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DEA Official Becomes Rich At The Expense Of Agency ('The Wall Street Journal'
Describes How David Bowman Of The Drug Enforcement Administration
Ripped Off The US Government For More Than $6 Million)
Date: Sat, 1 Aug 1998 13:30:17 -0700
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
Subject: MN: US WSJ: DEA Official Becomes
Rich At the Expense of Agency
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Mark Greer
Source: Wall Street Journal
Contact: letter.editor@edit.wsj.com
Website: http://www.wsj.com/
Pubdate: Fri, 31 Jul 1998
Author: Phil Kuntz - Staff Reporter
DEA OFFICIAL BECOMES RICH AT THE EXPENSE OF AGENCY
ARLINGTON, Va. -- David Bowman's cubicle, usually a bureaucrat's ideal of
meticulous order, was a shambles. His desk had been rifled, his computer
was gone. This much, though, was left undisturbed on the cubicle wall: the
seal of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the agency he had served for
21 years.
"What's going on?" a slack-jawed Mr. Bowman asked.
"I can't tell you anything, David," replied James Duke, his boss at the
DEA's budget office. "Go home, and we'll talk about it tomorrow."
Later, the eldest of Mr. Bowman's four grown kids, Donna Dunn, arrived home
to find her usually ebullient father mumbling to himself: "You just follow
orders. You follow orders."
Her brother, David Bowman Jr., summed things up: "Life as we know it is over."
Indeed. The Bowmans had lived luxuriously for years, thanks to the father's
mysterious side business, Bowman Enterprises Inc. The company grossed $1
million a year on average. But investigators have concluded that the money
was illegally siphoned to a bogus company from DEA headquarters here, in
hundreds of checks averaging just under $9,000 each. In all, the government
says in an indictment, Mr. Bowman stole more than $6 million between 1990
and 1996.
And for years, nobody noticed.
Not the DEA clerks who kept cutting checks for an unknown company based on
incomplete documentation and vague cloak-and-dagger assurances. Not the
Justice Department's credit union, where Mr. Bowman sometimes socked away
$5,000 or $10,000 a month on an $87,100 salary. Not his boss, who couldn't
understand Mr. Bowman's secretive ways. And certainly not the government
officials who gave him and his colleagues an award for cutting costs.
Nor did anybody outside DEA inform authorities that one of its midlevel
bureaucrats was rolling in dough. Not his retinue of $12-an-hour personal
assistants who deposited the Treasury checks in the bank but never saw any
business conducted. Not the merchants who sold his family $300,000 worth of
jewelry and $124,000 worth of poster-shop artwork.
Nor was there a word of warning from his wife and children. They spent huge
amounts on home purchases and renovations, overseas honeymoons, new cars --
even Rolex watches costing up to $18,000. American Express bills regularly
exceeded $20,000 a month.
"I never thought to say, 'Dad, how come you make so much money?' It's not
something you ask your father," says Ms. Dunn.
Rumblings About the CIA
Mr. Bowman's undoing was a matter of happenstance -- an audit by an
inquisitive newcomer, checking to make sure the government was paying
vendors on time. The March 1997 office raid marked the unraveling of a
simple scheme allegedly perpetrated against one of the world's most elite
police agencies by a man so severely disabled from muscular dystrophy that
he can't eat, use the bathroom or breathe without assistance.
Mr. Bowman denies wrongdoing and claims that a now-deceased former CIA
official authorized his actions. His family says he is innocent and is
desperate to keep him out of prison. Nevertheless, many of the facts in
this case are corroborated by records at the U.S. District Court in
Alexandria, Va., and interviews with law-enforcement officials, the Bowman
family, friends and associates.
Mr. Bowman is scheduled to go on trial in September on multiple charges.
But however his criminal case is resolved, investigators estimate they will
recover, at best, 20% of the DEA's money. His health is fading fast, and
forfeiture laws favor innocent beneficiaries, such as, by their account,
his relatives. "If he drops dead, we may get nothing," says a Justice
Department official.
Investigators wonder if that was the plan all along.
A Devastating Disease
Mr. Bowman's disease was diagnosed in his childhood, and he tells people,
"I was supposed to be dead before I graduated high school." He was in a
wheelchair by age 30. Yet, even on borrowed time and bum limbs, he sought
to live life to the fullest. He lettered in high school by managing track
and cross-country teams. He was good at target-shooting and handy at sewing
Boy Scout patches. He acquired a taste for good wine.
As his legs and arms weakened, his wife and children dressed him, bathed
him and helped him on the toilet. "There was no embarrassment," says Ms.
Dunn. "He was not a naked man; he was just in his birthday suit and needed
to have a bath."
By the late 1980s, his health had deteriorated severely. He was permanently
hooked to a machine that pumps air through a tracheotomy incision. Bosses
encouraged him to retire, but Mr. Bowman refused. "Work gave him purpose,"
says Ms. Dunn. The DEA hired her to be his aide and nurse at the office
(and later gave her another job), but Mr. Bowman felt he was being
pressured to quit.
So he became more tight-lipped about how he did his job, thinking that
would make it harder to fire him. Transferred from a supervisory position
to a budget job with no one reporting directly to him, he took on some new
duties and ended up in control of an account used to reimburse the State
Department for supporting DEA posts overseas.
Around the same time, Mr. Bowman's own expenses jumped. The Bowmans
upgraded to a $421,000 home in 1988 and later spent $100,000 improving it,
partly to accommodate his disability.
As he became more ill, the stress wore particularly hard on his wife, Pearl
Bowman, who hurt her back moving him and seemed weary of caring for him.
"She still loves him," says daughter Jennifer Bowman, but "Mom has been
less of a wife and more of a nurse or caretaker for so long that I think
the whole wife aspect is gone."
'A Sweetheart Deal'
In 1990, Mr. Bowman began what he would later tell people was a sideline as
a DEA contractor. A former personal assistant, Ramon Robertson, recalls Mr.
Bowman's saying that the agency had given him "a sweetheart deal" because
he was too disabled to be a DEA agent. He told his wife, "We'll never have
to worry about money again."
He filed incorporation papers in Virginia for Bowman Enterprises, saying
the company would be involved in debt collection, academic services,
landscaping, real estate and debentures. On DEA forms requesting permission
to moonlight, he also mentioned snow-plowing. Mrs. Bowman was named
assistant chairman, his daughter Alison president, and the three other
children vice presidents.
