------------------------------------------------------------------- 1991 Drug Case Might Take License From Lawyer ('The Oregonian' Says Portland Attorney Nick Albrecht Has Never Been Prosecuted In The Seven Years Since Frederick Hugh Sturgis Was Caught In A Cocaine Sting And Began Cooperating With Authorities, But Now Multnomah County Prosecutors Are Using The Informant To Go After Albrecht's License To Practice Law) The Oregonian letters to editor: letters@news.oregonian.com 1320 SW Broadway Portland, OR 97201 Web: http://www.oregonlive.com/ 1991 drug case might take license from lawyer * Nick Albrecht never faced trial and denies he helped launder drug money, but now the state bar is reviewing the matter Sunday, June 28 1998 By Peter Farrell of The Oregonian staff On a spring day seven years ago, regional narcotics officers went to a motel in Portland on a "reverse" sting -- instead of posing as buyers they posed as cocaine sellers. The ruse worked: They arrested a small-time dealer who eventually spilled the details of a complex money-laundering scheme. He described how, for almost a decade, drug profits were laundered through business and real estate deals. And he said that two Portland lawyers helped hide the money. One of the lawyers eventually pleaded guilty to racketeering charges. But the other, Portland attorney Nick Albrecht, escaped prosecution. Now, seven years after Frederick Hugh Sturgis was caught in the drug sting and began cooperating with authorities, prosecutors are going after Albrecht's license to practice law. A three-member Oregon State Bar trial panel heard testimony during the past two weeks against Albrecht, a downtown lawyer whose practice has included a good deal of real estate work. If the panel finds "clear and convincing evidence" against Albrecht, it almost certainly will recommend that the state Supreme Court strip him of his license. The trial is the third time the story Sturgis told has brought accusations against Albrecht. Indictment returned Albrecht and the other attorney, George Haslett Jr., were among four people accused of racketeering in a 15-page indictment by a Multnomah County grand jury on Aug. 26, 1993. One of the others was Brian Keith Charlesworth, whose home at Henry Hagg Lake in Washington County was raided by 20 officers of the Regional Organized Crime Narcotics Task Force in March 1992. He later pleaded guilty in federal court to racketeering involving laundering more than $350,000 from sales of cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana. The government dropped drug charges, and Charlesworth was sentenced to seven years, eight months. An associate in the drug operation also went to prison. So, separately, did Sturgis. But the charges against the two attorneys, Albrecht and Haslett, were dismissed in March 1994. Circuit Judge William C. Snouffer ruled that Oregon's racketeering laws did not then cover money laundering. But federal laws did, so Multnomah County handed the case to federal prosecutors, who quickly got a federal indictment against the lawyer. Almost a year went by before federal prosecutors dismissed the indictment. By then, the deadline had passed for county prosecutors to appeal the state court ruling. Troubles appear over It looked as if Albrecht was free of the issue. Haslett, whom Albrecht said he barely knew, had not been so lucky. There was evidence Haslett was directly involved in Charlesworth's drug operation. Because he was 71 when convicted of racketeering on July 28, 1995, he was sentenced to three years' probation and ordered to resign from the bar organization. But Norm Frink, Multnomah County's chief deputy district attorney, wasn't through with Albrecht. Frink wrote a formal letter of complaint to the bar group in April 1995, saying the district attorney's office had evidence that Albrecht was involved in crimes. That prompted another investigation and the recent trial before the bar panel. According to regional task force documents filed in various court proceedings, Sturgis told federal narcotics investigators that Albrecht knew Charlesworth was spending drug money. In fact, Sturgis said the lawyer had described how to launder money by buying real estate for a low down payment and then inflating the monthly payments. That way, large sums of cash could be turned into property without attracting suspicion. But Sturgis did not testify at the bar trial, in which he could have been cross-examined. The only direct testimony against the lawyer was from Curtis Farber, 43, a convicted murderer and reluctant witness with an immunity agreement from Multnomah County. Farber said he was a middleman in buying real estate with money Charlesworth provided. Asked whether he specifically told Albrecht that he was buying real estate with "drug money," Farber said, "I don't know how it was phrased, but we did speak on that level, yes." Scheme is complex The money-laundering scheme using real estate transactions is complex. The key figures were Farber, Charlesworth and John Sturgis -- Fred's brother. They met in the penitentiary, where they were incarcerated for various crimes. Farber was serving a life sentence for hiring a drug-dealing friend to kill Harry "Skip" Foss Jr., a big Portland-area cocaine supplier. The three were released from prison several months apart and eventually reunited in the money-laundering scheme. Farber said he started selling cocaine but also worked at a series of legitimate jobs, including selling real estate partnerships for a local company. He said he also earned about $2,000 for standing in for Charlesworth in real estate deals. Sturgis also was involved and, initially, funneled the money to Farber. Albrecht's attorney, Marc Blackman, insisted that Albrecht didn't know he was being used by three former felons to launder drug money. That's because Charlesworth used at least four aliases backed by false identification. Albrecht said he only knew Charlesworth by the name David MaGuire. MaGuire was described as a businessman so rich he was bored by the petty details of buying real estate and sent Farber to handle them. And although Albrecht was involved in preparing papers in some transactions -- normal legal services for which he charged usual fees, Blackman said -- he was not part of others, which Farber completed without a lawyer or, in one case, with the help of another attorney. Bar group brings complaint Beyond money laundering, the bar organization also complains that Albrecht failed to protect the interests of people whose names appeared on checks Albrecht deposited in a trust account under Farber's name. Albrecht testified that he believed what Farber told him -- that the checks came from investors who wanted to be Farber's partners in real estate deals. Farber said he and John Sturgis made up the names -- to turn Charlesworth's money into cashier's checks. Farber said he told Albrecht: "The money did not come from those people." When Farber and Charlesworth had a falling out in 1989, Farber asked Albrecht for all but a few dollars of the trust account money so he could buy some property. Albrecht gave him a check for about $52,000. Farber testified that he left Oregon with the money, which mostly belonged to Charlesworth. Albrecht said he could disprove several of the bar group's financial accusations if a computer crash, verified by the technician who tried to fix it, had not wiped out his records. He also said his wife destroyed some records stored in his garage that became water-damaged. Blackman said the bar group's complaint that Albrecht took money belonging to other people failed to recognize that, by law, the money was under the control of the person Albrecht knew as "MaGuire" and of Farber. They were clients, he said, and Albrecht had a duty to follow their directions.
------------------------------------------------------------------- Panic In Needle Park ('Oregonian' Columnist Steve Duin Writes About A Sheltered Portland Woman Who Is Surprised Police Are Too Busy Busting Pot Offenders To Come Pick Up Hazardous Discarded Syringes From The Gutter At 25th Avenue And Northeast Knott Street) The Oregonian letters to editor: letters@news.oregonian.com 1320 SW Broadway Portland, OR 97201 Web: http://www.oregonlive.com/ Panic in Needle Park Sunday, June 28 1998 By Steve Duin Columnist The Oregonian Her son found the syringes at four o'clock Tuesday afternoon. The gutter, corner of 25th Avenue and Northeast Knott. She didn't waste any time calling the cops. The nonemergency number. Jane Skopil knew she had a problem, but she also knew it didn't add up to 9-1-1. Skopil is a nurse at Providence Portland Medical Center. She recognized the debris. Blood-clogged syringes, abused and discarded. Drug addict litter, probably tossed out the window of a car. Hazardous waste. Not the stuff you wanted to leave in the can for the garbage hauler or a trash picker down on his luck. The dispatcher said she'd send a car. She didn't say a needle drop in Northeast was a low-priority call. Skopil went to work with a needle magnet, a tool of her trade. Separated out the sharp objects. Left a note telling the neighborhood kids to steer clear of the mess. Waited for the cops. Called at 5. Called again at 6. At 6, the dispatcher said there was no record of her calls. And at 7? At 7 o'clock, the syringes still were in the gutter and a sergeant from Northeast Precinct was on the phone. Throw them in the garbage, he said, as Skopil remembers it. No way, Skopil said: "What if the garbageman gets stuck?" Well, we're not sending anyone, the sergeant said. That's not our responsibility. "Whose responsibility is it?" I don't know, Skopil recalls the sergeant saying. They're your responsibility. They're in your yard. "He was really irritated. We had words," Skopil said. "He didn't want to deal with me. He might as well have said, 'I don't care what you do with them.' " So, imagine you're this sergeant. Mild-mannered. Midshift. And imagine you have a lot on your mind when you get word some lady keeps calling about a boat-load of syringes on her stoop. Like it's the first time. Like there aren't bloody needles sprinkled on lawns throughout the city. Like the precinct is some social-service agency that gets called every time a bike gets swiped, the baby sitter is running late or something goes bump in the night. She should have called the fire department. Those boys are more EMT oriented. And you -- or dispatch -- should have calmly told her that so she'd learn something from this. But you're running low on patience and people skills. You don't have time for this. Shots fired in Humboldt? A parking-lot assault on Alberta? A domestic beef that spills onto the street? Those are the desperate calls. Those fill up the shifts. Those are the fun and games in the 25,480 emergency or priority calls the precinct responded to last year. Needles in the weeds? That's life in the big city, lady, not some crime in progress. It's nasty stuff. . . . but the nasty truth is that it's not what we do. Who does? Who knows? Maybe you should perform a public service and summon yourself. But calling the cops? Get real. Reality? The reality is there aren't enough cops to put a dent in auto theft, much less police our lawns. The reality is the community better get used to doing more and more of the policing. But the reality of last Tuesday night at 25th and Needle Park? Even as Jane Skopil was on the phone, going back and forth with an irritated sergent, a patrol car pulled up to the curb and a cop got out and cleaned up the mess. "Saw a bumper sticker today," Cmdr. Derrick Foxworth said: " 'I'm always late, but I'm worth waiting for.' " You can reach Steve Duin by phone at 221-8597, by fax at 294-5159, by e-mail at Steveduin@aol.com, or by mail at 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, Ore. 97201.
