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Chief Moose Says Portland Remains Safe City (Interview In 'The Oregonian'
With Portland Police Chief In Wake Of Fatal Marijuana Task Force
Warrantless Break-In Alludes To Similar 1979 Raid Moose Was Involved In
That Caused Death Of Officer David Crowther)
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 00:09:09 -0800
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: Olafur Brentmar
Subject: MN: US OR: Chief Moose Says Portland Remains Safe City
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: Sandee Burbank
Pubdate: Sunday, 8 Feb 1998
Source: The Oregonian
Author: Michele Parente of The Oregonian staff
Contact: letters@news.oregonian.com
Website: http://www.oregonlive.com/
CHIEF MOOSE SAYS PORTLAND REMAINS SAFE CITY
In an interview, the city's top policeman speaks at length about how Colleen
Waibel's death has affected him and his bureau
These are tumultuous times for Portland Police Chief Charles Moose. On Jan.
27, Officer Colleen Waibel, 44, became the second Portland police officer
killed in the line of duty in six months.
In the hours and days after Waibel's shooting, Moose exhibited a wide range
of emotions, from lashing out at the media to mournful reflection at
Waibel's funeral.
In an hourlong interview last week with The Oregonian's Michele Parente, a
relaxed and sometimes somber Moose spoke openly about the effects of the
shooting on him and the Portland Police Bureau.
Q: How is morale on the force right now, after the shooting? How do you
think they're coping?
A: I think everybody's coping really well. People have drawn together, but
at the same hand there is the debriefing that will help people through it
but will also help us identify those people that may still be having trouble.
Q: What's the debriefing?
A: Well, we're just getting together with people and kind of talking through
the whole incident and their level of involvement, and continuing to offer
coping mechanisms and strategies.
Q: Do you think coming so soon after Officer (Thomas L.) Jeffries that it
was harder this time around?
A:I was surprised how much harder it was. I think there was perhaps a
thought that we'd had 18 years (without a shooting death before Jeffries)
and so in some way maybe we let our guard down and assumed it'd be another
18 years. Mentally, I'm sure, it's difficult to prepare for anything like
this, but I would say that we probably were unprepared, and so in that sense
it hurt, I think, a lot more.
Q: Do you think now the officers will try to be prepared, and do you
thinkit'll affect how they behave on the job, will it make them more timid
or more aggressive?
A: The preparation for death, I don't know if you can ever mentally prepare.
I feel very confident that their character, their training, will carry them
through. It's not a matter that anyone involved in this situation used bad
tactics or bad procedures, and so it's not that we've got to make some big
correction curve, and then everyone's going to be better.
Q: How does the force recover from this? What is the next step beyond the
debriefing, is there going to be anything that you can do for moral
guidance, or anything that the employee assistance program can do to help?
A: As an organization, in some ways the best thing is that we continue to
work and continue to stay busy. But certainly, individually, certain people
are having more trouble than others, and so the employee assistance, their
sergeants, their commanding officers, their family members, will continue to
work with those individuals.
And the thing we want to ernphasize is that there's really no time frame;
we're very leery of people that are having a tough time, of rushing them
back or rushing them into situations. ... There is no formula for people,
and for some people it may not hit them until six months from now. ...
We also know that when people are involved in things in the future, we do
have a cumulative effect going on now.
Q: Are the streets of Portland more dangerous now than they were when you
were on the streets as an officer?
A: I'm afraid they are. Certainly the type of weapons that are out there
have changed dramatically. There are more people and for whatever reason,
seems like again maybe it's the deinstitutionalization of our mental health
system, or perhaps it's just the fast-paced world that we live in today,
there seem to be more people that are feeling isolated and feeling like
somehow violence is a resort to either getting them attention or solving
whatever personal problems they may be having.
It just seems like that all has escalated, not only in Portland but I think
throughout the nation. But the thing I want to emphasize is that, we've
noticed this increase in violence in the domestic violence stuff that we've
seen, in the gruesomeness of, I think, some of the homicides that we've
seen, the fact that so many more people are willing to just shoot another
community member, be it over a gang issue, or be it in the commission of a
robbery.
Q: Isn't it very disconcerting when the level and the rate of violent crime
is going down? If you're putting it in the context of Portland as a whole
being safer, and yet there are these people who seem more wanton in their
crimes. That's a contradiction.
A: Yes, but at the same hand we have a lot more information today about
certain violent incidents, so maybe the overall number of violent incidents
are down, but the description, the information about them occuring, there's
a lot more reporting, there's a lot more access.
Q: It's magnified?
A: That's just because we're in the information age. I don't think there is
sensationalism, I just think that there is a lot more different ways to get
information today than ever before. And so we tend to, I think, look at
those situations from many different angles, and it's tough to get away from
them. ... So I think, yes, the overall numbers are down, but when something
does happen, you're really inundated. And so maybe it kind of makes you feel
like it must really be worse than ever.
Q: Can you reassure the community that the city is still safe?
A: Well certainly the raw numbers are down. I think that people should feel
safe, but it has to be more of a personal thing. Are you moving about the
city, do you feel good about that? And the reports we get are that, yes,
people do. But again I'd like to see a further drop in the violence, in the
aggravated assaults especially. So I think that it's not a panic cry, it's
not a, 'We're under siege,' but I think we have a lot more work to do in
terms of getting along with each other, in terms of working through some of
our conflict on a lower level, without moving immediately to violence to
resolve the conflict. ... Certainly this shooting was very sensational, it's
very close to home, and it really hurt. But I'm leery that we overreact as a
community. And I don't think we will.
Q: Speaking of ouerreacting, much has been made about the local TV news
coverage. Let's talk about that. The bureau seems incensed over not just TV
coverage but the media in general. Why? Are we making your job harder?
A: I guess I want to make sure that it's looked at in the right way. I don't
think that the organization is incensed. I do want to stress that for
several months now I've heard concern coming from the command center.
Usually I don't participate at the command center during an incident. On
this occasion I was out there, and I was able to witness and observe several
things firsthand. It brought to light that there was trouble doing their
job. But it's highly important for us not to shut down communication. We'll
always need the media. We need to get information to the public about crimes
and to show people how to protect themselves, to help us gather information
to help us solve a crime. So there's more room for cooperation rather than
disengagement.
Q: If you could rewrite the gun laws, what would you allow, what would you ban?
A: I think I would go beyond that and say that if I could rewrite history,
then America's history would not have the love affair that we have with
guns. All guns are dangerous. But certainly, the approach of banning certain
assault weapons is good, but at the same hand there are quite a few already
out there, so...if we never made another one, the police would still have to
confront all the ones that are out there. So we really can't put everything
in laws. ... There's nothing you can put on the books that protects Portland
police officers on the streets.
Q: You sound defeated.
A: I wouldn't say defeated, maybe realistic. Yes, laws are needed, but I'm
more interested in technology, for protection.
Q: Technology? Can you explain that or give me an example?
A: Well, for example, the Department of Defense has created a technology
that allows you to detect if members of a group have a metal alloy on their
person. An officer could see who, how many, had a weapon. Or say during a
traffic stop you could detect if there was a gun in a vehicle. Some ask,
'Don't we always presume there is a weapon in a vehicle?' and yes, we do.
But this would allow protection since the officer would know for sure.
Q: That sounds straight out of "Star Wars."
A: No, that's reality. But we don't even know if the Department of Defense
would release that technology. Or even if it could be used. There's a right
to privacy, and would we be constitutionally allowed to use it? But that's
where I would want to put the focus. Protection. The laws are good, but it's
not just banning guns but laws that make control reasonable and rational.
There's no reason we can't do thumb checks for long guns, not just handguns.
That kind of thinking is antiquated. It goes back to the notion of common
defense, the right to protect ourselves. What does common defense mean
today? At some point we would have tanks and airplanes issued to us by the
government so we could protect ourselves from the Russians.
Q: Can you talk about your philosophy in enforcing marijuana laws? Should
marijuana be treated just like any other drug?
A: Possession of marijuana is against the law. As police officers, our job
is to enforce the laws as they exist. If society changes those laws, then we
will follow what we're directed to do. But we're not going to overlook any
drug or any substance that is at this point illegal.
Q: There's a perception that the police bureau, in the past, treated
marijuana dealers more casually because they might have been considered less
violent than, say, heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine dealers. Is that true,
and if so, is that going to change now, in light of Steven Dons?