All of them now say they knew little about the company, and they state in
court filings that they believed it was legitimate. Bowman Enterprises
certainly had trappings of legitimacy. It had an insurance plan. Calendars,
calculators, pens and a brother-in-law's racing car were festooned with its
name. Mr. Bowman even paid taxes on company profits.
Mrs. Bowman tells people she repeatedly asked her husband to explain the
business, but he refused. She says she asked him if he was doing anything
illegal and he said no. Mrs. Bowman's lawyer said in court that she
figured, "'Oh great, we're doing well,' and didn't investigate any
further."
Mr. Bowman told friends that he provided money for covert operations
overseas and even helped free hostages. He spoke mysteriously of bosses who
wanted things done but didn't want to know details.
Harvey Volzer, Mr. Bowman's lawyer, filed a sealed document in court
claiming CIA authorization for his actions, people familiar with it say.
Mr. Bowman's purported contact was a longtime friend who worked in the
CIA's personnel office until 1993 and died in 1996. DEA officials say Mr.
Bowman had nothing to do with covert operations.
On Nov. 15, 1990, an application form was filed at the Rosslyn, Va., post
office to open a box in the name of the "Finance Liaison Group." It was
signed "CEO David S. Bowman." Eight days later, he opened a bank account
titled "Finance Liaison Group-Bowman Enterprises" and asked for checks
bearing only the latter part of the name. On Dec. 7, 1990, the DEA started
sending checks to the postal box.
Mr. Bowman's assistants -- some DEA-employed, some from Bowman Enterprises
-- deposited the checks. Aides found this curious, but they trusted Mr.
Bowman. "I put him on a pedestal," says Mr. Robertson, now a policeman. "It
was ludicrous the way he spent money, but I was never suspicious."
Another former assistant, Bradley Kennerly, felt sure that DEA employees
couldn't also be DEA contractors. But "I figured I'm being paid to perform
services, not to ask questions," he recalls.
No Red Flags
The DEA acknowledges that Mr. Bowman's handling of its funds violated the
agency's own safeguards. Ordinarily, such disbursements require the
involvement of multiple officials. But in Mr. Bowman's case, he alone
decided how much money the account needed, verified services rendered and
authorized payments. On Mr. Bowman's watch, the agency's State Department
reimbursement account grew 66% to $10 million in six years. During the same
time, Mr. Bowman was sending more and more of those DEA funds to his
company -- up to $1.9 million in 1996.
Investigators say Mr. Bowman would file a standard agency form requesting
that the Finance Liaison Group be paid for undefined "support services"
provided to particular DEA posts around the globe. The vouchers often
lacked signatures, authorization codes or other backup -- but no one
questioned him closely. When he was pressed, court records say, he
suggested to an accounting supervisor "that the payments were for
CIA-related services." Nor did the payments raise a red flag when the DEA
reconciled the books each quarter.
DEA officials now speculate that Mr. Bowman's disability may have shielded
him from closer scrutiny. While on the job, he was viewed by colleagues
with a mixture of pity and admiration. Though he sometimes came off as
furtive about his DEA role, he also was seen as competent and well-liked,
bringing doughnuts on Fridays and fruitcakes at Christmas. He often sported
a pin he was given for working on a task force that won an award from Vice
President Gore's reinventing government initiative. (His panel had
developed cost-effective ways of paying for those "support services.") He
also was the "go-to guy" for overseas agents needing guidance through the
bureaucracy back at headquarters, says a former colleague.
"How could you not trust a guy like that?" says Mr. Duke, his supervisor.
"To my eternal shame, I didn't look deeper into this clown when I got there
because I knew he was weird -- but not dishonest." (Mr. Duke's bosses
didn't want him to discuss specifics.)
Spending Sprees
As the money poured in, the Bowmans' lifestyle was transformed.
Raised in rural poverty, Mrs. Bowman led the way. She bought an $8,000
Rolex for her 50th birthday in 1991 and quit her Pentagon secretarial job
in early 1992. She became the best customer at Shaw's Jewelers at the local
mall, salespeople say. Her diamond ankle bracelet cost $11,000, tanzanite
pendant and earrings twice that. She stocked up on gifts for friends and
relatives. "I'll take all of them," she once said, eyeing 50 bracelets on
sale.
Mrs. Bowman paid for cosmetic surgery for herself, two daughters and a
sister. Victoria's Secret charges topped $500 a visit. She spent nearly
$140,000 on gold pieces, proof sets and commemorative coins. She acquired
so many limited-edition prints and animation cels that she displayed them
on rotation at the house.
Mr. Bowman also indulged. At Shaw's, he spied a pendant, considered the
$500 price tag on the chain and decided to buy it. But he had seen only the
chain's price; the pendant cost nearly $18,000. No matter; Mr. Bowman
pulled out his credit card.
He also became more security-conscious. He bought a state-of-the-art
home-security system and had utility wires buried, lest bad guys sever
them. The house has an elaborate multi-line phone-and-intercom system
connecting almost every room -- bathrooms, attic and garage included.
Mr. Bowman was generous to relatives and friends. He also donated countless
hours of his bookkeeping time to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the
local Boy Scouts and the Westover Baptist Church.
But "if he stole money, he didn't give it to the church," says former
pastor Chester Smith. As for all of that newfound wealth, Mr. Smith says,
"My wife and I used to discuss that frequently: How in the world did the
Bowmans have that much money?"
Bowman Enterprises employed his children's friends as personal assistants
to care for him. The company paid his children, too, when they took care of
him. He sometimes chastised them for not putting in for every minute on the
ledger by the front door.
The parents were strict, insisting on respect, manners and honesty. But the
children got practically whatever they wanted. "We were spoiled, but we
weren't spoiled brats," says Ms. Dunn. "We earned what we got. We put up
with a lot. We cared for Dad so much, and Dad thought the only way he could
pay us back was to provide for us."
"I was brought up dealing with things that a normal child doesn't have to
deal with," says Jennifer Bowman. "When I was 10 years old, I was at home
taking care of a 46-year-old 'trach' patient. I never said, 'I'll take care
of you if you'll buy me a car.' As a reward for doing such a good job, you
get things."
The children say they got new cars routinely, as did spouses. Over the
years, David Jr. received three Mustangs, an Explorer and two motorcycles.
He customized one Mustang with racing parts for $12,000 and with a
20-speaker, stereo-TV-video system for $6,000.
Everybody got cellular phones, beepers and generous use of credit cards.
Alison and Robert Waters racked up $36,000 in charges in the summer of
1996, when they married and then honeymooned in Britain. College tuition
was covered, too. Mr. Bowman kept the children near his Arlington home by
providing them around $375,000 for down payments, mortgage bills and other
housing expenses.
