-------------------------------------------------------------------
Fear Of Failure ('The Las Vegas Review-Journal' Describes 'Ur-Ine Trouble,'
A Book That Attacks Workplace Drug Testing, By Dr. Kent Holtorf,
A Physician From Phoenix, Arizona)
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1998 11:02:00 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US NV: Fear Of Failure
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: compassion23@geocities.com (Frank S. World)
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)
Contact: letters@lvrj.com
Fax: 702-383-4676
Website: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/
Pubdate: Tue, 01 Sep 1998
Author: Joan Whitely Review-Journal
FEAR OF FAILURE
Drug testing can cost workers, applicants a job
Drug testing is a common practice in the U.S. workplace, but players in
that process share only limited common ground. The players are employers
and employees -- and their respective attorneys -- as well as job
applicants, drug-testing labs and one Arizona physician who authored a book
that attacks workplace drug testing.
Testing is a protection of their investment, many employers believe. Aside
from the potential for workplace accidents or absences because of
impairment from drugs, "there are statistics linking (workers' substance
abuse) to an increased potential for theft," notes Diane Younghans,
marketing director of toxicology in Las Vegas for Associated Pathologists
Laboratories.
Organized labor groups, in contrast, want to limit the extent of testing as
an issue of personal liberty.
Culinary union members agree only to pre-employment testing and testing for
on-the-job problems.
The union does not support random testing. It also opposes hair testing,
which measures "historical (drug) use as opposed to use at work," says
attorney Rich McCracken, who represents Culinary Local 226.
"The membership is not sympathetic to drug and alcohol abusers but ...
they're hired to give the time they're paid for. When they're not at work
they're entitled to do what they want," McCracken says.
"All kinds of decision-making in private life may have ramifications at
work. But are they going to say no divorces because it causes disruptions
at work?"
To detect on-the-job drug use, the Culinary strongly favors blood testing,
rather than urine. Blood testing, however, is more costly. Further, blood
testing would be the least apt to turn up positives, Younghans contends.
"Ur-ine Trouble" is the title of a 1998 book by Dr. Kent Holtorf, who is in
general practice in the Phoenix area. His book asserts pre-employment drug
testing tramples personal rights, is error-riddled and diverts precious
resources from counseling programs that successfully combat substance abuse.
But many Las Vegas employers mandate drug testing. "I would say the
majority of employers in the valley test -- the medium to large companies
and quite a few of the small ones," says Younghans.
She estimates that her lab, Associated Pathologists, also known as APL,
services at least 50 percent of the local employers who do drug testing.
The type and frequency of drug testing varies by an employer's philosophy
and budget.
The most common scenarios are testing to obtain a job, after an accident
has happened, or when an employee shows behavior or other signs -- such as
liquor on the breath -- that suggest drug impairment.
A few lines of work require random drug testing. Anyone who holds a
commercial driver's license, for example, is subject to random testing.
Culinary members have had language regarding drug testing written into
their collective-bargaining agreements since 1980, McCracken reports. But
recently, even small businesses are adopting drug-testing, just to remain
competitive. Younghans asserts, "(Otherwise) they're hiring the people that
can't get a job at the companies that are testing." Holtorf's book makes
claims that spawned varied feedback from local players in the drug-testing
industry.
He asserts that some companies favor workplace drug testing, not because it
decreases accidents, but because they get a discount on health-insurance
premiums if they test.
Insurance companies, according to Holtorf, also favor post-accident drug
testing because a positive test result allows an employer to fire the
worker, terminate health benefits and prevent payment of unemployment
benefits.
That chain of events works fine if the test result is, indeed, from illicit
use of a drug.
But an injured, wrongfully terminated employee may have difficulty coming
up with the funds to go to court to argue either that the test came up
positive from a drug used weeks earlier -- as opposed to shortly before the
accident -- or from a legitimate medical prescription, over-the-counter
drug or even a food.
Does a positive test result mean recent drug use? Not necessarily, points
out McCracken: "Marijuana, for example, is stored up in organs and excreted
at irregular intervals."
