-------------------------------------------------------------------
Criminal Justice - Waiting To Inhale ('Orange County Register' Commentator
Regrets That Proposition 215 Has Not Yet Been Implemented In California,
But Suggests Workable Distribution Systems With Patients At The Center
Have Been Created In The Cities Of Arcata And West Hollywood
That Could Serve As Models For Other Cities)
Date: Tue, 05 May 1998 00:34:29 -0400
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: Melodi Cornett
Subject: MN: US CA: Commentary: Criminal Justice - Waiting To Inhale
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: John W.Black
Pubdate: Sun, 3 May 1998
Source: Orange County Register (CA)
Contact: letters@link.freedom.com
Website: http://www.ocregister.com/
Author: Alan W. Bock, Senior Editorial Writer
CRIMINAL JUSTICE - WAITING TO INHALE
Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative passed by California
voters by a 56-44 percent majority in 1996, is now Section 11362.5 of the
California Health and Safety Code. Except in a few areas, however, it would be
stretching it to say that it is now the law of the land in practice.
No more then a few doctors are willing to write recommendations that
patients use marijuana. Even in the few cities that have cannabis clubs of
one sort or another, it is quite unlikely that a patient will receive
cannabis from a fully licit source in a safe and unthreatening fashion.
The picture isn't entirely bleak. In the Northern California city of Arcata
and the Southern California city of West Hollywood, distribution systems
have been created with patients at the center that could serve as models for
other cities.
But both those cities have reputations - somewhat deserved - as something
like hipster havens. Until a city or area with a more middle-class image
develops a similar implementation plan, which is not out of the question but
hasn't happened yet, Proposition 215 will remain a law in name only in most
of the state.
That isn't the way it was supposed to be. The initiative specified that the
new law was designed "to encourage the federal and state governments to
implement a plan to provide for the safe and affordable distribution of
marijuana to all patients in need of marijuana."
Creating such a "white market" for medical marijuana shouldn't be that
difficult given even a minimal amount of good will.
Some grumbling or ironic mumbling from police officers who are called upon
to issue or check certificates for people who are legally entitled to use
marijuana instead of busting them might be expected. But as law enforcement
officials say - at least I'm old enough to remember when they used to - "I
don't make the laws, I just enforce them. I f you've got a gripe, take it up
with the legislature." Or, in this case, the people.
With proper implementation, citizens might expect a few patches of marijuana
growing with impunity all over the state - in the back yards of patients
with a green enough thumb to do it themselves (and whose medical condition
allows them to undertake cultivation or to wait until it matures), and some
larger patches for people or organizations designated as "primary
caregivers" under the new law. Those patches would almost certainly be
strictly supervised and possibly highly regulated by local governments, with
police free to pop in unannounced and check the books to make sure none of
the weed is diverted to non-medical purposes.
Likewise, we would expect some marijuana dispensaries. Some patients, of
course, would want to have their own personal, individual caregiver to
provide medical marijuana, but for many it would be easier and more
efficient to designate a larger-scale dispensary as caregiver, just as many
patients with other illnesses find it desirable or cost-effective to go to a
large clinic.
While these dispensaries might be connected to growing operations in other
parts of the state, in most cases they would probably have their own growing
facilities, either inside in some kind of a greenhouse set-up, or nearby.
These dispensaries, of course, would be closely supervised and regulated.
Local police would want to be able to inspect the copies of doctor's
recommendations that would almost certainly be required to be kept on file,
and do spot-checks (at least) on whether those issuing recommendations were
indeed licensed physicians.
They would want to make sure the dispensary was not too lax, that it was not
giving out marijuana to people without a recommendation or with only a
verbal recommendation.
And they would insist on procedures to ensure that the marijuana given out
at the medical dispensaries didn't find its way into the local black market
for strictly recreational uses - or at least to minimize this possibility.
As far as I know, the only place in the state where such a program has been
fully implemented, codified into the municipal code by a vote of the City
Council with the cooperation of the police department, is in Arcata, near
Eureka in Humboldt County.
The key figure there is Robert Harris, who has been a lobbyist in Sacramento
and signed on as advocate for the Humboldt Alliance for Medical Rights to
obtain an implementation ordinance in Arcata.
In West Hollywood, Scott Imler seems to have done a responsible job of
running his cannabis club and has received notable cooperation from city
authorities.
Dennis Peron in San Francisco has the support of many local officials but
has gotten plenty of flak from state and federal authorities. Berkeley,
Oakland and Santa Cruz have made good-faith efforts but aren't as far along
as Arcata. San Jose started out on a promising course but ran into trouble.
In Orange County, of course, Marvin Chavez has done his sincere best to
operate a bona fide medical marijuana dispensary at the Orange County
Cannabis Co-op, but a combination of sometimes inadvertent and sometimes
silly mistakes and the hostility of local officials has him in jail at this
very moment.
Of them all, it is Harris of Arcata who is perhaps the closest thing to a
hero in the struggle to achieve implementation of Section 11362.5. Working
with City Council members and local police, he achieved just that, and in
January Arcata's City Council unanimously passed a new ordinance designed
"to recognize and protect the rights of qualified patients and primary
caregivers through implementation as provided under the Compassionate Use Act."
THE ARCATA MODEL
Arcata City Councilman Bob Ornelas told me this week that the city, whose
residents had voted overwhelmingly for Prop.215, might have ben more ready
for implementation than some other places. Humboldt County, after all, is a
hotbed of illicit marijuana cultivation and Prop. 215 received an
overwhelming 74 percent majority vote in the city. But it was important to
have medical use advocates who were willing to cooperate and take the
concerns of the police and officials into consideration.
"Police Chief Mel Brown was especially interested in having a simple
ordinance everybody could understand," Ornelas said. "And Bobby Harris and
Jason Browne, representing patients, crafted an ordinance from which we
could pick what we like, and were always willing to keep talking so the
process wouldn't stall."
The Arcata ordinance recognizes - as have the courts, even when they have
issued temporary injunctions shutting down cannabis clubs - the legitimacy
of medical marijuana associations and "recognizes that lawful remuneration
consistent with state law may occur between qualified patients and primary
caregivers." It defines its terms carefully and sets up a procedure for
certifying the status of patients and caregivers through the police
department. It has a clause protecting physician/patient confidentiality,
sets out guidelines for permissible cultivation and transportation and sets
up procedures when police have questions about whether somebody in
possession of marijuana has a legitimate medical need.
The accomplishment is significant and has hardly been publicized or
recognized at all. But, as Robert Harris told me this week, "we think we
have the only viable interpretation of Prop. 215 upon which local government
implementation can be authentically premised, in the face of inevitable
legislative paralysis on this topic."
The legislative paralysis is real enough. State Sen. John Vasconcellos, the
San Jose Democrat who is the most sympathetic and informed state legislator
on this topic, had wanted to include an implementation plan in legislation
authorizing the University of California to do independent studies on
medical marijuana last year. But he found virtually no support for
implementation plans - indeed, he found no stomach for even discussing it -
and the bill became a research-only bill.
I doubt if California voters had a very concrete idea of precisely how
Section 11362.5 would be implemented. But those who thought beyond the
obvious issue at stake in the campaign - if a doctor is willing to recommend
marijuana to an ill person and the person is willing to take whatever risks
are involved and use it, then of course they ought to be able to do so
without being arrested - probably had something like Arcata or West
Hollywood in mind.
Putting together distribution plans hasn't been easy. Almost as soon as the
law was passed, state and federal officials were working actively to
discourage or prevent, rather than to encourage, any plan for safe and
affordable distribution. Federal officials, until reprimanded by a court,
threatened to yank the licenses of doctors who recommended marijuana.
FEDERAL LAW
Under federal law, cannabis is listed as a Schedule I drug, a classification
supposedly reserved for drugs with uniquely dangerous properties that have
no known medical uses, and therefore unavailable for doctors to prescribe.
Whether it really fits that description is beyond the scope of this article.
California Attorney General Dan Lungren didn't tell federal officials that
the law of California now said, "no physician in this state shall be
punished, or denied any right or privilege, for having recommended marijuana
to a patient for medical purposes," and that as the state's chief law
enforcement officer he was sworn to uphold that law whether or not he agreed
with it.