------------------------------------------------------------------- It's Time To Rethink The War On Drugs (Op-Ed In The Bend, Oregon, 'Bulletin' Responds To The '500 Drug Geniuses' Editorial In 'The Wall Street Journal' By Noting The Impact Of The War Against Some Drug Users On Norm And Pat Major, The Elderly, Middle-Class Eugene Couple Who Faced Prison, Confiscation Of Their Home And Fines Because Norm Grew And Used Medical Marijuana) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 09:48:03 -0800 To: mapnews@mapinc.org From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) Subject: MN: US OR: It's Time To Rethink The War On Drugs Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: Curt Wagoner (cwagoner@bendnet.com) Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 Source: Bulletin, The (OR) Section: Opinion Page: E3 Contact: bulletin@bendbulletin.com Website: http://www.bendbulletin.com Author: Tonie Nathan For The Bulletin IT'S TIME TO RETHINK THE WAR ON DRUGS Recently The Wall Street Journal published an editorial objecting to a full-page ad saying, "The global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself," which appeared in several newspapers. Perhaps it's time to take a hard look and reconsider our drug laws. The legal injustices are too prevalent. The punishments are too unfair. Take the case of Norm and Pat Major, an elderly middle-class Eugene couple, parents of three children and eight grandchildren, active members of their church and pillars of the community, who faced prison, confiscation of their home and fines because Norm grew and used medical marijuana. Over a period of time, starting with a work place injury, Norm Major had more than 80 surgeries which built up increasing tolerance for legally prescribed drugs. At one time, he required 600-miligram doses of morphine every three to four hours. The effect of the legal drugs was so detrimental to Majors health that doctors advised Major to try marijuana and eliminate morphine. He did. Marijuana relieved his pain without the morphine side-affects so he started growing plants in his basement. Subsequently, Norm's pot-growing operation was discovered and he and his wife were prosecuted and sentenced under a plea bargain agreement. The punishment? The Majors are on probation and must pay $23,500 to avoid prison and forfeiture of their home. Contrast this with probation, community service and $6,000 fine levied recently against a councilman in the same county who sodomized a 14 year old girl. The sentences are completely unproportional. The Majors have harmed no one. They represent no threat to society at large. They simply grew marijuana plants for Norm's personal use in alleviating pain. This Is A Travesty Of Injustice. If one looks at the Majors' case, which is typical of most drug cases, there is no rational excuse for prosecuting such peaceful, harmless persons. There are no victims involved. Prosecute those who drive under the influence of drugs; they endanger the safety of others. Prosecute those who sell drugs to minors; they endanger the health and safety of children. Prosecute those who steal to support their drug habit; theft and burglary violate private property rights. And prosecute those guilty of drug-induced violence against others. But don't prosecute those who for whatever reason, are using drugs in a non-threatening manner and who do not endanger public safety. While drug use may be a vice or sin, as some insist, it is not a matter for legal concern. Drug use is better treated by doctors than policemen. It is better to deal with it using education, social ostration, persuasion, treatment, and debate, not imprisonment. In another area, the Drug War is also unjust. It allows the government to seize property which has been used in the commission of certain selected illegal acts, even before defendants have been convicted of any crime. Many police departments routinely seize the automobiles and bank accounts of those who transport illegal drugs because of the forfeiture money involved. We have focused on ending the lucrative supply of drugs instead of reducing the demand through public information programs. Further, taxpayer money is misspent housing non-violent drug users in prisons. More prisons would not be necessary if we could legalize all drug use. Drug users and sellers are generally not violent criminals, but they represent almost 50 percent of prison populations. Our greatest concern, however, ought not to be with the profits derived from the Drug War (by both the traffickers and the enforcement agencies alike ) but with the principle of individual rights involved, the rights of all individuals to live their lives in whatever manner they choose so long as they do not violate the equal rights of others. The Majors' case stands as a challenge to every citizen in this country. We are not a just nation if we continue to ruin the lives of harmless persons because they have committed questionable errors of judgement. Citizens concerned with legal justice and the increasing costs of prisons should start on the road back to rational justice by (1) supporting legislation to allow the medical use of all drugs, (2) introducing legislation to decriminalize all victimless crimes, and (3) ending forfeiture laws which encourage misdirected police arrests of peaceful, honest citizens. Editor's note: Nathan, an activist in the Libertarian Party, lives in Eugene.
------------------------------------------------------------------- Marvin Walks Home (A List Subscriber Says Orange County Cannabis Co-Op Defendant Marvin Chavez Got Out Of Jail After Three Months - Donations Still Needed For His $6,000 Bail)Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 22:51:34 EDT To: ralphkat@hotmail.com, remembers@webtv.net Subject: Marvin walks...home Marvin Chavez was scheduled to be released at 11:00 am, the press waited until 12:30 pm, but for some reason there was a delay and members were told he would be released between 5:00-6:00, and then let him go at 2:00 after members and the press left. Feeling funky and with no money for a phone call Marvin had to walk home. Fortunately it was nice out and he lives only a couple miles from the jail. He told me it feels good to sleep in a real bed and is enjoying the medicine he has had to do without for the past 3 months. (Marvin has no restrictions on his personal use of Cannabis). The Orange County Patient/Docter/Nurse Support Group is currently accepting donations help pay for Marvin's bail. ($6,000.00) Any amount would be appreciated. Donations should be sent to: OCPDNSG BAIL FUND 3310 Yorba Linda Blvd. Fullerton, Ca 92831 Bill
------------------------------------------------------------------- Five Los Angeles Deputies Sued Over Jailing Of Two Men ('The Orange County Register' Says A Federal Lawsuit Accuses The Deputies Of Jailing Two African-American Men For Eight Months On Trumped-Up Drug Charges - Two Other Deputies Are Also Under Investigation) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 11:35:50 -0700 To: mapnews@mapinc.org From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) Subject: MN: US CA: 5 L.A. Deputies Sued Over Jailing Of 2 Men Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: John W.Black Source: Orange County Register (CA) Contact: letters@link.freedom.com Website: http://www.ocregister.com/ Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 5 L.A. DEPUTIES SUED OVER JAILING OF 2 MEN Five Los Angeles County sheriff's [deputies] are the target of a federal lawsuit accusing them of jailing two men for eight months on trumped-up drug charges, it was reported Saturday. Two other deputies also are under investigation. The lawsuit filed this month alleges that five deputies violated the civil rights of James Daily and Barry Bryant "in part due to their African-American race." Three of the deputies have been suspended, along with two others not named in the lawsuit, the Torrance Daily Breeze reported. The felony case against the suspects was dropped after revelations that for of the deputies involved had a history of disciplinary procedures because of racial prejudice, evidence planting and false arrest. Only one deputy lacked a disciplinary record, according to court documents.
------------------------------------------------------------------- A Battleground Without Winners In The War On Drug Abuse ('The New York Times' Version Of Wednesday's News That US District Judge Charles R. Breyer Banned The Oakland Housing Authority From Evicting Tenants For Illegal Drug Activity By Others Happening Outside Their Homes) From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) To: "MN" (mapnews@mapinc.org) Subject: MN: US: CA: A Battleground Without Winners In The War On Drug Abuse Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 17:37:58 -0500 Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: emr@javanet.com (Dick Evans) Pubdate: June 28, 1998 Source: New York Times (NY) Contact: letters@nytimes.com Website: http://www.nytimes.com/ Author: Frank Bruni A BATTLEGROUND WITHOUT WINNERS IN THE WAR ON DRUG ABUSE OAKLAND, Calif. -- It is difficult to imagine a man less threatening than Herman Walker. Slowed by a stroke one year ago, Walker, 75, spends much of his time in his dingy one-bedroom apartment here, passing the hours with a Bible on his lap and stuffed animals scattered around him like throw pillows on a fraying couch. "They're company," Walker recently said, his words slightly garbled. "I look at them so much they're human to me." But according to housing officials in Oakland, Walker poses a danger to his fellow tenants in public housing. And if these officials have their way, he and his menagerie will have to find a new home. Three times last year, the housing authorities said, they found cocaine or cocaine paraphernalia in Walker's apartment or in the possession of a private caretaker and another visitor. Even though Walker told officials he was not aware of the drugs, they moved to evict him. A lawsuit that Walker and three others have filed in response to eviction actions illustrates a growing conflict between federal officials, who have urged local housing agencies to crack down on illegal drug use, and some advocates for the poor, who say that innocent people are falling victim to a Draconian offensive in the war on drugs. A 1996 directive issued by President Clinton and the Department of Housing and Urban Development ordered local agencies that administer public housing to enforce a law holding tenants responsible for any drug-related activity that occurs inside their apartments or outside the premises by people living there. Earlier this year, the Eviction Defense Center, a nonprofit legal group, took the case of the four Oakland residents to federal court in San Francisco to protest that directive. The case represents one of the most serious legal challenges yet to the policy, which has led to a sharp rise in drug-related evictions among the roughly three million Americans living in public housing. "It's beyond unfairness," Ira Jacobowitz, one of the lawyers working on the case with the center, said of the policy. "Somebody can be evicted whether or not they had any previous knowledge of, participation in, or ability to control the situation." Jacobowitz also noted that tenants could be evicted even if the accusations of drug-related activity did not lead to criminal convictions. Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer issued a preliminary injunction against the evictions of the four plaintiffs in an opinion that questioned the part of the policy related to drug-related activity outside an apartment. "The policy on its face appears irrational," Breyer wrote, "since the tenant has not engaged in any such activity or knowingly allowed such activity to occur." The lawsuit charges that the enforcement of the federal directive deprives tenants of their constitutional rights to due process and freedom of association. A trial is expected later this year. The resolution could have an impact on the aggressiveness with which housing officials around the country pursue these evictions. HUD spokesman Stan Vosper said he could not discuss the merits of the case. But he said that the directive, known as the "one strike" policy, was an effort to make public housing safer for all residents and that local housing authorities had been urged to use discretion on complaints. Randolph W. Hall, a lawyer for the Oakland Housing Authority, said the eviction proceedings against the plaintiffs were justified because the plaintiffs, at least indirectly, brought drug-related activity into or near public housing. "Look at who the victims are: these hundreds of thousands of mothers who lost their kids to drive-by shootings or can't take their kids to the sand boxes," Hall said. "You have to balance their rights." Hall said the Oakland Housing Authorities pursues dozens of these evictions every year, only a small percentage of which are contested. Two plaintiffs in the lawsuit are grandmothers whose grandchildren, according to housing officials, were on the apartments' leases and were found with marijuana in a parking lot outside the apartments. Another plaintiff is a woman whose daughter and son were separately found with cocaine outside the apartment, housing officials said. In Walker's case, Hall said the multiple incidents showed Walker's failure to discourage drug activity. But Judge Breyer cited the Americans With Disabilities Act in saying that Walker's right to home health care would be compromised by an obligation to supervise a caretaker's activities. Walker said there was a limit to his control over people who come to his apartment. "I don't know what you have on you," he said to a visiting reporter. "I'm not going to ask you, 'What do you have on you?"'