Nor does a positive test result always mean any illicit drug use has
occurred. Dennis Kist, a Las Vegas attorney who represents the Teamsters
union, recalls a case that went to arbitration involving a union member
fired after testing positive for THC, the narcotic chemical in marijuana.
"We won the arbitration," Kist says, by showing that the worker was taking
several products he bought at a local health-food store.
The products were labeled as containing ephedrine. But Kist ordered product
testing, which revealed they also contained some trace amounts of THC.
"You never know what's in these (natural) products," Kist concludes. "There
was no proof that he knowingly took these (unlabeled ingredients)."
The Canadian snowboarder who won, temporarily lost, and then ultimately
regained his medal in the 1998 Winter Olympics is a perfect example of the
limitations of drug testing, according to Holtorf. The athlete claimed he
was exposed secondhand to marijuana smoke, while at a party. "The
drug-testing industry is ecstatic he didn't claim hempseed oil," says
Holtorf in a telephone interview.
The oil -- a nutritional supplement that can be used in making falafel,
pizza or muffins -- comes from the hemp plant. Hemp and marijuana are both
varieties of the cannabis sativa plant, but hemp usually contains less than
1 percent of THC while marijuana plants typically contain 10 percent to 20
percent.
On the hempseed factor in marijuana testing, APL's Younghans declined to
comment. But in any testing program, she notes, it's the job of the
medical-review officer to weed out legitimate positives from incriminating
positives.
Employers who test either hire their own medical-review officer outside of
APL, or interpret test results on their own, Younghans says. But MROs --
drug-testing jargon for the review officers -- can easily scratch names of
drug-positive job candidates off a hire list without investigating whether
the positive was legitimate, Holtorf contends.
"I couldn't comment on that (MRO failure to investigate) because I don't
know what an employer does," responds Younghans.
A worker who is fired with a legitimate positive may have legal appeal
options. But the prospective worker, a job candidate who fails to get hired
because of such a result, has no recourse. Holtorf's book also cites
studies suggesting that, in some laboratories, more than 50 percent of
positive drug tests are because of laboratory error.
"The bulk of the errors could be attributed to inadequate personnel, poor
management, broken chain of custody (of test samples), faulty maintenance
(of testing equipment) and faulty transmission of reports," he writes.
Younghans counters that APL is a federally certified lab, one which meets a
set of more rigorous standards than some competitors. "We're the only local
... certified laboratory," she notes.
Holtorf, who graduated from the St. Louis University School of Medicine in
1991, is a partner in the ownership of Arizona-based Vandalay Press, which
published "Ur-ine Trouble."
In 1996, the Arizona Board of Medical Examiners recorded a complaint
against him, for substance abuse. He subsequently underwent rehabilitation
and his Arizona medical license has been in good standing for two years,
according to Stephanie Cartozian, a spokeswoman for Vandalay Press. "That
doesn't affect the caliber of what he wrote," Cartozian says.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Are We The Enemy? (An Essay By Miguel A. Faria, Jr., MD,
In The Editor's Corner Of The September-October Issue Of 'Medical Sentinel,'
The Journal Of The AAPS, Association Of American Physicians And Surgeons,
Says The US Government Has Responded To External Threats By Greatly Expanding
Its Means Of Repressing Those It Perceives To Be Internal Threats)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1998 11:24:16 -0500
To: "DRCTalk Reformers' Forum" (drctalk@drcnet.org)
From: cheechwz@mindspring.com (mindspring.com)
Subject: fwd: Are We the Enemy? (a physicians view of Federal Law Enforcement)
Reply-To: drctalk@drcnet.org
Sender: owner-drctalk@drcnet.org
Source: Medical Sentinel
Pubdate: 09/01/1998
Author: Miguel A. Faria, Jr., MD (hfaria@mindspring.com)
Note: the Medical Sentinel is the official journal of the Association of
American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) (forwarded with permission)
newshawk: A H Clements (cheechwz@mindspring.com)
Editor's Corner: Sept/Oct 1998 Medical Sentinel, the official journal of
the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) to be released
Tuesday, September 1, 1998.
Are We the Enemy? by Miguel A. Faria, Jr., MD
..Its leaders were supposed to save the country
but now they won't pay her no mind.