Christmas was especially festive. Aides once procured 250 fruitcakes and a
car load of honey-baked hams for gifts. They spent thousands on White House
Christmas ornaments, and rented a cherry picker to hang lights on their
house.
A New Auditor Arrives
The end began shortly before Christmas 1996. A new DEA auditor, Diane
Webster, walked into Mr. Bowman's office with a sheaf of payment requests.
She was doing an audit under a law that requires vendors to be paid
quickly, and she happened to pick some of the Finance Liaison Group
documents.
"Mr. Bowman, I need to talk to you about these. There's nothing on here. Do
you have any backup?" she asked. He replied: "It's a very sensitive issue;
I'll have to get back to you." Then, according to a witness to the
conversation, he tried to play down the matter by noting she had only a
handful of vouchers. "There's 60 more on my desk," Ms. Webster replied.
Mr. Duke demanded substantiation, so Mr. Bowman told his family to help
reconstruct some missing files. They began faxing vaguely worded letters to
DEA offices around the globe asking for verification of services rendered.
According to court files, Mr. Bowman also tricked a State Department
official into signing a fabricated authorization form, telling him it was a
duplicate he needed for his files. Finally, Mr. Bowman wrote his boss a
memo: "I trust that this information will alleviate your concern."
It didn't. Mr. Duke couldn't find anybody who knew of the Finance Liaison
Group. Then DEA Inspector Harry Spence found a copy of the application for
the postal box. Agents raided Mr. Bowman's office that weekend.
The family reacted quickly. Mrs. Bowman stored jewelry and coins at her
sister's home, family members say. Mr. Bowman said "everything would be
taken. If anything is yours, you might want to take it," recalls Jennifer
Bowman. David Jr. says his father told him it would be "a good idea" to
empty bank accounts. Evidence disappeared, including a "Finance Liaison
Group -- For Deposit Only" stamp. David Jr.'s wife, Kim, says Alison told
her to throw it away; Alison says she doesn't recall what she told Kim.
Mr. Bowman retired from the DEA. The good life over, relatives bought
groceries until his $3,000-a-month retirement kicked in. Ms. Dunn pawned
her Rolex. The other children got jobs.
One night, "all four of us got together with Dad," Jennifer Bowman recalls.
"We said, "We love you regardless, [but] we want you to tell the truth."
But he's afraid if he told all, that we'd be assassinated. He won't let us
take the bird out of the house because if somebody tries to put gas in the
house, the bird would die first."
Seizing the Assets
Prosecutors sought to temporarily seize the family's major assets -- a move
that U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema allowed after finding "a
substantial probability" of Mr. Bowman's guilt. Three homes went on the
market; two have sold. Proceeds went to an escrow account. Another judge
later allowed the family to use some of the money to pay debts. That
angered the Justice Department and the DEA. "It is unfair for the
government to be again paying the Bowmans' bills," government attorney
James Pavlock argued in court.
On March 10, a year after the raid on his office, Mr. Bowman was indicted
on 74 counts of money laundering, mail fraud and theft. The government also
has filed forfeiture claims for up to $2.3 million in cash and property. No
one else was charged, and the indictment doesn't accuse Mr. Bowman of
conspiring with anyone else.
DEA Administrator Thomas Constantine blamed his agency for the mess: "Had
many of the managers and personnel responsible for processing or
supervising Bowman's accounts exercised proper care and adherence to
protocols, Bowman's scheme would not have been successful." The DEA is
weighing whether to discipline numerous employees. Ms. Dunn, along with Mr.
Bowman's last DEA aide, nephew Scott Blizzard, were suspended last
September, with pay.
Prosecutors wanted to plea bargain with Mr. Bowman so he would forfeit
assets without a fight. But the negotiations went nowhere when DEA's Mr.
Constantine demanded significant prison time as part of any deal.
Mr. Bowman's lawyer is seeking to have his client declared unfit for trial,
now set for Sept. 14. Mr. Bowman was hospitalized on Tuesday. When at home,
he spends his days in the family room, tethered to a ventilator, bloated
and overweight. He gets one drug for pain, another for depression. He's
usually asleep or groggy. His speech is labored but coherent. A casket that
he commissioned -- made by his best friend from specially selected Wyoming
pine -- sits in the living room.
Niece Jennifer Blizzard likes to plop down on his bed and toss grapes into
his mouth, as she did at his 58th birthday party recently. Later, Mrs.
Bowman disconnected the breathing device, and nephew Scott manually pumped
air into his lungs while Alison cleaned his tracheotomy. Mrs. Bowman tested
his blood-sugar level with a finger prick and declared him fit for a bit of
wine. Someone brought out a straw and a "Bowman Enterprises" wine glass.
Some of Mr. Bowman's family and friends are sure he is an innocent dupe
being prosecuted to cover up who-knows-what. As for David Jr., he refuses
to believe his father is guilty, but he also doesn't buy the
cloak-and-dagger stuff. "I'm not sure what's right," he says. "If he did
this, then everything I grew up with was a lie. He helped me memorize the
Boy Scout oath."
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The Week Online With DRCNet, Issue Number 52 (The Drug Reform Coordination
Network's Original News Summary For Activists)
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.NJ NEP Workers' Conviction Upheld in Appeals Court
2.Oakland City Council Votes To Shield Local Cannabis Dispensary From
Federal Prosecution Controversy Over Searches
3.D.O.J. Asks for Dismissal of Hemp Suit
4.Feds Indict Peter McWilliams, Todd McCormick and Others, Alleging Vast
Conspiracy To Supply Medical Marijuana
5.Peaceful Prison Protest Earns Solitary Confinement
6.Action Request: The Tax Stamp Controversy
7.New Zealand Health Ministry: Pot Poses No Serious Risk
8.Newsbriefs
9.Link of the Week
10.A Campaign for Substance Awareness
11.Debating Points
12.Office of National Drug Control Policy Hard at Work
13.EDITORIAL: The Pompano Beach Twelve
(visit last week's Week Online)
or check out The Week Online archives
1. NJ NEP Workers' Conviction Upheld in Appeals Court
Taylor West
In a state with one of the highest rates of injection- related HIV
transmission in the country, needle exchange operators Diana McCague and
Thomas Scozzare were rebuffed on an appeal of their conviction for
furnishing hypodermic syringes. By a vote of 3-0, the New Jersey Superior
Court upheld the August 1997 decision of the New Brunswick Municipal Court
that found McCague and Scozzare guilty of violating New Jersey Statute
2C:36-6, which forbids the possession, sale, or distribution of needles.
