It seemed that Harrison, and probably Blumenauer's office as a whole, had not yet received one call from a marijuana-law reformer regarding HR 2618.

So let's let them know we're here, OK?

The AFL-CIO's two toll free numbers are still available that allow reefer reformers direct access to their U.S. congresspeople. No recording, no instructions to follow, no limit, and no need to forget anything.

After it answers, just ask to be connected to your congress or senate person.

1-800-96-AFLCIO (1-800-962-3524)
or
1-800-97-AFLCIO (1-800-972-3524)

New Study - War On Drugs Increases Violent Crime

THE WAR ON DRUGS INCREASES VIOLENT CRIME, NEW STUDY REVEALS
DIVERSION OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE RESOURCES MAKES CITIZENS LESS SAFE.

OAKLAND, CA - Despite high hopes that America's "war on drugs" would reduce the rate of serious nondrug crime - assault, homicide, rape, robbery, and the like - the drug war has diverted scarce resources away from fighting such crime, putting the lives and property of citizens at greater risk, according to a new study released today by the Independent Institute.

In "Illicit Drugs and Crime," economists Bruce Benson and David Rasmussen compare crime trends in Kansas (whose enforcement of drug laws lagged behind national trends) with trends in other states. They conclude that Kansans - and other states' residents - were relatively safer from nondrug violent crime before escalating drug law enforcement.

"When a decision is made to wage a 'war on drugs,' other things that criminal justice resources might do have to be sacrificed. Getting tough on drugs inevitably translates into getting soft on nondrug crime," Benson and Rasmussen conclude.

Policymakers mistakenly believe that combating drug use is an effective away to reduce violence and property crime. But because only a small percentage of drug users commit large numbers of crimes against persons or property, efforts to combat these crimes by targeting drug use have proven ineffective, Benson and Rasmussen argue. Combating nondrug crime through direct means would utilize criminal justice resources far more effectively, they maintain.

So-called "crack babies'' are not doomed, LeAdelle Phelps, director of school psychology program at the State University of New York at Buffalo, told United Press International.

Phelps matched 20 children whose mothers used drugs to 20 unexposed children of the same sex, ethnicity and socioeconomic status and found no differences in social skills, behavior or reasoning abilities.

"By the time these children are two years old there is no evidence that there is any effect on their development,'' Phelps said. "We didn't find any social problems arising by the time the children were 5 years old.'' Previous studies have suggested social problems arise with "crack babies'' as they mature.

In fact, in most instances, the children who were exposed to cocaine scored higher on a battery of psychological tests than did the students who were never exposed to cocaine or other illegal drugs during pregnancy.

"That doesn't mean cocaine is good for babies,'' Phelps said. She said it may reflect the fact that these babies who are exposed to cocaine are later removed from the custody of their mothers and are often raised by grandparents who may help the young children in areas of verbalization skills.

Phelps said that previous studies which found problems in babies exposed to drugs in the womb may in fact have caused by factors other than cocaine use. Exposure "is often exacerbated by myriad socioeconomic and environmental factors which place children at considerable risk for developmental and psycho educational difficulties," she said.

But when Phelps carefully matched the two groups, developmental differences disappeared. "All of the developmental afflictions frequently linked with intrauterine drug exposure occurred as frequently or more frequently in the nondrug exposed group as in the cocaine exposed group."

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Narcotics continue to flood America as officials turn a blind eye to the real culprits: crooked politicians both here and abroad, and the North American Free Trade Agreement, which leaves our borders wide open to drugs from Mexico, Columbia and other countries.

BY MARTIN MANN

August 19, 1996

With federal anti-narcotics programs already in hopeless disarray, the Clinton administration was jolted last month by the discovery that the international drug banker at the top of its "most wanted" list, millionaire financier Harry Beda, was an agent of the Mossad, Israel's secret service.

"Beda was arrested by the Columbian police in June and charged with running a huge money-laundering network that linked Miami to a number of Latin American cities," says Quilli Osorio, a Mexican reporter. "The U.S. demanded to get custody of him right away-- until they found out he was an Israeli. Then they dropped it in a hurry."