..Because the people got fat and grew lazy,
now their vote is like a meaningless joke.
You know they talk about law, about order,
but it's all just an echo of what they've been told.
'Cause there is a monster on the loose. It's got our heads
into the noose, and it just sits there watching...
Our cities have turned into jungles.
Destruction is plaguing the land.
The police force is watching the people,
and the people just can't understand.
They don't know how to mind their own business.
The whole world has got to be just like us...
Now we are fighting a war over there,
no matter who wins, you know we can't pay the cost.
'Cause there is a monster on the loose. It's got our heads
into the noose, and it just sits there watching...
America, where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't you know we need you now.
We can't fight alone against the monster.
Steppenwolf's Monster, c.1971
When the government fears the people there is liberty. When the people fear
the government there is tyranny. -- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
Federal Law Enforcement
In West Virginia, we learn that the house of a physician is entered by
federal agents who do not identify themselves or explain their actions. The
physician's wife and children are threatened and held at gunpoint for
several hours while their home is ransacked. Several months later, a
federal judge throws out the alleged charges against the physician and
dismisses the government's case. He denounces the government raid as a
deliberate and unjustifiable government terrorist act against a law-abiding
citizen and his family.1
We hear that Attorney General Janet Reno - who, after the tragic Waco
incident assumed "responsibility" without being held accountable and
blurted, "the buck stops here" - has deputized all inspector generals, so
they may carry firearms to enforce administrative decrees (most of which
are unconstitutional) against ordinary citizens. By this act, she would
effectively circumvent congressional debate and, if needed, federal
legislation - and trample civil liberties at will. She will, again, be
authorizing the use of deadly force against, purportedly, non-compliant,
recalcitrant, American citizens, who may not want their constitutional
rights usurped, or their property taken, without their consent and due
process of the law. After all, she commended the federal agencies, and
agents, who in 1993 at Waco perpetrated the deadliest massacre by the
government against American citizens on their own soil.2
Tragedy compounded tragedy. As a result of the Waco, irrational zealots
perpetrated the bloodiest terrorist attack in American history. Recent
evidence provided by our own government's informants confirmed suspicions
the FBI and ATF had prior knowledge of the Oklahoma City (OKC) impending
disaster. At best, the federal law enforcement agencies committed a
terrible blunder with a covert operation run amok, or at worst, it was an
accomplice to a terrible tragedy. And to cover up the details of this
incident, it is still protecting other suspects who knew or helped plan the
infamous OKC bombing.3-4
As a result of the April 19, 1995 OKC bombing, the Congress passed an
anti-terrorism bill with provisions that infringe on the individual rights
and privacy of American citizens, and the flagging presidency of Bill
Clinton was re-energized. British journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
writes: "Relaxing on Air Force One after the 1996 elections, Bill Clinton
told a pool of reporters that he owed his political revival to the Oklahoma
bombing. He was in a reflective mood, looking back at the ups and downs of
his turbulent presidency. As so often, his thoughts lingered on those first
painful months after the Republicans captured both Houses of Congress for
the first time in almost two generations. It had been a stinging rebuke for
the White House. But then that bomb went off. 'It broke a spell in the
country as people began searching for our common ground again,' he said."5
Consider the fact that a few weeks before the OKC bombing, liberal
Representative John Dingell (D-MI) declared in a House oration that the
attack on the Branch Davidians was "indefensible" and ATF agents "are not
to be trusted. They are detested. And I have described them properly as
jackbooted American fascists." From which phraseology, the NRA proclaimed
that the Assault Weapons Ban of 1994 "gives jackbooted government thugs
more power to take away our constitutional rights, destroy our property,
and even injure or kill us."
We recall that in 1992 at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, a woman, Vicki Weaver, is shot
in the head and killed as she holds her baby in her home by a government
(FBI) sniper in the most atrocious act in recent memory perpetrated by a
government law enforcement agent against an American citizen, who wished
only to be left alone with her family. Then, the federal government via the
Attorney General and the Department of Justice itself, rather than
prosecuting the government agent(s) responsible, militate against the state
and local authorities' effort to administer justice and prosecute those
directly culpable. Instead, the government promotes those who changed the
rules of engagement and issued illegal "shoot to kill" orders against
American citizens. Rather than being held accountable and its funding
curtailed, according to the Government Accounting Office (GAO), the FBI
counter-terrorism budget has been nearly tripled since 1994, up $243
million. No wonder Americans continue to distrust their own government.
