Some medical marijuana activists, including Prop. 215 proponent Dennis Peron, are opposed to the Vasconcellos bill because they fear that the state-appointed task force will not look favorably on medical marijuana buyers' clubs.

Ultimately, the fate of S.B. 535 will depend on Gov. Wilson. Wilson has warned that he still has "serious concerns about the use of marijuana for medical purposes."

NIH Panel Wants Study Of Marijuana Use

BETHESDA, MD - A lack of scientific studies, not an abundance of legal problems, is preventing widespread medical use of marijuana, a banned drug that may ease the suffering of some patients, the chairman of a panel of experts says.

Dr. William T. Beaver, professor of pharmacology at Georgetown University School of Medicine, said a committee of experts assembled by the National Institutes of Health believes there are suggestions that smoking marijuana may benefit some seriously ill patients. But the committee says more study is needed before the drug's medical value is confirmed.

Legal considerations, such as a Clinton administration threat to penalize doctors who prescribe the illegal drug, was not part of the committee's evaluation of marijuana, Beaver told reporters Thursday on the final day of the committee's meetings.

"Pot Debate Stimulates Appetite For Data"

In 1975, Harvard researchers found that marijuana's active ingredient reduced the terrible nausea and vomiting that some cancer patients get from chemotherapy.

They published their conclusion in the nation's best-known medical journal, the New England Journal of Medicine. And the researchers involved still have confidence in their work. "I'm very comfortable with our conclusions," said Dr. Emil Frei, professor of medicine at Harvard. "I think they were correct."

But more than 20 years later, that study and others have faded from memory, or been discounted, as the debate over using marijuana as medicine has grown ever more shrill. The federal "war on drugs" policy has, by some accounts, turned into a "war on doctors" in California, with federal drug agents questioning at least one physician who recommended medical marijuana under California's new law.

"This has been such a long and festering national argument," said Dr. William T. Beaver, professor of pharmacology at Georgetown University and chairman of a national panel that met last week on the issue.

Last week's panel, convened by the National Institutes of Health, is likely to recommend that more studies be done on whether marijuana is truly medicinal. Beaver said that's the only way to resolve the bitter conflict. "Certainly if nothing is done, you're going to have the ongoing stalemate you have now," he said.

The stakes have risen since voters in California and Arizona passed laws legalizing medical marijuana - laws that contradict the federal ban on possessing marijuana for any reason. Doctors and patients are caught in the middle of the conflict, fearing the state laws won't protect them from federal punishment.

Activists say that there's plenty of scientific evidence, such as the 1975 Harvard study, to justify the medical use of marijuana. So why convene a panel of scientists to contemplate doing more studies that would delay resolution of the issue for at least a few more years?

That's because the studies done so far are few and small, according to Beaver and other scientists on the panel. Nor are there many formal studies yet of marijuana's use for newer medical problems, such as the wasting syndrome from AIDS, which some doctors say may be the most pressing need.

Nevertheless, the studies already done point out what potential and pitfalls there may be to using marijuana as medicine. Here's a summary of much of the research done to this point:

Chemotherapy nausea

Some disagree with study showing positive benefits

The 1975 Harvard study found that 80 percent of the patients given capsules of marijuana's active ingredient, called THC for tetrahydrocannabinol, cut their nausea and vomiting at least in half. None of those given a "dummy" pill, or placebo, felt any relief.

Although the study used THC capsules rather than marijuana cigarettes, the author says there is evidence that smoking may be better. "It is true you can control the blood level with smoking much more accurately than with THC," said Frei, the Harvard researcher who also serves as physician in chief at Dana Farber Cancer Center in Boston.

But for every scientist like Frei who supports marijuana as medicine, there is another equally adamant that the drug's medical value is questionable. Richard Gralla, a member of the NIH panel and director of the Ochsner Cancer Institute in New Orleans, for example, believes there are newer drugs more effective than marijuana at easing nausea caused by cancer chemotherapy. Although some patients prefer pot, he said, "the degree of efficacy seems less than that of other agents."

But the newer anti-nausea drugs may not work for all patients, such as those so sick they cannot swallow anything. "Maybe marijuana would only add something in a subgroup of patients," Beaver said. If studies found this to be true, he said, "then you would have a potentially useful therapy."

Glaucoma

Long-term smoking raises worries

Glaucoma, the second leading cause of blindness, occurs when inner eye pressure increases to the point that it damages the optic nerve. Several studies in animals and humans have shown that smoked marijuana lowers eye pressure quickly and sharply. One 1976 study at the University of California-Los Angeles found smoked marijuana caused an "impressive" decrease in eye pressure in 10 of 12 glaucoma patients.

But unlike nausea caused by chemotherapy, glaucoma is a long-term condition. That suggests that treating it with marijuana would require frequent and long-term smoking.

"Somebody with glaucoma might wind up having to take this stuff several times a day for decades," Beaver said.

That raises the question of long-term effects of substantial marijuana smoking. Some studies have shown that smoking marijuana damages lungs.

"It's as bad as a conventional cigarette," said Beaver. "You get all those tars and carbon monoxide and products of burning weeds."

While short-term marijuana smoking might not produce much damage, long-term use could have substantially harmful effects, he said.

Neurological problems

Conflicting reports about reducing spasms

Some patients have reported that smoking marijuana prevents or lessens spasms caused by spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis or epilepsy. But the reports are scattered and inconsistent.

One 1974 report from a Veterans Administration hospital in Florida found that five of 10 men with spinal cord injuries had a decrease in muscle spasms after smoking marijuana. A 1981 New York study of nine multiple sclerosis patients showed that four showed large improvements in muscle-spasm scores after taking THC capsules. And a 1975 report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found one epileptic patient was able to control his seizures by smoking marijuana.

Marijuana might be useful in these neurological cases because it acts quickly and can be used sporadically as needed, Beaver said.

"The spasms can be very distressing," Beaver said. "But people don't have them all the time. If you have something that can be used on an as-needed basis that might act quickly," he said, "that might be attractive."

But he added, "There isn't really any solid data there."

AIDS wasting

Smoking may work faster than pills

One of the devastating effects of AIDS is a wasting syndrome where patients grow gaunt and weak from weight loss. A few reports have shown that THC capsules stimulate appetite in such AIDS patients, said Kathleen Mulligan, a researcher at the University of California-San Francisco. But the patients didn't gain enough weight to show a statistically significant effect.

AIDS activists insist that smoking marijuana is far more effective than taking THC pills. Beaver said that's plausible but not proven.

The pills deliver THC to the digestive tract. "Maybe only 5 to 10 percent of the drug you swallow gets into the blood stream," Beaver said. "And it's erratic. One person can get a fair amount and the other doesn't get much at all."

Smoking also delivers a variable amount of THC to the body, but it's more direct and faster-acting. The THC goes through the lungs to the bloodstream and through the heart to the brain.

"It's more like getting an intravenous injection when you smoke it," Beaver said.

But smoking marijuana could also have some side effects particularly serious for AIDS patients, he said. AIDS makes some people vulnerable to a rare kind of pneumonia that can be fatal.

If marijuana smoking damages lungs in the same way as tobacco cigarettes, that could make AIDS patients even more susceptible to the pneumonia.

The future

Ongoing quest for more data

Other questions surround the use of medical marijuana, such as whether some patients might be frightened or uncomfortable with the euphoric effects of the drug. Some studies suggest it can increase heart rate, which could be risky in some patients.

But Beaver said the only way to sort out marijuana benefits and risks would be to do careful studies looking at both.

"We really have no idea how many people in the U.S. are using self-administered marijuana for various medical problems," Beaver said. "It might be that half or a quarter of people get a useful response. . . . But then again, maybe it's only one in 50 patients."

"That's why we want to get some well-controlled studies."

The NIH scientific panel's mission was to consider the scientific merits of medical marijuana - not the political ones.

Objections from law enforcement groups that allowing the medical use of marijuana would encourage recreational abuse weren't considered, Beaver said. He added that he doesn't believe such arguments.

"We use morphine for people with advanced cancer," Beaver said. "That does not encourage people to shoot up morphine for the fun of it."

"Prop. 215 Leads To Boom In Indoor Cultivation Of Pot"

The passage of Proposition 215 - the "medical marijuana" initiative - has suddenly fueled a Bay Area boom in the indoor cultivation of high-grade pot.

Dennis Peron, the director of the Cannabis Cultivators Club, San Francisco's largest medical marijuana outlet, said the price for top-quality "buds," or flowers, has dropped steadily since the initiative was implemented in January.