------------------------------------------------------------------- Prohibition Laws Have Always Tragically Failed (A Letter To The Editor Of 'The Rocky Mountain News' In Denver From Ross Diercks, A Wyoming State Representative, Says He Would Like To Join An 'Increasing Number Of Public Officials And Concerned Citizens In Applauding The Recent Comments Of Judge John Kane Jr. Regarding Our Nation's Disastrous War On Drugs') Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 10:35:33 -0700 To: mapnews@mapinc.org From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) Subject: MN: US CO: PUB LTE: Prohibition Laws Have Always Tragically Failed Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: cohip@levellers.org (Colo. Hemp Init. Project) Source: Rocky Mountain News (CO) Contact: letters@denver-rmn.com Website: http://insidedenver.com/news/ Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 PROHIBITION LAWS HAVE ALWAYS TRAGICALLY FAILED Let me join an increasing number of public officials and concerned citizens in applauding the recent comments of Judge John Kane Jr. regarding our nation's disastrous war on drugs. It is becoming increasingly obvious that what should have been approached as a public-health problem has eventuated into a tragic loss of life, liberty and justice. Look what it has done to our country. The world's greatest experiment in freedom and liberty has become the prison capital of the world. While it is easy for those of us making the laws to beat our chests and pass legislation that is "tough on crime," it is then left to those like Kane to enforce the legislature's utopian social-engineering schemes. If only we lawmakers had to seriously face the entanglements we have wrought with years of ill-advised legislation. Prohibition-like lawmaking has always been a tragic failure. It not only fails to achieve its purpose, it leaves a thriving black market and crumbing civil liberties in its wake. It forces government to wage war on its own people rather than the substances it purports to destroy. I applaud Kane for his insight and courage and urge others to follow his lead. Ross Diercks - Wyoming House of Representatives Cheyenne
------------------------------------------------------------------- Book Review - Drug Crazy (High Praise In 'The Denver Post' For Mike Gray's New History Of The Drug War, By John L. Kane Jr., Senior US District Judge, District Of Colorado) Date: Sun, 05 Jul 1998 14:56:57 -0700 To: jnr@insightweb.com From: Jim Rosenfield (jnr@insightweb.com) Subject: A Great new book: Drug Crazy Cc: hmgray@ix.necom.com, borden@intr.net, drctalk@drcnet.org Dear friends: I have just read Make Gray's "Drug Crazy -- How we got into this mess and how we can get out". It is a fine book which I commend to you. I am enclosing, here, a review of this book by John L. Kane Jr., Senior U.S. District Judge, District of Colorado. You might ask yourself -- when the nation's drug czar utters the term "legalizer" with a disdainful sneer and a self-righteous air, and that is the climate of the land, why is a federal judge reviewing a book which ends by recommending the dismantling of our drug prohibition campaign? I am also enclosing an article about the now famous letter signed by Walter Cronkite and an impressive host of world leaders with the headline, ''We believe the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself.'' This letter was published as a full page in the New York Times while our president and the United nations called for ever more drastic law enforcement measures. I hope you will feel it is time for you to raise the volume on our questioning of the failed national policy. I hope you will be moved to reconsider the incredible damage being done by the policy and take some action as a citizen and a representative of your organizations to end the drug war. In any event, buy the book and let me know what you think. If you can't take the politics, get it anyway and think of it as a fast-paced novel. You can ask for it at your favorite bookstore or use your web browser to go to: http://mall.turnpike.net/~jnr/think.htm and click on the book cover to order online. Thanks for listening; Jim Rosenfield *** BOOK REVIEW: Denver Post, 28 Jun 1998, http://www.denverpost.com by John L. Kane Jr., Senior U.S. District Judge, District of Colorado DRUG CRAZY How We Got Into This Mess And How We Can Get Out By Mike Gray Random House, $23 June 28 - Mike Gray, an award winning documentary producer and author of the original screenplay "The China Syndrome,'' has turned his formidable dramatic talents to a page-turning look at the failure of America's "War on Drugs.'' Opposition to that war is reaching critical mass, and Gray provides it with devastating ammunition. The judges, prosecutors, prison officials and police officers at the front line of this war know from bitter experience that the nation's present strategy is the height of folly. What they and the public may not know is just how this chronic medical problem was transformed by lies and scare tactics into a bottomless pit that costs federal taxpayers more than $17 billion a year. Moreover, the drug market in the United States is estimated at $150 billion a year. Gray describes true events that the eminent economist Milton Friedman says are stranger than fiction. "Who would believe,'' Friedman asks, "that a democratic government would pursue for eight decades a failed policy that produced tens of millions of victims and trillions of dollars of illicit profits for drug dealers, cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars, increased crime and destroyed inner cities, fostered widespread corruption and violations of human rights - and all with no success in achieving the stated and unattainable objective of a drug-free America.'' According to Gray, not only are we losing the war, but we also have been fighting the wrong battle all along. Gray spent six years researching and writing "Drug Crazy,'' and it is packed with facts. Given his considerable talents, Gray is successful at dramatizing the disastrous consequences of our current policy. For example, he says that from 1919 to 1923, while the federal government was preoccupied with enforcing the Prohibition laws against alcohol, a clinic in Shreveport, La., sold morphine and heroin to addicts without a single resulting death. Crime was reduced in Shreveport, its black market dried up and its children had no access to drugs. Apparently fearful of local innovative programs, the federal government brought that program to a screeching halt. Shreveport's crime rate, black market and child addiction resumed. One of the most fascinating tales Gray tells demonstrates how the drug war happened almost by accident, and has been exploited by political opportunists from its inception. It began on May 1, 1908, in Washington, D.C., when Cal O'Laughlin, the Washington correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, sought to find a job for 41year-old Hamilton Wright, the son-in-law of one of the period's major power brokers, W.W. Washburn, Republican senator from Minnesota. O'Laughlin asked Wright if he would like to be a member of an opium commission about to be appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt. Wright knew nothing about the commission, nor did he know much about opium, but he appreciated a sinecure when he saw one. "I saw at a glance that it was bound to be a large and expensive bit of work,'' he said. The commission was a creation of the U.S. State Department in the aftermath of the Boxer Rebellion, an uprising in China against British importation of opium and foreign domination of trade that led to massive economic sanctions by world powers. Drug control was included merely as a means to an end; the object was to curry favor with the Chinese in hopes of opening up the rich China trade market. Wright began the untrammeled fight against drugs and made it his personal crusade. He also started a tradition of overstating facts, plumping up the numbers and appealing to racism whenever it would fan the flames of enthusiasm. Wright's personal drug of choice was alcohol, and he was eventually fired by teetotaling Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan. In search of another mission, Wright went to France as an ambulance driver in World War I, but died as the result of injuries from an automobile accident. His crusade, however, did not die with him. From Wright's ignoble beginning to the present the only law that seems to have worked in the war on drugs is the law of unintended consequences. In 1993, a former Colombian high court judge advised an American drug policy conference that the income of the drug barons is greater than the American defense budget. "With this financial power,'' he said, "they can suborn the institutions of the state and . . . purchase the firepower to outgun it.'' Gray notes, "It is important to remember that this particular impending catastrophe can be avoided with the stroke of a pen. The criminal enterprises that now encircle us . . . the powerful, ruthless combines that threaten to overwhelm the rule of law itself - all could be cut off by simply the black market money tap.'' Ending the black market and cutting off the supply of funds to organized crime, however, is not a complete answer. "Drug Crazy'' presents only the first half of the solution. Gray's suggestions for dealing with drug addicts through a controlled market and medical care are very sketchy. He does not deal with the existing federal classification system for dangerous drugs or the regulations in place that constrict appropriate medical treatment for addicts. Although "Drug Crazy'' is subtitled "How We Got Into This Mess and How We Can Get Out,'' Gray hasn't really provided us with sufficient detail to demonstrate "How We Can Get Out.'' Still "Drug Crazy'' is a book to be read and shared. It is an essential and concise source for an intelligent evaluation of the most avoidable, yet dire predicament facing our society.