Even though Americans today with a "conservative" Republican Congress are
not as disenchanted as they were in 1994 (when only 21 percent trusted the
government and when the liberal Democrats essentially controlled all three
branches of government), citizens continue to distrust the ever-growing
government behemoth.
And thus, it's no wonder a February 1998 poll by Pew Research Center for
the People and the Press found that trust in government had dropped again
from 39 percent last fall to 34 percent, a 5 percent decline.
The expansion of the police power of the state continues unabated. In May
1998, President Clinton named State Department official, Richard Clarke, as
the new "terrorism czar" who will reign over 17 federal law enforcement
agencies and will preside over a record $7 billion federal spending in
domestic anti-terrorism surveillance and enforcement.
We also hear in the mass media; indeed, we see, for example, footage on CBS
(Dec. 8, 1997) and learn that, amidst the domestic violence (in this
specific case in Phoenix, Arizona, Maricopa County), there has been a 33
percent increase in the use of deadly force by SWAT (Strategic Weapons and
Tactics) teams and a 30 percent increase in personnel in the last three
years, and that these law enforcement agencies are conducting raids not
just on dangerous criminals but even on non-violent parole violators, and
you wonder, what's next? Who's next?
Hate Crimes
Moreover, on November 8, 1997, the president announced that the Department
of Justice will add, "upwards of 50 FBI agents and federal prosecutors to
enforce hate crime laws." Never mind that "upwards" of 90 percent of "hate
crime" violations reportedly involve simple "name-calling" and "verbal
abuse" transgressions and no physical violence. Journalist and historian,
Dr. Samuel Francis is indeed correct when he writes that Clinton's
"Anti-Hate" campaign is totalitarian in concept because "it seeks to punish
motive that is, the thoughts, attitudes and emotions that lead a person to
commit an action - rather than the action itself."6 Today in America, this
criminalization of thought - like in the prescient 1984 Orwellian "thought
crimes," and in the totalitarian regimes of Stalin in the Soviet Union,
Fidel Castro in the island-prison of Cuba, and Mao Tse-Tung's Cultural
Revolution in China - is seeking to enlist children to enforce conformity
in parents and foment distrust and discord in American families, not only
on state-inspired, "anti-hatred" campaigns but even in their seemingly
benign enlistment of children as informants in the tobacco war.
Yet, recent FBI statistics reveal that in 1996 "hate crimes" were quite
rare with less than one such "hate" crime reported (8,859) for every
law-enforcement agency required to report them in the U.S. (9, 600
agencies).7 Like in the 1984 Big Brother Orwellian world, families may live
in fear of the Thought Police and their night raids: "The sudden jerk out
of sleep, the rough hand shaking your shoulder, the lights glaring in your
eyes, the ring of hard faces round the bed. In the vast majority of cases
there was no trial, no report of the arrest. People simply disappeared,
always during the night."8 And you wonder, who is the enemy? Who fears
whom?
The Threat of Rogue Nations
And then you learn that those agencies, such as the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) or the military - which are suppose to deal with the clear,
real, and present dangers of foreign threats, like those posed by rogue and
still communist states including Red China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba
- have to repeatedly justify their budgets and even their existence to the
flower children elites in power today. I will come back to the CIA and the
military later, but for now, let me remind the readers who America's
enemies are, and why this is so.
First, there is Red China which has identified America by name as its "main
enemy" for the 21st Century9 and has already made covert attempts to
influence our foreign policy, vitiating and trampling on our campaign
finance laws in the process.10 In fact, Dr. Michael Pillsbury, one of the
nation's foremost China experts at the Pentagon's National Defense
University, formally testified to the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence (September 1997) that after reviewing Chinese military
documents, Red China "intends to defeat the United States" and will pose a
formidable military threat in the 21st Century.