"We used to have to charge our clients $80 for an eighth-ounce of the highest grade marijuana," said Peron. "But a few weeks after 215 went into effect, the price dropped to $65 an eighth. Now it's $60, and I believe it will be $50 within two months."

Peron said the reason for the price depreciation is simple: more marijuana on the market, a result of zealous indoor cultivation.

"People aren't afraid to grow anymore, especially for a medical marijuana outlet," he said. "They now have some legal protection."

Intensively managed indoor plots can yield a lot of pot. Ed Rosenthal, an East Bay writer and publisher who has produced several books on marijuana cultivation, said one square foot of space can yield 1.5 ounces of cured, high-grade marijuana every 75 days.

Joe Doane, the chief of the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, agrees that the pot supply is up.

"When you see marijuana prices drop, it is usually due to an expansion of supply," said Doane. "Since the outdoor cultivation season has not begun, we can as sume the situation we're now seeing is due to increased imports or expanded indoor cultivation - probably both."

San Francisco's marijuana cultivators say that both imported marijuana and indoor domestic product are driving prices down.

"A lot of high-grade indoor bud is coming from Canada," said John Hudson, the director of Flower Therapy, a San Francisco medical marijuana outlet that serves about 900 clients. "You can buy a pound of prime bud for about $1,800 (U.S.) dollars up there," he said.

In the United States, marijuana of similar quality goes for between $3,000 and $6,000 a pound.

But Hudson said domestic indoor cultivation is also booming, serving to further depress prices.

He should know. Flower Therapy doesn't just distribute marijuana to its patients - the firm also grows it. Hudson is something of a marijuana maven who has been studying the craft of indoor pot cultivation for a decade.

"I'm fairly good at it," he observed. "I've won the Cannabis Cultivators Cup two times." The cup is awarded annually by a group of some 20 Bay Area marijuana growers who stage an informal (and necessarily clandestine) smoke-off to determine the producer of the best locally-grown indoor pot.

Hudson currently grows about 250 plants at his headquarters, ranging from tender seedlings to gnarled, bud-laden specimens that look like bonsai trees. The air in the growing rooms is redolent with the pungent aroma of fresh marijuana.

These aren't just any old pot plants. For years, Hudson has selected "scions," or cuttings, from plants that have demonstrated potent psychotropic properties.

The seedlings are identified with proprietary names, much in the style of roses or fruit trees: Bubble Berry, Shiva and Quicksilver.

Once a scion is cut from a parent plant, it is rooted, or induced to grow roots. It then matures in a special hydroponic solution, stimulated by special grow lights.

Once the plant has reached sufficient size, the photoperiod - or number of hours under the lights - is reduced, encouraging the production of the much-esteemed flowers.

Hudson said he is not worried about being busted.

"This marijuana is strictly for sick people," he said. "We're extremely rigorous about documenting physician recommendations for clients (as required by Proposition 215), and the new (medical marijuana) guidelines issued by the San Francisco health department makes me optimistic that the city is on the side of the doctors and patients."

For now, at least, the boom appears likely to continue.

"A reliable gauge of the pressure on the nation's cultivators is the ad count in High Times Magazine (a publication devoted to marijuana and other illegal drugs)," said Allen St. Pierre, the deputy director of the Washington, D.C.- based National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

"When you don't see many ads for grow lights and other equipment, the pressure is high," St. Pierre said. "When you see a lot of ads, the pressure is low. Right now, the magazine is full of ads."

"US Drug-Policy Pendulum Swings To Youth Education"

California Man Loses Job For Using Medical Marijuana

"Reefer Madness -
Why The Clinton Administration Is Terrified By Medical Marijuana"

California and Arizona voters gave substantial majorities to the proposition that sick people ought to be allowed to use marijuana (and, in Arizona, other illegal drugs) if it might ease their suffering, the reaction in Washington was predictable: utter horror. Propositions 215 and 200 struck not only at the heart of drug war propaganda but also at the most sensitive assumptions underlying the regulatory state.

For drug warriors, Propositions 215 and 200 are terrifying because these laws recognize that marijuana is not especially dangerous. "We have a problem," said Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala at the Clinton administration's anti-initiative press conference. "Increasing numbers of Americans believe that marijuana is not harmful." Indeed.

Like the once-common insistence that steroids do not help athletes bulk up, the oft-repeated lie that marijuana is some kind of deadly poison leads people - especially young people - to suspect all suggestions that drugs may be dangerous. It's hardly surprising that drug use has turned up among the most propagandized generation in history, or that almost all the upswing is accounted for by casual pot smoking. You don't have to smoke marijuana yourself, or even have a very wide circle of friends, to find plenty of anecdotal evidence that the drug is neither particularly hazardous to health nor the gateway to drug-abuse hell. If she doubts this commonsensical observation, Shalala could ask the president or vice president, among numerous other administration officials with marijuana smoking in their past. Or she could consult mountains of scientific research, much of it aimed at proving the dangers of dope.

As Lester Grinspoon and James B. Bakalar wrote in a 1995 editorial in The Journal of the American Medical Association: "One of marihuana's greatest advantages as a medicine is its remarkable safety. It has little effect on major physiological functions. There is no known case of a lethal overdose; on the basis of animal models, the ratio of lethal to effective dose is estimated as 40,000 to 1....It is true that we do not have studies controlled according to the standards required by the FDA - chiefly because legal, bureaucratic, and financial obstacles are constantly put in the way. The situation is ironical, since so much research has been done on marihuana, often in unsuccessful attempts to prove its dangerous and addictive character, that we know more about it than about most prescription drugs." (This and related articles are available at The Lindesmith Organization.)

Just as anti-gay conservatives are far more threatened by stable, bourgeois same-sex couples (who want to get married!) than by anonymous bathhouse sex or exhibitionists parading in leather jock straps, nothing would undermine the official line on drugs more than lots of respectable, otherwise law-abiding people admitting that they smoke marijuana without ruining their lives. Very few responsible recreational users, however, are likely to risk the legal consequences of coming out of the closet.

The medical marijuana initiatives bypass that problem. They introduce a prospect even more threatening to the status quo: What kind of mean-spirited person, after all, would deny sick people relief? As Jim Christie reported in REASON, even Pat Buchanan sympathizes with patients who need pot, as did Newt Gingrich back in 1981. Yet if thousands - or even hundreds - of average Americans suddenly start admitting in public that they smoke marijuana to relieve various illnesses, the demonization of the drug can't be sustained.

The Clinton administration is trying mightily not to appear to be attacking physicians. When asked about what they planned to do to deter doctors from recommending marijuana, Shalala and her law-enforcement colleagues - Attorney General Janet Reno and drug czar Barry McCaffrey - dodged desperately. "This isn't about physicians," said Shalala. "This is about truck drivers. It's about workers in federal buildings. It's about teachers." In other words, it's about doctors and their patients.

And the administration is quite assuredly threatening doctors. "We are going to take very, very serious action against them," Drug Enforcement Administration head Thomas Constantine told The New York Times. Reno, meanwhile, urges local authorities to "make arrests and prosecute." Remember, too, that what's at stake is merely recommending marijuana - free speech, in other words, between physicians and patients. The administration that began its first term by repealing the so-called gag rule prohibiting federally funded clinics from advising patients about abortions is starting its second by trying to impose a gag rule in cases where federal money isn't even involved.

In their attempts to manipulate the public by misusing the language, administration officials have decided to wrap themselves in science. Instead of defending the criminal law - which, for the most part, doesn't even fall under their jurisdiction - they are relying on pharmaceutical regulation to save them.

"We have a consensus in this country and national law that establishes a standard for drugs that are used in California and in New York. The NIH and the FDA are the core of that approval process," said Shalala at the December 30 press conference. "If it starts falling apart and every state legislature can suddenly approve a drug - not based on any scientific fact - we are undermining the basic health and scientific standard by which this country has established the most extraordinary quality of health care....What's at stake are our youngsters, but just as important, the scientific base for our entire health care system."

This statement was designed to confuse both the journalists in the room and the public at large. For starters, the National Institutes of Health ordinarily have no role in approving drugs. They fund biomedical research, some of which leads to new pharmaceuticals. Most new drugs come not from the government but from private companies, entities that apparently don't exist in Shalala's mental universe. Nor is it clear that U.S. pharmaceutical innovation - much less the "entire health care system," which includes unregulated and highly innovative and successful medical procedures - depends on the FDA.

