis, but not to buy or sell it. Smoking openly in the Grand Place of Brussels or other public places will still leave Belgians open to possible prosecution under laws to prevent "social nuisances," commonly used for those who urinate flagrantly in public (doing so discreetly is not considered a crime). The curious Belgian compromise over the weed has some logic, even for a country which says it wants to reduce drug use. Surveys shows that as many as 40 per cent of the country's 10 million population has experience of cannabis and, with the Dutch border, an hour away for most of the population, some liberalisation seems inevitable. At present, possession of any cannabis is technically punishable by a prison sentence. Paul Geerts, a spokesman for the Consumer Affairs and Health Ministry, said that plans to allow Dutch-style cafes, where cannabis is legally available, had been judged to "go too far". For people who want to obtain it there were two alternatives, he said: "You can grow it yourself or most people in Belgium know where you can buy it in the Netherlands".

DEVLIN BARRETT, NY POST: Hundreds of yuppie cokeheads snared by a sting - including doctors, lawyers and professors - are getting off because prosecutors say they're "genteel users" who can manage their habits, sources told The Post. "The attitude seems to be, these are not snot-dripping junkies on someone's doorstep, these people are more acceptable, so [federal prosecutors] are uncomfortable locking them up," said a source familiar with the decision. Law-enforcement sources say US Attorney Mary Jo White has chosen not to prosecute any of the white-collar powder purchasers caught in a massive home-delivery cocaine sting nearly a year ago. Sources have estimated the number of buyers between several hundred and 2,000-plus. More than a half-dozen dealers have been busted, and most have pleaded guilty in the case. But no buyers have been charged . . . Investigators found that the ring took phone orders for cocaine that drivers would deliver to customers - many of them at Wall Street banks, white-shoe law firms and swank Manhattan addresses, according to court documents. Sources say that since the dealers' arrests, many of the buyers have hired lawyers who have bombarded officials with phone calls, insisting their clients not be charged in the case. NY POST

NORML: The current "war on drugs" is a failure and current drug laws should focus on prevention, as opposed to incarceration. That was the conclusion of New Mexico's Drug Policy Advisory Group as they presented their findings to Governor Gary Johnson. The advisory group, appointed by the governor last May, called for the end of criminal sanctions for the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana by anyone over 18 years old. Those who smoke marijuana in public would still face a civil fine . . . The committee also endorsed the medical use of marijuana, by seriously ill patients.

JEFF PORTER, ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE: Although President Clinton says a little marijuana shouldn't be a crime, arrests for marijuana possession have more than doubled during his administration. Meanwhile, the latest numbers show, fewer drug dealers are being busted. "I think that most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in most places, and should be," Clinton told Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner last November. Nevertheless, during his administration, the war on drugs has turned its focus to marijuana -- both nationally and in Arkansas. And a White House spokesman said Friday that Clinton does not support the decriminalization of marijuana . . . In 1992, the year before Clinton became president, nearly one in three drug arrests was for manufacturing or selling illicit drugs. Today, fewer than one in five is, according to Justice Department statistics. However, arrests for marijuana possession have soared from 271,900 in 1992 to 620,500 in 1999, a 128 percent increase. Today, 40 percent of all drug arrests are for possession of marijuana . . . It is not because there are more smokers. According to federal government statistics, marijuana usage has risen just 15 percent since 1992 -- barely more than the overall population increase.

NORML: The National Institute of Drug Abuse will provide 3,600 marijuana cigarettes to 60 AIDS patients in California's San Mateo County for a study on the effectiveness of AIDS-related pain in the extremities. San Mateo County will be the first local government in the country to distribute marijuana for a medical study. The county will distribute the marijuana through public health clinics. NORML