Then there is North Korea which persists in threatening South Korea with
invasion, and remains a mortal threat to the stability of Asia; if it is
not, why do we still have a large contingent of troops stationed in South
Korea? Yet, despite its belligerence and refusal to submit to nuclear
inspection (to which it had agreed), we reward this communist nation by
providing her with nuclear reactors!
Yes, there is also Vietnam which has not given us a full accounting of our
known POWs that its communist government is known to have held, may even
continue to hold, or has sent to other communist nations like Russia or
Czechoslovakia for brainwashing sessions and gruesome medical
experimentation.11
And, of course, there is Cuba which has been involved in drug trafficking
via Defense minister Raul Castro (Fidel's brother) which it considers an
instrument of war against the U.S. If you don't buy this one, you should
read Red Cocaine by Dr. Joseph Douglass which provides convincing
evidence.12 If you still don't believe Cuba remains a threat to American
interests, tell me, what has become of the Cienfuegos nuclear power plant
and submarine naval base or the Lourdes high-tech, U.S. eavesdropping,
intelligence-gathering installation near Havana, on the northern coast of
Cuba, and incidentally, just across the Florida peninsula? (We did not
inspect Cuba after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 to verify the removal
of the missiles in San Cristóbal then, nor have we verified the closing of
these spy bases after the collapse of the Soviet Union today.)
Suffice to say, that while the CIA (its efforts directed at foreign
enemies) has been under attack by numerous, unsubstantiated (and, I may
add, many totally ludicrous) allegations, and the agency has had to justify
its raison d'ętre in the New World Order (NWO), those entities (like the
ATF and the FBI being trained by the military, and yes, even the intrusive
IRS), that target their activities against American citizens continue to be
beefed up, are considered essential to the vital functions of the nation,
and their budgets continue to be increased year after year.
It makes you wonder: Again, who is the enemy? And who fears whom?
Entangling Alliances and the NWO
Meanwhile, the U.S. military has been greatly reduced since the collapse of
the Soviet Union: The Army (i.e., number of divisions from 18 to 8 or 9),
the Navy (i.e., number of ships from 546 to just over 300), and the Air
Force (i.e., number of fighter wings from 36 to 17 or 18) have each been
axed by about one half - the lowest defense spending since Pearl Harbor.13
Moreover, the goals of their operations are no longer national defense and
security, but unconstitutional UN global police actions such as
peacekeeping functions and relief efforts, and domestic social engineering
(e.g., gays in the military and women in the front lines), etc. Not
surprisingly, these police actions around the world enforcing UN policies
have brought the opprobrium of many nations with which, otherwise, we may
not have had any quarrels. Yet, while we continue to web dangerous
entangling alliances, implement police actions and other peacekeeping
operations, and enforce UN resolutions, working within the purview of the
UN throughout the world, we become more vulnerable to terrorist attacks,
and in the future, possibly nuclear retaliatory strikes from nations which
reject the Pax Universalis and the cryptic NWO that we and the UN are
trying to impose on them. Frankly, from all we know and continue to learn,
the UN and the treacherous NWO are working against our own national
interest and undermining our citizens' individual freedoms.
And this brings me to perhaps the most serious dereliction of the
government on its legitimate constitutional function of national defense:
the lack of deployment of a missile defense, a nuclear shield against
missile attack to protect American citizens. Yes, our government (including
our Senate which recently voted on it) has refrained unilaterally from
protecting our nation and our citizens against possible, sudden nuclear
attacks, and we have yet to build an antiballistic missile, space-based
defense via the already available for deployment and extremely
cost-effective "Brilliant Pebbles" technology.
Again, or rather, in other words, who does our own government consider to
be the enemy? Apparently, not those unpredictable, rogue, Socialist,
totalitarian states that intermittently wreak so much death and destruction
on their own people, if not their neighbors. And, yes, as many of them
build atomic weapons and join the atomic club, they could use their nuclear
weapons to hold us at ransom, or in the case of emergent nuclear powers,
rival nations, such as India and Pakistan, could start a regional conflict
and ignite a nuclear tinderbox for which we have no protectional safeguards.