Second, not all biologically active substances fall under Shalala's precious approval process. Some "medicines" are not pharmaceuticals but folk wisdom, often eventually backed by experimental science. If I tell you to put ice or cold water on a burn or eat chicken soup and drink hot tea for a cold, I do not need FDA approval. More analogous - given the product's ordinary use - is the old, and in my experience highly effective, Southern folk remedy of putting a paste of tobacco on bee stings. Suggesting that a plant might relieve your symptoms is not the same as prescribing a commercial pharmaceutical. If marijuana had never been made illegal, using it medically as well as recreationally might require no more FDA approval than drinking herbal tea. And since marijuana isn't patentable, no pharmaceutical company would invest in FDA testing, even if it were legal.

Since it isn't legal, Shalala's "approval process" is not just the FDA's normal hoops - as bad as they are. While there is little doubt that smoking marijuana can relieve glaucoma, chemotherapy-induced nausea, and AIDS-related wasting, it would indeed be nice to have more solid scientific research on the subject. But it's essentially impossible to do efficacy testing on a substance whose very possession is a crime.

That's where the NIH comes in. You can't just, as a scientific matter, decide to investigate whether marijuana might relieve nausea or migraines. If you want to do your research legally, the DEA and National Institute on Drug Abuse will have to approve - and recent history suggests they won't. (Plus, researching the possible medicinal benefits of evil, illicit, politically incorrect substances is not exactly the way to win friends, grants, or tenure.) As a result, there are no ongoing studies. That Shalala, McCaffrey, and Janet Reno spent a press conference pretending otherwise just shows the Clinton administration's endless ability to twist the facts to suit its political spin.

The Arizona and California propositions don't just subvert the drug war by threatening to expose its propaganda. They attack the favorite argument for big, technocratic government: "health and safety." They dare to suggest that health is, for the most part, an individual, private matter; that safety depends on how each person weighs relative dangers; and that knowledge about both is not the sole possession of centralized bureaucrats. The initiatives explode the most beloved premises of paternalistic Progressivism. No wonder the Clintonistas are going crazy. This isn't a battle they can afford to lose.

Washington Prison-Guard Cartel Sacrifices One Of Its Own

"Troops Sent To Replace Northern Baja's Police"

"Fallout From Mexican Drug Scandal Hits U.S."

MEXICO CITY - The day after he met his tough new Mexican counterpart here last December, President Clinton's top counter-narcotics official, Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, offered effusive praise.

"This is a deadly serious guy," McCaffrey, himself a retired four-star general, said of the Mexican army general who had just taken over all federal drug enforcement here.

Gen. Jose de Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, McCaffrey told several U.S. reporters over breakfast at his Mexico City hotel that day, was a hard-nosed field commander of the "highest integrity" who clearly was committed to cooperating with the United States in battling Mexico's powerful drug cartels.

In the weeks that followed, Gutierrez reportedly was privy to a wealth of data on counter-narcotics operations. Hosted by McCaffrey and the United States' top drug enforcement agencies in Washington as recently as three weeks ago, Gutierrez was briefed on the inner workings of the United States' anti-drug efforts and the intricacies of the joint U.S.-Mexican drug war - part of a new era of cooperation and intelligence-sharing. On Thursday, though, Gutierrez - chief of Mexico's anti-drug effort until he was fired Tuesday - was in maximum-security federal prison here, accused of collaborating for years with Mexico's biggest narcotics-smuggling cartel.

U.S. intelligence agencies were feverishly assessing the damage and whether it would jeopardize future cooperation with Mexico on the drug front.

"It's a very serious revelation and deeply troubling," Clinton acknowledged in Washington on Thursday when asked about the general's arrest.

However, Clinton praised Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo for taking bold and swift action against Gutierrez.

At the same time, though, administration officials acknowledged that the Mexican general's arrest also raised questions about the competence of U.S. intelligence forces, given that Tuesday's announcement in Mexico City that Gutierrez was allegedly collaborating with drug traffickers appeared to have taken Washington by surprise.

"The question is being asked," said Eric Rubin, spokesman for the White House National Security Council. "It's one thing not to know he was corrupt, but it's another thing not to even know that he had been [under investigation] for two weeks."

For Mexico, the damage clearly was greater.

As head of the National Institute to Combat Drugs - Mexico's equivalent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration - Gutierrez had access to all top-secret efforts by the Mexican government to combat drugs.

Officials said Thursday they believe that he may have warned Mexico's top suspected drug lord that agents were going to raid his sister's wedding in Sinaloa last month. That military operation was seen as a failure, and the suspect is now the target of a renewed manhunt.

And Gutierrez's arrest has left Mexico's counter-drug war in apparent disarray. Human rights officials in Guadalajara, where Gutierrez was military commander for seven years, said Thursday that at least 20 state and federal drug agents there had been reported missing in the scandal's aftermath.

But for academics, independent analysts and some U.S. law enforcement officials, the latest scandal goes beyond illustrating how drug corruption has penetrated the highest levels of Mexico's institutions. They say it underscores how neither the U.S. nor Mexican government can seem to stay ahead of the Mexican drug mafias, which reap billions of dollars by supplying up to 75% of the cocaine sold in the United States. And inside information on the cartels has always been a weak link in the war on drugs.

Just two weeks before Clinton is required to decide whether to certify Mexico's cooperation in counter-narcotics efforts - a move with far-reaching economic and political implications - the scandal also calls into question the strategies of both nations in their effort to interrupt the flow of hundreds of tons of South American cocaine through Mexico and into the U.S.

Clinton told reporters Thursday that Gutierrez's arrest showed both the level of corruption that impedes drug enforcement and the Mexican government's resolve to root it out.

But neither Clinton nor his top anti-drug officials were publicly discussing the overall strategy that led to the scandal.

Gutierrez's Dec. 3 appointment was, in fact, a key element in that strategy, which has been endorsed enthusiastically by the Clinton administration - a militarization of the drug war that includes U.S. military training for Mexican officers and the delivery of U.S. military hardware to aid Mexico's counter-narcotics efforts.

When Zedillo turned to the army to name his new anti-drug chief last December, senior Mexican officials said he did so because the military is considered largely free from the drug corruption that has penetrated much of the nation's federal police force. That same strategy has led to the placement of military officers in dozens of other sensitive law enforcement and administrative posts throughout Mexico in recent months.

What is more, Gutierrez was handpicked by Zedillo's defense secretary, Gen. Enrique Cervantes Aguirre.

Cervantes stated that he did not know until earlier this month that Gutierrez, the regional army commander based in Guadalajara since 1989, allegedly had been collaborating with the nation's largest drug cartel since 1993.

Officials in Washington said they do not yet know the extent of the U.S. intelligence information that Gutierrez received, or how that might endanger intelligence sources or compromise efforts in Mexico. Exchanging information is a central part of the cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico.

"Our concern is with not only sources, but also methods of investigation that could have been compromised," said Jim McGivney, spokesman for the DEA in Washington.

"This was a tremendous intelligence lapse," concluded Roderic Camp, a Tulane University professor and author of a recent book on the Mexican military. "But also, it really places in doubt the feasibility of the broader strategy of presenting the [Mexican] military as a clean force in the counter-drug effort."

Camp indicated that Gutierrez's appointment - and the U.S. reaction to it - also appeared to reflect an intelligence failure in Washington. There was ample evidence, he said, that drug corruption has existed for years within the officer corps of the Mexican military, and U.S. officials should have been more wary of Gutierrez's selection. "The military elements at the highest level have been contaminated by drug trafficking for years, and the officers in Guadalajara have been especially vulnerable to this," Camp said.

He cited, for example, the 1990 dismissal of the admiral who headed the Mexican navy after he was linked to drug corruption.

Although the Mexican army traditionally rotates its regional commanders annually or every two years, specifically to avoid corruption, Camp and other experts on the Mexican military noted that Gutierrez somehow remained in command for seven consecutive years in Guadalajara - a notorious drug trafficking hub.

It was in that command post that Gutierrez won praise from military and civilian officials with the spectacular 1995 arrest of reputed Sinaloa drug cartel chief Hector Luis "El Guero" Palma.

Palma was acquitted of drug charges last month. Gutierrez also staged other high-profile military operations that led to arrests of accused key gunmen and lieutenants of other drug mafias in recent years.

But, in announcing the charges against Gutierrez this week, Cervantes indicated that not once did the former commander or his soldiers take action against the Juarez cartel or its alleged chieftain, Amado Carrillo Fuentes.

Times staff writer Elizabeth Shogren in Washington contributed to this report.

The New York Times, Feb. 23, 1997

Sonora Gov. Manlio Fabio Beltrones is collaborating with one of the world's most powerful drug traffickers, according to U.S. officials and intelligence. And in so doing, he is creating a haven for smugglers who transport vast quantities of narcotics into the United States.