------------------------------------------------------------------- Suspect Accuses Tobacco Firms Of Smuggling (A Knight Ridder News Service Article In 'The Seattle Times' Revealing The Perils Of Prohibitionist Taxes Says An Indictment Has Been Filed In US District Court In Syracuse, New York, Charging Las Vegas Businessman Larry Miller With Smuggling Cigarettes Across The US-Canada Border - Miller Says The RJR Tobacco Company Was Part Of The Operation - Two Louisiana-Based Managers Of The Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company Are Already Serving Time For Running A Different Smuggling Operation Into Canada) Date: Wed, 01 Jul 1998 23:56:43 -0400 To: mapnews@mapinc.org From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) Subject: MN: US/Canada: Suspect accuses tobacco firms of smuggling Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: John Smith Source: Seattle Times (WA) Contact: opinion@seatimes.com Website: http://www.seattletimes.com/ Pubdate: Sunday 28 June 1998 Author: Raja Mishra, Knight Ridder Newspapers SUSPECT ACCUSES TOBACCO FIRMS OF SMUGGLING MASSENA, N.Y. - In 1992, Canadian cigarette companies exported twice as many cigarettes to the United States as they had the previous year. On paper, it was as if Americans suddenly decided to smoke twice as many exotic Canadian brands such as Players, Export A and DuMaurier. In fact, most of those cigarettes were shipped right back into Canada in a short-lived but profitable black market that started when Canada imposed a smoker's tax of $2 per pack. Smugglers pocketed the $2 by buying the cigarettes tax-free in the United States and selling them at taxed rates in Canada, netting hundreds of millions of dollars. A major smuggling point was here in Massena, just a few miles from the Canadian border. Millions of the tax-free cigarettes ended up in the hands of a Las Vegas businessman named Larry Miller, now 52. Miller and his associates loaded the cigarettes into tractor-trailers and, using a little-patrolled Native American reservation, smuggled them back into Canada, according to an indictment on file in U.S. District Court in Syracuse. The RJR tobacco company was part of this operation, said Miller, who is awaiting trial on federal conspiracy charges. He said he frequently briefed two executives from RJR, maker of the Export A brand, on his smuggling activities. The executives advised him where to send the cigarettes, he said. "They provided us with information on what type of cigarettes were selling in Montreal, in Vancouver, in Toronto," Miller said. RJR refused to discuss the charges. "We do have a policy of fully cooperating with law enforcement," said John Singleton, a spokesman for RJR-Nabisco in Winston-Salem, N.C., the parent company of both the Canadian and U.S. cigarette manufacturers. "But we can't comment on this ongoing case." What is certain is that Canada's black market in cigarettes became so frenzied that after five years its government drastically scaled back its tobacco tax, even though there was evidence that it cut smoking. The Canadian experience was among the strongest weapons used by the forces that defeated the sweeping tobacco bill in Congress in early June. Raise the cigarette tax by $1.10 per pack, as the now-dead bill would have done, and a black market will follow, opponents warned. The tobacco industry conducted a highly effective, $40 million ad blitz, prominently featuring police officers warning that the black market "may increase beyond our control" if the bill were passed. But there are major investigations into whether U.S. and Canadian tobacco companies and their employees were themselves complicit in the Canadian black market. Canadian anti-smoking advocates also argue - with ample data - that the companies had to be aware that the bulk of their exports to the U.S. were being smuggled back into Canada. "Had the tobacco companies not engaged in this behavior, we would not have had a smuggling problem in Canada," said Rob Cunningham, an analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society. 2 managers serving time Two Louisiana-based managers of Brown & Williamson, the tobacco company that makes Kool and Capri, are serving time for running a smuggling operation into Canada. Federal officials in the United States investigated the rest of the company but brought no charges. RJR remains under investigation, said agents from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). So, the agents said, does Imperial, the tobacco company that makes Players and DuMaurier cigarettes and is owned by B.A.T, the same company that also owns Brown & Williamson. Miller and 20 others face federal charges of running a massive smuggling ring that netted $687 million in four years. None of the accused had entered pleas as of last week. In addition to Miller's detailed descriptions, U.S. Customs agents have given sworn affidavits, filed in U.S. District Court in Syracuse, that RJR officials knew of the operation. At this point no charges have been filed against RJR, although Canadian border agents are investigating the possibility that company executives aided Miller. "Why do they figure the buck stops with me? Someone has got to sell the cigarettes to me in the first place," Miller said in an interview here. "There are so many more people they could indict." Anti-smoking and cancer-patient advocacy groups in Canada say the industry's knowledge of the smuggling is obvious if you look at the numbers: Exports of Canadian cigarettes to the United States increased sevenfold, from 2.6 billion cigarettes to 17.7 billion, between 1990 and 1993, the years after Canada raised its tobacco tax. The bulk of these were Players, DuMaurier and Export A, brands unfamiliar to Americans. Most were shipped to border states, especially New York. How the scheme began In addition to commuting between his home in Las Vegas and his operation in Massena, a border town of about 11,000 people, Miller could frequently be found in Moscow, according to a detailed 140-page affidavit filed by the RCMP in a Hamilton, Ontario, court. He used cigarette profits to help buy a $22 million casino just off Red Square in the center of Russia's capital. Miller also made about $35 million from smuggling alcohol into Mexico and used some of the money to buy and operate a Lear jet, according to the RCMP affidavit and confirmed by Miller. A portrait of Miller's cigarette-smuggling cartel emerges in indictments, affidavits and interviews with Miller and government investigators. Robert Tavano, 59, and Louis Tavano, 56, hooked up Miller and RJR. Robert is a former Niagara Falls Republican Party chairman, and Louis, according to the RCMP affidavit, was an associate of late mafia crime boss Stefano Magaddino. The Tavano Boys, as they are known in upstate New York, knew Miller from an ongoing partnership in slot-machine sales in northern New York. Both Tavanos are awaiting trial and refused to comment. They have not yet entered a plea. Miller says the Tavanos introduced him to two RJR executives: Stan Smith, executive vice president of RJR-Nabisco's Canadian company, RJR-MacDonald of Toronto; and Les Thompson, a marketing executive with R.J. Reynolds, the U.S. tobacco arm of RJR-Nabisco. The three met in upstate New York, Miller said, just after Canada enacted a tobacco tax that almost doubled the price of a pack of cigarettes sold domestically, from an average of $2.94 in U.S. dollars, to $4.83. Exports to the United States were not taxed, however, creating an opportunity for high-profit smuggling. RJR, with the guidance of Smith and Thompson, began selling Canadian cigarettes to Miller. This was all done above board, and the exports were duly recorded in RJR's books. The three would meet often, Miller said. Federal investigators back up his account. According to a sworn statement filed in federal court in Syracuse by U.S. Customs agent Gil Schmelzinger, Thompson met with Miller at the Sonora Island Lodge near Vancouver to discuss black-market operations. "Les and Stan obviously knew what was going on. We talked about it on several occasions," Miller said. "Everything was always first class, whether we met in Vegas, Palm Springs or Toronto. We would go to the best restaurants, but we always talked business. We used the word `smuggling' all the time." Both Thompson and Smith, who have not been charged, refused to comment. By 1993, the Canadian black market had peaked. Miller's business was booming, and the entire operation seemed untouchable. "You could stand on the river and watch them load the boat with cigarettes stacked up above their head, right out in the daylight," Miller said. Miller's operation was killed in February 1994, but not by deft police work. Canadian officials realized the black market was out of control. Smugglers had gotten so brazen they were selling cigarettes with the U.S. Surgeon General's warning, as opposed to the Canadian government's warning, on the streets of Canada. Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien decided to cut the cigarette tax by an average of $1.17 a pack, eliminating much of the black-market profit margin. Miller's business dried up overnight. The next year, exports to the United States plummeted, returning to the level they were at before the tax increase. Canada's youth smoking rate, which had dropped 60 percent while the tax was in effect, increased by 27 percent. The overall smoking rate, which had dropped 38 percent, increased 9 percent the year after the tax was cut. Although Miller's operation was humming along, he needed to recruit additional truck drivers to help keep up with the increasing flow of cigarettes. One driver from a trucking company based in Bulgaria offered his services and dutifully hauled black-market cigarettes for several months. The company was fictitious and the driver was an undercover agent for the RCMP.
------------------------------------------------------------------- Tobacco Subsidies And Ethically Challenged 'Doctors' ('The Oakland Tribune' Shortens Friday's Original 'Associated Press' Story Showing That Hundreds Of Physicians In 23 States Control Production Of More Than Seven Million Pounds Of Tobacco Worth $13 Million) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 11:02:21 -0700 To: mapnews@mapinc.org From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) Subject: MN: US: Tobacco Subsidies and Ethically Challenged "Doctors" Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: Jerry Sutliff Source: Oakland Tribune Contact: triblet@angnewspapers.com Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 Author: Associated Press Editor note: This article appeared on the same page with two other tobacco articles: "Government Explains Tobacco-Growing Rights" and "Investing in Tobacco Just Being American" TOBACCO SUBSIDIES AND ETHICALLY CHALLENGED "DOCTORS" Doctors' tobacco holdings: 193 million cigarette packs Ethicist terms findings 'shocking' RALEIGH, N.C. - Hundreds of doctors across the country own and profit from tons of tobacco, despite decades of health warnings, scolding from peers and in some cases their own ethical reservations. They're family practitioners who warn teenagers not to smoke, psychiatrists who treat addiction, oncologists who identify malignant tumors and surgeons who remove them. One tobacco-owning doctor was a longtime regional medical director for the American Cancer Socieiy. Another runs a public health department. A third writes a newspaper's health tips column. Almost none smoke. "I won't smoke," says Stephen Jackson, an orthopedic surgeon in Paducah, Ky., who co-owns the government rights to grow 1,400 pounds of burley tobacco a year. "I mean, It will kill you." All tell their patients not to smoke or chew tobacco. "I get mad with them, fuss at them every day," says Richard Rush, a family practitioner from Conway, S.C., with more than 11,000 pounds of flue-cured to-bacco allotted to his farm. Nonetheless, they are among at least 760 doctors and other health care workers who own valuable federal tobacco-growing rights, known as allotments or quotas, according to a computer analysis by The Associated Press. They practice in 23 states, from Florida to Alaska, Massachusetts to California. Some of the doctors own minuscule government rights, as little as 21 pounds annually; one in South Carolina has 932,000 pounds. All told, these doctors control production of more than 7 million pounds of tobacco -- enough to make 193 million packs of cigarettes a year. They also grow nearly 290,000 pounds of the varieties of leaf used in chewing tobacco and cigar wrappers. At last year's sales prices, their leaf would be worth $13 million - although a large portion of that goes to family members, sharecroppers and those who lease much of the crop. For professionals who have taken an oath not to do harm, those numbers are "shocking and disappointing," medical ethicist Arthur Caplan says. "I think you just cannot argue that you're going to make money on the back of this obvious health menace," says Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the Universiiy of Pennsylvania. "To own and farm and produce tobacco as a doctor, especially in small communities, sends a resoundingly wrong message." "I'm too greedy," George Burrus, a cardiovascular surgeon in Nashville, Tenn., says when asked about his decision to keep his 6,500-pound quota, even though he says he knows tobacco is "killing people." He clears about $4,000 a year from leasing his leaf.