Instead, he aided and abetted the feds and embarked on a campaign designed
to close all cannabis clubs in the state, with a particularly heated battle
now playing out in San Francisco courts.
It's almost as if Lungren, federal drug czar Barry McCaffery and others were
determined not to find a way to make distribution for medical purposes work,
but to prove that it can't work.
In San Francisco Lungren found a convenient foil. Dennis Peron, who had
already started a medical cannabis club and was one of the chief authors of
Prop. 215, makes no bones about the fact that he considers medicalization a
step toward full legalization.
While he has run his cannabis club with some measure of control, he is also
a flamboyant, confrontational character who doesn't mind smoking a joint
while the TV news cameras are rolling.Having crossed swords with Lungren
numerous times and had his club closed and reopened several times, he filed
to run against Lungren for the Republican gubernatorial nomination.
Dennis Peron has the support - some voiced, some tacit - of most local
officials and police officials in San Francisco. But San Francisco might
tolerate flamboyance better than many California cities.
In San Jose, arguably a more middle-class municipality than San Francisco,
city officials were ready to cooperate with efforts to create a small, licit
medical marijuana market. But last month the police arrested Peter Baez, who
had run the club that ensued, charging him and the club - apparently with
some justification - with selling marijuana to numerous people who had no
doctor's recommendation and making hefty profits in the process. In other
words, with being a dope dealer who operated under the cloak of
medical-marijuana respectability.
Whether those charges are true, of course, will be taken up in court
proceedings. A grand jury is said to be active on the issue.
What has been missing except in a couple of localities are advocates and
organizers - like Robert Harris - who are willing to consult and cooperate
with local officials, take their concerns into account and put together a
medical marijuana distribution system that does things properly.
Perhaps it took some confrontational personalities to raise the profile of
the issue and to put together a political campaign. Implementation will
require a more low-key cooperative approach.
THE BLACK MARKET
Local officials should consider that unless provisions are made for
providing medical marijuana under controlled conditions, the supplies will
come from the black market.
Not that the small amount of marijuana likely to be used for legitimate
medical purposes under Health and Safety Code Section 11362.5 will have a
huge impact on the black market, but to the extent that it does, it will
strengthen it and pad the incomes of black marketeers.
That will be the inevitable result of resisting efforts to set up legal
cultivation centers.
There's a plot growing in Arcata that has already had a harvest. In West
Hollywood, city officials actually recognized that the cannabis club would
be putting money into the black market and asked Scott Imler to start
growing it on-site. Imler told me this week that last year they grew about
11 percent of what they distributed, this year they hope to have it up to
around 50 percent and eventually they want to grow everything themselves.
Dennis Peron to me recently that the San Francisco club has a plot of land
in Lake County and hopes to start growing soon.
Other than those few exceptions, patients who, under the law, have a right
to possess and use marijuana for medical purposes have no choice but to get
it from the black market. Even if they go to a local cannabis club, the club
has almost certainly gotten its supplies from black market sources.
IMPLEMENTATION
Advocates, police and government officials all have an interest in the kind
of low-key implementation work necessary here.
As Scott Imler told me, "we have an obligation to implement the law we
passed, not the law we might wish had passed." That means quality control,
checking recommendations scrupulously, screening out those without medical
justification and thinking about patients more than publicity, There are
plenty of people who don't want to see Section 11362.5 work. Those who do
need to work all the more responsibly.
If local officials don't cooperate, it could backfire on them as well. The
people want patients to have access to medical marijuana. The passage of
Prop. 215 and every subsequent poll reinforces this perception.
If the law they passed to permit patient access doesn't work - if law
enforcement and local officials are seen as abstructing implementation -
they might just get impatient enough to go for outright legalization.
There are plenty of advocates with plausible arguments for that course, and
at least one group is circulating a proposed initiative for signatures.
A year and a half after the passage of Prop. 215, most of California has
failed implementation abominably. But in Arcata and West Hollywood models
have been built that could be replicated around the state. San Jose
officials are already looking at the Arcata model.
The burden, however, will fall on local governments and local advocates.
That means implementation is likely to be spotty for a while, but if enough
local government s step up to the challenge responsibly, Californians can
make Health and Safety Code 11362.5 a reality rather than just a hope.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Idaho Pushes Prisons Over Social Welfare (An Interesting 'New York Times'
Article In 'The San Jose Mercury News' Says Idaho, Completely Dominated
By The Republican Party, Has Reduced Its Welfare Rolls By 77 Percent,
The Steepest Cut In The Nation, Its Rate Of Incarceration Is Growing Faster
Than All But Two Other States, And Only One Other State, South Dakota,
Spends Less Per Capita On Child Welfare - But By A Huge Margin,
Idaho's Proportion Of Abused Or Neglected Children Leads The Nation)
Date: Mon, 04 May 1998 07:21:15 -0400
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: Mike Gogulski
Subject: MN: US ID: Idaho Pushes Prisons Over Social Welfare
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: Marcus-Mermelstein Family
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Contact: letters@sjmercury.com
Website: http://www.sjmercury.com/
Pubdate: Sun, 3 May 1998
Author: Timothy Egan, New York Times
IDAHO PUSHES PRISONS OVER SOCIAL WELFARE
Statistics on children, poor lead some to question spending plan
BOISE, IDAHO -- Come to fast-growing Idaho, the people behind the
prosperous new economy here like to say, and you find a nearly crime-free
state with no visible poor people.
Idaho, the state's leaders say, believes in punishing criminals, and so it
has made prison sentences long and certain. Welfare rolls are sharply down,
they say, because Idaho sees welfare as short-term help that should be
difficult to get. They proudly shun government, and make no apologies for
spending little on social welfare. It encourages self-reliance, they say.
With little patience for spending on social welfare programs or coddling
criminals with policies such as time off for good behavior, state leaders
here have charted a course that fits the state's political personality.
And if they are filling up prisons at an exceedingly high rate while
reducing welfare rolls to an astonishing level, that is the plan and goal.
But beneath the sheen of the Gem State are statistics that no one is
bragging about. Some social historians say Idaho is in danger of becoming a
Rocky Mountain version of Mississippi, which consistently ranks near the
bottom of states in spending for children, education and the poor.
Over the past 3 1/2 years, Idaho has reduced its welfare rolls by 77
percent, the steepest cut in the nation. Only one other state, South
Dakota, spends less per capita on child welfare. But by a huge margin,
Idaho's proportion of abused or neglected children leads the nation.
Crime is low, but prisons are filling faster than ever. Idaho locks up
people for crimes that most states do not even consider felonies. Among the
states, its rate of incarceration is growing faster than all but two. Its
prisons are filling so quickly that Idaho has to fly people out of state to
find cells for them.
Experts caution against making too-direct connections between low public
investment in children and in the poor and high rates of abuse, neglect and
incarceration. But they say the trends in Idaho bear close watching by
other states that have reduced spending on basic welfare and education
needs of poor children while pouring tax dollars into new prisons.
``Idaho has effectively made itself the worst place in the nation to be
poor,'' said John Cook, the research director at Tufts University Center on
Hunger, Poverty and Nutrition policy. A recent study by the center ranked
Idaho as the state whose policies were most likely to worsen the economic
condition of the poor.
People on both sides of the political spectrum say that what is happening
in the nation's most Republican state is the consequence of its relatively
recent move toward one-party rule. Democrats are not just an endangered
species here; there are no statewide Democratic officeholders. In the
Legislature, there are only 16 Democrats among the 105 members of the state
House of Representatives and the Senate.
``This is the problem with living in a monarchy,'' said the editor of Boise
Magazine, Alan Minskoff. ``The monarchy is tough on the poor, it's tough on
education, it's tough on the environment. It loves prisons. In order to
have some balance, you need two political parties.''
Idaho Gov. Philip Batt is a Republican who generally supports the course
his state has chosen, in both prisons and welfare. The poor who leave
Idaho's welfare rolls have more self-esteem, he said.