Officials said this conclusion was based on a wealth of evidence, including "highly reliable" informers' reports that Beltrones took part in meetings in which leading Mexican drug traffickers paid high-level politicians who were protecting their operations.

According to the accounts, Raul Salinas de Gortari, the brother of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, received suitcases full of cash and was responsible for distributing the money to those attending.

Present and former officials said the evidence of Beltrones' role was so detailed and compelling that the United States had included his name on a confidential document provided to the transition team of President Ernesto Zedillo listing more than a dozen officials suspected of corruption.

And a former U.S. consul in Hermosillo, Sonora's capital, even spoke of bringing charges against Beltrones in the United States.

Another governor, Jorge Carrillo Olea of the southern state of Morelos, was included on the U.S. blacklist because of reported entanglements with major drug dealers.

Beltrones, in an interview, denied any links to drug traffickers. He also disputed U.S. law-enforcement officials' assertions that Amado Carrillo Fuentes, one of Mexico's most wanted drug kingpins, was operating with impunity in Sonora.

Carrillo Olea also disputed charges that he had cooperated with traffickers.

In a four-month investigation that draws on intelligence documents and interviews in the United States and Mexico, The New York Times examined how both governments handled the allegations.

The result is a picture of official frustration on both sides of the border and, several officials asserted, a case study of why drug traffickers' political patrons often go unpunished.

Despite the recent disclosures about official corruption, U.S. officials say the Clinton administration is planning to certify later this month that Mexico is cooperating with anti-drug efforts.

Senior administration officials say that decision reflects a belief that Mexico's leadership is doing all it can against staggering odds.

But many law-enforcement officials say it also shows that the Clinton administration considers the narcotics fight less important than fostering commerce with this country's third-largest trading partner.

Thus, these officials assert, intelligence reports suggesting corruption among Mexican politicians receive little attention in Washington. Similarly, agents working in Mexico feel they will get little support if they scrutinize the activities of powerful Mexican officials.

President Clinton praised Mexico last week for arresting the head of its anti-narcotics program on drug charges, citing the act as evidence that the country was not tolerating corruption, even "at the highest levels."

Privately, however, U.S. officials acknowledge that Mexican traffickers' political patrons are seldom the targets of law-enforcement officials in either country, even though they play an important role in the drug trade.

In a previously undisclosed draft analysis, intelligence officials assert that Mexican traffickers take in as much as $10 billion annually, then spend as much as 60 percent of that money on bribes for officials at all levels.

Officials say much of the derogatory information about Beltrones and Carrillo Olea, a former director of Mexico's anti-narcotics program, came from informers, ranging from inside accounts to raw gossip. Their volume and persistence over time have persuaded many U.S. officials that the allegations against the governors are well founded.

But officials said such material was of little use to prosecutors, who must build their cases around witnesses willing to testify in U.S. courts.

In addition, U.S. law-enforcement officials acknowledge a reluctance to invest time and money in pursuing corrupt foreign officials.

"In Mexico," said one U.S. prosecutor in a border state, "political protection is difficult to prove. If we could prove it, we'd have them all under indictment. There's a big difference between knowing something and proving it in a court of law.

"You have extremely reliable intelligence sources, but unless you can prove it, why burn your sources? You'd have their body parts spread all over Sonora."

Beltrones, for his part, says the reports collected by U.S. intelligence and drug agents were fabricated by political rivals. "This sounds like a novel, filled with horror and error," he said. "At what time of the day do I govern, if I'm spending my time on all these crimes?"

Wilburn Sears took charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's five-person office in Hermosillo in 1991. He soon came to the realization that the state was overrun by traffickers.

Vast quantities of marijuana were pouring up the highways. Passenger cars were ferrying methamphetamines over the line into Arizona. And the traffickers were traveling in and out of Hermosillo and other Sonoran cities in long convoys or in private jets, under the noses of state and federal police officers.

"The feds were protecting the airports," Sears said in a recent interview. "They were doing everything out there except kick-starting the narcos' airplanes."

It was in those years that Carrillo Fuentes began the ascent that would make him one of Mexico's shrewdest and most influential drug smugglers. The nephew of one of the country's narcotics pioneers, he had been building his organization in the late 1980s, wooing marijuana farmers to the south in Sinaloa, the heroin clans of Durango and especially the cocaine barons of Cali, Colombia.

Most of all, he had cultivated the skills of Mexican narcotics diplomacy and knew what it took to buy protection from powerful politicians.

In a lengthy 1994 study, the Drug Enforcement Administration's analysts in El Paso painted a detailed picture of how Carrillo Fuentes cultivated Mexican police officials and political leaders, including Beltrones.

According to the classified analysis, based on field reports from more than a dozen U.S. agencies, the trafficker has "purchased influence at various key levels in the Mexican government," giving him "powerful connections" that ensure safe passage of his drug loads through Mexico to the United States.

In the early 1990s, Carrillo Fuentes was moving to make Hermosillo a strategic staging area, U.S. officials said. He was living in a pink stucco mansion down the street from the U.S. consul's residence. He had begun construction of a much more extravagant, onion-domed house - locals called it a Thousand and One Nights - a few blocks north. And among other properties he or his associates had acquired was a communications center across town.

In August 1991 Beltrones was elected governor, and in October he moved into the colonial-style governor's palace in Hermosillo. He was a rising star in the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, one of a handful of ambitious 40-something leaders sometimes called the "babysaurs," to distinguish them from the older, "dinosaurs" who have long ruled the party.

During his early career, Beltrones had been the understudy to Fernando Gutierrez Barrios, Salinas' interior minister and one of the pioneers of Mexico's postwar secret police. Some have seen Beltrones as a possible presidential candidate.

But about the time that he took the oath of office, U.S. officials began picking up reports from confidential informers documenting his ties to Carrillo Fuentes.

In an interview, Beltrones raised his voice when reporters described DEA reports alleging that he had accepted payments from Carrillo Fuentes.

"These reports are incredible in every sense, filled with fantasy and lies," Beltrones said. The DEA, he added, "is completely out of focus."

As evidence of his hostility to drug trafficking, Beltrones asserted that he had virtually driven Carrillo Fuentes from Hermosillo.

A high-ranking Mexican official said that as a result of evidence gathered by Beltrones,learned of Carrillo Fuentes' residences in Hermosillo shortly after he took office. Months later, the official said, Beltrones ordered aides to videotape Carrillo Fuentes' arrival at the local airport in a Lear jet, and his travels about the state capital in a convoy guarded by federal police vehicles. The governor delivered the videotape to President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, the official added, and federal authorities confiscated four of Carrillo Fuentes' properties.

"How would the DEA explain that I'm the one who took away this man's houses?" Beltrones asked.

U.S. officials and reports acknowledge that four of Carrillo Fuentes' Hermosillo houses were seized. But they said his organization continued to use at least eight other properties. The officials maintain that Sonora remains one of Carrillo Fuentes' most important operating bases.

U.S. officials say that reports about Beltrones' drug activities have come from nearly two dozen sources inside the Mexican government and its law-enforcement agencies.

The 1994 DEA study of Carrillo Fuentes described how his smuggling organization, identified by his initials, ACF, expanded "full force" into Sonora.

"Manlio Fabio Beltrones Rivera is well documented as being associated with the ACF organization," the report reads. It quotes a commander of the federal judicial police as stating that Beltrones is "involved in protecting drug traffickers passing through Sonora."

In 1994, Sears searched the DEA's computerized intelligence files and found numerous references to Beltrones and members of his family, according to a memo Sears wrote. "The governor," the document noted, is mentioned in cases "from San Diego to Tucson."

Among the most persuasive intelligence reports, officials said, are accounts of regular meetings at a ranch in which Mexico's most notorious traffickers gave cash to Salinas, who in turn distributed it to the senior politicians present.

Salinas, whose brother was president at the time, is awaiting trial in Mexico City on charges of murder and financial wrongdoing, and investigators found more than $100 million in his overseas bank accounts. He maintains that his fortune has legitimate sources.

Beltrones was said to have attended three meetings at the ranch from 1990 to 1993, and the officials said Carrillo Fuentes was present for at least one.

In August 1994, the State Department sent William Francisco, a former Army infantry officer, to serve as the senior diplomat at the U.S. Consulate in Hermosillo.

Almost immediately he trained his sights on the governor, raising questions about the reports of corruption and misconduct, which were being ignored by other U.S. officials.

Sears and his DEA staff in Hermosillo were busy trying to keep track of the five major mafias operating all across northwest Mexico. They spent much of their time traveling between Hermosillo and the distant border gateways of Tijuana or Juarez.