The Appellate Division of the Superior Court was rigid in its rejection of
the pair's arguments. In the official court opinion, it refused to
acknowledge the possible public health benefits of the needle exchange run
by the Chai Project, a non-profit corporation founded by McCague and
dedicated to preventing the spread of HIV in the intravenous drug-using
population. John Mackin, Community Liaison for the Project, said that the
organization was "incredibly disappointed and infuriated" by the court's
decision. "Not only are they taking away the livelihood of Ms. McCague and
Mr. Scozzare," he stated, "but there was no recognition that what those two
did was for the public good. We're out here trying to save lives, and they
wouldn't even consider that."
McCague and Scozzare's troubles with the court began 2 1/2 years ago
(http://drcnet.org/rapid/1996/3-19-2.html), when an undercover officer from
the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office visited a needle exchange operated
by the Chai Project. McCague and Scozzare were manning the exchange site --
a van parked on a New Brunswick street -- at the time of the undercover
officer's visit. When the two obliged the man's request for a "kit", an
investigator from the New Brunswick Police Department arrested them and
confiscated the syringes in the van.
Following their trial and conviction the next year, McCague and Scozzare
took their case to the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court
with five basic arguments for overturning the verdict. The two claimed that
1) there is no harm or criminal intent in operating a bona fide needle
exchange; 2) the doctrine of medical necessity, which exempts ordinarily
illegal behavior if that behavior prevents an imminent medical danger,
exonerates them from culpability; 3) the prohibition of needle exchange
violates the exchange participants' fundamental right to life; 4)
contradictory messages from the New Brunswick police regarding tolerance of
the exchange interfered with due process (Police Chief Michael Beltranena
was informed of the project in 1994 and made supportive comments about it
that were published in a local newspaper); and 5) the de minimis statute,
which protects citizens from absurd or trivial enforcement of the law, is
applicable and should have prevented the case from going to trial originally.
Judge Donald G. Collester, Jr., delivered the opinion of the appellate
court, handed down on July 23, specifically addressing each of the five
arguments. Because the law forbidding needle distribution contains no
language stating that the violation must include criminal intent, the court
opinion claimed that a defense based on the absence of criminal intent was
not valid. Judge Collester quoted a 1957 court opinion which stated,
"When... one deliberately and intentionally does an act in violation of a
positive law... he cannot be excused on the basis that his animating desire
was essentially praiseworthy."
The court opinion also claimed that the argument of medical necessity was
untenable. He stated that, because the specific purpose of New Jersey's
needle legislation is to forbid the distribution of syringes for drug use, a
needle exchange program is a pure law violation rather than something
protected by the medical necessity clause. He also denied that the situation
was one that would be covered by the medical necessity clause at all.
"Defendants in this case," the opinion read, "were not confronted with a
clear and imminent danger to themselves or others."
The court refuted the claim that denying clean needles violated a
constitutional right to life by saying that such a right "does not encompass
the use of prohibited substances at a reduced health risk." Following Police
Chief Beltranena's testimony that his supportive comments had represented
only his personal opinion and not that of his department, the court
disregarded the complaint about due process. "Whatever [Chief Beltranena's]
prior statements," stated the opinion, "... defendants were not immune to
enforcement of the law."
The Appellate Court also sided with the original trial decision regarding
the de minimis statute. Judge Collester quoted an opinion written on a
similar case which stated, "There is nothing absurd about the application of
N.J.S.A. 2C:36-6 to these defendants. Neither can their conduct be deemed
trivial."
The opinion closed with a statement ominous for those hoping to find a
loophole for needle exchange in New Jersey's strict anti-paraphernalia laws.
"[T]he zero tolerance for the distribution of drugs and drug paraphernalia
established by the Comprehensive Drug Reform Act," it read, "leaves no room
for the creation of exceptions by judicial decree. Any change... is solely
for legislative consideration." Given Governor Christine Todd Whitman's
steadfast and vehement opposition to any mention of needle exchange,
legislative change is not an easy assignment.
Currently, Diana McCague and Thomas Scozzare face the sentence imposed upon
them by the municipal court: $705 each in fees and court costs, and the
suspension of each person's driver's license for six months. Meanwhile, the
futures of the Chai Project and of drug-related AIDS in New Jersey remain in
doubt.
2. Oakland City Council Votes To Shield Local Cannabis Dispensary From
Federal Prosecution
(Reprinted from the NORML Foundation, 7/30/98)
The Oakland (California) City Council unanimously passed an ordinance
Wednesday designed to protect the city's local medical marijuana dispensary
from federal criminal and civil liability.
The ordinance allows city officials to "designate" the Oakland Cannabis
Buyers' Cooperative to distribute medical marijuana to seriously ill
patients. The legislation attempts to provide immunity to the Cooperative
against a federal lawsuit aimed at closing the dispensary. Supporters of the
ordinance believe that Section 885(d) of the Controlled Substances Act
immunizes local officials who enforce local drug laws from federal sanctions.
"Because the ordinance relies on provisions of federal law, it may be
replicated in cities throughout the country, not just in California or other
states that may pass laws similar to Proposition 215," said attorney Robert
Raich, who drafted the measure.
Oakland is the first city to apply the Controlled Substances Act in this
manner, Raich said.
For more information, please contact either Dale Gieringer of California
NORML at (415) 563-5858 or attorney Robert Raich at (510) 338-0700.
(Visit NORML at http://www.norml.org, or California NORML at
http://www.norml.org/canorml/. Dale Gieringer can also be reached at
canorml@igc.org.)
3. Controversy Over Searches
Kris Lotlikar
The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled on July 24 that nighttime searches could
only be conducted following compelling reasoning as to why the search could
not be conducted during the day. Patrick Fitch, age 32, had his 2 1/2 to 5
year sentence, for possession of drugs with the intent to deliver, thrown
out of court because of an illegitimate nighttime search. In a unanimous
decision, the court found that the affidavit requesting the search warrant
gave no rationale for conducting a nighttime search. "The privacy of citizens
in their homes, secure from unreasonable nighttime intrusions is a right of
vast importance," Judge John Gerrard wrote. "The affidavit contained no
facts that would support an inference that contraband was being disposed of
or hidden in such a manner that nighttime service was required."