But Batt, who considers himself as conservative as any mainstream
Republican, has recently warned that perhaps the state is being too hard on
children and the poor, and too quick to put people in jail.
Idaho is something of a statistical anomaly. It is much more rural than the
rest of America. Its small population -- 1.2 million -- is 95 percent
white. It has a deep-seated distrust of the federal government, and a
tradition of self-reliance.
Idaho's isolation, and its homogeneous political and racial makeup, are
hurting the state, Stephen Lyons wrote in a recent essay in High Country
News, a Western weekly. ``That isolation has led to xenophobia, a fear of
strangers or, perhaps more precisely, a fear of anyone not white.''
Others say Idaho is more tolerant than it is portrayed outside the state,
but that it could use a second political party, if only to inject some new
ideas into public policy.
A retired state Supreme Court justice, Bob Huntley, just announced he would
run for governor as a Democrat this year. His main reason, he said, was
that he believed Idaho was suffering from the lack of a two-party system.
But beyond political philosophies, some experts say Idaho, in limiting
welfare benefits while expanding prisons, is simply making a bad investment
for taxpayers.
``There are good reasons for building prisons, but our one solution to
everything -- drugs, alcohol abuse, minor offenses -- is prison, and that
is simply not cost-effective,'' said Professor Robert Marsh, chairman of
the Department of Criminal Justice at Boise State University.
In 1996, the last full year for figures, 78 percent of the people Idaho
sent to prison were non-violent offenders -- more than 50 percent higher
than the national average. This despite the fact that Idaho's overall crime
rate ranks it in the lower fifth among states.
The state is now spending $200 million to build a new, privately operated
prison for 1,250 inmates. But its spending for the poor totals only about
$15 million a year, at the bottom among all states.
A number of researchers and educators from Idaho have joined national
critics in arguing that the state's investment in welfare and early child
education is too low.
One recent study, financed by the state, found that nearly 60 percent of
fourth-graders were reading at a level below their grade. Another survey
echoed national studies in establishing a direct link between failing
grades for poor children by the fourth grade and the likelihood that they
will go on to commit crimes as a juvenile or young adult.
``The message our state seems to be sending is that if you're going to be a
kid, don't be a kid in Idaho,'' said Robert Barr, dean of the College of
Education at Boise State University.
``I have tried to convey to the state Legislature the most chilling
information that I've ever seen,'' Barr said. ``If a child is poor, is held
back at least once and is not reading at grade level, you can predict with
better than 90 percent success that the child will never graduate from high
school and may end being a burden on the system, in prison or elsewhere.''
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Students Are Told - Drop A Dime, Win Rewards ('Los Angeles Times'
Article In 'San Jose Mercury News' About A New Program In Portsmouth,
New Hampshire, Offering Rewards To Student Snitches At Public High Schools,
Is A Source Of Controversy, But Such Programs, Adopted At Scores
Of Other High Schools, Are Simply Copying Programs Already In Place
In The Adult World)
Date: Mon, 04 May 1998 18:43:06 -0400
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: Mike Gogulski
Subject: MN: US: Students are told: Drop a dime, win rewards
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: Marcus-Mermelstein Family
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Contact: letters@sjmercury.com
Website: http://www.sjmercury.com/
Pubdate: Sun, 3 May 1998
Author: Mark Fritz, Los Angeles Times
STUDENTS ARE TOLD: DROP A DIME, WIN REWARDS
Schools are increasingly using cash, incentives to encourage teenagers to
report wrongdoing
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- Today's topic, class, is ethics: If somebody offered
you $50, would you be more inclined to turn in a fellow student who did
something wrong?
Try this pop quiz on Mrs. Foley's freshman English class, and not a single
hand goes up. But ask them if they think somebody else would take the
reward, and hardly a hand stays down. Everybody knows somebody who would
turn informant.
``People are greedy,'' says Charlaina Hughes, a 15-year-old freshman with a
pixie haircut.
In this resort community where the Piscataqua River meets the north
Atlantic, local police and Portsmouth High School officials have come up
with a crime-fighting program that includes one eye-popping component:
Report wrongdoing, win rewards.
The program has yet to go into effect, but ever since the school board
approved it in June, the town has been debating the morality of using cash
to coax kids into doing the right thing. The amounts, ranging from $10 to
$100, would be left to a special panel of students.
``Oh God, it's been crazy,'' said Mary Carey Foley, the English teacher and
student liaison who will be responsible for fielding anonymous tips from
young informants. ``You wouldn't believe the (debate). The local paper had
a cartoon with a valedictorian, salutatorian and a snitch-atorian.''
As unusual as the program seems, scores of other high schools are offering
similar incentives, from Fresno to Boulder, Colo., to Amarillo, Texas. In
the past year, Baton Rouge, La., and Albuquerque, N.M., have added the
program, and Charlotte, N.C., expanded it from a handful of schools to all
the high schools and down to the middle schools -- 53 campuses in all.
In Charlotte, tens of thousands of posters and stickers cover the campuses
with an Orwellian logo: a pair of eyes and the warning ``Who's watching?''
followed by a hotline number. Police credit the program with solving a
recent homicide, recovering a couple of stolen cars and letting authorities
intercept a knife-carrying kid who'd bragged to friends that he intended to
eviscerate a teacher.
Elsewhere students are tempted to report campus crime with T-shirts, gift
certificates, pizzas, autographed baseballs and other things coveted by
young consumers, said Mary Parker, a criminologist at the University of
Arkansas-Little Rock. The logical extension, she said, will be for schools
to move these programs into increasingly lower grades.
Parents of punctual children were in an uproar when Oregon's Multnomah
County recently decided to pay parents of chronically truant students $3
for every full day of classes their kids attended and $1 for each half day.
Parker said some schools offer rewards to entire classes if, say, they
collectively cut down on playground incidents or absenteeism.
She said programs like the one adopted in Portsmouth are simply copies of
programs already in place in the adult world.
``It's not a system of snitching or ratting, per se,'' Parker said. ``It's
just the citizens of that community policing that community. Does it work?
People are caught. I would suggest that, yes, there is some benefit.''
Yet many others say using money to modify student behavior is unsound and
ethically appalling. It creates the wrong atmosphere, said University of
Maryland criminologist Denise Gottfredson, co-author of a congressional
report on juvenile crime and a leading authority on school-based crime
prevention.
The program in Portsmouth shares its roots with television shows like
``America's Most Wanted.'' Both are offshoots of the popular Crime Stoppers
community crime-watch program, conceived by an Albuquerque police officer
in 1976. Typically, a crime is advertised and people with information can
call in anonymously and, if the tip results in a conviction, claim a reward.
The school-based offshoot was the brainchild of Larry Wieda, a Boulder,
Colo., police investigator who got high schools there to adopt the idea in
1983.
The idea of putting adult-style crime programs into the schools fits into
the broader trend toward treating kids with adult gloves. Even before the
schoolyard killings in Jonesboro, Ark., in March -- in which the alleged
killers of five people were two boys, ages 11 and 13 -- most states had
changed their laws to make it easier to prosecute juveniles as adults, and
many states have dropped a minimum age for adult prosecution.
The campus crime-stopper programs depend on getting kids to turn each other
in, and that remains one of the great youth taboos, even in colleges.
Reactions among Portsmouth High School students to the crime-stopper
program were mixed. Students with good reputations were worried about being
blamed as a snitch even if they weren't, while students with less-sparkling
standings fretted about being framed for something they didn't do.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Greenwich Village Pot Devotees Bumped by Family Festival
('New York Times' Version)
Date: Sun, 03 May 1998 22:55:26 -0400
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: Mike Gogulski
Subject: MN: US NY: Greenwich Village Pot Devotees Bumped by Family Festival
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: emr@javanet.com (Dick Evans)
Source: New York Times (NY)
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Pubdate: May 3, 1998
Author: Mike Allen
GREENWICH VILLAGE POT DEVOTEES BUMPED BY FAMILY FESTIVAL
NEW YORK -- It was pot-smoking hippies vs. baby-toting yuppies in Greenwich
Village on Saturday, and the hippies lost. Nudged along by an imposing
cadre of police officers, marchers at a pro-marijuana rally yielded
Washington Square Park to mimes, face-painters and riding ponies at the
first city-sponsored Family Day in the park.