"They gave me a new car," Sears said, "and I put 35,000 miles on it in seven months. We were just keeping our heads above water. There were so many reports of corruption about everybody that most of the time we didn't even write it up. We just had to accept the fact that corruption exists."

Francisco felt otherwise.

Shortly after his arrival, he received a briefing from Sears about the major Mexican traffickers and studied the intelligence report naming Beltrones as an associate of Carrillo Fuentes.

Then, Sears recalled, Francisco traveled south to Sinaloa and came back with new reports about the pervasive influence of traffickers. At his request, Sears checked the DEA's computerized intelligence files and found extensive references to Beltrones.

In an unusual step for a State Department official assigned to an obscure consulate, Francisco began recruiting his own sources about the drug trade and Beltrones' role in it.

When Francisco heard a report that Beltrones was being considered for a post in President Zedillo's cabinet as head of Mexico's powerful Interior Ministry, he grew downright alarmed.

On Nov. 15, 1994, after just 12 weeks as consul, he stalked into his office and fired off an urgent cable to the embassy in Mexico City.

"Request for assistance to verify and further develop info of allegations of extensive criminal activities by Son. Gov. Manlio Fabio Beltrones Rivera, who may be under consideration to become the next secretary of Gobernacion," Francisco headlined his dispatch, using the Spanish term for Mexico's Interior Ministry.

Francisco complained that the DEA and customs agents in Hermosillo were too preoccupied with minor traffickers and should instead pursue political figures like Beltrones, whom he termed "a truly major kingpin player."

His cable - which mixed drug intelligence with lurid tales about the personal lives of Sonoran officials - stunned Sears and officials at the embassy in Mexico City. Although Francisco had no direct or specific evidence to document his allegations, he called for a criminal investigation that could lead to Beltrones' indictment in the United States.

The cable reached the desk of the U.S. Ambassador, James Jones, and U.S. officials said he viewed it skeptically. Jones was instinctively cautious about the reliability of law-enforcement intelligence reports. In addition, several officials said, the criminal investigation of a foreign official poses daunting political and practical difficulties.

Collecting intelligence on an official like Beltrones is one thing. But several officials said that building a criminal case against him - linking him to specific drug shipments or conspiracies that violate U.S. law - would be quite another.

Informers willing to whisper an allegation under a cloak of confidentiality would have to be persuaded to travel to the United States to testify before a grand jury, and perhaps later at a public trial. That would endanger not only their careers but also their lives.

Even if all these difficulties were overcome, the accused official would have to be extradited to the United States for trial. Mexico has never before extradited a Mexican citizen accused of narcotics trafficking.(Juan Garcia Abrego, a Mexican trafficker, was expelled to the United States a year ago, not extradited, and he holds U.S. citizenship.)

"Indicting a public official of a foreign government is cumbersome to say the least," the official said. "And then getting them out of Mexico - it never happens."

Francisco's recommendation was never seriously considered by the embassy's top officials. Virtually everyone there reportedly regarded it as quixotic, even "goofy," as one put it. In fact, officials said, the idea of launching an U.S. criminal inquiry into Beltrones' dealings was not raised with senior officials in Washington.

As it happened, Zedillo and his advisers, preparing to take office on Dec. 1, 1994, had already given U.S. officials a less public means of dealing with allegations involving officials like Beltrones.

"The Zedillo administration wanted names of people believed to be corrupt, or possibly in the pay of traffickers, whom the United States would not like to see in the new government," a former U.S. official said.

Jones gave Zedillo's transition team a list of about 15 current and former Mexican officials. It included Beltrones and Carrillo Olea, three officials said.

A senior Mexican official said in an interview that neither Beltrones nor any other of Mexico's 31 active governors was ever considered for a post in Zedillo's Cabinet. The Zedillo government apparently has never followed up on the U.S. warning by investigating either governor.

But embassy officials felt that delivery of the list had shifted all responsibility onto Mexican authorities, where it belonged.

Early in 1995 the embassy's No. 2 official, David Beall, telephoned Francisco and lectured him about the cables he had written, U.S. officials said. Francisco interpreted the call in subsequent conversations with associates as an order to stop reporting on the governor.

A senior U.S. official denied that. "He may have been told, `For your own safety and for the integrity of what law enforcement is trying to do, don't be a cowboy,' " the official said. "But he was not muzzled."

Still, if he stopped filing cables, Francisco continued to voice suspicions about Beltrones' activities. He even shared his opinions of the governor with Nicolas Escalante Barrett, Mexico's consul general in Phoenix, who reported the incident to Mexico's Foreign Ministry. U.S. officials and Beltrones said they believed that the Foreign Ministry complained to the U.S. government about Francisco's conduct.

In September 1995, Francisco was transferred to Frankfurt, Germany. He declined to be interviewed for this article.

One senior U.S. official insisted that Francisco's transfer was a "routine rotation."

Others disagreed. "He was a loose cannon," an official said. "He was probably going to get himself killed if we didn't get him out of there."

Carrillo Fuentes has continued to consolidate power. His success at sending cocaine-laden aircraft undetected into Mexican airspace and his largess have led Mexicans to nickname him Lord of the Heavens.

In January, Mexican troops stormed a ranch in the western state of Sinaloa during a wedding reception for Carrillo Fuentes' sister, hoping to capture him. But word leaked, and he slipped away.

The commander of January's failed wedding raid was Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, then the national anti-narcotics coordinator. He was arrested last week and accused of having accepted payments from Carrillo Fuentes for seven years, ever since he was put in a command post in the anti-drug program.

Carrillo Fuentes' capture was intended as a dramatic symbol of progress in the drug war weeks before March 1. By that deadline annually, Clinton certifies that drug transiting or producing nations are pursuing serious anti-drug efforts. Instead, the trafficker is still at large and still spending his billions.

"Money corrupts," said Doug Wankel, who just retired as DEA operations chief, "and in Mexico it's getting to the point where the traffickers can corrupt absolutely."

"Federal Funds For Clean Needles"

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala says in a new report to the Senate that needle-exchange programs are an effective way to combat the spread of H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. But the Secretary does not go far enough. It is time the Clinton Administration lifted the ban on Federal funding for needle-exchange programs.

Such programs now exist in more than 50 American cities, including New York. They provide intravenous-drug users with sterile needles, thus reducing the likelihood that addicts will share needles contaminated with H.I.V. The programs typically have very small budgets, often are run by volunteers and are plagued with unstable funding from year to year. Yet even these modest programs have been effective.

Secretary Shalala's report reviews the research on the issue. Earlier studies done by the National Academy of Sciences, the General Accounting Office, the Centers for Disease Control and the University of California at Berkeley found that providing addicts with sterile needles could help slow the spread of the virus. Equally important, those studies found no evidence that needle-exchange programs increased the amount of drug use by addicts or attracted new users.

More recent studies done for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and in Baltimore by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health confirmed those observations. Federally funded studies conducted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse also report no increase in the frequency of drug injection associated with needle-exchange programs. A conference of scientists convened by the National Institutes of Health on AIDS prevention stated unequivocally last week that there is no doubt that needle-exchange programs work.

The consistency of these findings justifies Federal support to help pay for needle-exchange programs in communities that need and want them. Unfortunately, the debate continues to focus on politics and morality rather than public health needs. Opponents argue that providing addicts with needles implies approval of drug abuse. They forget that addicts can infect their spouses and offspring who do not abuse drugs and yet must live with the consequences of dirty needles.

Congress imposed the ban on Federal funding for needle exchanges in 1992. But the Administration can lift the ban if the Surgeon General declares that the programs can reduce H.I.V. spread and do not increase drug use. Secretary Shalala's report offers ample evidence that both requirements have been met. The Administration no doubt wants to avoid giving its opponents any reason to bash President Clinton for being soft on drugs. But lives can be saved with needle-exchange programs. The President should show some courage on this issue.

Mexican National Allowed To Sue US For Torture

Liberty's Educational Advocacy Forum, Indiana-FIJA, Inc. URL: http://www.drtavel.com/

"Indictments - Coke Smugglers Used Submerged Boats"

Pot Clubs Go Mainstream

While cannabis clubs throughout California hustle to join the commercial mainstream created by the passage of Proposition 215, San Francisco's club has never filed for a business license or paid taxes - and it never intends to do so, its leaders said yesterday.

"We operate within a doctrine of civil disobedience and a vow of poverty, very much like the sisters of St. Francis," said John Entwistle, legislative advocate of the San Francisco Cannabis Cultivators Club. "We buy low, sell high, pay bills. That's it."