But the report that the ministate's money movers were once again in the midst of the booming "coke and smoke" trade was only one of the ticking time bombs the U.S. drug enforcement chiefs were handed in recent weeks, law enforcement sources say.

One of the front companies for Beda's cocaine cash conduits, known as the Orexana Corp. of Hialeah, Fla., was found to have contributed thousands of dollars in laundered drug cash to the election campaigns of then Sen. Al Gore (D-Tenn.) and Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), former chairman of the Senate subcommittee on narcotics and terrorism.

Such payoffs have become commonplace among American politicians, according to a faceless witness identified only as "Maria" who appeared under heavy security guard at a hearing held by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in Washington earlier this month.

Shielded from TV cameras by a backlit screen, Maria was described as a member of Columbia's elite political establishment involved in funneling millions of dollars fromthe Cali cocaine cartel to the campaign of President Ernesto Samper.

Her testimony left no doubt that Samper had actively solicited - and on occasion personally accepted - a grand total of $6 million from a consortium of vicious drug wholesalers.

Under pressure to "do something," the Clinton administration declared Samper persona non grata and lifted his U.S. visa, as well as the required "certification" of his government as an honest enforcer of international narcotics regulations.

"But Columbia is not the only culprit. There is new evidence that the election of Panamanian President Ernesto Perez Balladares, favored by the Clinton administration, was also financed by drug bankers," Osorio said. "And this graft does not stop south of the border."

NAFTA

In fact, the greatest single boon the drug trade has enjoyed in recent years has turned out to be the U.S.-sponsored North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), law enforcement experts say.

In an attempt to justify the Clinton administration's support of this pernicious pacet, U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin has been boasting in recent weeks about Mexico's ability to make good on some of the bailout credits it received from Washington last year.

"Rubin says we collected hefty interest payments, too, and made a profit on some of these emergency loans," says Harry Prebisch, a former executive of Keefe, Bruyette, the leading Wall Street broker of bank securities. "What he forgets to add is that such Mexican debt financing almost invariably represents laundered drug profits. It is the only booming growth industry south of Tijuana."

Veteran federal drug enforcement experts privately agreed with his blunt conclusions.

"Most of the capital investment going into Mexico's economic infrastructure comes from drug proceeds these days," confirmed Jack Kelley, the U.S. Customs agent in charge of San Diego field office.

His colleague, Craig Chretien, director of operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in San Diego, voiced similar views. Goldman, Sachs, a leading Wall Street investment bank headed by Rubin before he joined the incoming Clinton administration in 1992, helped set up a number of consulting firms to show Mexican exporters how they can profit from NAFTA.

GET JOBS

Now many of these advisers have been hired by Mexico's drug magnates looking "for someone knowledgeable to counsel them about taking better advantage of NAFTA," says Chretien.

In the U.S., cocaine and heroin "have never been cheaper or more plentiful," admitted Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the Clinton administration's new drug czar in a recent TV interview.

One result is that emergency-room admissions of youths under 18 suffering from drug overdoses have just about doubled during the past 12 months, warning that narcotics are no longer just one among numerous public-health problems: they are becoming a plague.

[Jeff Nightbyrd writes:]

I made a posting several days ago and received lots of email questions which I don't have time to answer individually. A number of salesman are trying to push various teas in these groups. Here's part of a typical ad:

>"By popular demand, I am now also offering Houston Enterprises' Naturally
>Klean Herbal Tea. This product, trusted by thousands and the #1 selling
>product of its type for the last seven years, is also guaranteed, or your
>money back."

I WROTE THE BEST SELLING PAMPHLET CONQUERING THE URINE DRUG TESTS and thought a little scientific information might be helpful:

Drug Metabolites are passed out of your system over a period of days or weeks depending on the substance. Various drinks that are sold like the one above work by dillution - they do not attack the testing enzymes that that bind with your drug metabolites. These drinks work in general because after several days if you gorge your system with a liquid you are basically passing water. These concoctions are generally made up of pectin, jello, and colorizers. They are harmless.