A: I think the only thing I can say is that I was involved in the drug raid
when Officer (David Crowther) was killed (in 1979), and we changed and we
improved our attack and our approach to doing warrants as a result of that
very traumatic incident. So there's no doubt that we will look at this
situation and make some adjustments and make some changes. I don't know if I
can really articulate anything much greater than that because it's not
exactly clear how we will change or what adjustments we wil1 make, but I
know that they will occur. ... But I just want to emphasize it won't cause
us to stop. The approaches, the knock-and-talk is a very useful tool. People
in our community call every day about drug houses and concerns, and we still
need to have a way to try to address those.
Q: Let's talk more about the knock-and-talk. Some people say constitutinally
you're doing the work first and worrying about the protections of people's
rights later. What about that issue? What about the civil liberties of
people who -- you don't have a warrant but you go in their home?
A: Well, we have consent when we do that, and so we've done hundreds and
hundreds, and people have had attorneys, and people have had their day in
court, and it's been found constitutionally legal. So I think those people
that are jumping on that wagon certainly see this as an opportunity where
people are calling them and asking their opinion, whereas they didn't ask
their opinion three years ago when we were doing knock-and-talks, four years
ago when we were doing them, five years ago.
Q: The talk about arming officers with some high-powered rifles, the budget
proposal for $250,000 that went to Mayor Katz, in fact, on the day of the
shooting. Is more firepower really the answer?
A: I just want to emphasize that a big part of the rationale is that the
weapon that we're proposing is a different weapon than the shotgun that is
available today. And that the weapon that we're proposing is actually for an
urban environment a safer weapon because you don't get the spray that you
get when you use a shotgun. So the real goal is to recognize that it's 1998
now, we need to be rethinking what we're doing. And we need to recognize
that probably in the past four or five years, there's been very little use
of the shotgun. So we don't anticipate much change all of a sudden with a
long rifle, that it will increase usage.
Q: For those unfamiliar with guns, what do you mean by less spray? What's
the difference in the weapon?
A: At this point, from a tactical standpoint, we're not prepared to talk
about that. First we have to have this approved by the mayor and the City
Council. So at some point all of that information will come out. It's not a
secret. But with the timing of the shooting, that's really kind of a
separate, just like with the less lethal bean bag, we brought it to the
community and showed it, so people would understand. We got the mayor to
sign off, same with the City Council. There will be demonstrations. There's
been a tendency for everybody to want to wrap this into the shooting. I
guess we're just trying to say that this topic needs to slow down.
Q: Going back to you. On a personal level, how does the shooting affect you?
The other day the mayor said it's easier for her to show her emotions but
that you need to keep it together more.
A: Well, I'm certainly trying to deal with it. (PAUSE) But it makes me wish
in some ways that I was out there on the street because then it'd be easier
because you've got something to do. I think to me, doing something, staying
busy, helps me get through problems, and part of the problem with being
police chief is that I really don't always have that immediate something to
do, and I've got to continue my work on the budget, work on the issues that
are several years out. And it's kind of like, well, what's that got to do
with taking the next bad guy off the street. So in that sense I just feel
like, I go to the roll calls, and I talk to the officers, and I feel kind of
useless. You just feel kind of empty. They know that I can say all of these
things, and I'm encouraging them to stay strong and go out there. But then
when they go and they get in their car, I'm not going to be there next to
them so they've got to go out there by themselves. ... But I know that the
stuff I'm work!
!
ing on and my responsibility, what my job tasks are, still need to be done
and still eventually they'll make a difference.
Q: So how do you deal with it then, if you don't have the chance to be on
the street but have to go through another budget cycle?
A: Well that's the challenge, psychologically, not bite somebody's head off
because I really want to be somewhere else or that I really get frustrated
that no other bureau has members dying for the tity. But yet we have to ask
for resources on an equal footing with all the other bureaus. And I don't
want to dismiss that there are other things that need to be done to make a
city work that are critical, but it is frustrating to go to a funeral and
know that the other bureau managers aren't having people shot in the chest
in the name of the city. But yet, we're subject to the same 'Prove that you
need these resources. Prove that you need these weapons. Show me that
they're going to be making you more efficient,' and we'll do all that. ...
So you just need to marshal your resources and adjust, do the job, somehow
just psychologically not get wrapped up in it.
A: Well, I'm certainly trying to deal with it. (PAUSE) But it makes me wish
in some ways that I was out there on the street because then it'd be easier
because you've got something to do. I think to me, doing something, staying
busy, helps me get through problems, and part of the problem with being
police chief is that I really don't always have that immediate something to
do, and I've got to continue my work on the budget, work on the issues that
are several years out. And it's kind of like, well, what's that got to do
with taking the next bad guy off the street. So in that sense I just feel
like, I go to the roll calls, and I talk to the officers, and I feel kind of
useless. You just feel kind of empty. They know that I can say all of these
things, and I'm encouraging them to stay strong and go out there. But then
when they go and they get in their car, I'm not going to be there next to
them so they've got to go out there by themselves. ... But I know that the
stuff I'm work!
!
ing on and my responsibility, what my job tasks are, still need to be done
and still eventually they'll make a difference.
Q: So how do you deal with it then, if you don't have the chance to be on
the street but have to go through another budget cycle?
A: Well that's the challenge, psychologically, not bite somebody's head off
because I really want to be somewhere else or that I really get frustrated
that no other bureau has members dying for the city. But yet we have to ask
for resources on an equal footing with all the other bureaus. And I don't
want to dismiss that there are other things that need to be done to make a
city work that are critical, but it is frustrating to go to a funeral and
know that the other bureau managers aren't having people shot in the chest
in the name of the city. But yet, we're subject to the same 'Prove that you
need these resources. Prove that you need these weapons. Show me that
they're going to be making you more efficient,' and we'll do all that. ...
So you just need to marshal your resources and adjust, do the job, somehow
just psychologically not get wrapped up in it.
Q: Is some of the frustration toward the mayor that she's not able to get
all these resources? She has to fight the City Council.
A: Right. I have a lot of respect for that, so it's really not directed at
the mayor. Plus the mayor has been an excellent advocate for the police
bureau. I've had the good fortune of being up here as a deputy chief of
being chief throughout her time in office, and sht's always been very
concerned and an advocate. But it is a team that makes the decisions for the
city. I'm in the process of reading a book called "A Prayer for the City"
(about Philadelphia Mayor Edward Rendell), and my wife went last night to
look for another copy because I wanted to give one to the mayor. She may
already have it but ... it's just a reminder of how difficult her job is. I
see her and we talk about police stuff, and police stuff and police stuff. I
always need to remember that there's a zillion other people standing there,
asking about a zillion other things. And so somehow, I have to remember,
when she doesn't quite know exactly what I'm talking about in terms of the
police bureau, there's only!
!
so much capacity there for any one individual, so I really should respect
that, and just thank her for the times that she does know exactly what I'm
talking about or what the police needs may be. ... She's a damned good
politician, and we would be hard-pressed as a bureau if she wasn't the mayor.
Q: Has any of this made you reevaluate whether you want to stay as chief?
Everybody wants to know if you're going to Houston (to work for former
Multnomah County Sheriff Lee Brown).
A: Right.
Q: Or Washington, D.C.
A: Well, you know, I'm just trying to stay employed. I certainly have had a
lot of emotion, and I've had a rough time. And I think about the very rough
time that Chief (Leonard G.) Cook has had down in Eugene ... but also know
that goes with turf, I guess. I've got a loner badge and so the focus has to
be on doing the best job with the job I've got.
Q: So no plans to go to Houston.
A: No. But if he calls (LAUGHS).
Q: Is there anything more on the shooting that you want to say?
A: I don't know if I did a clear enough job, but I really think Portland
remains a safe community. And I think that police officers are safe in the
sense that their training is excellent, and I want to emphasize that in none
of these situations has anyone done anything wrong, it's just that, it's
been a very unfortunate -- there was nothing wrong with that
knock-and-talk.... And then secondly I think the same goes for the
community. ... I know the people out there feel severely shaken that live in
that neighborhood, but he (Dons) wasn't attacking the neighborhood, and so I
think they need to keep that perspective about it. ... And in terms of
community support, again it has been overwhelming and is much appreciated.
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Drugs Not A Problem? Think Again (Ignorant, Sensationalistic Bend, Oregon,
'Bulletin' Item On 18-Year-Old Poly-Drug Abuser Doesn't Give A Second Thought
About Failure Of Prisons To Address Problem)
Date: Mon, 09 Feb 1998 17:56:12 -0500
From: "R. Lake"
Subject: MN: US OR : Drugs Not A Problem? Think Again
To: DrugSense News Service
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: Curt Wagoner
Source: The Bulletin, 1526 NW Hill St,.Bend,Oregon 97701
Author: Jeff Nielson
Pubdate: Feb. 8 1998
Contact: bulletin@bendnet.com
Fax: 541-385-5802
DRUGS NOT A PROBLEM? THINK AGAIN
Result is always the same: trouble says 18 year old
Lequita Twete is a survivor of drugs - so far. She has smoked pot. Snorted
methamphetamine. Dropped acid. Shot up heroin. And she is barely 18 years old.