Since voters approved Proposition 215 - which decriminalized marijuana for the sick and dying - clubs in Los Angeles and Santa Cruz are among those taking a by- the-book approach to running their businesses. Just this week, founders of the Santa Clara County Cannabis Club, which will open next month, paid a business tax.

Although possession of marijuana remains a federal crime, a Santa Cruz group, the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, recently obtained official status as a nonprofit corporation. The group grows and distributes marijuana to more than 100 sick and disabled people.

The Los Angeles Cannabis Buyers Club also has applied for nonprofit status, said director Scott Imler. Earlier, the club had applied for a business license, but was turned down because "we didn't qualify under any of their existing categories," Imler said.

In Santa Clara County, club director Robert Niswonger walked into San Jose's Department of Finance and paid $154.50 in city business taxes - the minimum allowed. The payment was largely symbolic because it does not grant the club any rights. The directors, however, have asked the San Jose City Council for an endorsement.

"We're doing it publicly so everyone knows we're on the up-and- up," said founder Peter Baez.

But in San Francisco, the cannabis club has no intention of ever becoming part of the mainstream, Entwistle said.

"Our job was to enable (other clubs) to go further and to perfect the business aspects of this," Entwistle said. "But we're not going to do that."

Although San Francisco's club defines itself as a nonprofit, it has never filed for tax-exempt status - which means it would have to file income tax reports, said Jim Shepherd of the state Franchise Tax Board.

"If they're running a business, and they have income going in and out, then they would have to file. Would they have to pay a tax? That would depend on the bottom line," Shepherd said, referring to the possibility that the group's income would fall below the taxable minimum.

Director Dennis Peron, however, insists that his club is more like a hospice than a business.

"There is no tax on medicine in California, and rightfully so," he said.

Peron added that filing for tax- exempt status has never been an option because it "precludes you from doing political work." Charitable organizations with tax-exempt status cannot engage in political activity, he said.

Peron has been lobbying for the legalization of medicinal marijuana for years. Most recently, he co-authored Proposition 215, which decriminalized the use and cultivation of marijuana for patients who have recommendations from their doctors. It was approved by voters last November.

Last August, state drug agents raided the club, alleging among other things that marijuana was being sold to youngsters who weren't sick. The club resumed business in January when a judge ruled that it could reopen under the tenets of Proposition 215.

State Attorney General Dan Lungren, who led the charge against the cannabis club and Proposition 215, is now taking a wait-and-see approach.

McCaffrey's Slip Puts Narcs In Jeopardy

Joe Horman writes:

It was reported in the Mexico City News that the DEA recalled 51 of its agents from Mexico in connection with McCaffrey's blowing of the family jewels. It seems that these agents are in serious jeopardy and it is likely they will not return. Story follows.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recalled 51 operatives from Mexico Friday to find out just how much former Mexican drug czar Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo may have known about U.S. anti-drug operations.

As speculation continued to circulate about the extent of "exchange of information" between the DEA agents and the former head of the National Institute to Combat Drugs (INCD), arrested late Tuesday, Washington began a damage assessment while Mexico cried no foul.

Mexico Foreign Relations Secretary Jose Angel Gurria said Gen. Gutierrez Rebollo had only been privy to the Mexican situation and assured Washington that its secrets in the war against drugs were safe.

"This man (Gutierrez Rebollo) conducted our anti-drug operations for 10 weeks and if he leaked important information, it was information from Mexico and about Mexico," Gurria said in a Washington visit to the White House, the State Department and the National Security Council.

According to reports in Mexico City afternoon newspapers, the agents were recalled because they had extensive contacts with the fallen Mexican general, who is accused of collaborating with and aiding members of Amado Carrillo Fuentes' powerful drug cartel.

In particular, officials to the north fear that U.S. anti-drug trafficking intelligence may have been compromised by Gen. Gutierrez Rebollo before his arrest this week. According to New York Times reports Thursday, the former drug czar was given detailed briefings on U.S. information about Mexican cocaine cartels just before he was arrested.

In Washington, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno confirmed Thursday that the administration is trying to determine if secret information was compromised or if U.S. drug informants have been placed in danger. She said the administration was unaware of any problems with Rebollo Gutierrez until after the arrest was made.

"I am very disappointed in what happened, but I am impressed that the Mexican government responded so quickly and indicated so affirmatively that it was not going to put up with corruption," an Associated Press (AP) report cited Reno as saying.

Mexico Federal Attorney General Jorge Madrazo Cuellar said after the arrest that his offices will review the efficiency of a recently implemented policy to increase the role of the military in the war against drugs.

"Mexican Drug Czar And Ex-President Tied To Drug Trade"

Weekly News Update on the Americas * Nicaragua Solidarity Network of New York
339 Lafayette St, New York, NY 10012 * 212-674-9499 * fax: 212-674-9139
http://home.earthlink.net/~dbwilson/wnuhome.html * wnu@igc.apc.org

"Colombians Up Quality, Lower Price of Heroin"

SAN JORGE DE LAS HERMOSAS, Colombia - Every Friday afternoon, caravans of Toyota Land Cruisers and Ford Broncos raise a dust storm along the dirt road that leads to this village in the Colombian mountains.

Passengers in blue jeans and boots stop at El Porvenir, the village store, to sip soda and make discreet inquiries before continuing to the guerrilla roadblock that lies somewhere outside of town.

They are on their way to guerrilla-held territory to buy mancha, the sticky white liquid that flows from the poppies planted along the mountain ridge. Their purchases are the first link in a marketing chain that is changing U.S. heroin consumption.

Colombians are doing to the international heroin market what they did with cocaine: lowering the price and raising the quality to capture a broad customer base. They also are targeting a specific market: people who are afraid of becoming infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, from dirty needles. Colombian heroin is so pure that it can be smoked or sniffed instead of injected.

Colombians have already captured an estimated two-thirds of the East Coast heroin market, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the quality of their product is putting pressure on drug dealers throughout the United States.

Colombians have been reluctant to sell heroin on the West Coast because Mexican cartels control that market. Mexican traffickers have taken over much of the distribution of Colombian cocaine, and the Colombians do not want to share heroin profits with them or irk them by competing head-on, narcotics experts said.

* * *

But the DEA says that half the heroin seized at U.S. airports last year was from Colombia. At East Coast airports, the figure was 91%.

Further, since the Colombians entered the heroin market in full force, the wholesale price of heroin in New York has dropped from $230,000 a kilo (2.2 pounds) in 1992 to $80,000 a kilo last year, according to one of the Colombian government's drug policy advisors, who asked not to be named.

That indicates that Colombia is producing enough heroin to drive down prices, the advisor said. "Colombian traffickers have read Adam Smith," he explained, referring to the 18th century economist who helped develop free-market theory. "If you are able to put a product in the market at a reasonable price, the market will expand."

When the Colombians began trafficking cocaine in the early 1970s, it was the "rich man's drug" that actor Peter Fonda's character sold in the film "Easy Rider." Back then, cocaine cost $230,000 a kilo, according to a report prepared recently for Colombian police. In 1993, the report stated, cocaine sold for one-tenth that price.

"That market has expanded horribly, and they are still making huge amounts of money," the advisor said. "I predict that the same thing will happen in the heroin trade."

While U.S. drug enforcement officials have expressed alarm at the growth in Colombia's heroin production, they have advised the Colombian government to focus its drug eradication program on cocaine, according to informed sources.

Dusting heroin poppies with defoliant is dangerous for pilots - more so than flying over the bushes that produce cocaine - because the poppies are in the mountains. It is also less effective, because the flowers grow back in three to six months. Coca bushes take about twice as long to produce a new crop, which makes them more expensive to replace than poppies.

Only one Colombian airplane is designated for poppy eradication, the sources said.

But that plane is enough to wreak havoc on the peasants whose fields of poppy - their main cash crop - are sprayed. "Do you see that poppy field on the ridge?" asked one farmer, pointing across the valley. "Every time it starts to flower, the plane comes along and sprays. They lose everything. Those people [poppy farmers] are just stubborn."

Poppy growers reply that their decision to replant repeatedly rather than find another lucrative crop is a matter of simple economics. A one-acre poppy field requires an investment of about $81 in fertilizer and fumigation, and at the end of six months yields about five kilos of mancha, worth about $3,000. Planted with corn, the same field would produce a crop worth about $30 after seven months.

"It is 100 times more profitable to plant poppies than corn," said Naum, a local farmer, who asked that his last name not be published. "People who grow poppies can have some class. Those who don't will always be poor."

* * *

The growers have no compunction about breaking the law. "People [grow poppies] to find a better life because the government has abandoned us," said Bernardo, another farmer.

The village of San Jorge de las Hermosas has no electricity, running water or school. This region is also coffee country, and the dirt road was built and is maintained not by the government but by the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation.