In a striking symbol of changed times, a corporate sponsor of the event was
Rolling Stone magazine, which provided a stunt-bicycle demonstration. For
the last 27 years, May Day had been J-Day -- Joint Day -- in the park,
where thousands of pot smokers rallied in support of their favorite
controlled substance.
But Saturday they massed nostalgically across the street, jeering at two
video surveillance cameras mounted on poles that police credit with helping
run drug dealers out of the park.
Others shambled glumly downtown to Battery Park, where their Million
Marijuana March had been relegated by city officials. "Giuliani's a Dope.
Pot Is an Herb," their posters read.
"It's '1984' in 1998," lamented Dana Beal, 51, the organizer of the
pro-marijuana march, which he said this year had the added purpose of
"mourning the passing of the Village as we once knew it." Vince
Strautmanis, 38, a stockbroker and father of six who was pushing a stroller
past a marionette show, remembered coming to the park for the annual
marijuana rally when he was a student. "It was one big cloud," he said,
sounding almost wistful. "It was like Woodstock." Not anymore. A formidable
police presence highlighted the clashing cultures of several hundred
demonstrators versus a Family Day crowd estimated by officials at 8,000.
Before the march to Battery Park, the marijuana fans gathered quietly to
watch the jugglers and mimes. But whenever a knot of young people gathered,
police officers put barricades around them, much to the youths' amusement.
A police sergeant took one look at Sebastian Sabino, 17, wearing a mushroom
around his neck, and told him: "Battery Park!" When Sabino asked the
officer where that was, she replied, "First Precinct." Sabino took it in
stride. "It's all about peace, man," he said.
The park's signature -- a marble arch flanked by statues of George
Washington -- is surrounded by chain link and scaffolding while it is being
restored. But the culture of the park itself has been under construction
since Mayor Rudolph Giuliani took office in 1994 and instituted vigorous
patrols and drug stings, and posted signs saying no drugs, no drinking, no
biking, no skating. For good measure, another sign says, "Quiet Zone." It
worked, and Friday he crowed about the very idea of a Family Day in the
park. While acknowledging that some drug-dealing remains and that the
Police Department "has a lot more work to do" there, Giuliani said, "Decent
people can now use Washington Square Park and not get assaulted." Beal, who
said his march was dedicated to "all the people who are feeling the sting
of the crackdown in Greenwich Village," works out of a building that once
housed a hippie boutique on the ground floor. He and his supporters staged
a marijuana rally in the park every year beginning in 1973 -- each time
with a permit, except last year, when they held what a city spokesman
called "an illegal assembly."
Robert O'Sullivan, a chairman of a neighborhood group called Parents for
Playgrounds, which sponsored Family Day with the city's Parks Department,
decided that was not going to happen again. "I told them straight out, 'We
don't want you coming into the park,' " said O'Sullivan. "They talk about
free speech, but what they want is a pot-smoking party. We don't want
people drinking alcohol in the park, either."
So Saturday the park became a place for face-painting, a putting green and
a soccer clinic. Paul De Rienzo, 41, a leader of the marijuana march who is
editor in chief of High Times magazine, denounced Parents for Playgrounds
for "using their own children as props for their political agenda." His
nemesis, O'Sullivan, is a former financial adviser who now stays home with
his two children. He calls himself a liberal, says he smoked marijuana 10
or 15 times when he was in college, and doesn't even object to loosening
the marijuana laws. "I told Dana, 'We'll even lobby with you, guy, but we
don't want you coming into the park,' " O'Sullivan said. The marijuana
event drew Grateful Dead fans from throughout the East Coast, with a large
contingent of high-school students from Westchester County and New Jersey.
On sale was melatonin (a legal substance, priced at 25 cents for 2,500
micrograms), which Beal called "an LSD-like drug" that produces "trippy
dreams" when taken at bedtime. "It improves the pot high, but also cuts the
craving," said Beal, who added, "I don't use as much marijuana as I once
did." On corners surrounding Washington Square Park, Beal deployed
"marshals" to steer the arriving marijuana enthusiasts to nearby blocks so
they could link arms in a "Hands Around the Village" exercise.
Despite the event's ambitious name, the marijuana group predicted a crowd
in the mere thousands, billing Saturday's rally as "a full-dress rehearsal"
for May Day 1999, when they hope to finish the job. "Go ye forth and bring
us back a million people," Beal told supporters.
He said he planned to apply to use the Great Lawn at Central Park.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Heroin Puts Burma In Crisis Over AIDS ('New York Times'
Says That In Rangoon, Burma, Also Known As Yangon, Myanmar,
Tea Is The Gateway Drug To Heroin Addiction, Which Is The Primary Cause
Of An Alleged AIDS Epidemic - By 1994, The World Health Organization
Reported Burmese Addicts Had Infection Rates Of 74 Percent To 91 Percent -
But The Newspaper Fails To Explain How The UN Or Anyone Else
Could Manage The Expense Or Logistics Of A Credible HIV-Infection-Rate Survey
In Burma)
Date: Sun, 03 May 1998 20:25:16 -0400
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: Melodi Cornett
Subject: MN: Burma: Heroin Puts Burma in Crisis Over AIDS
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk: tjeffoc@sirius.com (Tom O'Connell) and emr@javanet.com (Dick Evans)
Pubdate: Sun, 3 May 1998
Source: (1) New York Times (2) San Francisco Examiner
Contact: (1) letters@nytimes.com
Website: (1) http://www.nytimes.com/
Contact: (2) letters@examiner.com
Website: (2) http://www.examiner.com/
Author: Christopher S. Wren
HEROIN PUTS BURMA IN CRISIS OVER AIDS
RANGOON, Burma -- At sidewalk tea stalls where Burmese men socialize over
cups of fragrant black tea, proprietors in some towns have added a lucrative
sideline -- heroin -- and use the same syringe to inject as many as 40
customers.
The surreptitious practice, described by several Western diplomats and
doctors, illustrates how Burma, the world's foremost exporter of opium, has
developed its own domestic heroin habit, with potentially disastrous
consequences.
So many young Burmese are injecting heroin that some medical experts say
Burma, also known as Myanmar, has the world's highest rate of HIV infection
and AIDS contracted from dirty needles. By 1994, the Global Program on AIDS
of the World Health Organization reported, 74 percent of drug addicts in
Rangoon (also known as Yangon), 84 percent in Mandalay and 91 percent in
Myitkyina, in the north, had HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
This compares with about one-third of New York City's 150,000 to 200,000
intravenous drug users who are HIV-positive, according to Donald Des
Jarlais, research director for the Chemical Dependency Institute at Beth
Israel Medical Center in New York.
The Burmese government has reported registering only 60,000 addicts, with as
few as 17,000 infected with AIDS. Foreign medical researchers put the total
number of addicts closer to 500,000, and estimate that several hundred
thousand heroin injectors have become HIV-positive.
Another study, financed by the United Nations Drug Control Program, a terse
abstract of which was released by the Burmese Health Ministry, found drug
abuse prevalent in 1.7 percent to 25 percent of the population studied in
three dozen Burmese townships. With 88 percent to 99 percent of drug abusers
identified as male, the study implied that up to half of the men in some
townships could be addicted.
Both studies are cited in a new book, "War in the Blood: Sex, Politics and
AIDS in Southeast Asia," by Dr. Chris Beyrer, an American epidemiologist who
has worked in the region and interviewed health workers, addicts and people
with AIDS.
"It's going to be one of those situations where people will say, 'How could
the world not have known, because hundreds of thousands of people have died
there?"' he said in a telephone interview from his office at Johns Hopkins
School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore.
Burma offers a harrowing example of drug-producing or transit countries that
find their own people growing addicted to heroin or cocaine intended for
foreign markets.
The military government's own AIDS statistics have been suspect since 1996,
when it wooed foreign tourists with a "Visit Myanmar" campaign that
portrayed the country as a vacation paradise.