"I've lost so much to addiction that it isn't funny," said Twete, an
outgoing redhead with an easy laugh. On a recent crisp winter morning, she
and several others in Deschutes County juvenile custody were working on a
Habitat for Humanity duplex in northeast Bend.
"If I could get a message across to kids in junior high or elementary
school, it's that drugs are totally not cool."
Think that drugs aren't a problem in idyllic Central Oregon? Think again.
Although Twete's level of drug abuse still is rare, authorities say, she
isn't the only one whose young life has been turned into a nightmare.
"There are 11 year olds who are smoking pot, eating acid and doing crank
(methamphetamine)," said Twete, who was born in Redmond and raised in Bend.
"Drugs are a problem no matter where you go. You can find drugs anywhere."
"Out there in the real world, it wouldn't surprise me that the age of kids
being involved in drug use is dropping," said Don Minney, Deschutes County
Juvenile Department facilities manager. Convicted twice of forging checks
to obtain money for drugs, Twete soon is due to be released from juvenile
custody. She'll still be on parole, however, and looking for a job and a place
to live.
Her mother, Diane Twete, has had enough of her daughter's lies, stealing
and repeated attempts to break her addictions. Lequita won't be allowed to
return home. "I've been dealing with this for four years and we're in the
same place we were four years ago", said Diane Twete.
"I support my daughter and I love her dearly, but she has a disease
she'll be struggling with the rest of her life and she has to learn how to
take care of herself. I'm not going to be part of the problem."
For Lequita, the problem began in eighth grade when she first tried
marijuana. She didn't get high the first time: " I did a Clinton. I didn't
know how to inhale."
But within a year, she was a regular marijuana smoker. She tried LSD, then
methamphetamine. Previously a decent student, she couldn't keep up with
high school work while high on drugs.
"I never did it at school, but I went to school tweaked sometimes," Twete
said. "I'd just say I was going to the counselor's office and I'd leave."
Twete was a freshman when she first was convicted of forgery. She completed
a diversion program for young offenders, but couldn't stay clean. Her
parents finally sent her to Rimrock Trails, a residential drug and alcohol
treatment center in Prineville.
It didn't work. The first day she returned to Bend, Twete took the $20 she
had earned doing odd jobs at Rimrock Trails and bought a "quarter" -1/4
ounce of methamphetamine.
Her life then careened out of control.
In the span of a couple of years she was on and off drugs, mostly on. She
ran away to Washington state, where she was doing cocaine and heroin when
police tracked her down and returned her to Bend.
By the summer of 1996, she was a frequent intravenous drug user. She spent
two more stints in treatment programs, but she was unable to break the
addiction.
Finally, after violating parole a year later, Twete was sent to the
Hillcrest School juvenile corrections facility. She was released back to
Deschutes County on Jan. 5.
Twete has been clean since returning to Bend. She's lucky - she didn't
contract any diseases such as AIDS while shooting up.
But she knows she's at risk and running out of time. Now that she's 18, her
next screw-up will land her in adult jails.
"I'm doing OK but I'm nervous about returning to the same town," she said.
" But all my friends are in prison."
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Drugs Use Often Starts At Home (Bend, Oregon, 'Bulletin' Article Says
'The Single Most Common Element In Adolescent Drug Use Is Parental Use,'
But Doesn't Ask, So Why Did All Those Baby Boomers Try 'Drugs'?)
Date: Mon, 09 Feb 1998 07:19:31 -0500
From: "R. Lake"
Subject: MN: US OR: Drugs Use often Starts At Home
To: DrugSense News Service
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: Curt Wagoner
Source: The Bulletin, 1526 NW Hill St,Bend,Oregon 97701
Author: Greg Bolt and Jeff Nielson
Pubdate: Feb. 8 1998
Contact: bulletin@bendnet.com
Fax: 541-385-5802
DRUGS USE OFTEN STARTS AT HOME
Born to a heroin-addicted mother, Sarah Doe began her life on a course
aimed straight at dependency.
It didn't take her long to get there.
She started smoking pot on her 10th birthday, when her older brother
got her high for her first time. Her first drink came when she was 12,
methamphetamine at 13. Soon she was injecting heroin into her teenage
veins.
Both Sarah (not her real name) and her brother were both born with
fetal alcohol syndrome. They were adopted when Sarah was 6, but it was to
late to stop their runaway course toward drug abuse.
"I took drugs to make my problems go away," Sarah, now 17, said during
an interview at the Deschutes County Juvenile Detention Center. " And I had
a lot of problems with my family."
Not too many kids in Central Oregon find themselves on the kind of
runaway train that Sarah rode into addiction, but plenty are on the same
track going the same direction. At home, their lives might be only a little
better than Sarah's or a lot better, but one thing is almost certain:
Somewhere along the line they got a clue from their parents or siblings or
a trusted adult that tobacco, alcohol or drugs were okay.
Parents don't have to be heroin addicts to set the stage for drug abuse
by their children, experts say. In fact, something as seemingly innocent as
smoking or having one to many drinks in the evening can lead a child to
make a bad choice about alcohol or drugs.
It could be an older brother or sister or uncle who thought it would be
fun to get the kid brother high. It could be a teacher who looked the other
way at a kid who came to class with booze on his breath.
Whatever it was, the message was the same. It said it's okay to put
things in your body that aren't good for you. And the people who try to get
teenagers off the addiction track say it's often the biggest reason kids
step aboard.
"The single most common element in adolescent drug use is parental
use.
Not peer pressure. Parental use," says Roger Kryzanek, director of alcohol
and drug programs for Deschutes County. " Kids use because mom and dad
use."
But they also use because mom and dad don't care. That's particularly
noticeable among children of baby boom parents, who sometimes have a
too-tolerant attitude about drinking and smoking, Kryzanek says.
By the same token, having parents or close adults that make it crystal
clear that using any drug is not acceptable is perhaps the most effective
deterrent to teenage drug abuse.
"If a kid has a close relationship with an adult and there's a clear
understanding of what that adult's values are, he's not going to want to
risk that relationship by making choices that violate those values," says
Jackie Matlick, a prevention specialist at Rogue Recovery in Madras.
That isn't to say that peer pressure doesn't push kids onto the drug abuse
tracks. Children today swim in a culture that too often minimizes, if not
glamorizes, drug use, and the choices they must make are far different
that what earlier generations faced.
Sherry Pressler, who works with first-time offenders as director of the
Bend Police Department's YES program, says the middle school years are when
youngsters are most vulnerable. It's a time when children are dropped into
a new, stressful social mix before they've had a chance to learn the social
skills to deal with it.
"It's a stage where kids are just kind of flailing about," Pressler says."
The biggest fear they have in that group is walking down the hall
alone. That's worse than death to an eighth grader."
Too often, drugs are seen as a way to bridge that social gap and gain
acceptance. "I would put peer pressure as a major factor in what moves kids
in one direction or another," says Deschutes County Sheriff's Deputy
Dennis Porter, the school resource officer in La Pine.
Sometimes drugs represent escape rather than acceptance. The stress of
trying to fit in at school can fuel depression and a sense of hopelessness,
and a child with little hope for the future has little reason to refuse
drugs that offer the illusion of escape from the darkness.
"For some kids, graduation goals or life on their own is so far down
the pipe they can't see it," Pressler says "I've talked to kids who just
say ,'I can't see being around when I'm 25,' and that's so sad.
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Hardly A Day Goes By That Doesn't Find Jesse X Stoned
(Ignorant, Sensationalistic Article In Bend, Oregon, 'Bulletin'
About 17-Year-Old Chronic Cannabis Smoker Fails To Consider Possibility
He Self-Medicates For Life-Threatening Disease Such As Depression,
Or, In Which Case, What Might Be Better For Him - Specialized Medical Exam
And Maybe Pharmaceutical Drugs, Or Prison? In Addition,
Article Quotes Survey Statistics Suggesting Youths In Central Oregon
Use Alcohol, Tobacco, Other Drugs At Above-Average Rates)
Date: Mon, 09 Feb 1998 17:12:12 -0500
From: "R. Lake"
Subject: MN: US OR: Hardly A Day Goes By That Doesn't Find Jesse X Stoned
To: DrugSense News Service
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: Curt Wagoner
Source: The Bulletin, 1526 NW Hill St, Bend, Oregon 97701
Author: Greg Bolt and Jeff Nielson
Pubdate: Feb. 8 1998
Contact: bulletin@bendnet.com
Fax: 541-385-5802
HARDLY A DAY GOES BY THAT DOESN'T FIND JESSE X STONED.