The guerrillas of the Colombia Revolutionary Armed Forces, the oldest and largest of the country's many fighting factions, come down the mountain every Friday to provide protection from bandits for mancha buyers carrying bundles of cash.

They organize the weekly mancha market in nearby San Jose de las Hermosas. They decide who enters the area and how far up the mountain such people may go.

* * *

When the traffickers saw the crackdown on U.S. marijuana production a decade ago, said Colombian drug and guerrilla expert Alfredo Molano, they realized that a similar crackdown on cocaine could cost them their main market.

"They already had everything they needed [to trade in heroin]: money, a U.S. distribution network and, undoubtedly, contacts with the Sicilian Mafia that runs the heroin business," Molano said.

Molano first heard about the Colombian foray into heroin in 1989, when he was conducting research in the Macarena mountains, in the most eastern of Colombia's three mountain ranges. "They [the cartels] brought technicians from Asia, from the Golden Triangle, to introduce morphine and heroin production methods."

They brought high-yield seeds, he said, and chose four optimal regions: Cauca, where coca leaves were already growing in the lowlands; the Perija mountains; Huila province; and - most productive - this area in the mountains above coffee country and near the cartels' headquarters in Medellin and Cali.

Police estimate that 60% of Colombia's heroin production comes from here, in Tolima province.

The cocaine cartels' search for diversification coincided with the coffee crisis. International prices had plunged, and Colombia's coffee federation no longer could completely buffer the effects of the worldwide market.

Small growers such as Pompilio, a 28-year-old father of three, could not rely on the coffee crop to solve their family financial crises. "My wife got sick," he said, explaining why he began growing poppies. "I had bills to pay, and coffee was not going to pay them."

* * *

At first, the Colombians distributed heroin through Italy, Molano said, but they soon developed direct routes to the United States. Police believe that most Colombian heroin now flows through Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic to Miami or through Central America.

Central American police said the Colombian heroin they have found - identifiable by DNA testing - has been in airports, carried by people who swallow capsules filled with heroin or smuggle small quantities in their luggage.

Large quantities, like the ton-size cocaine shipments that are regularly confiscated, have not been found. "It is a higher-value product, so they take more care with it," said one law enforcement official.

Colombians are continuing their efforts to produce higher-quality heroin in larger volumes. Poppy farmers here debate the relative yields of flowers that bloom in four or six months and a new variety that takes just three months.

They also note that farther up the mountain, growers are processing mancha into more lucrative opium and even morphine.

Asked what would persuade them to stop growing poppies, Naum had a ready answer: "Losing money. They would have to spray and spray and spray, until all we had were losses."

Lesson From The High Seas

"Drugs - Lives would be safe"

Is it time to legalize drugs? The Washington Post tells us that a high proportion of drugs are sold by young people, many of whom do not use drugs. They sell them to make a living.

This reminds me of prohibition of alcohol during the Great Depression. I had two male cousins who, coming of age, needed jobs. A third cousin lost his job in Chicago. To have a place to sleep, he slept with me, giving me athlete's foot, but where he got his meals I do not know. Finally my cousins got together and bootlegged. They hid their product in my dad's lumberyard. We kept silent so they could make a living.

William Buckley, on the PBS program "Firing Line," speaks for the legalization of drugs. Maybe I understand, for, like Buckley, I too have sailed the same waters he sails where it is dangerous. In a dozen crossings of the Gulf Stream, I twice ran into drug ships. In 1973, in the middle of the night, a ship turned 90 degrees to come alongside us. They tried to sell us drugs. It was scary, for we knew there were 40-odd yachts and their crews missing, all pirated by drug ships needing small boats to haul drugs to shore. We were lucky - they let us keep our boat and lives.

Sixteen years later, in 1989, I crossed the Gulf Stream again, and again ran into a drug ship in the night. Two months later, when our boat was being loaded on the trailer to return to Anacortes, I told the marina manager about it. His reply was that boats were coming into his marina every day with drugs but he dare say nothing.

Lives would be safe (and wouldn't there be fewer drug users if there were no drug pushers on the streets?) if drugs, like alcohol, were legal.

Everett Oman

"Dutch City Searches For Entrepreneurs To Open Marijuana Shops"

"Wider US Intervention Seen In Colombia Drug War"

"Polling Congress About Medical Marijuana"

Last fall, when voters in Arizona and California passed ballot initiatives allowing doctors to prescribe currently illegal drugs, it seemed like one small step for a more humane drug policy. But in the wake of fierce - and continuing - denunciations by representatives of the federal government, the implications of the initiatives seem to keep getting broader and broader. They raise, most notably, serious issues of federalism. Contravening federal drug laws, Arizona's Prop. 200 and California's Prop. 215 implicitly assert that drug policy is the province of state governments. That assertion provides a potential model for devolution of power in all sorts of policy areas.

In January, REASON polled the U.S. congressional delegations of Arizona and California to gauge their reactions to the initiatives - and to the Clinton administration's repeated threats to prosecute doctors and patients alike who exercise their rights under the new laws. Senators and representatives in the two states occupy an interesting middle ground in the debate for at least a couple of reasons: Though part of the federal government, they represent the same voters who supported the state-level initiatives; while many members of Congress openly favor "devolving" power to the states, they rarely discuss drug policy in such a context; and the old liberal/conservative split is no longer a significant predictor when it comes to prosecuting the drug war.

We asked the states' four senators and 58 congressmen and women the following questions:

1) Do you support the Clinton administration's threats to crack down on physicians and other citizens of your state who exercise their rights under Prop. 200 (Ariz.) and Prop. 215 (Calif.)?

2) Opponents of the measures such as Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey and Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl have claimed that voters were "asleep at the switch" and "hoodwinked." Do you think voters of your state were incompetent in passing this law?

3) Do you believe that physicians who prescribe or recommend marijuana to relieve a specific medical condition should be subject to criminal prosecution?

Because politicians typically employ the linguistic specificity of psychics and rarely give simple, meaningful yes or no replies, we interpolated their answers based on the overall content of their responses.

One of the most interesting results was also one of the most predictable: an unwillingness to discuss the topic at all. Out of 62 possible responses, fully 36 members refused to comment on the matter. Several congressional staffers expressed surprise and relief that the initiatives had not played a larger role during the last campaign. As Will Dwyer, a spokesman for Rep George Radanovich (R-Calif.), explained with a laugh, "I don't think we took a position on it. We took a position for re-election." In a slightly different but popular vein, a staffer for Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), said the congressman had "decided not to get involved" in the Prop. 215 imbroglio. Even many of the 26 senators and representatives who did respond seemed uncomfortable with the topic and unwilling to speak plainly about their positions. A notable exception was Rep. Bob Stump (R-Ariz.). Stump, who has little use for the Clinton administration in general, said he is "adamantly opposed to Prop. 200" and fully supports federal efforts to prosecute patients and doctors who use or prescribe marijuana and other substances illegal under federal law. As to whether Arizonans acted incompetently in passing Prop. 200, Stump replied in the affirmative, explaining, "The opening paragraph of the ballot initiative argument - which is all most people read - had a very misleading statement. People thought they were making it tougher on drug criminals. I don't think the voters knew what they were voting on."

On the other hand, a number of respondents signaled relatively uncomplicated opposition to the federal response. Rep. Chris Cox (R-Calif.) said, "I don't support the prosecution of physicians who prescribe marijuana for specific medical conditions." A spokeswoman for Rep. Fortney "Pete" Stark (D-Calif.) told us the congressman supports Prop. 215 "definitely" and considers it a "genuine step toward relieving suffering." Rep. Ronald Dellums (R-Calif.), usually no great fan of decentralized government, has written the president urging a different response; Dellums, says a spokesman, believes this is an issue in which the "states have jurisdiction."

Such candor was rare. Interestingly, though, the responses show that even ostensible supporters of the Clinton administration policy were uneasy with publicly pledging their allegiance to this particular drug war battle - and it is certainly worth noting that the congressional delegations consistently disagreed with the Clinton line by an almost two-to-one margin. A spokesman for Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon (D-Calif.) simultaneously voiced his boss's support for a get-tough policy and the possibility for revising that policy: McKeon, said Armando Azarloza, sees "no need to liberalize existing laws," but recognizes a need to "understand exactly what illnesses marijuana is good for."