Beyrer said he knew of Burmese researchers who were punished for being too
candid about the country's AIDS problem. Beyrer also said the military
junta's credibility was so suspect that even if they told the truth, many
Burmese might not believe them.
Although for years older hill people smoked opium to relax or as a treatment
for illnesses like malaria, it is younger, lowland Burmese who are injecting
opium's refined derivative, heroin.
Dr. Ba Thaung, director of the Drug Dependence Research and Treatment Unit
in Rangoon, said that heroin was widely available, inexpensive and
devastatingly pure. "Before, we had very few social problems, but now we
have a lot of problems connected to drug use," he said.
Dr. Gyaw Htet Doe, a psychiatrist in the research unit of the Rangoon drug
treatment center, estimated that 62 percent to 65 percent of younger heroin
patients are HIV-positive. "As a doctor at the Ministry of Health, I have to
be concerned because there is no cure for this," he said. "It will kill or
harm a lot of young people in our country."
Other medical specialists made available by the government confirm the
problem. "The majority of intravenous drug users are HIV-positive," said Dr.
Martin Joseph, a consulting psychiatrist at the general hospital in Lashio,
a town in northeastern Burma. "We estimate about 80 percent."
The epicenter of Burma's AIDS pandemic is Hpakan, a jade-mining town
northwest of Myitkyina, where heroin injection is said to be rampant and
clean needles a rarity. When seasonal rains halt the digging in Hpakan's
open-pit jade mines, thousands of migrant miners return home, carrying the
HIV virus back to their wives.
The relatively late arrival of AIDS in Burma has contributed to widespread
ignorance about the disease. By 1988, only a single case of AIDS, brought
back by a dying sailor, had been diagnosed. By 1989, doctors were
discovering hundreds more Burmese infected.
Yet as late as 1995, a survey of 714 Burmese prison inmates found that only
11 percent knew that HIV could be contracted by injecting drugs. Dr. Than
Zaw, medical superintendent of the Lashio general hospital, said that
patients there "may have heard of AIDS but they don't know how it's
contracted." "All they know is when they have AIDS, there is no cure," he
continued.
The government has opened 30 drug-treatment centers since 1975. But many
heroin users stay away, because detoxification means undergoing agonizing
withdrawal with little more than modest doses of tincture of opium and
meditation lessons from Buddhist monks.
"Sometimes when they learn they are HIV-positive, they leave treatment,"
Than Zaw said. "They don't want their families or other people to know,
because they are looked down on."
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Week Online With DRCNet, Issue Number 40
(The Drug Reform Coordination Network's Original News Summary For Activists
Features A DRCNet Special Report, 'Drug War Under Fire From Left, Right -
The Battle Begins' - Plus An Update On Former Professor Julian Heicklen's
Penn State Protests; An Editorial By Adam J. Smith,
'Prohibition's Final Battle,' And Much More)
Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 01:34:54 EDT
Originator: drc-natl@drcnet.org
Sender: drc-natl@drcnet.org
From: DRCNet (manager@drcnet.org)
To: Multiple recipients of list (drc-natl@drcnet.org)
Subject: The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue #40
THE WEEK ONLINE WITH DRCNet, ISSUE #40 -- MAY 3, 1998
-- PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE --
(To sign off this list, mailto:listproc@drcnet.org with the
line "signoff drc-natl" in the body of the message, or
mailto:drcnet@drcnet.org for assistance. To subscribe to
this list, visit http://www.drcnet.org/signup.html.)
TO OUR READERS: Due to an overwhelming week in the office,
this issue of The Week Online is arriving a couple of days
late. We thank you for your patience.
ALERT: We at DRCNet are proud to bring you the drug policy
news each week. But DRCNet is not only about education, but
also about Taking Action to Bring About Change Today. We
lists here a few important action requests, followed as
always by the weekly news.
1) Cleveland needle exchanger Ken Vail was arrested last
week, as city officials place obstacle after bureaucratic
obstacle in the way of this life-saving program. Vail and
The Xchange Point NEP need our support now! Read our alert
at http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/4-28.html and act.
2) DRUG CRAZY: How We Got Into This Mess, and How We Can Get
Out -- read about this important new book by DRCNet advisory
board member Mike Gray, forthcoming from Random House, in
our alert at http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/4-29.html and
take action. Your phone calls to bookstores in your area --
whether big chains or local independent stores, can help
propel Drug Crazy to the bestseller list. As Newt Gingrich
and the Republican leadership go "drug crazy" for the
campaign season, and several more initiatives head to the
ballots across the nation, Drug Crazy is coming out at just
the right time to puncture the drug warriors' far-fetched
fantasies of how they will "win the war on drugs." And
DRCNet is lauded and prominently featured in the book's
appendix, together with an Internet directory of drug policy
reform and informational resources, so building up Drug Cray
will build DRCNet and the movement too!
3) The House of Representatives is expected to vote this
Tuesday on H.R. 372, a "Sense of the House" resolution
opposing medical marijuana unequivocally and totally. While
not legally binding, passage of H.R. 372 would be a
political victory for the drug warriors, and could make
further progress for medical marijuana more difficult.
Please call your Representative ASAP, and ask him or her to
vote NO on H.R. 372. You can reach your rep via the Capitol
Switchboard at (202) 225-3121. (The vote is coming right
up, so phone calls or faxes are needed more than e-mails or
letters.)
4) Support DRCNet! We rely on our members for continuing
support. If you haven't yet donated to DRCNet, this would
be a perfect time to join. Your support at any level, be it
a $10 virtual members, a $25 full membership, $30 to get a
free copy of Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts, or more,
represents a vote for DRCNet and drug policy reform. Your
support will keep the organization going strong, and will
show our major funders that our subscribers care about our
work and are ready to act, helping us raise the money to
build our subscriber list from the current 5,000 up to
50,000 and from 50,000 to 100,000, creating an unstoppable
force for positive drug policy change. If you are already a
member, we would be grateful for your continuing support.
Please visit our registration/donation form at
http://www.drcnet.org/drcreg.html, or send your checks to:
DRCNet, 2000 P St., NW, Suite 615, Washington, DC 20036.
Contributions to DRCNet are not tax-deductible.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. DRCNet Special Report: Drug War Under Fire from Left,
Right -- The Battle Begins
http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/5-3.html#battle
2. Members of Congressional Black Caucus Call for
Drug Czar's Resignation Over Syringe Exchange
http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/5-3.html#resign
3. Kemba's Nightmare, Part II
http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/5-3.html#kemba
4. Marijuana Activist Arrested After Appearing on Frontline
http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/5-3.html#keenan
5. Medical Marijuana in California
http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/5-3.html#calmedmj
6. Julian Heicklen - Penn State Protest Update
http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/5-3.html#heicklen
7. Opiate Maintenance Conferences in New York
http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/5-3.html#maintenance
8. Editorial: Prohibition's Final Battle
http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/5-3.html#editorial
***
1. DRCNET SPECIAL REPORT: DRUG WAR UNDER FIRE FROM LEFT,
RIGHT -- THE BATTLE BEGINS
The Drug War, and the Clinton Administration's leadership on
the issue, came under attack from nearly all sides this week
in a confluence of events which may ultimately be remembered
as the Fort Sumter of the brewing civil war over America's
drug policy. Republicans, who have labeled Clinton's 1998
drug war strategy a "weak" series of "half-steps" (despite
America's status as the world's #1 incarcerator), unveiled
their counter-strategy this week, while the NAACP, the Urban
League and the head of the Congressional Black Caucus sent
an open letter to the president calling on him as well as
Congress to "re-examine" the Drug War's focus on prisons.
HOUSE GOP UNVEILS LEGISLATIVE PACKAGE
House Republicans, led by Speaker Newt Gingrich and his
newly-created "Speakers' Task Force for a Drug-Free America"
chaired by J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), unveiled a
"comprehensive, World War II-style" drug war legislative
package on Thursday (4/30). Details of the package will be
presented to the public over an eight-week period at a
series of orchestrated media events complete with blue
ribbon-wearing participants. The package, which will
include at least a dozen separate pieces of legislation, is
being compared by House Republican staffers to the 1994
"Contract With America," both in its scope and its intended
centrality to the election-year message of the party.