Six officers and one police dog showed up to Fitch's home, with a search
warrant, on April 19 at 10:00 pm. The only one in the house at the time was
Patrick Fitch's 61 year old mother. The police had no reason to believe that
the accused was present at the residence at all, according to his lawyer,
Adam Sipple. Another point of contention that was not addressed by the
courts, because the case had already been thrown out, were Investigator
Darwin Shaw's searches of the garbage outside of Fitch's home. Evidence
found in the four searches of the garbage was used to obtain the warrant.
Sipple told The Week Online, "We are pleased with the outcome, it recognizes
the critical fact that those given the power to enforce the law are also
required to act within its limitations."
The Oregon Supreme Court overturned a previous Oregon Court of Appeals
decision that the use of drug dogs to find drugs required a warrant. The
Supreme Court unanimously decided that a dog sniffing for drugs does not
infringe on a citizens right to privacy. The Supreme Court stated, "The use
of a dog to sniff property in this manner is not a search for constitutional
purposes." The pertaining case involved Desmond Smith's storage locker,
which was indicated by a police dog for containing marijuana in 1993. The
police decided to search the storage locker after an informant claimed that
Smith stored harvested marijuana there. In this case the police were "using
a dog to detect the presence of a particular odor caused by the presence of
odor molecules in the air outside a clearly defined, private space," stated
an opinion by Justice Michael Gillette.
The New Jersey State Supreme Court ruled that police would need more than an
informant tip to pull over and search a persons car. Five years ago, Joseph
Zutic was arrested for possession of 13 grams of marijuana while returning
from New York City to his home in New Jersey. The police had set up
surveillance and pulled Zutic over after a "reliable informant" tipped them
off to the fact that there would be marijuana in his car. The ruling stated
that officers of the law would need more detailed information if they plan
to legally conduct such searches. The Justices ruled that the marijuana
found in his car could not be used as evidence. Matthew Priore explained the
significance of this ruling to the Bergen Record, saying, "This is important
because without it, you could basically just call in someone's name, give a
general description, and the police can stop and search them. This requires
much more specific information. It requires the police to do police
investigations instead of just relying on the tip."
4. D.O.J. Asks for Dismissal of Hemp Suit
Kris Lotlikar
Last May, several Kentucky farmers banded together and filed suit against
the United States government in an attempt to make industrial hemp a legal
crop to grow in Kentucky. The U.S Department of Justice has asked for this
suit to be thrown out of court in an effort to block the farmers progress.
The Attorney General argues that even if federal law allowed the farming of
hemp, state laws would still prohibit the growing of the plant. The Justice
Department also stated that the growers cannot claim to have suffered from
this law because those farmer were never allowed to grow hemp and were
therefore not forced to change the way they do business.
The Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperative Association lawyer, Burl McCoy, told
The Week Online that he is not at all surprised at the Justice Department
taking this sort of action. McCoy, who is a former U.S assistant attorney
and a former Major in the U.S Reserves, told The Week Online, "They have us
in sort of a catch-22." Both the state and federal governments resort to the
same excuse, stating that even if growing hemp were legalized under their
respective jurisdiction, it would still be illegal under the others.
Association president Andy Graves told the Lexington Herald- Leader, "The
truth is, this is their way of avoiding the issues. These guys don't want to
know the truth, and for them to make an argument that hemp is bad, hemp is
wrong, and hemp is marijuana would be to admit that 27 other countries we
recognize are wrong to allow it. They don't want to argue the case because
there is no rational argument to put up."
Many of the farmers in Kentucky, which is still largely a farming state, are
trying to prepare for the future by embracing this new crop. McCoy stated to
The Week Online, "Kentucky is still a grain state. However you may feel
about tobacco, which is the largest cash crop in Kentucky, its demand is
diminishing. Small farms are going to need a crop to fall back on in the
future." Graves summed up his frustration in a comment to the Herald-Leader,
"I don't like it. It offends me that my own government is acting like this."
For more information, check out the Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperative Assoc.
at http://www.hempgrowers.com, and our own pieces at
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/048.html#ky-hemp and
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/042.html#kentucky.
5. Feds Indict Peter McWilliams, Todd McCormick and Others, Alleging Vast
Conspiracy To Supply Medical Marijuana
(By Dick Cowan, reprinted from http://www.marijuananews.com)
July 27, 1998, Los Angeles, CA: Writer-Publisher Peter McWilliams is being
denied his AIDS medication while in Federal custody. McWilliams was arrested
at his home at 6:00am, on July 23, by seven DEA agents for federal medical
marijuana violations. McWilliams has not been given his AIDS medication
since he was arrested.
"At the Bail Hearing, the Prosecutor, Fernando Aenlle-Rocha, assured the
judge I would receive my AIDS medication," said McWilliams on Sunday still
in Federal Custody. "I have not."
McWilliams was diagnosed with AIDS and Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a result of
the AIDS, in March, 1996. He has been taking the combination therapy of two
anti-viral and one Protease Inhibitor since that time. Medical experts warn
that noncompliance with the six-times-a-day treatment could lead to fatal
mutations of the AIDS virus not treatable by the medicine. McWilliams will
be arraigned on nine federal counts, all involving medical marijuana, on
Monday, July 27th at 8:30am before Judge George King.
"Of the three vital components of the combination therapy, I have never been
given one of them," said McWilliams in a phone interview from the Federal
Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles. "My doctor and every medical
report I have read repeatedly stresses the importance of not missing so much
as a single dose. I have taken my AIDS medication faithfully for 2 and 1/2
years. Now, there is a four day gap in that life-saving treatment."
McWilliams has been a vocal advocate of medical marijuana, an outspoken
critic of the federal policies jailing sick people for treating their
illnesses, especially since the passage of California's Proposition 215 in 1996.
"The Federal Government has arrested me to silence me," said McWilliams.
"But must it attempt to murder me as well?"
McWilliams has appeared on CNN, ABC News, TIME, CBS Radio Network, MSNBC,
and dozens of other media advocating medical marijuana. He is the publisher
of The Medical Marijuana Magazine online at http://www.marijuanamagazine.com.
McWilliams intends to detail his lack of promised medical treatment to Judge
King at his Monday arraignment.
[Last-minute update: a judge has temporarily denied a request for reduced
bail and house arrest for McWilliams, but has expressed concern about the
denial of medication and will hopefully be issuing an order with regard to
that. A legal defense fund has been established on McWilliam's behalf. We
don't yet have the details, but you can get them by calling Lisa Sutherland
at (310) 587-1469. Or get the information by subscribing to the DRC- EXTRA
list for more frequent bulletins -- send e-mail to listproc@drcnet.org with
the line "subscribe drc-extra your name". (Substitute your actual name or
pseudonym where it says "your name".)]