Byrd Labs ran hundreds of tests in cooperation with a NORML group that supplied THC (pot) positive urine. The drinks like the one advertized above did no better than drinking water or coca cola. These companies usually recommend that you mix their product with 2 to 4 quarts of water. Our tests showed that you can save you money. Merely in-taking 2-4 quarts of water, coffee, cola, etc. will get the same result. Usually after 3 days a person will pass a drug screen with this method.

Research shows the sucess rate increases if the imbiber takes at least 50 milligrams of Vitamin B complex to make their urine a nice golden color rather than a suspisciously clear output. But one word or caution. Using these teas or attempting dilution with water, cola, etc. yield a sample deficient in creatinine. Many labs test suspect samples for cretinine and report a failure or "Test Not Valid" if the creatinine level falls below the normal human range.

The entrepreneur above offers annecdotal evidence of his sucess. I'm sure he's well meaning and just trying to make a little money. But his "guarantee" no matter how well meaning does not stand up to scientific scrutiny.

In general urine addditives are a much better way to counteract the enzymes used in the standard drug detection tests. They can work several ways including blocking the action of the enzymes trying to bind to drug metabolites. The best additives according to our tests is made by Klear out in California. Their free info line is 800 661-1357.

My motto remains:
"Test your govenrment. Not your urine."

"When people accuse you of playing the race card, that is preposterous in a society where race plays a part in almost everything we do," Cochran said. "You cannot allow yourself to be quieted about injustice," he said.

Cochran cited statistics from the Centre for Juvenile Justice in California showing that four out of 10 black men in California were in prison, on parole or on probation and that nationwide the figure was three out of 10.

If that were true for white males, there would be a "national uproar," but because the statistics involve blacks, "nobody really seems to care about this," he said.

He used drug prosecutions as an example of why statistics for blacks are so high. Young black males charged with possession of five grams of crack cocaine face a mandatory prison term of five years, Cochran said.

In contrast, "if a person lives in the suburbs and is charged with possession of 500 grams of pure powdered cocaine that's the only way they will ever get a sentence of five years," he said.

"Five grams versus 500 grams. ... How does that happen in a fair society, and what are prosecutors doing about it?" Cochran asked.

Five grams of crack retails for $225 to $750, while 500 grams of pure cocaine sells for $35,000 to $50,000, he said.

Cochran said 74 percent of those sentenced for drug-related crimes under federal sentencing guidelines were black.

"This draconian racist policy permeates what's happening in America," he said, adding that prison terms for black women were becoming almost as high as those for men.

"This so-called war on drugs is really a war on people of colour," he said.

REUTER

The World Health Organisation regards morphine as an essential drug for severe pain, but most countries fail to follow United Nations recommendations to make it widely available at a reasonable cost.

Only 46 percent of countries responding to a questionnaire by the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said the opiate was stocked in all hospitals. Only 48 percent said morphine was stocked in hospitals with cancer wards.

"These figures are shocking," said INCB Secretary Herbert Schaepe, referring to conclusions based on information furnished by 65 governments. Some 144 other nations -- among them the world's poorest -- did not reply.

"The Board is also concerned that the non-responding governments, representing half of the world's population, may be doing even less to carry out the... recommendations on opiate availability."

The INCB said the expected rise in the number of senior citizens, cancer and AIDS cases made a need for improved pain relief increasingly urgent.

By 2015, the World Health Organisation expects 50 million new cancer cases a year.

It estimates 18 million adults and 1.5 million children are infected with HIV, the deadly virus that causes AIDS. The WHO predicts that by the year 2000 the virus will have attacked 30 to 40 million people.

Schaepe said many countries were reluctant to make opiates such as morphine more freely available because they could not ensure the narcotics did not leak into the illicit market.

The board called on all governments to remove overly restrictive policies and other barriers preventing hospital access to the pain-killer.

The INCB, which regularly reviews the world drug scene and countries' compliance with international drugs conventions, was set up in 1968. It seeks to ensure adequate drug supplies are available for medical and scientific purposes and aims to curb the illicit drugs trade.

REUTER

[End]