------------------------------------------------------------------- Investing In Tobacco Just Being American (More Of 'The Associated Press' Story In 'The Oakland Tribune' On Doctors With Lucrative Government Subsidies To Grow Tobacco) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 11:02:33 -0700 To: mapnews@mapinc.org From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) Subject: MN: US: Investing in Tobacco Just Being American Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: Jerry Sutliff Source: Oakland Tribune Contact: triblet@angnewspapers.com Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 Author: Associated Press Editor note: This article appeared on the same page with two other tobacco articles: : "Tobacco Subsidies and Ethically Challenged 'Doctors'", and "Government Explains Tobacco-Growing Rights" INVESTING IN TOBACCO JUST BEING 'AMERICAN' MISSOURI - Dr. Baltazara Lotuaco, a gynecologist in Kansas City, Mo., says owning tobacco property is just another part of being American. The Filipino Immigrant bought a farm about eight years ago as an investment. It came with 6,400 pounds of tobacco quota. "But owning a tobacco farm is nothing to do with smoking," she says. "They can always stop smoking." Lotuaco says tobacco is like most things: Excess is bad. "It's like peanuts can be carcinogenic," she says. "And if you have a peanut farm, you're promoting cancer. It's possible." Lotuaco says it is unfair to target tobacco when so many other things cause health problems. "The air we breathe is bad, all this pollution in the air. The carbon from the gasoline is carcinogenic. Why do we use cars? Why don't we use a horse and buggy?" Dr. Hugh Cripps, a family practitioner in Smithville, Tenn., has been buying land as an investment for years. Along the way, he's acquired about 9,000 pounds of tobacco quota. "In our little old county here," he says, "just about every farm has tobacco on it." Cripps says he's lucky to clear a nickel to 15 cents a pound each year for his leaf. "I would sell my allotment right now, all of it, to somebody else," he says. "But the farmers don't do that. They rent it year by year." He used to actively grow his tobacco but quit, he says, because of "some personal pains of conscience." He could have gone a step further and sold off his tobacco altogether, but wondered what would that have accomplished, other than to devalue his land? "At some point It becomes sort of ridiculous to chastise yourself for what's going on in the world," he says.
------------------------------------------------------------------- Government Explains Tobacco-Growing Rights (A Third Part To The Original 'Associated Press' Story In 'The Oakland Tribune' About Doctors Who Profit From Government Tobacco Subsidies) Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 11:02:53 -0700 To: mapnews@mapinc.org From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) Subject: MN: US: Government Explains Tobacco-Growing Rights Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: Jerry Sutliff Source: Oakland Tribune Contact: triblet@angnewspapers.com Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 Author: Associated Press Editor note: This article appeared on the same page with two other tobacco articles: "Tobacco Subsidies and Ethically Challenged 'Doctors'" and "Investing in Tobacco Just Being American" GOVERNMENT EXPLAINS TOBACCO-GROWING RIGHTS The federal government grants people the right to grow tobacco in specified amounts, known as quotas and allotments. The Depression era program was estab-lished to restrict annual production and stabilize prices. The program is supported largely by a fee farmers pay per pound. There are penalties for non-participation or exceeding one's quota. Quotas are the allowed poundage that can be raised by growers of burley, an aromatic tobacco cured on the stalk. Allotinents measure the pounds and acreage apportioned to growers of the other main variety of U.S. tobacco, flue-cured. These two varieties go into American blend cigarettes along with lesser amounts of other leaf.
------------------------------------------------------------------- Tobacco-Owning MDs Urge Nonsmoking ('The Orange County Register' Version Of The Ironic New Research By 'The Associated Press') Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 10:46:50 -0700 To: mapnews@mapinc.org From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) Subject: MN: US: Tobacco-Owning MDs Urge Nonsmoking Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: John W.Black Source: Orange County Register (CA) Contact: letters@link.freedom.com Website: http://www.ocregister.com/ Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 Author: Allen G.Breed-The Associated Press TOBACCO-OWNING MD'S URGE NONSMOKING They control production of enough tobacco to make 193 million packs of cigarettes a year Raleigh,N.C.-Hundreds of doctors across the country own and profit from tons of tobacco, despite decades of health warnings, scolding from peers and in some cases their own ethical reservations. They're family practitioners who warn teen-agers not to smoke, psychiatrists who treat addiction, oncologists who identify malignant tumors and surgeons who remove them. One tobacco-owning doctor was a longtime regional medical director for the American Cancer Society. Another runs a public health department. A third writes a newspaper's health tips column. Almost none smokes. "I won't smoke," says Stephen Jackson, an orthopedic surgeon in Paducah, Ky., who co-owns the government rights to grow 1,400 pounds of burley tobacco a year. "I mean, it will kill you." All tell their patients not to smoke or chew tobacco. "I get mad with them, fuss at them every day," says Richard Rush, a family practitioner from Conway, S.C., with more than 11,000 pounds of flue-cured tobacco allotted to his farm. Nonetheless, they are among at least 760 doctors and other health-care workers who own valuable federal tobacco-growing rights, known as allotments or quotas, according to a computer analysis by The Associated Press. They practice in 23 states, from Florida to Alaska, Massachusetts to California. Some of the doctors own minuscule government rights, as little as 21 pounds annually; one in South Carolina has 932,000 pounds. All told, these doctors control production of more than 7 million pounds of tobacco - enough to make 193 million packs of cigarettes a year. They also grow nearly 290,000 pounds of the varieties of leaf used in chewing tobacco and cigar wrappers. At last year's sales prices, their leaf would be worth $13 million-although a large portion of that goes to family members, sharecroppers and those who lease much of the crop. For professionals who have taken an oath not to do harm, those numbers are "shocking and disappointing," says medical ethicist Arthur Caplan. "I think you just cannot argue that you're going to make money on the back of this obvious health menace," says Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. "To own and farm produce tobacco as a doctor, especially in small communities, sends a resoundingly wrong message." The fact that many of these doctors grew up in those small communities is often their reason for being involved in tobacco. Even so, some are uneasy about it. Although they might only get a nickel to 15 cents a pound for leasing their tobacco rights to farmers, quotas help pay mortgages and add to the land's assessed value. With talk in Washington about possible $8-a-pound federal tobacco buyouts someday, the leaf could constitute an even more valuable asset. "I'm too greedy," George Burrus, a cardiovascular surgeon in Nashville, Tenn., says when asked about his decision to keep his 6,500-pound quota, even though he says he knows tobacco is "Killing people." He clears about $4,000 a year from leasing his leaf. "I don't worry about it enough to (sell out) since I don't feel like, say, the guy that's raising dope." The AP identified these doctors by cross-checking a federal farm database with medical rosters from tobacco states. To verify matches, the AP contacted scores of physicians by telephone. Some hung up when they heard the word "tobacco." Most who stayed on the line expressed ambivalence. "Absolutely schizophrenic" is how Dr. William Grigsby described the notion of physicians growing tobacco. "It's crazy, but I'll tell you why we do it," says the general surgeon from Kingsport, Tenn., who owns about 3,700 pounds of quota. "Almost the only doctors who raise tobacco have grown up on the farm and have the kinfolks there." One is Richard Calhoun. He was raised on a tobacco farm, and tobacco money helped put him through college and medical school. On Wednesdays, when other doctors hit the golf course, Calhoun dons bib overalls and a baseball cap and drives a beatup red flatbed truck around his mountainside farm in western North Carolina. He raises hay, cattle, Christmas trees and about 7,000 pounds of burley. "Tobacco is a proud heritage for North Carolina," says Calhoun, who practices in Jefferson, near the Tennessee line. "I want to maintain that part of my heritage." So while he lectures his three children - ages 9, 11 and 13 - on the ills of smoking, he makes sure they help out on the farm. "They're still young, but they know what it is to work in the dirt and that this is actually a cash crop that can be grown for farm income." He knows the links between the crop he grows and diseases he treats, from cancer to heart disease. Is that inconsistent? "I do feel that tobacco is harmful to one's health," Calhoun replies. "But more importantly than that, I feel that, as citizens of the United States, we have the freedom of choice. And I don't think that governmental regulation should infringe upon one's ability to make choices in this regard." Dr. Wendell Levi Jr. agrees. In 45 years as a thoracic surgeon, he has removed cancer-ravaged lungs, but he has little sympathy for smokers. "If they're stupid enough to smoke, that's (their) business, I suppose," says Levi, a Sumter, S.C., tobacco owner. "I've never had time to feel guilty about something like that." Others have thought about it - a lot. John Patterson, family practitioner and owner of a 900-pound quota in Irvine, Ky., has reached a moral bargain with himself. He is the Kentuchy Medical Association's liaison with two farm health groups and says the $230 a year he earns from tobacco pays for the gasoline he uses traveling the state trying to help farmers diversify from burley. "I think the question is: What is that doctor doing with that base?" Patterson says. "That is the way I've dealt with my ethical dilemma."