Red China and National Security
"There is not a single, solitary nuclear missile pointed at an American
child tonight, not a single one," spoke President Clinton in October 1996,
as the nefarious transfer of satellite launching and missile guidance
technology was taking place, allowing Red China to better aim, as the CIA
has recently divulged, 13 of their 18 CSS-4 strategic nuclear missiles
targeted against U.S. cities. Reportedly, in the U.S., only Miami is out of
their nuclear reach.
Perhaps, this is a good point for us now to further consider the case of
Red China and U.S. national security. We now know that China obtained
satellite launching, missile-guided and super-computer technology that is
now being used by its communist government to better aim their long-range
strategic nuclear missiles at U.S. cities - with the assistance of U.S.
corporate entities and the blessings of our president.14 His campaign and
that of his party (DNC) are now known to have received $300,000 from the
Red Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) via Johnny Chung of White House
coffee notoriety, and $2.5 million from Bernard Schwartz, the CEO of Loral
Space & Communications and Michael Armstrong, the former CEO of Hughes
Electronics (now Chairman of AT&T) - the two U.S. companies involved in the
sophisticated guidance technology transfer to Beijing.15-16 The Lippo
group, a Jakarta-based (Indonesia) Chinese front organization, was also
involved in these transactions via the notorious agent John Huang. Reacting
to this worrisome development, Representative Dana
Rohrabacher (R-CA), Chairman of the House Subcommittee of Space and
Aeronautics, exclaimed: "I am very sad to say [the Red Chinese] now have
the capability of landing nuclear weapons in the United States and we are
the ones who perfected their rockets." Bolstering this serious charge, the
administration's own Defense department and the Pentagon recently
acknowledged that "the U.S. national security has been harmed" by this
strategic transfer of technology.
Moreover, with the blessings (and personal lobbying) of our president, the
China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) has been given a sweetheart deal, a
20-year lease of our decommissioned but still strategic Long Beach Naval
Yards. COSCO is now known to be a front of the PLA which ships Chinese guns
(including an attempted, illegal shipment of AK-47s to California street
gangs in 1996) and drugs overseas.17
Meanwhile, to complete the encirclement of the U.S. shipping routes (and
possible strangulation in case of war), another Chinese front organization,
the Hong Kong-based Hutchinson Port Holdings, has obtained a 50-year lease
to operate the two strategic ports at either end of the U.S.-built and
formerly run Panama Canal.
One wonders: Are these rogue nations like Red China (whose leaders
perpetrated the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989), perhaps needed by
those in power in our own government as the bogeymen required to foment
tensions and create global crises - those crises that are historically
known to be instigated by ever-enlarging governments as excuses for
cracking down on the liberties of their own individual citizens, and
suppressing freedom in general, in their quest for power?
So, while domestic federal law enforcement and anti-terrorism programs have
increased to frightening proportions and have become some of the most
rapidly growing areas in the federal budget, true national defense (civil
defense has already been totally dismantled) has suffered the only cutbacks
and most drastic reductions in the federal budget. In fact, it's no
exaggeration to state that the bipartisan budget agreement that resulted in
a balanced budget with projected surpluses this year was balanced upon the
shoulders of national defense and the raids of the mythical Social Security
Trust Fund.
And finally, let us not forget our own local police which, inundated with
crime in the inner cities, have been ignored in favor of federal law
enforcement agencies, as in preparation for the formation of an
unconstitutional standing national police force.
Perhaps, times have indeed changed and we have reached the end of history
with global democratic socialism finally reigning supreme - and the world
upside down. Our security priorities have been inverted; individual rights
have been eroded, while welfare and collective ones have become entrenched.
Unanimity (i.e., "consensus building") and conformity (i.e., political and
social correctness) gradually have been enforced. These qualities
historically have led to repression and tyranny, and tyranny to cries of
freedom by the people.
It's then that government begins to crack down on dissent in the name of
battling national crises. When it does, and it calls for ever-increasing
emergency measures to combat the problems of its own creation, along with
Jefferson's, we must also remember James Madison's admonition that crisis
is the rallying cry of tyrants!
It will be, then, that the American people should look within and honestly
ask themselves: Who fears whom?...and then face the grim reality that we,
Americans, are indeed being considered the enemy by our own government.