6. Peaceful Prison Protest Earns Solitary Confinement
Kris Lotlikar
At least 150 prisoners formed a sit down protest at the Fox Lake
Correctional Institution because of a department policy of moving inmates
out of state. Bill Clausius, spokesman for the state Department of
Corrections, admitted that the three-hour long sit-down was peaceful. In
reaction to the demonstration, the prisoners who participated are being
penalized with four months to a year of solitary confinement. Also, many of
the protesters will get fewer visits and phone calls, less recreation time
and allowed fewer possessions in their cells. There are varying reports on
the number of inmates that took part in the sit down. DOC reports that there
were 155 participants, but two prisoners who were present say there were
several hundred.
Many of the protesters were moved to four other state prisons and more than
a dozen were moved out of state even after the demonstration. More than
1,500 Wisconsin inmates are being held in Texas, Tennessee, Minnesota and
Oklahoma because of prison overcrowding. This practice has limited family
interaction through visits, which some consider cruel and unusual
punishment. Jody O'Kane, who took part in the event, wrote a letter to his
family, excerpts of which appeared in the Wisconsin State Journal. "I spent
13 years being good, trying to do the right thing in prison, and now all of
a sudden, as a reward for that, they want to send me to Tennessee somewhere.
So what if I have to spend 20 years in prison. At least I can spend it in
Wisconsin where I can see you and spend as much time with you on visits as I
can. It is much better than going down there." Janet O'Kane, Jody's mother,
whose ability o travel is limited by health problems, told the Journal about
the protest. "They weren't violent at all. It was a peaceful sit-down just
like in the 60's. Their whole point was to be heard, and so far they haven't
been heard at all."
7. Action Request: The Tax Stamp Controversy
Kris Lotlikar
On June 6, 1994, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a state could
not both prosecute a person for illegal sale/possession of a drug and also
collect taxes on that drug. Peter Wilson felt this ruling would legitimize
the sale of cannabis in Arizona if he paid the tax beforehand. He bought a
$5,000 Arizona Cannabis and Controlled Substances Dealers License and
pre-paid adhesive tax stamps. In 1995 Wilson was arrested for possession of
marijuana. Justice of the Peace John Barclay failed to find probable cause
that a crime had been committed, noting, "it would appear that... the
legislature intended that it would be possible to legally possess marijuana
(under title 42)." In 1996, when Proposition 200 was passed, allowing
doctors to prescribe medical marijuana, Wilson was quoted on the front page
of the Arizona Republic as willing to supply the marijuana needed by medical
marijuana patients. After this event, Peter Wilson was again arrested for
marijuana-related charges. In this trial, he was not allowed to tell jurors
about his license or about the previous verdict by Justice Barclay; nor he
was allowed to use religious arguments to prove innocence. He was found
guilty by the jury on seven of the eight charges and faces jail time. On
August 4, 1998, a judge will be sentencing Peter Wilson. Please write to the
judge and ask that Peter Wilson be given no more than probation, and
remember to be polite:
Judge David Cole
East Court Building, 5th Floor
201 W. Jefferson
Phoenix, AZ 85003
8. New Zealand Health Ministry: Pot Poses No Serious Risk
In a statement submitted to Parliament this Thursday, the New Zealand
Ministry of Health told a select committee inquiry into the mental health
effects of marijuana that, "Overall, the current public health risks of
cannabis use are small to moderate in size, and are less than the public
health risk of tobacco or alcohol use." While it noted that large amounts of
marijuana caused acute temporary impairment to thinking, and that some forms
of mental illness, such as schizophrenia, could be exacerbated by marijuana
use, the statement also said that research shows that even long-term, heavy
use of marijuana does not cause great damage to cognition, but that the vast
majority of marijuana users in New Zealand use the drug only occasionally.
The Ministry's statement largely squares with the conclusions of more than a
dozen blue-ribbon reports commissioned by several governments over the past
one hundred years, including the Commission of the Australian Government in
1977, the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse convened by U.S.
President Richard Nixon in 1972, and the Report by the Dutch Government in 1995.
In an interview in the New Zealand Dominion, New Zealand Drug Policy Forum
Trust director and DRCNet advisory board member Dr. David Hadorn said that
the criminalization of marijuana causes more harm to the mental health of
New Zealanders than the drug itself. "Creating a climate of criminality
around cannabis use," he said, "insures that the relatively few people who
develop problems are less likely to seek help. This sets off a spiral of
alienation, marginalisation and anti-social behaviour, which too often can
culminate in criminality, mental illness and violence."
(A number of the reports cited have been re-published in DRCNet's Online
Drug Policy Library; the are listed at http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/,
Major Studies link.
9. Newsbriefs
Medical marijuana initiatives are heading to the ballot this November in
several states, including Alaska, Oregon, and Washington State. Notices on
initiatives in Colorado, Nevada and Washington, DC are pending. An
initiative in Maine is expected to be on the ballot in Nov. 1999.
Petitioning is currently underway for a medical marijuana initiative in
Florida (see http://www.medicalrights.org).
Jeb Bush, the Republican candidate for governor of Florida, has drawn up a
19-page plan to escalate the War on Drugs. Part of Bush's plan is to deny
scholarships to people who use drugs. "We're not going to reinvent the
wheel, but we're going to do something revolutionary," Bush pledged to the
Miami Herald. "There has to be a recognition that being a good citizen means
remaining drug free," commented Bush, who confesses that he tried marijuana
when he was 17. Lt. Governor Buddy MacKay criticized the withholding of
scholarships as "very harsh treatment," according to MacKay spokesperson
Robin Rorapaugh, who added that "Drug use, for children, is a problem, but
taking away their tools for education and becoming better citizens does not
solve it," and that MacKay "has never experimented with illegal drugs."
Dallas, Texas schools are looking into voluntary drug testing for students.
The drug test would be conducted only after parents request it. In the
Dallas system, the school and the parents will receive copies of the results
of the tests. Trustee Ron Price told the Dallas Morning News, "If you mail
results to parents, they may never get to the parents' hands. If the school
district has the information, they can assist the parents in helping the child."
Drug-related crime is on the rise in Russia. Russia has experienced a 25%
rise during the 1st half of 1998, compared to the same time last year. About
66,000 drug-related crimes were committed between January and June. The
number of drug related HIV cases is also going up. More than two million
people in Russia use drugs, a figure Prosecutor General Yuri Skuratov
expects to double by the year 2000.