In a written response, Rep. Matt Salmon (R-Ariz.), eschewed giving a yes or no to our first and third questions. "We must find a way to reconcile the wishes of the people of Arizona with our federal efforts to fight the scourge of illegal drugs," notes Salmon, who describes himself as a "strong proponent of reducing taxes, expanding trade, and promoting free-market health care reforms like Medical Savings Accounts." "As long as the medical community does not recognize the efficacy of illegal drugs, it is appropriate to enforce laws against their distribution," he said. If the medical community does recognize their efficacy, goes the implication, then Salmon would sign on to Prop. 200.

Indeed, some members supporting the Clinton administration openly embraced that implication. Speaking for Rep. Frank Riggs (R- Calif.), Beau Phillips cited Riggs's opposition to Prop. 200 and said, "there is no credible medical research [as to] whether marijuana use is legitimate." However, according to Phillips, Riggs would like to see that research conducted, because the "door is not closed to any procedure that would reduce human suffering." When it comes to specific issue of shackling cancer patients and their doctors, there seems to be little stomach for the sort of total war that has characterized federal drug policy.

When we asked whether voters were "incompetent" to pass the initiatives, we knew few politicians would be so impolitic as to answer with a simple "yea" vote. Among opponents of the initiatives, there was a fairly standard tap dance around the offensive word. "The congressman never believes voters are stupid," said a press secretary for Rep. Robert Matsui (R-Calif.). "But we're not sure what kind of awareness of the proposition there was." Along similar lines, a spokesperson for Rep. Matthew Martinez (D-Calif.) claimed "voters were not asleep at the switch, but they were hoodwinked. They let compassion override better judgment." A source close to Sen Jon. Kyl, one of the most outspoken opponents of the new laws, even supplied a psychological mechanism to explain continued support for the "misguided" legislation: "Nobody likes to be tricked. So now [voters] are defending their mistake more and more defensively."

Regardless of the voter competency issue, however, most respondents generally embraced the voters' will, even when it differed from a member's prediliction. Rep. Sonny Bono (R-Calif.) "voted against Prop. 215 and doesn't believe in the medical marijuana approach," said spokesman Frank Cullen. "But [Bono thinks] it is wrong for the feds to step in." Similarly, a spokesman for Rep. Gary Condit (D-Calif.), said Condit is "opposed to legalizing drugs in any way. But he's a firm believer in state's rights and may oppose the federal efforts to crack down on doctors." The press secretary for Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) said that Kolbe was against Prop. 200 and went so far as to suggest, "Perhaps voters didn't fully understand." More important was the second part of his response: "What else is new? To single out [the voters' decision] on this issue is wrong. Rep. Kolbe won't come riding in on a white horse with all the power of Washington behind him. The voters of Arizona have voted and [the federal government] will have to deal with that in some legal framework that makes sense."

Such reasoning reflects some of the great benefits of the initiative process: the ability to force a discussion of topics politicians would rather leave alone and the ability of citizens to demand accountability of their representatives. Even two years ago, the medical marijuana issue was not simply flying below the political radar screen - it was grounded. In the wake of Prop. 200 and Prop. 215, even the nation's drug czar is calling for research into a matter that the feds had more or less considered closed. The conversation raised by the initiatives may even lead to more general questions about drug policy and its costs and benefits. Certainly, it seems likely that if one or two more states pass medical marijuana - and the Massachusetts legislature is currently considering such a measure - than the federal government will have to completely rethink its position.

In that broad sense, the initiatives could well become the tails that wagged the big dog in Washington. If that happens, they may ultimately be more responsible for shifting power away from the federal government than any number of Beltway-based visions of a new federalism.

Poll Results

62 possible respondents; 36 either had no comment or did not respond; 26 respondents

Question 1: Do you support the Clinton administration's threats to crack down on physicians and other citizens of your state who exercise their rights under Prop. 200 (Ariz.) or Prop. 215 (Calif.)?

Yes: 9
No: 15

Question 2: Opponents of the measures such as Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey and Arizona Sen. John Kyl have claimed that voters were "asleep at the switch" and "hoodwinked." Do you think voters were incompetent in passing this law?

Yes: 9
No: 16

Question 3: Do you believe that physicians who prescribe or recommend marijuana to relieve a specific medical condition should be subject to criminal prosecution?

Yes: 8
No: 15

Note: Totals do not add up to 26 because some respondents did not answer all questions.

Nick Gillespie is a senior editor of REASON.

The survey was also conducted by Managing Editor Rick Henderson, Assistant Editor Brian Doherty, and Staff Writer Ed Carson.

(A full report on the poll is available in the Reason News section of Reason Magazine's web site, http://www.reasonmag.com/.)

Juror To Be Sentenced For Contempt

GILPIN COUNTY, Colo. - On March 7, former juror Laura Kriho will be sentenced for contempt of court for failing to volunteer information about her political beliefs and knowledge during jury selection. Kriho is the first victim of a new crime - failure to volunteer answers to questions that weren't asked of her during jury selection.

Kriho faces fines and up to six months in jail. Kriho's case is the most severe attack on jury rights in over 300 years. The last juror jailed for a 'not guilty' vote was Edward Bushell in the trial of William Penn in 1670 in London.

Last May, Kriho was the lone holdout for acquittal on a jury in a drug case in Gilpin County that ended in a mistrial. The court inquired who the holdout juror was and had Kriho investigated. Detectives uncovered the fact that she was an active proponent of industrial hemp as an alternative fiber crop, that she had a drug arrest 12 years ago that was supposed to be wiped from her record, that she was familiar with the doctrine of jury nullification, and that she had questioned the efficacy of laws and sentences related to illegal drugs in the jury room.

Based on these findings, Kriho was charged with contempt of court in August. Six weeks later, at her bench trial, nine other jurors testified about their deliberation processes and what Kriho had said. The court violated the sanctity of the jury room in order to punish one juror.

First Judicial District Chief Judge Henry Nieto took more than four months to issue a verdict in what he had earlier referred to as a "simple" case. In a complicated nine-page ruling issued on Feb. 10, he cleared Kriho of two aspects of the contempt charge: violating a court order and perjury. But he convicted her of the most ill-defined aspect of the contempt charge: "obstructing the administration of justice." According to the ruling, Kriho obstructed justice by failing to volunteer answers to questions that she wasn't specifically asked. During jury selection, over 350 questions were asked of potential jurors in the jury box, hours before Kriho was selected as a potential juror, while she was in the audience. According to Judge Nieto, Kriho's failure to volunteer answers to some of these questions led to a jury "doomed to mistrial from the start."

"This ruling creates a new legal duty in which a juror is obliged to volunteer confessions of any beliefs or experiences they have any thought the court might want to know," says Paul Grant, Kriho's attorney. "The court is trying to intimidate anyone with an independent mind. We should all be very concerned about this case," he adds.

"This is clearly a malicious prosecution of a juror who refused to vote guilty," says Judd Ptak, local Libertarian. "It is revenge by an angry prosecutor who got sloppy during jury selection. You didn't see any of the O.J. jurors get prosecuted."

The ruling is seen by some as an unprecedented assault on jury rights and the independence of juries from judges. It has national ramifications for potential jurors and for defendants and plaintiffs seeking a fair and impartial jury. Jurors will now be reluctant to deliberate freely and will fear to vote against the majority lest they be investigated and prosecuted later. A fair trial is impossible if the jurors are serving under the threat of prosecution.

"These judges want to throw our jury system back to Medieval times," Ptak says.

Kriho's sentencing has been set for March 7 at 3:00 pm at the Gilpin County Justice Center. The Libertarian Party of Colorado and the Colorado Legal Eagles, vocal proponents of jury rights, have called for a demonstration at the Justice Center at 2:00 pm.

Where is Gilpin County?

Gilpin County, the smallest county in the state, is located in the mountains about 20 miles west of Denver. The Gilpin County Justice Center is located on Colo. Hwy. 46 (Golden Gate Canyon State Park Road) about a half a mile east of Colo. Hwy. 119.

To apply for expanded courtroom media coverage, contact the: Gilpin County Justice Center (303) 582-5522.

Court TV covered Kriho's trial and plans to be present at her sentencing.

Paul Grant, Kriho's attorney, can be contacted at: (303) 841-9649.

Re-distributed by the:
Jury Rights Project (jrights@welcomehome.org)
To be added to or removed from the JRP mailing list, send email.
Background info.: http://www.execpc.com/~doreen
http://www.bend-or.com/~mschmitz/laura.html
Donations to support Laura's defense can be made to:
-- Laura Kriho Legal Defense Fund --
c/o Paul Grant (defense attorney)
Box 1272, Parker, CO 80134
Email: pkgrant@ix.netcom.com
Phone: (303) 841-9649

[End]

Comments, questions and suggestions.

to the 1997 News page.

This URL: http://www.pdxnorml.org/022797.html