------------------------------------------------------------------- Physicians Growing Tons Of Tobacco ('The San Jose Mercury News' Version Of 'The Associated Press' Story) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 1998 06:55:06 -0400 To: DrugSense News Service (mapnews@mapinc.org) From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) Subject: MN: US: Physicians Growing Tons Of Tobacco Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: Marcus-Mermelstein Family (mmfamily@ix.netcom.com) Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Author: Allen G. Breed, Associated Press Contact: letters@sjmercury.com Website: http://www.sjmercury.com/ Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 PHYSICIANS GROWING TONS OF TOBACCO For Many, It's A Matter Of Tradition And Business RALEIGH, N.C. - HUNDREDS OF doctors across the country own and profit from tons of tobacco, despite decades of health warnings, scoldings from peers, and in some cases, their own ethical reservations. They're family practitioners who warn teenagers not to smoke, psychiatrists who treat addiction, oncologists who identify malignant tumors and surgeons who remove them. One tobacco-owning doctor was a longtime regional medical director for the American Cancer Society. Another runs a public-health department. A third writes a newspaper column on health tips. Few of them smoke. ``I won't smoke,'' says Stephen Jackson, an orthopedic surgeon in Paducah, Ky., who co-owns the government rights to grow 1,400 pounds of burley tobacco a year. ``I mean, it will kill you.'' All tell their patients not to smoke or chew tobacco. ``I get mad with them, fuss at them every day,'' says Richard Rush, a family practitioner from Conway, S.C., with more than 11,000 pounds of flue-cured tobacco allotted to his farm. Nonetheless, they are among at least 760 doctors and other health-care workers who own valuable federal tobacco-growing rights, known as allotments or quotas, according to a computer analysis by the Associated Press. They practice in 23 states, from Florida to Alaska, Massachusetts to California. Some of the doctors own minuscule government rights, as little as 21 pounds annually; one in South Carolina has 932,000 pounds. All told, these doctors control production of more than 7 million pounds of tobacco -- enough to make 193 million packs of cigarettes a year. They also grow nearly 290,000 pounds of the varieties of leaf used in chewing tobacco and cigar wrappers. At last year's sales prices, their leaf would be worth $13 million -- although a large portion of that goes to family members, sharecroppers and those who lease much of the crop. For professionals who have taken an oath not to do harm, those numbers are ``shocking and disappointing,'' medical ethicist Arthur Caplan says. ``I think you just cannot argue that you're going to make money on the back of this obvious health menace,'' says Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. ``To own and farm and produce tobacco as a doctor, especially in small communities, sends a resoundingly wrong message.'' THE FACT that many of these doctors grew up in those small communities is often their reason for being involved in tobacco. Even so, some are uneasy about it. Dr. Edwin Norris has no doubt that a three-pack-a-day habit hastened his father's death at age 53 from coronary disease. And the Mountain City, Tenn., general practitioner and cosmetic surgeon has little doubt that tobacco produced under his 1,925-pound quota is harming other people's fathers. ``Even though it's legal,'' Norris says, ``we're still responsible for some of the effects of it.'' His explanation for keeping the tobacco: Neighbors who actually raise it for him need the poundage to make a living. Other physicians bought their farms as investments and acknowledge tobacco proceeds contribute to their wealth. Although they may only get a nickel to 15 cents a pound for leasing their tobacco rights to farmers, quotas help pay mortgages and add to the land's assessed value. With talk in Washington about possible $8-a-pound federal tobacco buyouts some day, the leaf could constitute an even more valuable asset. ``I'm too greedy,'' George Burrus, a cardiovascular surgeon in Nashville, Tenn., says when asked about his decision to keep his 6,500-pound quota, even though he says he knows tobacco is ``killing people.'' He clears about $4,000 a year from leasing his leaf. ``I don't worry about it enough to (sell out) since I don't feel like, say, the guy that's raising dope.'' The AP identified these doctors by cross-checking a federal farm database with medical rosters from tobacco states. To verify matches, the AP contacted scores of physicians by telephone. Some hung up when they heard the word ``tobacco.'' Most who stayed on the line expressed ambivalence. ``Absolutely schizophrenic'' is how Dr. William Grigsby described the notion of physicians growing tobacco. ``It's crazy, but I'll tell you why we do it,'' says the general surgeon from Kingsport, Tenn., who owns about 3,700 pounds of quota. ``Almost the only doctors who raise tobacco have grown up on the farm and have the kinfolks there.'' ONE IS Richard Calhoun. He was raised on a tobacco farm, and tobacco money helped put him through college and medical school. On Wednesdays, when other doctors hit the golf course, Calhoun dons bib overalls and a baseball cap and drives a beat-up red flatbed truck around his mountainside farm in western North Carolina. He raises hay, cattle, Christmas trees and about 7,000 pounds of burley. ``Tobacco is a proud heritage for North Carolina,'' says Calhoun, who practices in Jefferson, near the Tennessee line. ``I want to maintain that part of my heritage.'' He knows the links between the crop he grows and diseases he treats, from cancer to heart disease. Is that inconsistent? ``I do feel that tobacco is harmful to one's health,'' Calhoun replies. ``But more important than that, I feel that, as citizens of the United States, we have the freedom of choice. And I don't think that governmental regulation should infringe upon one's ability to make choices in this regard.''
------------------------------------------------------------------- Cannabis Only Dangerous Due To Prohibition (A Letter To The Editor Of Ireland's 'Examiner' Notes 'It Was Only After World War II That The Americans Prohibited It In Europe') From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) To: "MN" (mapnews@mapinc.org) Subject: MN: UK: PUB LTE: Cannabis Only Dangerous Due To Prohibition Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 17:29:53 -0500 Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: Martin Cooke (mjc1947@cyberclub.iol.ie) Pubdate: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 Source: The Examiner (Ireland) Contact: exam_letters@examiner.ie Author: Oliver Neff CANNABIS ONLY DANGEROUS DUE TO PROHIBITION ASK yourself; What do you really know about Cannabis? Unfortunately many people have a very negative opinion on this subject, but why? A lot of these opinions are blindly formed due to illegality and public condemnation. Even though many facts about cannabis have been proven, groups such as the Gardai still insist that their often false and narrow minded views are correct. Let us compare things to alcohol. If the Government decided tomorrow to make alcohol illegal, I could guarantee public uproar throughout the country. Did you know that alcohol is more harmful than Cannabis? Think about it, how many deaths are there in Ireland each year due to alcohol, be it drunk-driving or alcohol related illness? How many families have been destroyed and women battered by alcoholic husbands? Do we ever hear of deaths or violence in homes due to Cannabis? The prohibition of growing Cannabis is ridiculous. Plants were created to grow, it is nature, we do not have the right to outlaw this. Just because we know that Cannabis can be used as a narcotic, doesn't mean it is the only plant that can be used for this purpose. In fact, there are plants all over the country that have this potential usage. I also was surprised to find out that lettuce could be used as a drug. If lettuce is left to over-ripen, a white sap begins to form in the main stalk. This sap contains opium, which is the ground basis of heroin. What is the Government going to do next, outlaw lettuce? Ireland, having one of the highest numbers of asthmatics in Europe should especially consider legislation of Cannabis. In Switzerland in the town of Illighausen, Max Haberlin, a chronic asthmatic, got the idea when his asthma cleared up from working in the fields. People basically get this natural treatment while sleeping, no need for inhalers or chemicals. The Chinese already used cannabis over 6,000 years ago as a medicine against conditions such as beriberi, malaria, mental problems and female problems. Legislation would be of benefit in various ways. This versatile plant could create jobs as over 50,000 different products can be produced from it. Things such as: food, paper, cosmetics and clothing. Sale of Cannabis in shops would prevent young people from coming in contact with dangerous drugs such as ecstasy and heroin from dealers. Cannabis is not a gateway drug. The Government is playing its cards poorly. They are doing the dealers a favour by artificially making it a gateway drug, through prohibition. I believe that Cannabis is over rated by public opinion, lack of knowledge being the main culprit. It is time for people to learn the truth about Cannabis; it is not a dangerous substance but rather a plant that can be of benefit to all of us and in many ways. Its culture reaches far beyond six millennia. It was only after World War II that the Americans prohibited it in Europe during its restructuring, in the Marshall Plan. Oliver Neff, Belleview, Myrtleville, Co Cork.
------------------------------------------------------------------- French Report Says Alcohol Is More Dangerous (Britain's 'Independent On Sunday' Recaps The Recent French Government-Commissioned Report Showing Cannabis Is Significantly Safer Than Alcohol)Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 12:26:07 -0700 To: mapnews@mapinc.org From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) Subject: MN: UK: IoS: French Report Says Alcohol is More Dangerous Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: Martin Cooke (mjc1947@cyberclub.iol.ie) Source: Independent on Sunday Contact: sundayletters@independent.co.uk Website: http://www.independent.co.uk/ Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 FRENCH REPORT SAYS ALCOHOL IS MORE DANGEROUS A STUDY commissioned by the French government has concluded that cannabis is the least dangerous of all potentially addictive illegal substances. It is also significantly less dangerous than alcohol, it found. As a result, the authors of the study have questioned the way that cannabis is criminally classified - since, in France, decisions about the legality of a drug are all made on the basis of its ability to induce dependence. The panel of scientists commissioned by the health minister Bernard Kouchner, looked at all the current scientific literature on the psychological and physical dependency caused by drugs, at their neural and general toxicity, and at their social effects. They then grouped the substances together into three main categories according to their danger level. Cannabis was the only drug which the team of 10, headed by Bernard-Pierre Roques, of the Rene Descartes University of Paris, placed in the "least dangerous" category. The panellists gave it a rating of "weak" when it came to both social hazardousness and addictiveness and "very weak" when it came to general toxicity. They gave it a complete "zero" for neurotoxicity - the detrimental effect on the health of the brain. Alcohol, in contrast, was placed in the most dangerous category along with heroin and cocaine because of its strong toxicity and its "very strong" addictiveness. Stimulants like amphetamines, hallucinogens and tobacco - because of its "very strong" addictiveness and toxicity - were placed in the middle category. e-mail your comments to cannabis@independent.co.uk
------------------------------------------------------------------- Britain Funds Biological War Against Heroin (Britain's 'Sunday Times' Says Britain Is Engaged In A Secret Attempt To Crush The Worldwide Heroin Trade With Biological Warfare, A Project Involving Spies, Scientists And Former Soviet Germ Warfare Experts) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 14:53:14 -0700 (PDT) From: Uzondu Jibuike (ucj@vcn.bc.ca) To: Uzondu Jibuike (ucj@vcn.bc.ca) Subject: Biowar on heroin (fwd from another list) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 09:34:31 EDT From: Simon Witter (s-witter@msn.com) Subject: Biowar on heroin This was one of the lead stories on the front page of today's Sunday Times (by far the biggest-selling Sunday paper in Britain). It makes fascinating reading, especially as an adjunct to recent postings about planned aerial spraying of toxic herbicides (in Colombia). SW *** BRITAIN FUNDS BIOLOGICAL WAR AGAINST HEROIN by Nicholas Rufford Tashkent BRITAIN is engaged in a secret attempt to crush the worldwide heroin trade with biological warfare. The project involves spies, scientists and former Soviet germ warfare experts. At a secure research laboratory in Uzbekistan, central Asia, the scientists are developing a virulent strain of a fungus that destroys opium poppies, the raw material for heroin. They have drawn up plans for manufacturing enough fungus to infect thousands of acres of poppies in the Golden Crescent of central Asia, the source of 90% of Britain's heroin. Bumper harvests there have recently flooded Britain and western Europe with cheap heroin. The street price has halved and port and airport seizures have increased sharply. The fungus may also be used in the Golden Triangle opium-growing regions of southeast Asia and in South America, the sources of most of the heroin sold in the United States. Senior officials in the British and American governments, which are sharing the cost, believe the project will give them a vital advantage in the war against heroin. A British expert, who has worked with the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, is supervising the research and has prepared a report after visiting the laboratory this month. Intelligence services on both sides of the Atlantic have been involved from the planning stage and may have a role in the deployment of the fungus, which could be ready to use next year. Although the fungus can kill opium plants, a more subtle strategy has been developed to frustrate growers. If the fungus is spread in low doses, the plants develop but with little opium inside. The growers will therefore expend money and effort cultivating a useless crop. The work is being carried out at Uzbekistan's state genetics institute, which manufactured germ agents for destroying the food crops of the Soviet Union's enemies during the cold war. The Foreign Office and the American State Department have contributed $500,000. They will also supply specialist equipment to the laboratory and train its scientists in mass production of the fungus. About 30 researchers, some veterans of secret Soviet biological weapons programmes, have been employed to refine virulent new strains and to test them on locally grown opium. Rustam Makhmudovich, the institute's deputy director, confirmed that the fungus had already been used in trials to destroy poppy fields in Uzbekistan's mountainous eastern region. More work is needed to satisfy the British and the Americans that the fungus is safe. No harmful side effects have been found and the strain attacks only opium poppies. The advantage of the fungus over chemical herbicides is that it reproduces and spreads of its own accord, leaving other plant and animal life unaffected. A confidential report states: "Experiments in both controlled environments and the field showed conclusively the fungus was able to kill the opium poppy in relatively low doses." The fungus can be sprayed by aircraft onto poppy fields. Once infected, healthy poppies quickly develop lesions that eventually cover the whole plant. The infection spreads through the crop by the release of millions of airborne spores from the dying poppies. Some United Nations officials, however, fear the West could be accused of waging germ warfare and that fundamentalist Islamic regimes in Afghanistan and Iran could exploit the issue to win support from more moderate Islamic countries. Senior staff in the UN's drug control programme (UNDCP) brokered the deal with the Uzbekistan government last year and are handling the project to avoid accusations of western political interference. Field staff and consultants have received instructions from the UNDCP's headquarters in Vienna not to discuss the work.