Two U.S pilots died in a plane crash while helping with Columbia's drug crop
eradication efforts. The plane went down on Monday about 175 miles southwest
of the capital, Bogota. The U.S pilots were part of a program to train
Colombian pilots to fumigate drug crops. *
In Arizona today, sponsors of Proposition 300, an initiative seeking to
restore the state's medical marijuana law, are going to court to force the
state Legislative Council to remove references to the medicalization of
"heroin, LSD, and PCP" from its official description of the initiative,
which is set to be published next week. Passage of Prop 300 would overturn
HB 2518, a bill passed by state lawmakers in 1997 which gutted Proposition
200, the medical marijuana initiative that had passed by a 64-36% margin in
a 1996 referendum. Prop 300's sponsors, who call themselves "The People Have
Spoken," argue that the official description of Prop 200, which sought to
legalize the medical use of marijuana and other Schedule One substances,
made no such explicit references to hard drugs. Prop 300 lobbyist Jack
LaSota told the Arizona Daily Star that the Legislative Council, like
opponents of Prop. 200 in 1996, wants to emphasize heroin, LSD, and PCP
because of all Schedule One substances they are the "those few most likely
to inflame the senses of some voters." State legislators insist they are
only trying to insure that voters understand that marijuana is not the only
substance whose legality would be affected by Prop 300.
A group of young children in Pompano Beach, Florida were apprehended
Wednesday by police after they were caught playing "dope dealer," trading
leaves for baggies of plastic "crack" and pseudo-marijuana. The children,
who live in a neighborhood where real drug sales are common, ranged in age
from 4 to 11. They received a lecture from the county sheriff's lieutenant,
who later told the Miami Herald that the incident had ruined his day. "This
is what they see every day," he said.
165 medical marijuana patients have joined forces with the Hirsch and Caplan
Public Interest Law firm in Philadelphia to launch a class-action lawsuit to
force the government's hand on medical marijuana. Attorney Lawrence Elliot
Hirsch claims that his case will show that the federal government's ban on
marijuana in 1937 violates the constitutional rights of patients.
An alleged drug dealer on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts has vowed to
randomly kill US citizens on the island if the extradition proceedings
against him are successful. 37 year-old Charles Miller, known as "Little
Nut," is wanted in Florida on charges of cocaine trafficking, and is reputed
to have financed the election of the current Prime Minister there. More than
250 American citizens attend a veterinary college located on the island.
10. Link of the Week
Last Sunday's episode of the comic strip Doonesbury dealt with the issue of
under-treatment of chronic pain from the drug war, and announced to the baby
boomer generation what they have in store in old age if the drug war
continues in its current form. You can read it on the Sacramento Bee web
site at http://www.sacbee.com/smile/comix/ -- follow the Doonesbury link,
select July 26 and click.
11. A Campaign for Substance Awareness
An organization in New York State, the Orange County Citizens for Substance
Awareness (OCCSA), has gone on a crusade seeking disclosure of honest
information on the serious health-related risks of various drugs. The
group's call is prompted by a study which reveals that 575 people in Orange
County die annually from drugs and that almost all such deaths are caused by
tobacco and alcohol.
"If our goal is to protect public health, we need the disclosure of accurate
information about the documented risks associated with all dangerous
substances. Hundreds of people are dying each year in this county due to
drug use, but the public is not being made aware of the risks associated
with the use of common-accepted drugs," said Michael H. Sussman, an attorney
and spokesperson for the group.
An OCCSA survey in early 1995 revealed that most Orange County residents
believed, mistakenly, that the bulk of drug-related deaths stemmed from
abuse of illegal drugs, when in fact, fewer than 1% of drug-related deaths
were related to the illegal drugs. According to federal date, there were 578
drug-related deaths in 1992, 455 tobacco- related, 120 alcohol-related, two
related to cocaine, one related to opiates, and none from marijuana.
In 1994, OCCSA mounted a public education campaign featuring a billboard in
Chester, NY, listing these numbers. Recently, however, according to OCCSA,
the billboard owner took the OCCSA advertisement down, without explanation
and in violation of the rental contract.
For further information, contact Michael H. Sussman at (914) 294-3991. Take
a look at OCCSA's billboard at http://www.drcnet.org/images/occsa.jpg.
12. Debating Points
The OCCSA billboard illustrates how badly skewed current policies toward
substances are, in light of the actual harm caused by the different
substances. The legal drugs alcohol and tobacco have an enormously greater
medical impact on society than all of the illegal drugs combined, and
alcohol plays the principal role in substance-related violence and other
criminal activity.
A common response made to this point by prohibitionists (and other
unconvinced citizens) is to call that a reason to keep the illegal drugs
illegal -- do we want to have such huge problems with those drugs too, as we
have with the legal drugs? While this argument doesn't answer to the
disparate resources applied in, say, drug education vs. tobacco and alcohol
education, it does evoke the fear of a "nation of addicts" that stands in
the way of drug policy reform.
There are at two fundamental flaws to their argument. First, they are
comparing certain drugs that are legal, with _other_ drugs that are illegal.
Different drugs have different effects, different use patterns, different
sociological associations and different interactions with policies. One
needs to look at legal alcohol vs. prohibited alcohol, for example, or legal
opiates before 1914 vs. a war on heroin today, or Dutch marijuana
coffeeshops vs. marijuana arrests every 49 seconds in the U.S., to make a
valid comparison. Not that the analysis stops there -- one needs to also
look at differences between times, countries, cultures, circumstances, etc.
But at least we then have the beginning of a reasonable comparison.
Secondly, the argument entirely omits the fact that drugs, both legal and
illegal, do not exist in isolation from one another. Alcohol use patterns
are not independent from marijuana use patterns are not independent from use
of other drugs. For example, increasing marijuana use may be associated with
decreasing use of alcohol, or vice-versa. While it is conceivable that
experimentation with or even longer-term usage of the currently illegal
substances could increase following legalization, it is not at all clear
that overall intoxication from all substances combined would increase --
especially given the fact that the illegal drugs currently are widely
available despite prohibition, and can be purchased by high school and
junior high school students at school, from other students.
The argument that use of and harm from the currently illegal drugs would
skyrocket to the level of use and harm of the currently legal drugs, implies
that legality is the defining factor determining their level of use -- that
is, all legal drugs are going to be used at approximately the same rate or
order of magnitude. But the same type of reasoning should then imply that
all illegal drugs would be used at the same level as well.