DRUG REFORM COORDINATION NETWORK: In Midtown Manhattan in November, [NYC Mayor Giuliani] caught a whiff of marijuana smoke on the street as he left a political ceremony. "I was walking out of the speech that I gave and I smelled marijuana," he told reporters. "I turned around and these guys took off, and my detail couldn't catch them," he added. Unable to nail the perps, Mayor Giuliani extended his wrath to all their compatriots. "You do not get to smoke marijuana. If you do, we're going to arrest you," came the edict. And so begins the latest version of the crime-fighting mayor's "quality of life" campaign, which has previously targeted the infamous "squeegee men," the homeless, and all manner of minor offenders, from prostitutes and panhandlers to drug users and graffiti artists. Not that the war wasn't already underway. By the time the mayor smelled smoke in Midtown, his minions had already arrested more than 50,000 marijuana smokers. By the end of November (the latest figures available), that number had climbed to 59,945, including 19 people at a memorial for John Lennon and eight members of an East Village medical marijuana co-op. That's up from 43,122 during the same period last year, a 39% increase. In 1992, New York police arrested 720 aficionados of the weed.

DECEMBER 2000

US AT ODDS WITH ALLIES
OVER DRUG WAR

ROB EVANS & DAVID HENCKE, GUARDIAN, LONDON: American diplomats privately accused world leaders of being "tepid" in their support for the so-called war against drugs, according to a US presidential briefing paper obtained by the Guardian. The internal document reveals how Washington sought to rally leading governments behind an audacious UN plan to halt drug abuse. The long-running US-led "war against drugs" has often been criticized by skeptical governments and other critics as a mission doomed to fail and a waste of money.GUARDIAN

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GREG PIERCE, WASHINGTON TIMES: New York Gov. George Pataki used his seventh annual State of the State address to urge legislation to dramatically reform the state's tough Rockefeller drug laws. The laws, enacted in the 1970s during the administration of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, are among the harshest in the nation and can require life terms for even the possession of relatively small amounts of narcotics. "However well-intentioned, key aspects of those laws are out of step with both the times and the complexities of drug addiction," the Republican governor said . . . He said he would provide details in the coming weeks.WASHINGTON TIMES

JEEVAN VASAGAR, GUARDIAN, LONDON: When suspicious customs officials dismantled a wooden monkey statue to discover 666 Grammies of cannabis inside, the quantity alone should have been enough of a warning. Their delight turned to terror when the monkey's owner - a witch doctor from Ghana - was arrested and promptly put a curse on the inanimate beast against which their rubber gloves were no protection. Soon the "devil monkey", as it was swiftly dubbed, had been blamed for scores of injuries at work. Customs officials were wounded by splinters, tripped over it or had the figure fall on them from shelves . . . The cautionary tale emerged as customs officers yesterday revealed some of the more bizarre tricks in the smuggler's repertoire. Filling condoms with drugs and then hiding them on the body is a favorite tactic; in one recent case a man who was stopped in his car in the Channel tunnel was jailed for seven years after an x-ray revealed 117 condoms inside his stomach.GUARDIAN

NORML: From a high rate of usage in 1979, the [marijuana] use rates fell steadily throughout the '80s until they bottomed out in approximately 1991. Then they began to rise yet again. Daily use of marijuana/hashish among twelfth graders tripled from 1991 to 2000, while annual use nearly doubled. FULL REPORT

WILSON WORLD: The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation has taken charge of the investigation dealing with the death of 62-year old John Adams by officers of the Lebanon Police Department. According to published and broadcast reports, officers of the Lebanon Police Department apparently were attempting to serve an arrest warrant at the home of a suspected drug dealer -- but entered the Adams home by mistake. Mr. Adams reportedly was in the process of defending his home against what he suspected was a home invasion with a blast from his shotgun. The officers, Kyle Shedron and Greg Day, reportedly returned fire -- fatally wounding the man. Jones was transported to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, but died from his wounds. The officers are on paid administrative leave while the investigation continues. LPD Chief of Police Weeks said, "Our sympathies go out to the family. It's an awful tragedy. We take full responsibility for our actions. I'm sorry for the family." Funeral services for Mr. Adams were held Sunday afternoon at the J.C. Hellums Funeral Home with burial at the Wilson County Memorial Gardens.