He's 17 years old and only a senior at Bend High School. He's been smoking
pot for years, a habit that hasn't escaped his mother's notice. The fact
that she doesn't approve hasn't stopped him, though.
He and his friends pile in a car and find an isolated spot to light up.
If he's at home, he'll smoke a bowl in the bathroom with the fan going.
During his junior year he'd even get stoned before heading to school. His
grades took a dive, not surprisingly, and he cut back when he finally
realized pot was standing between him and graduation.
"Last year I was smokimg at school and messed up," he says.
Jesse, who asked that his name not be used, now plans to quit smoking dope
this summer. He wants to enlist in the U.S. Coast Gaurd after graduation
and knows there'll be a drug test.
But until then, he's still buying pot at school.
"I could find it and be back in twenty minutes," he says from the Bend High
parking lot one recent afternoon. " It's just a matter of finding the right
person."
Dozens of interviews by the Bulletin with teachers, administrators,
students and police reveal what some have long known and others find hard
to believe: Despite zero-tolerance policies, drugs and alcohol are almost
as easy to find as soda pop at every high school in Central Oregon and no
harder to get than cigarettes in middle schools.
Although suspensions and expulsions for drug possession or distribution
still are rare, students say it's not at all unusual for drugs to be sold
openly on campus or for some kids to show up at school buzzed on pot or
liquor.
"If you knew the right people, it was easy," one 17 year-old says about
finding pot when she was a student at Pilot Butte Middle School. " You just
had to know the right people. I could always tell who had it."
The girl, interviewed at the Deschutes County Juvenile Detention Center,
says she started smoking pot when she was 10, drinking when she was 12 and
snorting lines of methamphetamine by her last year in middle school. She
was injecting heroin by her freshman year at Mountain View.
The girl, whose name is being withheld because of her age, said drugs of all
sorts were used at parties with high school classmates and said they were
freely bought and used at school.
"They'd snort lines in the bathroom; they'd smoke pot outside," she says
from a locked-off hallway in the cramped detention center. Back in
detention for passing bad checks, she says she kicked drugs and has been
clean for more than two years.
The marks that drugs and booze leave on the region's young people can be as
plain as the graffiti along railroad tracks or as subtle as the faint
needle marks on a young boy's arm. But the problem rises into clear view in
the hard, black and white numbers.
In a 1996 study compiled by the state Department of Human Resources, more
than half of Deschutes County's 11th graders said they had used alcohol
within the past 30 days, a number that is 23% higher than the statewide
average. Among the same group of children, the use of tobacco, marijuana
and LSD also were above the state averages.
It's the same story with alcohol and marijuana use among Deschutes County
eighth graders. Marijuana use among those students is 16% higher than the
statewide average and almost 8% higher for alcohol.
For those in the business of treating children who abuse drugs, being on
the wrong side of so many statewide averages adds up to big trouble.
"That is not good," says Roger Kryzanek, director of alcohol and drug
programs for Deschutes County Human Services Department. " To me, this is
the most concerning bit of data we have."
"What it says to me is we've got big-city problems. We've got the same
kinds of problems you would expect to find in larger urban communities."
That's not news to area police, who have been fighting a rising tide of
illegal drugs for more than 10 years. And even though police often see only
the tip of the iceberg when it comes to drug use among youngsters, they
know there's no such thing as a drug-free school.
"Any kid who's been in school from middle school to high school has been
exposed to it. They have seen it. They have seen it used. They've seen
people buying and selling it," says Dennis Porter, a Deschutes County
sheriff's deputy who is the school resource officer in La Pine.
Peter Miller, principal of the 139 student alternative Marshall High
School in Bend and former principal of the much larger Bend High School,
was blunt: " For a principal to say a school drug-free is a lie."
And what drugs are Central Oregon teens using? Again. the numbers paint a
billboard size picture: It's alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana, in that
order, with a small but rising number using methamphetamine.
"Alcohol is the drug of choice, for kids as well as adults." says Sherry
Pressler, director of the Youth Enforcement Services program run by the
Bend City Police Department. " What kids tell me is they do more drinking
on a casual basis or at parties than other drugs."
"Tobacco, widely considered a gateway to harder drugs, is close behind
alcohol. Thirty percent of 11th graders identified themselves as smokers
in the state's survey and another 17% said they chew tobacco.
One of the biggest problems with teen smoking is getting adults to take it
seriously, says Kryzanek. But treatment providers say the link between
tobacco and other drugs, especially marijuana, couldn't be clearer.
"I think it is clearly a gateway drug," Kryzanek says of tobacco. " If we
can reduce it, we know from studies we can seriously reduce latter drug
use".
It's no coincidence, experts say, that the percentage of young people who
smoke marijuana is nearly as high as the percentage who smoke cigarettes.
A far more dangerous threat to teens is the growing use of
methamphetamine, a powerful " upper " that's growing in popularity because
it is relatively cheap- $25 buys enough to stay high for 24 hours- and easy
to find.
Police and juvenile authorities believe more teens are being drawn to
the drug, sending more into treatment to break meth addictions along with
more serious health and mental after-affects.
"When I first got here in 1985, we saw most of our problems with pot,"
says Brad Mondoy, director of the Jefferson County Juvenile Department.
"Now we're seeing methamphetamine creating a lot of different problems.
We're finding it hard to repair some of the damage they've done to
themselves."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Strip Search Grows From Zero Tolerance ('The Oregonian' Explains How
War On Drugs And 'Zero Tolerance' School Policies It Has Promoted For Decades
Have Eviscerated Fourth Amendment For Everyone - And Made Possible
The Multiple Lawsuits Parents Are Planning Against McMinnville, Oregon,
School District)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 18:53:50 -0800
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: jwjohnson@netmagic.net (Joel W. Johnson)
Subject: MN: US OR: Strip Search Grows From Zero Tolerance
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: chrisa@aracnet.com (Chris Andersen)
Source: Oregonian, The
Contact: letters@news.oregonian.com
Website: http://www.oregonlive.com/
Pubdate: Sun, 08 Feb 1998
Author: Chastity Pratt
STRIP SEARCH GROWS FROM ZERO TOLERANCE
The McMinnville incident raises questions about student rights, but the
Supreme Court has sided with schools responding to crime.
McMINNVILLE -- Two women police employees sporting rubber gloves ordered
the girls to shake out their bras and pull down their underwear in a locker
room at Duniway Middle School.
The women were searching for CDs and other items swiped in the latest of a
string of thefts.
Two girls asked to call their parents but were denied, and at least one
girl initially refused to strip, the girls say. Some said they submitted to
the search because they didn't think they had the right to say no.
"I didn't want to argue," Ashley Church, 12, said. "I didn't know my rights
-- nobody told me."
The search 11 days ago involved about two dozen seventh- and eighthgrade
girls. It raised similar concerns among students, parents, educators and
police across Oregon.
What right do school officials or police have to search students? Can a
student under suspicion contact his or her parents? What's the difference
among asking a question, examining a locker and, finally, asking a girl to
drop her pants?
And, if wrongly accused, what recourse do students have?
Several cases involving school searches have come before courts nationwide
during the past decade as schools try new, stricter procedures to deal with
rising school crime.
The answer, handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court, is that strip searches
in schools are legal.
The issue keeps hitting the courts, experts say, because although the
Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees everyone, children
included, protection from unreasonable searches and seizures, those rights
are limited once a student enters a school.
At least six parents of the McMinnville girls have notified the district
that they intend to sue for violating the girls' rights.
"I can understand zero tolerance for drugs and guns and violent behavior,"
said Ashley's father, Chris Church, who does not intend to sue. "Here we're
talking petty theft. Where does that justify a strip search? What about
these girlst rights?"
The U.S. Supreme Court rulings on searches might come as a surprise to
many: In 1985 and again in 1995, the court gave school administrators
leeway -- more leeway than police -- to search everything from a
students' pockets to their Fruit of the Looms to their urine. The court
said that to protect children from being harmed or harming others,
students' rights to privacy must be limited.
However, school or police officials must have a good reason to search, and
the search must occur within specific boundaries.