We know, however, that different illegal drugs are not all used at the same
rate. Marijuana is enormously more popular than heroin, cocaine, LSD and
methamphetamine combined. It's not that marijuana is legal where the other
drugs aren't, and it's not that the marijuana laws go unenforced. (Remember,
one arrest every 49 seconds.) Fewer people use heroin or cocaine, because
heroin and cocaine are scary and are widely understood to be dangerous.
There's simply no basis for the belief that scary drugs like heroin or
cocaine, at least in their current, highly intense forms, would ever be as
widely used even as marijuana, let alone alcohol.
13. Office of National Drug Control Policy Hard at Work
Those of you who missed the legalization debate last week at Intellectual
Capital, can access the archive at
http://www.intellectualcapital.com/issues/98/0723/.) There are discussion
forums following both Charles Blanchard's and Nadine Strossen's articles, as
well as following the online poll. The debate was especially rousing, thanks
to the participation of Blanchard, ONDCP's chief counsel, and ONDCP staffer
Rob Housman.
Two weeks ago, DRCNet summarized ONDCP chief Barry McCaffrey's visit to
Europe in which he made a spectacle of himself by promulgating extreme,
verifiably false data about the Netherlands in the international media. Most
notably, McCaffrey claimed, during a speech in Sweden, that the homicide
rate in the Netherlands is double the homicide rate in the United States. It
turned out that McCaffrey's number was off by a factor of ten, and that the
homicide rate in the U.S. is 4 1/2 times that of the Dutch. (See
http://www.drcnet.org/wol/050.html#footinmouth.)
The performance of ONDCP staff on intellectualcapital.com was little better.
For example, Rob Housman wrote on page 3_c that "... if you look at 1992,
U.S. youth drug use is way below Dutch (10.6 versus 30.2 percent
prevalence). So where are your facts?"
A week earlier, a DRCNet representative attended Barry McCaffrey's press
conference at the National Press Club and picked up one of ONDCP's press
packets, which included several colored charts. One of the charts explains
the origins of Housman's numbers: the U.S. numbers are for ages 12-17 while
the Dutch numbers are for ages 16-19. It is obvious that 16-19 year olds,
half of whom are legal adults (at least by U.S. standards), are going to use
marijuana more frequently than 12-17 year olds, half of whom are under 15.
In no way is this a valid comparison between the two countries. (We've
scanned the ONDCP graph and have posted it online at
http://www.drcnet.org/graphs/ondcp1.html.)
Housman also wrote, "how do you know about Netherlands use? They have not
released full youth drug use stats since 1992 -- wonder why? So how can you
compare?" We're not sure what he means by "full stats", but there certainly
are adequate statistics available for as recently as 1997, with which to
make a legitimate comparison. For example, a publication of the Netherlands
Institute of Health and Addiction reports that past-month and lifetime
prevalence of marijuana use among Dutch 12-18 year olds are 11 and 21
percent respectively. The corresponding U.S. rates, from the University of
Michigan Monitoring the Future Study, are 18 and 38 percent -- the opposite
of what Housman and ONDCP claimed on the net and to the media. (Much more
such data is available from the Common Sense for Drug Policy "Drug War
Factbook", at http://www.drugsense.org/factbook.htm.)
When the defenders of current drug policies have to constantly resort to the
most misleading tactics to make their case, what does this suggest about the
policies?
(Note: staff of the ONDCP are known to be monitoring this list as well as
DRCNet's discussion lists. We invite them to submit a response to this
piece, but forewarn that we are likely to print a response to their response.)
14. EDITORIAL: The Pompano Beach Twelve
In Pompano Beach, Florida this week, a dozen kids ranging in age from four
to eleven were brought to the attention of local law enforcement for playing
a pretend game that they call "dope dealer." The game, it seems, is simple,
with youngsters trading leaves, which represent money, for plastic baggies
containing pretend "drugs." "We play dope dealer all the time," a seven
year-old later said, "And tag."
Even the worst excesses of the drug war are justified, again and again, as
vital, lest we "send the wrong message to our children." Perversely,
however, the drug war and the black market that it creates not only puts the
drugs and the drug trade within easy reach of our kids, but also creates a
culture of prohibition that inundates their lives.
For the twelve kids from Pompano Beach, the drug trade is no abstraction.
Two homes on their block stand boarded as ex- crack houses. One can be sure
that a large number of the older teens in their neighborhood, and certainly
those who drive nice cars and wear expensive jewelry--in other words, the
obvious role models--are involved to one degree or another in "the business."
And the culture of prohibition does not stop at the outer edges of
crack-infested neighborhoods. For it is from these communities, poor urban
as well as suburban areas, that America's youth culture originates. Rap
music that reinforces the "Us vs. Them" nature of relations with the police,
the baggy pants and homemade tattoos apropos of prison life, and the
cultivated fear that passes for respect on the streets have all found their
way into the youth mainstream. The fact is that the music, clothes and
language of America's youth all have their origins in the ghetto -- just ask
any marketing executive for Nike or Sony Records -- and the experiences of
the kids from those communities are dominated by prohibition and its
attendant economies.
Children, all children, internalize what they see around them. This might
come as a surprise to politicians who think that kids take their cues from
whether or not the President inhaled or how many mandatory minimum
sentencing bills are passed, but it's true. Prohibition creates markets,
which create entrepreneurs, who accumulate wealth, and they do so in open
defiance of both the laws of the land and those whom we pay to enforce them.
And despite the best intentions of those who want nothing more than to save
the children by making prohibition work, the kids, large numbers of them
anyway, will always be more heavily influenced by the actions and lifestyles
of their direct elders--their siblings and cousins and neighbors -- than
they will be by the admonitions of well-meaning adults.
Today, in Pompano Beach, Florida, and doubtless in communities across the
nation, kids between the ages of four and eleven are playing "dope dealer."
They are, as kids will do, absorbing the culture that they are exposed to.
They are, it is safe to assume, not unlike their grandparents or
great-grandparents, who probably played at being Al Capone or one of the
other Prohibition-era gangsters. What is surprising is that we as a society
insist upon fueling this destructive culture in the face of overwhelming
evidence that prohibition is doomed to fail.
Our leaders tell us over and over again that they are sending a message to
our children, and they are right. But the message is one of lawlessness and
conflict and the normalization of violence. It is a message that is
reinforced every time that we reaffirm our commitment to prosecuting a
failed drug war. It is the message of the culture of prohibition, and it has
come through loud and clear. Just ask the Pompano Beach twelve.
Adam J. Smith
Associate Director
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to 1998 Daily News index for July 30-August 5