------------------------------------------------------------------- The West's Secret Weapon To Win The Opium War (A Related Article In Britain's Britain's 'Sunday Times' Says 'The Best-Kept Secret In The War Against Drugs' Is A Research Compound In Tashkent, The Capital Of Uzbekistan, Where Britain And The United States Are Funding An Effort To Culture A Fungus Called Pleospora Papaveracea, Which Prohibitionists Hope To Use To Devastate The Opium Poppy Fields Of Asia's Golden Crescent And Golden Triangle) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 13:04:51 -0800 To: mapnews@mapinc.org From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) Subject: MN: UK: The West's Secret Weapon To Win The Opium War Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: Martin Cooke (mjc1947@cyberclub.iol.ie) Source: Sunday Times (UK) Contact: editor@sunday-times.co.uk Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 THE WEST'S SECRET WEAPON TO WIN THE OPIUM WAR It does not look like the nerve centre of the best-kept secret in the war against drugs. The perimeter walls are dull concrete topped with barbed wire; the buildings drab; a guardhouse and a huge mechanical steel gate offer the only entry. But the compound set beyond the sprawl of tractor factories and grey apartment blocks of Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, could hold the answer to tackling the international trade in heroin. Inside this cold war relic in one of the most isolated cities in the world, scientists supported by Britain and America are carrying out a secret project that challenges some of the most powerful criminals in the world. Uzbekistan was once part of the Soviet Union and locals know the compound as a former centre for germ warfare research. A sign outside celebrates the place as the "Garden of Victory", so called because the compound used to produce horticultural pathogens, including wheat rust and cereal blight - biological agents designed to destroy the food crops of the motherland's enemies. Though the compound now goes by the more prosaic title of the Uzbekistan Institute of Genetics, staff are still bussed in, Soviet-style, at 8.30am and out again at 4.30pm each day. Inside are three large blocks containing 19 laboratories built in the 1950s, a row of greenhouses and an experimental farm. The deputy director of the team of scientists is Rustam Makhmudovich, a nervous, bespectacled figure. "We still are experts in biological research, even though we no longer take our orders from Moscow," he said last week in his office on the first floor of the main laboratory building. "I am not allowed to reveal anything concerning the fungus project. I can only tell you that we have about 200 scientific staff, including 24 doctoral researchers and 70 other scientists. "In the Soviet period we were concerned only with military research, including radiation testing. Now we have other priorities." Makhmudovich's office is one of the few areas in the building that resembles an ordinary room. Padlocked steel doors bar the way to the compound's other facilities. Unexpected visitors are guided swiftly away. Behind the locked steel doors, spores of a refined and rampant strain of a fungus called Pleospora papaveracea are stored and cultured. This could be the weapon that cuts off the heroin trade at source by devastating the opium poppy fields of Asia's golden crescent and golden triangle, the principal sources of raw material for the heroin trade. ORDINARY Pleospora papaveracea is present in southern Europe and throughout Asia; it can even be found as far south as Tasmania. It is not particularly deadly to plants and is seen as little more than a nuisance to farmers who grow poppies legally for medical purposes. But in the late 1980s Soviet scientists began to take an interest and tried to develop a more deadly strain. "The fungus causes the poppy leaves to erupt in lesions," said a British scientist who has witnessed the effect of these spores. "They spread and coalesce until the plant shrivels and begins to die." The new strain was almost lost in the ruins of communism. Just as the scientists were making progress, the Soviet empire began to implode. When Uzbekistan became an independent republic in 1991, thousands of papers from the institute were transported back to Moscow and the research became lost in the chaos. But in their hurried exit the Kremlin scientists left behind hundreds of biological samples, frozen inside the laboratory storerooms. In 1992 the institute reopened and began to blossom again as a civilian research centre. Its new director, Professor Abdusattar Abdukarimov, an expert in plant genetics, examined the stored specimens and recognised the potential of the fungus, but had little money to pursue development. His attempts to raise interest and funds failed until the institute's work came to the notice of a British expert in plant pathogens who is also a consultant to the United Nations drug control programme (UNDCP). The Foreign Office and American agencies also learnt of the research and recognised its potential. They pondered two courses of action: pursuing the research in Uzbekistan, where facilities were less advanced, or transferring it to the West. Secrecy, safety and political sensitivity argued for Uzbekistan. The fungus was an untested biological agent and potentially dangerous. And if such a biological weapon originated in Britain or America, it might be seen as an act of germ warfare if deployed against countries such as Afghanistan and Tajikistan, where opium poppies are an increasingly important crop. It was agreed to fund the institute in Uzbekistan to conduct further research; Britain is thought to have supplied approximately a third of the money, the United States two-thirds; it was all channelled through the UN. According to western sources, some $500,000 has been supplied for chemicals and equipment, and the American government is funding salaries for scientists in Uzbekistan. The institute, as well as the project, has effectively been taken over by western powers. The fungus is now being tested on opium poppies being grown in remote parts of eastern Uzbekistan on the border with Kyrgyzstan. "Conditions are ideal," said Nazarov Timur, head of drug abuse prevention for the Uzbekistan government. "A number of illicit cultivation plots are being treated with small amounts of the fungus. I think they have had 100% success." UZBEKISTAN is on the rim of the golden crescent - the region of central Asia that threatens to become the biggest producer of opium for refining into heroin. Where once the golden triangle of Burma, Laos and Thailand dominated the opium trade, now Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan are also big producers. To the south of Uzbekistan an estimated 60,000 hectares of poppies are under cultivation in Afghanistan, producing enough opium to make almost 300 tons a year of the purest heroin. Many of the plantations are in the mountainous regions on the Afghan-Pakistan border and in areas controlled by the Taliban Islamic militia. The Taliban has turned a blind eye to opium growing, claiming that farmers need the income to rebuild their war-scarred villages. The truth is simpler: opium is a lucrative cash crop which the UN estimates earned Afghan farmers =A3100m last year; the Taliban is thought to take a 10% cut. From the poppy fields the opium travels by lorry to southeast Turkey where gangs operate at least 20 to 30 laboratories for refining it into heroin. It is then smuggled through the Balkans or, latterly eastern Europe, Russia and Poland, into western Europe. The golden crescent now supplies about 90% of the heroin which reaches Britain's streets. In 1997 opium production in Afghanistan leapt by a quarter to 2,800 tons. Another bumper crop is forecast this year. The flood of heroin has reduced the price of a single "wrap" to little more than the cost of a pint of beer. Against this background, the work at the Tashkent institute has taken on a greater urgency. MI6 has been kept informed of progress. Earlier this month a British expert from the Institute of Arable Crops Research - a government-backed body near Bristol - visited the laboratory complex and delivered a favourable report on progress. The work has also been vetted and cleared by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and the International Institute of Biological Control, at Ascot, which specialises in the environmental effects of natural plant pathogens. Plans for deploying the fungus are advancing rapidly. Two scientists are to be brought from Uzbekistan to Britain to train them in "formulation technology", to make the fungus in sprayable form, and the use of fermenters to produce large quantities of it. Once introduced to a crop, the fungus can spread through the aerial transmission of its own spores, but the rate of contamination can be increased by spraying from an aircraft. Though further tests must be conducted to ensure the fungus has no harmful side effects - and none has been found so far - the potential for mass production is already there. A confidential research report states: "Production capacity to treat approximately 2,000 hectares of illicit opium poppy crop currently in cultivation in the subregion [central Asia] could be established relatively easily, and at modest cost." The aim will not be to wipe out the poppy fields - as opium growers could simply replant - but to infect the poppies without killing them. Growers, the theory goes, would still expend time and effort on their debilitated plants yet produce very little of the drug. Will the Garden of Victory march onwards against the poppy? Scientists and UN staff have been forbidden to talk about the project. "I can talk about other matters but not about this," said Bogdan Lisovich, representative of the UN drug control programme in Uzbekistan. "There are very big issues at stake."