In the landmark 1985 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on a case called New Jersey
vs. T.L.O., the court ruled that schools may search students if there is a
"reasonable" suspicion that students broke the law or school policy.
Schools must be able to explain the reason behind the search.
Schools must weigh the evidence the intrusiveness of the search process,
the suspected crime, and the age and sex of the student to consider a
search reasonable.
Items Missing
In the McMinnville search Jan. 29, several girls returning to the girl's
locker room after gym class reported 10 items were missing. The thief got
away with money, makeup, jewelry, compact discs and a disc player.
Up to the day of the strip search, Duniway had 42 reported crimes this
year, 16 of them thefts. There had been several arrests, according to the
McMinnville police.
Operating on the belief that the thief who stole from the locker room was
probably someone in the class, the McMinnville policeman assigned to
Duniway summoned two women employees from the police station to search the
girls.
The women, who are not officers also sifted through the girls' backpacks
but found no stolen items. The CD player surfaced in an eighth-grade girls
bathroom later that day.
School officials, who were initially vague about the invasiveness of the
search, said it was "police-led" and violated school district policies.
McMinnville police at first denied there was a strip search but later
confirmed the girls' accounts.
The Oregon State Police launched an investigation Thursday of adults
involved in the search, as well as the thefts that precipitated it.
In school searches it makes a difference whether school officials or police
take the lead because police searches require more evidence. Police must
have probable cause, a stricter standard. A school administrator, for
instance, can use hearsay as reason to search a student, but police cannot
use hearsay alone.
However, authorities do not need to meet either standard if they simply ask
to search a student and the student consents, said John Burgess, an
attorney for the Multnomah Educational Service District.
Schoolwide searches, such as metal detector sweeps and drugsniffing dogs,
are legal because the intrusions are mild compared with the danger that
weapons and drugs pose. Locker searches are legal because lockers are
district property.
Generally, the federal courts have ruled that intrusive searches must be
specific, not random.
Terry McElligot, who teaches civics to eighth-graders in the Newberg School
District, called the McMinnville search unfortunate.
"What I teach my kids is that they have a right to appeal, due process and
you have a right to petition and protest," she said.
Since the 1985 Supreme Court ruling, several federal courts in states such
as Alabama, New York and Michigan have held schools blameless in strip
searches. Most of those cases involved drugs or weapons.
Regardless of what crime a student may have committed, neither federal nor
state law requires schools to contact a parent before searching. Districts
may adopt policies that outlaw strip searches altogether or stipulate that
parents must be called before a search.
"Students rights are clearly eroding," said Jacqueline Stefkovich, a law
school professor at Temple University. "The most intrusive search is a
cavity search. The next level is a strip search." Until the 1990s, strip
searches were rare, she said.
Seven states, including Washington, have laws against strip searches in
schools, she added.
The McMinnville search marks the second time that an Oregon school has
gained national attention for allegedly violating search and seizure laws.
In 1991, a 12-year-old Vernonia student refused to take a urine drug test
that the district had required for athletes.
The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1995. The court ruled that the
random drug test did not violate students' privacy rights. The court said
that the test was justified because "this evil (drugs) is being visited not
just upon individuals at large, but upon children for whom it has
undertaken a special responsibility."
Safety Concerns
Rising youth violence in the late 1980s and early 1990s spilled over into
schools, prompting a flurry of tough security policies in Oregon and across
the country.
In the 1995-96 school year, schools in 29 states and the District of
Columbia expelled more than 6,000 students for carrying guns to school,
federal statistics show. Oregon counted 2,195 expulsions, 428 for toting
weapons, 143 of them guns. Fifteen districts, including Portland didn't
report. Other expulsions im eluded 791 for behavior and 790 for alcohol and
tobacco.
"School officials have felt increased pressure to take whatever steps
necessary to make their campuses safe, free of weapons, free of drugs and
free of fear," said Ronald Stephens, executive director of the National
School Safety Center in Thousand Oaks,
Calif.
At Marshall High School in Southeast Portland a teacher on hall duty greets
anyone who walks through the front door. That practice began in 1995 after
a 19-year-old intruder shot and wounded a student in the cafeteria.
All Portland schools now require visitors to sign in at the front office
and wear name tags, and most doors in the schools are kept locked. These
policies emerged in 1992 after a 12-year-old student was abducted from the
halls of Kellogg Middle School in Southeast Portland and raped in a nearby
motel.
Most school districts in Oregon now have a police presence, either through
contract or informal agreements with local police departments.
Districts across the country have tightened campus security and adopted
zero-tolerance policies that mandate expulsion of any student caught with
weapons or drugs. Schools also have won more authority in some states to
expel unruly kids. In a national poll last March nine of 10 principals said
such policies are essential for keeping schools safe.
Some administrators, emboldened by their broader authority, are extending
their reach to discipline students for off-campus offenses such as drug
use, fistfights and sexual harassment.
The public clearly wants stronger discipline, said Kathy Christie,
spokeswoman for the information clearinghouse run by the Education
Commission of the States in Denver. But tighter security has led to
excesses, ranging from improper searches to unreasonable expulsions.
"Everything is a balance," Christie said. "When things get out of whack,
you tend to get a big public blow-up."
Clear Policies
Oregon administrators say balancing school order and student rights
requires explicit policies that are clearly explained to students and
parents. It also demands good judgment.
The small Central Linn School District south of Albany twice has conducted
random drug searches of students involved in sports this year. It has
warned teen-agers it may bring drug-sniffing dogs to their lockers. It
expelled a student caught with a gun in November. So far, these actions
have not drawn a single complaint, says John H. Dallum, superintendent.
"It is because we started with a public discussion ... centered on making
our building a safe place to be," Dallum said.
The Salem-Keizer School District trains administrators how to conduct
searches, call in police only when they have probable cause and publish
their search policies in student handbooks. "This helps eliminate all the
miscommunication and mistrust," said Harold BurkeSivers, security
coordinator.
McMinnville residents say better communication among all involved adults
could have made the strip search, which most districts bar, less divisive
and could have kept the sleazy talk shows from calling.
"If we take a radical view where we get to treating these kids like they're
delinquents, we're going to lose all communication with our kids," said
Jeff Ingebrand, whose sixth-grade daughter attends Duniway. "I guess we
need to teach them what their rights and responsibilities are so they'll
know when authority crosses the line."
Question of Judgment
Even with good policies, however administrators invite problems by using
poor judgment.
Administrative judgment repeatedly has been challenged in recent years
about extreme decisions based on zero-tolerance policies. Last spring,
Carol McMakin brought a lawyer to confront administrators after her son,
Adam, 13, was expelled from Parkrose Middle School for sipping Scope
mouthwash, which contains alcohol. Officials settled on a short suspension.
Similar incidents have occurred in the past year across the country: An
8-year-old second-grader was suspended in Alexandria, La., for bringing her
grandfather's 1-inch knife, used to clean his fingernails, to show and
tell. A 13-year-old girl caught with Midol in Fairborn, Ohio, was suspended
for nine days; the girl that gave her the Midol was suspended 14 days
because distributing drugs is more serious than possession.
Most administrators, though, are cautious about enforcing safety rules.
Some schools call parents before they conduct a search. Most confine their
searches to individuals, with the exception of schoolwide locker searches.
Most make sure at least two adults are present when a student is searched.
How far a district goes with using metal detectors, surveillance cameras
and student searches, however depends on community will, says Ronald
Stephens of the National School Safety Center. A public uproar, he said,
"serves as a reality check for the community and how far it wants to go."
McMinnville schools got their reality check 11 days ago.
Chastity Pratt covers education for The Oregonian's MetroSouthwest news
bureau. She can be reached by telephone at 294-5926, by fax at 968-6061 or
by mail at 15495 S. W. Sequoia Parkway, Portland, Ore. 97224
-------------------------------------------------------------------
NBA Is Troubled By Marijuana Use (Or The Owners Are, Anyway,
According To 'Los Angeles Times,' Which Notes They Have Formally Proposed
To Players' Union, National Basketball Players Association,
That Marijuana Be Placed On League's List Of Banned Substances
And That Players Be Tested For It - Union Representatives From 29 Teams
To Discuss League's Proposal For First Time As A Group This Weekend
In New York)
Date: Sat, 14 Feb 1998 20:27:00 -0800
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: Olafur Brentmar
Subject: MN: US: NBA Is Troubled by Marijuana Use
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: Jim Rosenfield
Pubdate: February 8, 1998
Source: Los Angeles Times
Contact: letters@latimes.com
Author: Bill Brubaker, Washington Post
Fax: 213-237-4712
NBA IS TROUBLED BY MARIJUANA USE
Pro basketball: The league has formally proposed to the players' union that
the drug be placed on its list of banned substances along with cocaine and
heroin
As an NBA all-star in the 1960s and 1970s, Washington Wizards General
Manager Wes Unseld said he watched players smoke marijuana and, as a
consequence, "act weird." How weird? "It's like the old joke that goes: A
guy's watching a football game with 60,000 people. He sees the team get
into the huddle and he swears that they're talking about him," Unseld said.