While much of the legislation is still being written, the
bills will range from largely symbolic, such as drug testing
of Congressional Representatives and their staffs, to
punitive, such as the denial of direct or indirect federal
funding to any organization involved in providing syringes,
to overtly war-like, such as the reinstitution and expansion
of military deployments on the US side of our national
borders. The stated goal of the Republican package is to
"win" the drug war by creating a "drug-free" America in four
years. Longer sentences, the death penalty, technological
upgrades in interdiction and federal law enforcement, a
doubling of the border patrol and incentives for expanded
work-place drug testing will also be addressed.
Unlike the recent rhetoric of Drug Czar General Barry
McCaffrey, who has said that we ought not call our drug
policy a "war", the Republicans are openly embracing the
lingo of destruction. Rep. Hastert, chairman of the task
force, told the press, "We are in a war with real
casualties. This Congress will deploy its legislative
battleplan with the War on Drugs on three major fronts...",
those being demand reduction, supply reduction, and
accountability.
Andrew Weinstein, a spokesman for House Speaker Gingrich,
told The Week Online, "We expect strong backing for this
agenda. This is not a political initiative, it is a
substantive plan, a powerful and comprehensive anti-drug
strategy designed to protect our children against drugs.
And while it is not designed as a political tool, we expect
that a number of Republicans will be running very strongly
behind this message in the 1998 campaign."
At the press conference on Thursday, more than fifty
Republican legislators and a hundred local schoolchildren
shared the stage with Speaker Gingrich. Gingrich told
reporters that it was imperative that the Drug War be won in
four years. Otherwise, he said, "The public will get
cynical, and the movement to legalize drugs will succeed."
Reformers, however, have a different take on both the timing
and the impact of the GOP initiative. Kevin Zeese,
President of the Common Sense for Drug Policy Foundation,
told The Week Online, "I think that this strategy is going
to misfire badly for the Republicans and for Drug Warriors
in general. A few years ago, this kind of thing would have
flown easily. The level of understanding on this issue has
taken quantum leaps, however, as evidenced by the NAACP-
Urban League-Maxine Waters letter this week. The public
clearly understands that the Drug War doesn't work, and I
wouldn't be so sure that a plan which essentially calls for
more of the same is going to be politically well-received.
I think that Gingrich is misreading his polls on this, and
as a consequence, we are going to be able to use the
publicity that this will generate to educate the public
about alternatives to a policy of never-ending war."
VOICES OF DISSENT
While the Clinton Administration prepares to defend its Drug
War efforts against attack from the right, the decision,
made last week (4/20), against lifting the ban on the use of
federal anti-AIDS funds for syringe exchange has apparently
broken the dam and unleashed, if not a torrent, then at
least a stream of dissent from the President's left. This
backlash has come specifically from officials and
organizations concerned over the Drug War's devastating
impact on poor and minority communities.
In an open letter to President Clinton, signed by an
impressive list of national leaders, including Maxine
Waters, Chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and the
presidents of the NAACP and the Mexican Legal Defense and
Education Fund, the call was raised for a total elimination
of the 100-1 sentencing disparity between powder and crack
cocaine. And while that disparity is the focus of the
letter, the issue of the Drug War's disparate overall
impact, as well as its reliance on incarceration, are also
addressed. It reads in part:
"The American anti-drug effort's focus on imprisonment over
treatment and its targeting of small-scale African American
and Latino drug offenders has devastated minority
communities and raised public concern about the injustice of
mandatory minimum sentencing." The letter goes on to cite a
1997 Rand Corporation study which shows the relative cost-
effectiveness of drug treatment over either mandatory
minimum sentencing or standard policing.
A FOCUS ON TIMETABLES
The first hints that this battle over the Drug War was
looming came in February, when the Clinton Administration
released its 1998 Drug Strategy, including a 10-year plan to
reduce illegal drug consumption by 50 percent
(http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/2-13.html#ondcp). That
plan was attacked by Gingrich and other Republicans as
"weak", and they vowed to craft a plan to "win" the war in 4
years (http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/2-20.html#gingrich
and http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/2-20.html#editorial).
If Gingrich's four-year plan sounds ambitious, it is perhaps
less so than the goal laid out by Rep. Bill McCollum (R-FL),
the Task Force Co-Chairman, who is focusing his efforts on
the supply-side. McCollum's stated goal is to reduce the
amount of drugs entering the U.S. by 80% in just three
years. McCollum has been pushing in recent weeks for
increased military aid to Colombia, and observers of the
region worry that the U.S. is backsliding into an unwinnable
quagmire in that nation's 35 year-old civil war
(http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/3-27.html#colombia).
As noted above, Speaker Gingrich made overt reference during
this week's press event to the possibility of a war-weary
public joining "the movement to legalize drugs." This
backhanded reference to the growing strength of the anti-war
movement was widely noted among reformers.
Ty Trippet, spokesman for The Lindesmith Center, a drug
policy think tank, told The Week Online, "It's interesting
to hear Newt Gingrich admit to his fear of the reform
movement. For those who are professionally and politically
wedded to the idea of war at all costs as the solution to
the problems associated with substance abuse, it would be
hard not to notice that around the world, alternatives to
punitive prohibition are being sought."
***
2. MEMBERS OF CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS CALL FOR
DRUG CZAR'S RESIGNATION OVER SYRINGE EXCHANGE
In the aftermath of the decision, hotly contested within the
Clinton Administration, against lifting the ban on the use
of federal anti-AIDS funding for needle exchange, several
members of the Congressional Black Caucus have called for
the resignation of Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey. Several
members of the Congressional Black Caucus, made the demand.
CBC chair Maxine Waters (D-CA) stated, "This is a life and
death issue. You can save lives with needle exchange as we
work at getting rid of drugs."
The Clinton Administration's decision to keep the ban in
place, even as they made the determination that syringe
exchange saves lives without promoting increasing the use of
drugs and called on states and local communities to support
the programs, got strong reaction from the reform community,
although there was disagreement about its impact. In the
final weeks leading up to the decision, it became apparent
through information leaked to various media that it was
McCaffrey who was lobbying the president to ignore the
advice of AIDS Director Sandra Thurman, Secretary of Health
and Human Services Donna Shalala, the presidential Advisory
Commission on AIDS, Surgeon General David Satcher and others
who were urging that the ban be lifted. And in the end,
McCaffrey, who is seen as critical to the president's
credibility on the drug issue, got his way.
Chris Lanier, coordinator of the National Coalition to Save
Lives Now, told The Week Online, "This is just outright
political spinelessness. They didn't even try to hide the
fact that they are making a decision which goes against the
scientific evidence. There is no way to justify this. This
administration bears direct responsibility for thousands of
preventable infections and deaths."
But DRCNet Board Member Joey Tranchina, Executive Director
of the AIDS/Hepatitis Prevention Action Network, told The
Week Online, "I think that this (the administration
advocating exchange without lifting the ban) is probably the
best possible scenario. Let's be honest, the federal
government has a long and distinguished record of destroying
nearly everything it touches. Federal funding would have
come with massive amounts of restrictive regulation which
would, in all likelihood, have kept us from doing this work
in the ways that work best. Now, we have the department of
Health and Human Services virtually locked in to promoting
these programs on the state and local levels, without giving
them control. In addition, federal AIDS money would not
have covered the entire costs of most exchanges, but it
would have been hard to convince our private funders to
continue to support us once they heard that the government
was picking up the tab. There are lots of worthy causes,
and I think that a lot of the private money coming in now
would have been redirected."
And Robert Fogel, a member of the Presidential Advisory
Commission on AIDS, which three weeks ago was hours away
from calling for the resignation of Donna Shalala, until a
call from the White House assured them that a decision on
the ban was forthcoming, took a similar view.
"I'm not 100 percent sure what the commission will decide to
do now," Fogel told The Week Online. "But personally, I
think that this could work out very well. The key issue is
going to be how out-front HHS Secretary Donna Shalala will
be in urging localities to support the programs. It's going
to make it much easier, in places where exchange is still
illegal, to get them established and recognized by the local
authorities. We'll have to see how it plays out from here,
but I'm hopeful that this decision will prove to be a
positive development."