------------------------------------------------------------------- Fungus Nips Drug In Bud (A Second Related Story In Britain's 'Sunday Times' About Research By Scientists Engaged In Biological Drug Warfare) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 17:35:29 -0400 To: mapnews@mapinc.org From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) Subject: MN: UK: Fungus Nips Drug In Bud Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: Martin Cooke (mjc1947@cyberclub.iol.ie) Source: Sunday Times (UK) Contact: editor@sunday-times.co.uk Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 FUNGUS NIPS DRUG IN BUD The fungus that could be used against the opium growers looks a little like the mould found on old bread. It develops on the poppies as a greenish and black fuzzy powder. Once introduced to a crop, the fungus can spread through the aerial transmission of its own spores, of which millions can be produced by one plant. But the rate of contamination can be increased by spraying from the air. Once a plant is infected, it begins to show symptoms within three days; by 10 days there are visible lesions on the stem and leaves. Within weeks it may die. The bud of the opium poppy contains the sap that is the raw material for heroin. The seed-pod is slit open while on the plant, allowing the sap to ooze out. Usually it is left to dry in the sun and the brown, latex-textured residue is removed later with a scraper. Morphine is isolated from the opium by a series of boilings and filterings, using commonly available chemicals, leaving a product that resembles brown sugar. It is then compacted into blocks and transported to more sophisticated laboratories to produce heroin. It takes 12-14 hours to produce heroin from morphine, and 5kg-10kg of heroin crystals require 50kg-100kg of opium. If the poppy-killer fungus is used, it would not be the first time that a natural agent was deployed as a biological weapon. American scientists have developed a type of algae to kill mosquitoes by shutting off their digestive systems; in Britain, a bacteria derived from soya is used as a pesticide by organic farmers; and in Colombia, farmers are experimenting with a fungus that kills off the borer beetles that threaten their coffee crop.
------------------------------------------------------------------- Fungus Nips Drug In Bud (A Related Story In Britain's 'Sunday Times' About Research By Scientists Engaged In Biological Drug Warfare) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 17:35:29 -0400 To: mapnews@mapinc.org From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) Subject: MN: UK: Fungus Nips Drug In Bud Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: Martin Cooke (mjc1947@cyberclub.iol.ie) Source: Sunday Times (UK) Contact: editor@sunday-times.co.uk Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 FUNGUS NIPS DRUG IN BUD The fungus that could be used against the opium growers looks a little like the mould found on old bread. It develops on the poppies as a greenish and black fuzzy powder. Once introduced to a crop, the fungus can spread through the aerial transmission of its own spores, of which millions can be produced by one plant. But the rate of contamination can be increased by spraying from the air. Once a plant is infected, it begins to show symptoms within three days; by 10 days there are visible lesions on the stem and leaves. Within weeks it may die. The bud of the opium poppy contains the sap that is the raw material for heroin. The seed-pod is slit open while on the plant, allowing the sap to ooze out. Usually it is left to dry in the sun and the brown, latex-textured residue is removed later with a scraper. Morphine is isolated from the opium by a series of boilings and filterings, using commonly available chemicals, leaving a product that resembles brown sugar. It is then compacted into blocks and transported to more sophisticated laboratories to produce heroin. It takes 12-14 hours to produce heroin from morphine, and 5kg-10kg of heroin crystals require 50kg-100kg of opium. If the poppy-killer fungus is used, it would not be the first time that a natural agent was deployed as a biological weapon. American scientists have developed a type of algae to kill mosquitoes by shutting off their digestive systems; in Britain, a bacteria derived from soya is used as a pesticide by organic farmers; and in Colombia, farmers are experimenting with a fungus that kills off the borer beetles that threaten their coffee crop.
------------------------------------------------------------------- War On Drugs Impoverishes Farmers ('The Boston Globe' Says Tens Of Thousands Of Cannabis And Poppy Farmers In Lebanon's Bekaa Valley Have Become Indigent Since The Civil War Ended And The Federal Government Launched A Massive Eradication Program With Support From The United States) Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 17:38:25 -0400 To: mapnews@mapinc.org From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews) Subject: MN: Lebanon: War On Drugs Impoverishes Farmers Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/ Newshawk: emr@javanet.com (Dick Evans) Source: Boston Globe (MA) Contact: letters@globe.com Website: http://www.boston.com/globe/ Pubdate: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 Author: Charles M. Sennott Newshawk's comment: Note the last paragraph, reflecting the antiprohibitionist view. Is this journalist starting to "get it"? WAR ON DRUGS IMPOVERISHES FARMERS The Bekaa valley in Lebanon gets little from UN AALBEK, Lebanon - During Lebanon's long civil war, the Bekaa Valley flourished as one of the world's most fertile regions for growing cannabis for hashish and poppies for heroin. In 1992, as it struggled to emerge from more than a decade of self-destruction and lawlessness, Lebanon successfully controlled its illicit drug crops, with the support of the United States. But in the process it left tens of thousands of farmers indigent. In return, the United States and the United Nations promised to help these farmers grow other crops, like cherries, apricots, and potatoes. But farmers say that adequate international aid never materialized. Now, amid broken promises and economic desperation, they are threatening to plant those profitable and illegal crops. A few farmers have already begun planting them. ''We all used to grow hashish and heroin.'' That is not a secret. We just want a decent life. These are good people who believe in God and raise good families,'' said Mohammad Fawaz, a member of the Central Bekaa Agricultural Cooperative and a candidate in the first local elections here in 30 years. ''We were never comfortable growing illegal crops. We just did it to survive,'' Fawaz said. ''During the war, it was either that or pick up a gun. It was chaos here then. We don't want to return to those days ever again. But desperation forces people to do desperate things. And I am afraid these farmers are desperate.'' The plight of the Bekaa farmers has surfaced in the cynical aftermath of aggressive US rhetoric about the ''war on drugs.'' Critics attacked these kinds of US and UN eradication strategies at the recent UN drug summit as futile efforts that are destructive for local economies. Critics say the drug eradication efforts lack long-range alternative development programs for poor farming communities. The Bekaa's highly profitable fields of pink flowering opium poppies and green stalks of cannabis that once flourished along the roadsides were all but destroyed in the past six years as US-funded Lebanese troops burned fields and sprayed contaminants on crops from US helicopters. The effort was by all accounts successful, and last year the Clinton administration removed Lebanon from its list of major drug-producing nations. But the effort also triggered an agrarian revolt, led by a religious leader named Sheik Sobhi Toufeili, who used to be part of the Hezbollah guerrilla movement. The Shiite cleric's so-called Hunger Revolution has tapped into a groundswell of populist resentment among the farmers who feel betrayed by the West and ignored by the wealthy elite of Beirut. Even the Daily Star, Lebanon's respected English-language daily, reluctantly acknowledged in a February editorial the legitimacy of Toufeili's protest movement. ''His motives were geared toward his own political gain, but his outcry for the government to invest in the social and economic well-being of the region is justified,'' the paper wrote. ''The international community owes Lebanon support in its continued effort to prevent the re-emergence of the drug business.'' Western officials in Lebanon concede that international aid distributed largely through UN development programs has failed to meet its promises. The United Nations has spent $13 million in recent years to help farmers. But its own studies estimate the costs run four times that simply to create adequate irrigation in the area. US officials point out that USAID has begun its own five-year plan targeting the farmers with millions of dollars. The highlight of their effort, said James Stephenson, a USAID representative in Lebanon, was a shipment this winter of 3,000 Holstein cows flown into the Bekaa from New England, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland. The dairy cows were dismissed by farmers and other critics as a token effort that does not approach the hundreds of millions of dollars that other countries such as Turkey have received for their antidrug efforts. In the garden of his modest home, Bassam, 29, explained the basic economics behind his decision to grow cannabis once again. If he cultivates it on a 500-square-yard field, he will produce approximately four kilos of hashish, worth roughly $8,000, at minimal labor cost. If he grows potatoes or government-subsidized tobacco on the same field, he will produce a crop worth about $350 and have to pay laborers at least $150 to tend and harvest the plants. ''Our families are starving. We believed the US when it said it would help us. We destroyed the old crops, but now we have nothing. Where is America now that I owe the local bakery $700 for bread?'' asked Bassam, who spoke on condition that his last name not be used. ''We stopped the drugs here, and now America turns its back on us.'' Bassam said that about 10 percent of Bekaa farmers have returned to illegal crops on small, remote patches of land. But he warned that most farmers are tempted to do the same if there is no alternative. Mohammad Fawaz lives in a comfortable home. His wife and daughters offered a silver platter of fresh fruit, and tea served in china cups. He said he is among the wealthier farmers because he saved his money and bought large tracts of land on which he grows primarily tobacco, potatoes and apricots. ''For most farmers, it is a 180-degree turn for the worse now,'' he said. ''The US government promised to deliver aid through the UN. But we have not seen a penny.'' Fawaz said the money that has been channeled through the United Nations, whose antidrug efforts has been dominated and funded by the United States, has been absorbed into the organization's administrative costs. The farmers have been offered UN loans at interest rates between 12 and 18 percent. UN-subsidized pesticides and fertilizers are also expensive. Ross Mountain, a UN Development Program coordinator, told farmers during a recent tour of a poor village in the Bekaa, ''I hear your complaints loud. I hear your frustrations, and I share them.'' A UN report found that 60 percent of the 54,000 farmers in the region grew cannabis during the war and that the successful US-led eradication efforts left virtually all of those farmers out of work. The impoverished region already faced economic calamity. The Bekaa has limited access to potable water, inadequate social and health services, and the highest illiteracy rate in the country. Water is the key to the transition away from drug crops, which require minimal irrigation. There are large underground aquifers from nearby mountains and rivers, but those sources are very difficult to reach. And the infrastructure necessary to use them for irrigation is expensive. Mountain said that after the United Nations took care of basic needs for the population, there was only $13 million left to create an irrigation system that requires an investment of more than $50 million. Phillip Coffin, a researcher for the New York-based nonprofit Lindsmith Center, says there is a pattern in other poor countries, of the United States and the United Nations ''shaking a carrot in front of farmers and beating with a stick at the same time.'' Coffin added, ''It is part of the misguided global drug war by the US and the UN, which ignores the economics of the drug trade and the fact there will always be poor farmers who will grow as long as there is demand for drugs.'' -------------------------------------------------------------------
[End]
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