"You know, that kind of stuff."
Marijuana was not a concern of the league's back then. But a generation
later, as the NBA has grown into a global, star-powered industry with an
average annual player salary of $2.2 million and marketing offices from
Melbourne to Mexico City, the issue of marijuana use has attracted the
attention of league executives.
Since last summer four high-profile NBA players have been involved in
marijuana-related criminal cases. The latest involves one of the most
popular players on Unseld's team: Forward Chris Webber, 24, who recently,
after being stopped by police on suspicion of speeding, was charged with
three misdemeanors, including possession of marijuana.
"I suspect it's a problem in the league," NBA deputy commissioner Russ
Granik said in a recent interview, after Webber was arrested. But Granik
said he has no evidence to support his suspicions of marijuana abuse in the
390-player league. "If I did I wouldn't tell you," he said from his office
above New York's Fifth Avenue. "But I don't have any facts and figures."
The NBA has formally proposed to the players' union, the National
Basketball Players Association, that marijuana be placed on the league's
list of banned substances along with cocaine and heroin and that players be
tested for marijuana use. The NBA is the only one of the four major sports
leagues that does not list marijuana as a prohibited substance.
"I'm sure the fan would like to know that players on the court are not
playing under the influence of any drugs," Granik said. As for testing
players, "We've made it plain to the union . . . we would be perfectly
willing to have the league office and club (employees) tested on a similar
basis as long as it didn't violate state laws," Granik said.
Under the NBA's drug agreement, jointly negotiated by the league and union,
players can be disciplined for using or selling cocaine or heroin. Only
rookies are subject to mandatory testing for illegal drug use, and
sanctions range from mandatory treatment for first-time offenders to
expulsion from the league. Marijuana users can be disciplined by the NBA
commissioner, David Stern, but only if their use resulted in a criminal
conviction.
This weekend in New York during the NBA All-Star break, union
representatives from the 29 teams are scheduled to discuss the league's
proposal for the first time as a group.
"It's an issue that we intend to spend a great deal of time on at our
meeting," said Billy Hunter, the union's executive director. "What I hope
to do is get a consensus from the players as to what they think our policy
should be with regard to marijuana usage."
Hunter contends, however, that few, if any, NBA players are using
marijuana. "This is a problem only in the sense that it seems to get so
much notoriety and media attention," said Hunter a former U.S. attorney for
the Northern District of California.
The notoriety comes largely from criminal cases over the past year
involving the four players-- Philadelphia's Allen Iverson, Toronto's Marcus
Camby, Portland's Isaiah Rider and Washington's Webber--and from a New York
Times story last October that asserted that 60% to 70% of all NBA players
smoke marijuana and drink excessively.
The Times said its story was based on conversations with more than two
dozen players, former players, agents and basketball executives. "If they
tested for pot, there would be no league," former Phoenix Suns guard
Richard Dumas, who was banned from the league for drug and alcohol use, was
quoted as saying. "Weed is something guys grow up doing, and there's no
reason for them to stop."
None of the six current NBA players quoted in the story said they used
marijuana themselves or named players who did.
"When you say, 'What's the percentage (of players who use marijuana)?' all
I know is that four people have been apprehended," Hunter said last week.
"There's a tendency to want to (lump) guys together and say: "Well, if two
or three are smoking then more of them must be.' "
Hunter added, "I think there's a tendency to say that because a lot of
these guys dress in the idiom or style that young kids, at least minority
kids, dress that we've now got a . . . gang-related association."
Iverson, the 1996-97 NBA rookie of the year, pleaded no contest last year
to a concealed weapon charge, and a marijuana possession charge was
dropped. Rider pleaded no contest to a marijuana possession charge, and
Camby avoided prosecution on a possession charge by agreeing to do
community service.
Webber was stopped recently while driving his 1998 Lincoln Navigator sport
utility vehicle in Prince George's County, Md. He eventually was charged
with second-degree assault, resisting arrest and marijuana possession. The
butt of a marijuana cigarette and other marijuana residue was found in his
vehicle, according to the charging documents.
The NBA's drug policy is a subject some players don't want to touch.
Recently, before a Washington-Portland game at MCI Center, four Wizards
players, including Webber, declined to discuss any aspect of the program.
"I'm not talking about anything that involves that," said Juwan Howard, the
Wizards' union representative.
"I play basketball," forward Tracy Murray said. "I'm only going to answer
questions about basketball."
In the opposing team's dressing room, Portland's Rider said, when asked
about the drug policy: "I don't want to talk about nothing like that.
Nothing. Interview's over, man."
But Golden State Warriors guard Muggsy Bogues said in a telephone interview
last week, "Marijuana is a drug, and it doesn't belong in the profession .
. . . If it starts to become an issue, it needs to be addressed. It becomes
a stigma (on the league), its image and identity."
NBA and union executives are mightily concerned about the league's image.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the NBA's image was damaged by a
series of cocaine-related arrests, the league and union agreed something
had to be done. The result was a drug program--much like the one in effect
now--that at the time was widely considered the toughest and most
comprehensive in sports.
In 1996, during negotiations for the latest collective bargaining
agreement, the league unsuccessfully tried to update the drug policy. The
league and union agreed instead to "use their respective best efforts" to
negotiate a new drug agreement before the start of the 1997-98 season.
Last January, the NBA sent the union a 40-page proposal that included
adding marijuana to the list of banned substances. The proposal "doesn't
emphasize punishment like our current drug program," Granik said.
Hunter said he has not responded to the proposal because it is largely
punitive. He said it calls for a five-game suspension for first-time
offenses involving marijuana, six months for a second offense and a
lifetime ban for any player who distributes marijuana.
"For the most part, our players are pretty exemplary," Hunter said. "But
for whatever reason a pretty graphic picture has been drawn that gives the
impression that everybody in the league is smoking marijuana."
Hunter said he is confident there is limited marijuana use because players
have denied using the drug in conversations with union employees.
"We have what's called a player programs unit," he said. "We employ six
former NBA players, retired vets who are assigned to the 29 teams. They
visit those teams with a couple of drug experts and put on programs about
use, the consequences, etc. And in the course of doing that they also
conduct surveys to try to determine who, if anybody, is using marijuana."
Asked how these surveys are conducted, Hunter said the six union employees,
"just ask" players if they use marijuana.
"Based on our efforts, I guess what we've come up with is: The guys that
got apprehended (for) smoking marijuana is the extent of the numbers (of
players who use marijuana). Everybody else is denying usage."
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Reservation Disturbed By Teen Suicides ('Associated Press' Story
In 'San Jose Mercury News,' About Native American Community Near McLaughlin,
South Dakota, Blames Five Deaths, Dozens Of Attempts On Alcohol, Boredom)
McLAUGHLIN, S.D.
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 1998 19:35:34 -0800
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: jwjohnson@netmagic.net (Joel W. Johnson)
Subject: MN: US SD: Reservation Disturbed By Teen Suicides
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: Marcus-Mermelstein Family
Source: San Jose Mercury News
Contact: letters@sjmercury.com
Pubdate: Sun, 8 Feb 1998
Author: Philip Brasher of the Associated Press
RESERVATION DISTURBED BY TEEN SUICIDES
5 deaths, dozens of attempts blamed on alcohol, boredom
McLAUGHLIN, S.D.
ROBERT Jaycob Jensen was first.
The lanky 17-year-old Sioux Indian, who had been drinking heavily and
having run-ins with police all summer, slipped into his family's dank
basement Aug. 30. Toward the corner, past the rusted-out furnace and broken
sewer line, he threaded a braided leather belt over a board nailed between
floor beams, buckled it around his neck and hanged himself.
On Nov. 16, in the same basement, with the same type of belt, Robert's
16-year-old cousin and best friend, Charles Gerry, hanged himself from a
pipe.
Three other Indian youths on the Standing Rock Reservation have taken their
lives since then -- the latest was buried Jan. 24. In the five months since
Robert's death, 43 reservation boys and girls have attempted suicide, some
more than once.