***
3. KEMBA'S NIGHTMARE, PART II
Last fall, DRCNet reported on the Free Kemba Smith rally on
the steps of the US Capitol, featuring high school students
from Dayton, Ohio, who had learned of the Kemba Smith case
from the May, 1996 issue of Emerge magazine, Reps. Bobby
Scott (D-VA), John Conyers (D-MI), and Maxine Waters (D-
CA), Rev. Jamal Bryant, Youth and College Director of the
NAACP, representatives from Families Against Mandatory
Minimums and others. Smith was sentences at age 24 to a 24-
year mandatory minimum sentence for drugs sold by an abusive
boyfriend who had been killed before prosecutors could try
him (http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1997/9-12-1.html#kemba).
The May, 1997 issue of Emerge again features the Kemba Smith
case, and the effort to free Kemba, reverse mandatory
minimum sentencing, and educate youth on the dangers they
could face at the hands of the criminal justice system.
Check your local newsstand, or call (800) 888-0488.
To learn more about the important work being done by Kemba's
parents, Gus and Odessa Smith, visit the Kemba Smith Justice
page at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/8899/.
To learn more about mandatory minimums, visit Families
Against Mandatory Minimums at http://www.famm.org.
***
4. MARIJUANA ACTIVIST ARRESTED AFTER APPEARING ON FRONTLINE
Activist and medical marijuana user Doug Keenan and his wife
Theresa (both DRCNet members) were arrested this week, just
one day after appearing on the PBS Frontline special,
"Busted: America's War on Marijuana". Keenan, an electrical
engineer, computer programmer, and holder of ten U.S.
patents, suffers from testicular cancer, but believes in the
right to use marijuana, whether medicinally or
recreationally. During the show, Doug appeared on camera,
openly admitting that he grows and uses marijuana
medicinally, and that to him, the issue is a simple matter
of his God-given right to use whatever the earth gives forth
in his efforts to treat himself. Video footage showed him
tending to several marijuana plants. (DRCNet's web site also
appeared on Keenan's computer screen during the show. That
computer is now in police custody. Keenan's was one of two
homes in which DRCNet's web site popped up during the one-
hour show. If you're impressed by that, why not become a
member? http://www.drcnet.org/drcreg.html)
The Keenans' house was raided on Wednesday evening (4/29) by
members of the Noblesville City Police, members of the
Hamilton County Drug Task Force, and two men in suits who
refused to identify themselves. "We're pretty sure they
were feds," Theresa told The week Online. "When we asked
who they were, they told us 'you don't need to know who we
are.' So I just told them, 'well, that's too bad, because
we're proud of what we do. I'm Theresa Keenan.' They
wouldn't even shake my hand." Police claim to have found
less than one ounce of marijuana in the house.
Doug reports that the house and its contents were trashed
beyond any reason. He told The Week Online, "Everything was
on the floor, scattered around. Pictures were torn off of
walls, my papers covered our floor. Among the items they
took were my computer, every phone number they could find,
and every book on my shelf related to marijuana. The funny
thing is that they left all the books on hemp. I guess our
educational efforts here in Indiana have had some impact.
They apparently know the difference."
The Keenans knew that they were taking a risk when they
agreed to appear on Frontline, but were determined to "come
out" and to take a stand against what they view as the
unjust persecution of marijuana users, be their use medical
or recreational. "Doug thought that maybe they wouldn't
come, but I knew that they'd be here," Theresa said. "We
have two kids, they're nine and fourteen, and we prepared
them for this. They were absolute warriors, no tears, they
did exactly as we'd discussed. I have to say that whatever
message the government is trying to send to America's
children, our kids will grow up knowing that it's important
to stand up against injustice, even if it involves personal
sacrifice."
The Keenans have been charged with maintaining a public
nuisance (a felony) as well as misdemeanor possession.
Contributions to their defense can be made to:
Keenan Defense Fund
c/o Steve Dillon, Attorney-at-Law
3601 North Pennsylvania Street
Indianapolis, Indiana 46205-3435
Excerpts, interviews and other information related to the
Frontline special can be found on the PBS web site at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/.
***
5. MEDICAL MARIJUANA IN CALIFORNIA
- Barrington Daltrey for DRCNet
Medical marijuana remains at the center of a firestorm of
controversy in California. This week, the San Francisco
Cannabis Cultivators' Club reemerged from the shut-down
recently ordered by Judge David Garcia, as the Cannabis
Healing Center. The entity has new management and revised
procedures intended to comply with Proposition 215 and Judge
Garcia's ruling. Operations will be directed by Hazel
Rogers, a septagenarian who uses marijuana to treat her
glaucoma.
In Southern California, the Orange County District Attorney
has targeted members of the Orange County Cannabis Co-op for
enforcement. The co-op's director, Marvin Chavez, has been
arrested, along with two others members. Chavez is in jail
awaiting trial on charges relating to the co-op's operation.
Chavez' supporters report that he suffers from Ankylosing
Spondylitis, a degenerative spine disease. While in jail,
he is being deprived of necessary medication and the use of
a back brace. A rally has been called for May 7, 1998, at
8:30am at the Orange County Courthouse in Santa Ana,
California. Supporters seek to provide a significant
presence, followed by packing the Division 313 courtroom for
Chavez' hearing.
***
6. JULIAN HEICKLEN -- PENN STATE PROTEST UPDATE
- Alex Morgan for DRCNet
Penn State Professor Emeritus Julian Heicklen, in the fourth
month of a weekly civil disobedience campaign in which he
and a group of supporters smoke marijuana in front of the
University gates each Thursday afternoon, was arrested on
April 20 for failing to appear at his arraignment on charges
of marijuana possession from the Feb. 12 demonstration.
Heicklen had earlier announced that he would not attend the
Arraignment because he was not indicted by a grand jury, as
specified in the Fifth Amendment for a "...capital or
otherwise infamous crime..." Pennsylvania abolished the
Grand Jury procedure for most crimes in the 1970's.
Heicklen was arrested by two Centre County Deputy Sheriffs
and taken directly to the county prison and held overnight.
The next day, Prof. Heicklen, wearing a prison uniform,
handcuffs and leg shackles, was taken to his arraignment
before Judge Charles Brown Jr., Presiding Judge of the
Centre County Court of Common Pleas.
Judge Brown ignored Heicklen's demand for a Grand Jury and
proceeded with the arraignment. Heicklen refused to
participate and would not sign the arraignment plea form
that was presented to him. Heicklen was taken back to the
prison, where he was released at 2:50pm.
At the April 23 rally, Heicklen said that he would continue
to fight for a Grand Jury proceeding, taking it to the US
Supreme Court if necessary.
Commenting on his first night in jail since the civil
disobedience campaign began, he said, "I wish to thank the
citizens of Centre County for their hospitality on April 20,
1998. I was provided free room, board, health club, around-
the-clock police protection and the opportunity to see some
old friends and make some new ones..."
Prof. Heicklen also announced that Prof. Lynn Zimmer and Dr.
John Morgan, authors of MARIJUANA MYTHS, MARIJUANA FACTS: A
REVIEW OF THE SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE, have agreed to testify as
expert witnesses at his trial. Zimmer and Morgan were at
Penn State on April 7 where they talked about the flawed
studies and drug war propaganda that are the basis of the
war on marijuana. Prof. Zimmer said that the sanctions
against marijuana are increasing and that there is "...good
reason to be involved in trying to turn this thing around."
Heicklen also said that he had recently addressed 300
students at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, where
organizational plans and legal help are being prepared for a
similar civil disobedience campaign that will start in the
fall. Heicklen is willing to help activists anywhere in the
country and can be contacted by e-mail at jph13@psu.edu
"It's now appropriate to take this to all the counties in
the state... ultimately as we win in the counties the
Federal Government has to decide what to do. They'll have
to come after us and we'll do the same thing with the
Federal Courts. Slowly as more of these things go on,
people will give up fighting it."