Counselors are keeping tabs on 150 teenagers considered at risk. The
hellish epidemic, they say, is brought on by a lethal mix of alcohol,
drugs, poverty, boredom and wholesale family breakdown.
``There's so much pain here,'' says Faith Taken Alive, whose 14-year-old
daughter, Dani Black Fox, attempted suicide with a friend in October. ``You
wonder where it came from and why it hit at once.''
McLaughlin, population 799, is the biggest town on the 2.3 million-acre
reservation. For the most part, its Indian and white residents live
separate lives. They report to separate court systems and separate police
forces. They even keep separate time: Whites observe Mountain Time, while
Indians keep to Central Time because tribal headquarters, across the border
in Fort Yates, N.D., falls within the Central Zone.
With its big, gray grain elevator jutting from the rolling prairie,
McLaughlin from a distance looks like hundreds of other Midwestern farm
towns. But there was trouble even before the suicides.
Burglaries have become common, as have fights, vandalism and petty theft,
residents say. Jude's Jack and Jill grocery was burglarized so many times
the owners finally covered the storefront with steel grating.
Three of four Indian adults have no jobs, and half the students at the
tribal school in Fort Yates drop out before 10th grade. Alcohol is easy to
get. Even teens say panhandlers will readily buy them booze for a tip of a
dollar or two.
MANY of the dropouts wind up roaming with loose-knit gangs that commonly
brawl with others, but the tribe has only two detention cells for juveniles
and just one probation officer to track up to 60 cases at a time.
The troubled youths, says Robert Preuss, local director of mental health
programs for the Indian Health Service, wind up doing ``what they want,
when they want.''
The despair isn't new, and it isn't isolated to one Indian reservation. But
at Standing Rock, this fresh turmoil is churning up new efforts to halt the
self-destruction. The nation's top-ranking Indian official has challenged
the tribe to become a model for other reservations by taking needed drastic
steps, including banning alcohol and institutionalizing alcoholics.
If they do that, vows Kevin Gover, the Interior Department's new assistant
secretary for Indian affairs, the Clinton administration will supply the
money for social services and law enforcement now sorely lacking.
That would be a start.
Robert Jensen was active in traditional Sioux rituals, including the Sun
Dance and sweat-lodge ceremonies, and he loved to box.
But the boxing club disbanded and he was kicked out of school last year
after a fistfight with a classmate. He started drinking heavily, his family
says, and was constantly getting arrested for fighting.
He talked about suicide with friends, says Dani Black Fox. ``He used to
always ask whether we would go to his funeral if he died. I didn't take him
seriously at first. I thought he was just kidding.''
Exactly two months after Robert's death, Dani's sister found Dani and a
friend trying to hang themselves.
DANI denies the stories going around that some teens had signed suicide
pacts. She says most of the youths who have tried to kill themselves,
including herself, were simply drunk. ``We do need something to do,'' she
says. ``All anybody ever talks about at school is drinking.''
Besides booze, she says, teens find marijuana ``pretty easy to get,'' and
for a cheap rush, kids take turns choking each other with their hands or
rubber bands to induce brief blackouts.
Rocky White Mountain, a local pastor, says he once sat for hours with a gun
in his mouth after a business went bad in 1985. He believes suicide is a
way troubled Indian youth try to get attention in a society where
``everything is basically out of control.''
The Indian Health Service in Washington, D.C., gets reports of suicide
epidemics like the one plaguing Standing Rock at least once or twice a
year. Gover, who became assistant interior secretary in November, is making
clear that curbing suicides, crime and alcoholism is a priority.
``There is nothing more significant going on in your community than this
crisis,'' Gover, a member of the Pawnee tribe and a recovering alcoholic,
told Standing Rock leaders recently.
Tribal leaders are compiling a wish list of youth programs to submit for
government funding. And in McLaughlin, non-Indians are leading a drive to
raise money to convert a boarded-up movie theater into a restaurant, weight
room and playhouse.
Teens would work at the restaurant and learn how to run a business, says
Judene Maxon, who owns the Jack and Jill store with her husband. The
parking lot could be used as a hockey rink in the winter and basketball
courts in the summer. The county already has promised to waive property
taxes.
``It wasn't in vain,'' pastor White Mountain says of the suicides. ``God, I
believe, is working some good out of it. There is a lot of focus on the
youth.''
-------------------------------------------------------------------
What Do We Do Now? - The Drugs World War (Third Week Of Historical Essay
In Britain's 'Independent On Sunday' About Cannabis Prohibition
Provides Variety Of Interesting Insights, Such As That Britain Has Not Yet
Gone Way Of America, Where Drug Enforcement/Treatment Complex
Has Become So Hooked On Government Money That Anti-Drugs Crusade
Has Become Vested Interest)
Date: Mon, 09 Feb 1998 17:53:38 -0500
From: "R. Lake"
Subject: MN: UK: OPED: What Do We Do Now? - The Drugs World War
To: DrugSense News Service
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: Zosimos
Pubdate: Sun, 08 Feb 1998
Source: Independent on Sunday
Author: Phillip Knightley
Contact: sundayletters@independent.co.uk
Mail: IoS, 1 Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London E14 5DL, England
WHAT DO WE DO NOW? - THE DRUGS WORLD WAR
While governments wage unwinnable war against drugs, ordinary people are
facing the truth: the 'enemy' is already among us and, accepted if not yet
acceptable, is here to stay.
THE world war on drugs has been lost because everyone under-estimated the
power of the profit motive on the supply side, and the attractions of drugs
on the demand side. We have seen how all the law enforcement agencies in
the world cannot impede a business where the mark-up can be as high as
22,000 per cent.
At any given time some $5bn made from drugs is sloshing around the
international monetary system. Inevitably, some of it filters into the
world of legitimate finance. As a result, many businessmen who would be
horrified to be accused of profiting from drugs nevertheless do so -
becoming another casualty of the war.
Take the City of London. Worried about all those billions trying to find a
legitimate home, the Government has authorised the Bank of England, the
British Bankers' Association, Customs and Excise, the Serious Fraud Office,
Scotland Yard, the City of London Police, the Security Service and the
Secret Intelligence Service - all liaising through the National Criminal
Intelligence Service - to crack down on drugs money laundering.
If you were wondering why you missed all those high-profile cases at the
Old Bailey, where the drugs barons and the organisations which tried to
wash their money in Britain were sent to jail for 10 years, then wonder no
longer - because there haven't been any. The problem is that no one is
willing to give a firm answer to the question: at what point does dirty
money become clean?
A City financial institution may suspect that a couple of million dollars
it has just been asked to handle may not be clean - and the law obliges it
to report such suspicions. But if it does so, it risks losing a valuable
client. John Gibb, who specialises in writing about this area, says: "Which
City institution would refuse to do business with a wealthy charitable
foundation based in the Far East which is, on the surface, working to
support persecuted nationals around the world? How far should that City
institution investigate to discover whether the charitable foundation is a
front for laundering the proceeds of drugs?"
Gibb offers one example of how an American drugs baron could launder his
money. He begins by flying to Moscow with suitcases containing a couple of
million dollars. The Russian customs don't give a damn about dollars coming
into the country. Theirs is a cash-based economy, and American dollars are
the unofficial currency. There is an enormous demand for them.
The drugs baron changes his dollars at a very favourable rate, then uses
Russian underworld friends to buy a copper smelting plant in the Ukraine.
If he needs more capital, he raises it from a hedge fund in the Bahamas,
itself probably financed with drugs money. Copper ingots from the plant are
then shipped to London as the property of an off-the-shelf British company
the drugs baron has bought and which has an account with a high street bank.
The ingots are stored in a warranted or bonded warehouse which issues him
with a certificate of ownership. He then trades the metal on the London
exchange. The profits are lily-white, ready to be invested in a perfectly
legitimate business.
There are two views on how much the City of London is knowingly involved in
deals like this. Christopher Dickson, deputy director of the Serious Fraud
Office, says that it is because of its reputation for honesty and integrity
that criminals choose the City of London to sanitise their money. "If the
City's reputation is damaged, the political and economic consequences will
be appalling."
But elsewhere in Europe, experts say that City institutions actually relish
the flood of dirty money pouring in from places such as Russia. They say,
further, that it may be safer in the long-term that drugs money is
laundered and goes into legitimate financing, rather than moving
unaccountably through the black economy.
WHAT is it that makes drugs so attractive to so many people? As one whose
drug is alcohol, I can only report on what some users of other recreational
drugs have to say about their appeal. Here are some of them talking about
Ecstasy:
"I got a huge rush and the feeling of well-being went on for six hours, it
doesn't stop when you leave the club. It's the whole thing of piling off to
the 24-hour garage, buying milk and biscuits and going back to someone's
flat to drink tea, smoke spliffs, listen to techno and waffle all night.
It's one of the best memories of my friends at university. It's better than
sex because you are in love with the whole world. I felt more intelligent,
more attractive, freer with my emotions. I was eloquent, able to speak on
any subject, recall information from my subconscience. It was brilliant."
Or, as the columnist Charlotte Raven put it: "The kids who take Ecstasy are
nicer, in general, than the ones who swill beer and pick fights. One of the
things I liked most about the drug was the way it encouraged the user to
enjoy the company of others without shagging them, stabbing them or singing
loud songs in the street."
But what about the dangers, the deaths, the ruined lives? It turns out that
Ecstasy, after cannabis, is one of the safest of all drugs to take. Despite
the hysterical outcry from the tabloids that followed the death of
18-year-old Leah Betts in 1995, Ecstasy is linked to only 0.0002 per cent
of deaths in a year. Compared with tobacco, which kills 0.9 per cent, and
alcohol, which kills 0.5 per cent, this is minuscule. As the Economist -
hardly a raving, pro-drugs publication - has pointed out: "Flying on a
civil airliner is one-and-a-half times as dangerous as dropping an 'e'."
Heroin, however, does deserve its bad reputation. It is addictive and
delivers such a powerful sensation that even those who have suffered from
addiction to it and managed to beat it say that they will miss it for the
rest of their lives. (One girl told me: "It's like an hour-long orgasm.")
It is the most dangerous drug, and kills about 1.5 per cent of its users
each year. Yet despite the documented risk, use of heroin has tripled since
1985.
One reason has been social deprivation. Andrew O'Hagan, writing about
Glasgow, says that heroin appeals to young folk who have no firm sense of
the future, or of any day beyond the one they are inside. "To folk in this
position, the effects were meaningful and comforting. Heroin was, in a way,
more glamorous and less negotiable than anything that had come to their
streets before."
Glamorous? Heroin glamorous? Absolutely. Something has happened to make
heroin suddenly fashionable, smart, chic and, above all, socially
acceptable, both in Britain and the United States. The origins of this
important change can be traced back to events in Cali, a busy industrial
city in south-western Colombia, in 1990.
COLOMBIA used to mean cocaine, the Medellin cartel and its boss, the late
Pablo Escobar. But in Cali, a group of rival drugs barons, noting that the
cocaine market was becoming too competitive, decided to switch to heroin.
They concentrated on producing the best heroin in the world, so pure that
when it first arrived in Britain three years ago, few could handle it and
some 24 addicts died from overdosing in one week.
It was the quality of the Colombian heroin that changed public perception
of the drug. Because it is so pure, you do not have to inject it - you can
smoke or snort it. Almost overnight, out went the image of "'dirty
druggies" with their needles, track marks and Aids. Instead, wasted,
pale-faced models are now described in serious newspapers as embodying
"heroin chic".
So when the British Government put out an anti-drugs poster featuring a
painfully-thin, surly-faced young man above the headline "Heroin Screws You
Up", it became a pin-up for thousands of teenage girls and had to be
withdrawn.
ONE REASON why the war against drugs has gone on so long is that many
people have no interest in victory or defeat, only in the fight continuing.
Ethan A. Nadelmann, director of the Lindesmith Center, a drugs policy
research institute in New York, says that the American drug
enforcement/treatment complex has become so hooked on government money that
the anti-drugs crusade has become a vested interest.
That has not yet happened in Britain, but it could. The Americans spend
$17bn of public money on the anti-drugs war while, at the moment, Britain
spends only £500m a year. But this is rising rapidly and it does not
include our indirect contribution to the army of international civil
servants involved in the war, those who run the United Nations Drug Control
Programme (UNDCP) or those who work for the International Narcotics Control
Board.
And then there are others with an interest in the war continuing - the
prison builders, the drug-testing companies, the professional anti-drugs
education programmes, the extra police and parole officers called up for
the battle. Not to mention those who have been corrupted, like the five
American police officers convicted last year of beating and robbing drug
dealers they had encountered in the streets of New York. At their trial,
angry and defiant, the officers said: "Everyone is doing well out of drugs
except us. These guys were the enemy. Why should they get to keep all the
money?"
SINCE THE WAR on drugs has been lost, it is logical that we should be
planning what to do next. There is no chance in the immediate future of
such a discussion taking place in the United States. The Surgeon General,
Jocelyn Elders, suggested it - and was quickly hounded out of office. But
even if, in the end, the US pulls nations such as ours into line over our
treaty obligations, there is no reason why we should not at least discuss
more effective strategies against drugs.
The Economist says such a discussion should start with the fundamental
question: why are some drugs illegal in the first place? The standard
answer is that illegal drugs are illegal because they are dangerous. We
have seen that this is not always the case. Most young people know it is
not so, which is why they do not trust official information on the subject.
They know the danger varies widely from drug to drug, and many drugs are
not dangerous at all - the Economist says that some drugs are not as
dangerous as, for example, riding a motorbike.
Well then, because they are addictive - if they do not kill you now, then
long-term addiction may damage your health. This may be so, especially with
heroin, but no more than for alcohol and tobacco. The Economist - not some
wishy-washy, liberal publication - says: "if addictiveness is truly the
criterion for a ban, then booze and cigarettes should be banned, not
cannabis and ecstasy".
How about the argument that drug-taking is not a matter for individual
decision because it has social consequences? True enough, but not enough to
justify the current list of illegal drugs. The Economist again: "The
National Health Service has to cope with many accidents and diseases that
are largely self-inflicted (not least from tobacco and alcohol). Those
caused by illegal drugs are a small fraction of them."
So, how about the suggestion that our kids would have stuck to legal drugs
such as tobacco and alcohol, if only drug pushers had not corrupted them?
The few studies on this issue show that most first-time users are
introduced to a drug not by a pusher, but by a relative or a friend. The
music and club magazine Mixmag asked 4,000 young people how they first came
to try Ecstasy. Only 2.9 per cent were persuaded by a dealer, while 85 per
cent had been "pushed" by a friend.
These friends would be horrified to be described as pushers. Lifeline, the
Manchester drugs information agency, interviewed one group of students who
were facing prosecution for dealing in drugs. Lifeline's manager, Alan
Haughton, says: "They were really indignant about being prosecuted. They
didn't consider themselves pushers and criminals. They thought that they
were helping out their friends so that they didn't have to get involved
with the criminal fraternity."
NONE of the commonly-used arguments in support of the war on drugs stands
up, and the list of serious, respectable people across the political
spectrum and from both sides of the Atlantic who now accept that the war
has been lost grows daily. If these realists were to persuade their
governments to at least try a new approach, what might this be?
Let us take the views of two ultra-conservative publications, the National
Review in America, and the Economist in Britain. Both insist that they do
not favour drugs. The National Review: "We deplore their use; we urge the
stiffest feasible sentences against anyone convicted of selling a drug to a
minor." The Economist: "It is possible that the world would be a better
place if nobody took anything that could harm them."
But both agree that the war on drugs has failed, and that there should be a
movement towards legalisation. Ethan A. Nadelmann writes in the National
Review: "The time has come to abandon the concept of a 'drug-free' society.
We need to focus on learning to live with drugs in such a way that they do
the least possible harm."
The Economist suggests that there should be licensed sales outlets (a sort
of drugs off-licence) initially for cannabis and Ecstasy, with minimum ages
for purchase, just as there is now for alcohol and tobacco. The drugs would
be supplied by licensed manufacturers to ensure the purity, and thus the
safety, of the product. Driving under the influence of the drugs would
carry the same stigma and sentence as driving under the influence of
alcohol. If the experiment worked, it could be extended to other drugs.
The Economist believes the benefits would be enormous. Police and customs
would no longer waste time and money chasing users and traffickers. It
would cut Britain's prison population by 10 per cent at a stroke. It would
reduce crime and violence, forcing drugs barons out of business and end
their often deadly battles over territory. It would save Britain £500m a
year spent on enforcing anti-drugs laws. And if licensed drugs were taxed
at the same rate as alcohol and tobacco - even though the price would drop
dramatically - they would provide revenue of at least £1bn a year.
The war against drugs is part of the last great authoritarian campaign of
this century - the attempt to tell us what one can and cannot do to one's
own body. The debate is raging over abortion and euthanasia, but not drugs.
It cannot be too early to discuss what we should do when the crusaders
against drugs finally admit defeat.
to 1998 Daily News index for February 5-11