Professor Heicklen warns his supporters not to expect quick
results and that the process may take a number of years, but
he also says he's in this for the long haul. "I'm retired.
I've got nothing else to do."
At the April 30 rally, Heicklen said that he has now been
charged with a total of four counts of possession for
marijuana confiscated on February 12, March 19, March 26 and
April 2.
Although he continues to smoke every Thursday, the police
have not been there to witness it since the April 2 rally.
On April 9 they showed up at the end to clear the protest
away from a restaurant entrance, where the rally had moved
for shelter from the rain, but for the last three weeks the
police have been conspicuously absent.
At this week's demonstration, Heicklen received the support
of Ken Krawchuk, the Pennsylvania Libertarian gubernatorial
nominee, who said he would grant pardons to all those
convicted of drug offenses and other victimless crimes and
return seized assets if he wins the November race.
***
7. OPIATE MAINTENANCE CONFERENCES IN NEW YORK
The New York Academy of Medicine is sponsoring: Two
Conferences on Pharmacotherapy for Opiate Dependence.
The 1st International Conference on Heroin Maintenance,
Saturday, June 6, 1998, 9:30am to 5:30pm, $40 (lunch
included), $20 for students.
Expanded Pharmacotherapies for the Treatment of Opiate
Dependence, Friday, September 25, 1998, 9:00am to 5:00pm,
$50 (lunch included), $20 for students.
Both conferences will be held at the New York Academy of
Medicine, 5th Ave. & 103rd Street, New York, NY, and are co-
sponsored by Beth Israel Medical Center, Columbia University
School of Public Health, The Lindesmith Center of the Open
Society Institute, Montefiore Medical Center, the New York
Academy of Medicine, and the Yale University Center for
Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS. For information, call
(212) 822-7237 or go to http://library.nyam.org/heroin/.
***
8. EDITORIAL: PROHIBITION'S FINAL BATTLE
"It is imperative that we win the Drug War in four years, or
else the public will grow cynical, and the movement to
legalize drugs will succeed."
- Newt Gingrich, 4/30/98
With those words, House Speaker Newt Gingrich launched a
"comprehensive... World War II-style battleplan," a
legislative agenda that he says will create a "Drug Free
America" by 2002. And while raising the specter of "the
legalizers" is a calculated move designed to conjure up
images of LSD and methamphetamine being sold out of corner
convenience stores, it would be impossible to overstate the
historical significance of Gingrich's putative warning.
Newt Gingrich, whatever you might think of him, is a smart
man. And in looking at the state of the drug policy debate
around the world, and the growing strength of the American
reform movement, he knows that this is very likely the last
chance that anyone will have to prove, despite damning
evidence to the contrary, that Prohibition can actually
work.
Gingrich has every reason to be concerned. In 1994, the
Swiss government began a program of heroin maintenance for
hard core addicts over the strong objections of the United
States and its virtual puppet, the United Nations office of
Drug Control Policy (UNDCP). The results, released late
last year, were so promising that in a nationwide
referendum, over 71% of Swiss voters agreed that aggressive
harm reduction, including where appropriate, opiate
maintenance, should become national policy. In the
aftermath of those results, Australia was ready to begin a
similar trial, until the U.S. State Department, in an arm-
twisting maneuver that was supposed to remain secret,
threatened to have the UNDCP shut down Tasmania's legal
opiate industry if the Australians went ahead with the
trials. At the last possible moment, the Australian
government backed down. Since then, at least five European
nations have expressed interest in holding trials of their
own.
On cannabis policy, Belgium, which long has been caught
between France's US-style drug policy on one border and the
Netherlands' decriminalized market on the other, recently
resolved to decriminalize possession for personal use. This
followed on the heels of the new French Socialist
government's statements indicating that it would like to see
a radical change in their own laws, as soon as public
opinion, long subject to harsh drug war rhetoric from French
leaders, could be swayed. In England, a sustained and vocal
movement to legalize cannabis has materialized, while in
Canada, which shares a virtually indefensible border with
the US, polls show that the majority is already in favor of
a legalized and regulated market.
Here in the US, constituencies which were until recently
either hawkish or disinterested on drug policy have begun to
attack various aspects of the Drug War. African American
and Latino leaders, many of whom had at one time been
adamant that more police be assigned to minority
neighborhoods and that the war be fought tooth and nail on
their streets, seem to have suddenly come to the conclusion
that their children and their communities cannot withstand
the levels of incarceration and disease that the war has
wrought. Mandatory minimum sentences, injection-related
AIDS, and concerns over police brutality and corruption have
led to an expanding re-examination of the Drug War.
Syringe exchange is another issue around which opposition to
the war has coalesced. The vocal and well-organized anti-
AIDS movement, virtually silent on drug policy for nearly a
decade, suddenly got involved when it became apparent that
the majority of new AIDS cases were related to injection
drug use. And the medicinal use of marijuana, now out of
the closet, has further involved the AIDS community in
reform, and has brought others, including friends and family
of patients, members of the medical establishment, and
legions of concerned citizens to question whether having our
government wage war on the sick and the vulnerable is
rational policy. Or whether it is a message that we want to
be sending to our children.
Other issues, such as the escalation of U.S. military
involvement in Latin America, the national explosion of
asset forfeiture, the DEA campaign of terror waged against
physicians who treat chronic pain, the expansion of random
drug testing, and on and on, have brought new constituencies
to the issue of the Drug War. And, as these various groups
have begun to look at the war through the prism of their
single issues, it has become apparent to many of them that
it is the Drug War itself that is the problem. That the
system is unredeemable. That Prohibition doesn't work any
better for drugs than it did for alcohol. That it is
imperative that we find alternatives.
On April 30, 1998, Speaker Newt Gingrich announced his
intention to make America drug free in four years. Gingrich
and his troops know that this is their one last chance to
show that Prohibition can work. They know that the forces
of reform are steadily gaining ground. And so the warriors
prepare for the mother of all battles, complete with troops
and guns and prisons and propaganda and all of the other
weapons at their disposal. But Prohibition cannot work. It
never has and it never will. And the movement will grow.
And it will succeed. And it will happen sooner than most
Americans believe. Go ask Newt. He said so himself.
Adam J. Smith
Associate Director
***
DRCNet needs your support! Donations can be sent to 2000 P
St., NW, Suite 615, Washington, DC 20036, or made by credit
card at http://www.drcnet.org/drcreg.html on the web.
Contributions to DRCNet are not tax-deductible.
***
DRCNet
***
JOIN/MAKE A DONATION http://www.drcnet.org/drcreg.html
DRUG POLICY LIBRARY http://www.druglibrary.org/
REFORMER'S CALENDAR http://www.drcnet.org/calendar.html
SUBSCRIBE TO THIS LIST http://www.drcnet.org/signup.html
DRCNet HOME PAGE http://www.drcnet.org/
STOP THE DRUG WAR SITE http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/
-------------------------------------------------------------------
[End]
Date: Sun, 03 May 1998 19:58:47 -0400
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: Melodi Cornett (mrhorse@kih.net)
Subject: MN: US NY: Pot-Smoking Hippies
Yield New York Park
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Newshawk:John W.Black
Pubdate: Sun, 3 May 1998
Source: Orange County Register (CA)
Contact: letters@link.freedom.com
Website: http://www.ocregister.com/
POT-SMOKING HIPPIES YIELD NEW YORK PARK
It was pot-smoking hippies vs. baby-toting yuppies in
New York's Greenwich Village on Saturday, and the
hippies lost. Nudged along by an imposing cadre of
police officers, several hundred marchers at a
pro-marijuana rally yielded Washington Square Park
to mimes, face-painters and riding ponies at the first
city-sponsored Family Day in the park, which drew
an estimated crowd of 8,000.
For the past 27 years, May Day had been J-Day -
Joint Day - in the park, where thousands of pot
smokers rallied in support of their favorite
controlled substance.
But Saturday, they massed across the street or shambled glumly downtown to
Battery Park, where their Million Marijuana March had been relegated by city
officials.
to 1998 Daily News index for April 30-May 6