References/Notes
1. Faria MA Jr. The police state of medicine - the nature of the beast.
Medical Sentinel 1998;3(4):119-122, 138.
2. Meyer D. No More Wacos and Waco - The Rules of Engagement. Medical
Sentinel 1998;3(4):151-152.
3. Mr. William Jasper, Senior Editor of The New American, has done
extensive investigative reporting on this subject published in that
magazine.
4. Evans-Pritchard A. The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported
Stories. Washington, DC, Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1997, pp. 1-108.
5. Ibid., p. 3.
6. Francis S. Clinton's 'anti-hate' campaign totalitarian in concept. The
Samuel Francis Newsletter, P.O. Box 19628, Alexandria, VA 22320, November
18, 1997, pp. 5-6.
7. Buls G. Hate crime: It's a frame of mind. The New American, April 27,
1998, p. 19.
8. Ibid.
9. Study of "Strategic Missile Combat Position Troop Survival Under Nuclear
Conditions and Development of an Equipment Safeguard System" conducted by
the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and translated into English in November
1997. Cited in The New American, June 8, 1998.
10. Chapman M. Clinton waives export restrictions on technology. Human
Events, April 17, 1998, p. 5.
11. Blaylock RL. Communist Use of American POWs as Human Guinea Pigs (Part
II): Vietnam, the Soviets, and other Special Projects. Medical Sentinel
1997;2(4):126-131.
12. Douglass JD Jr. Red Cocaine. Clarion House, Atlanta, GA, 1990.
13. Hillen J. Military might - the U.S. is becoming too weak to fulfill its
strategic mandate. National Review, June 30, 1997, p.38.
14. Gertz B. China deal seen as security threat. The Washington Times, May
4-10, 1998, pp.1, 23; and China, terrorists seen as top threats: Poll. The
Washington Times, May 18-24, 1998, p.3.
15. Burton D. Mr. President, tear down this stone wall! Human Events, May
8, 1998, pp.1, 7; and North, O. Perilous Clinton space ties to China. The
Washington Times, May 4-10, 1998, p.44.
16. Cancel the Kowtow Summit. Human Events, May 29, 1998, pp.1,3,4,8.
17. Grigg WN. The price of admission. The New American, November 10, 1997,
pp.14-18.
(c) Copyright 1998, Medical Sentinel
Dr. Faria is a consultant neurosurgeon and author of Vandals at the
Gates of Medicine (1995) and the newly released Medical Warrior: Fighting
Corporate Socialized Medicine (Macon, Georgia, Hacienda Publishing, Inc.,
1997). He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the Medical Sentinel. Hacienda
Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 13648, Macon, GA 31208,
http://www.haciendapub.com. For further information or for permission to
reproduce in part or in toto, contact Helen at (912) 757-9873.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Cocaine's Other Victims (The September Issue Of 'World Press Review'
Republishes An Article From Britain's 'Guardian' About Peru's Legitimate
Coca Crop And Coca Farmers, Imperiled By The American War On Cocaine)
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1998 18:47:06 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: Cocaine's Other Victims
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)
Pubdate: September 1998
Source: World Press Review
Author: Duncan Campbell, The Guardian
Note: Originally published in The Guardian, London, June 3, 1998
COCAINE'S OTHER VICTIMS
Princess Anne had some. So did the pope, And so did the king and queen of
Spain. Mat de coca, that is or coca tea. It is recommended for anyone
arriving at the high altitude of La Paz, the capital of Bolivia and a city
perched at the same height as Mt. Everest's base camp.
The tea comes in bags in a variety of brand names and is credited with
warding off the side effects of altitude sickness. It tastes nice, too.
Most embassies in La Paz serve it to guests, although it is banned in the
American embassy. Traces of the drink would register on drug-testing
equipment because coca tea, like cocaine, uses the coca leaf as its raw
ingredient. This is the link that imperils the future of the coca crop.
In early June, the United Nations General Assembly will hold a special
session on a world drug strategy. It will discuss stricter drug-control
measures, money laundering, and reducing demands. But, crucially for
Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia, it will hear a call for the elimination of the
coca bush and the opium poppy within 10 years. [The General Assembly
endorsed the proposal on June 10. -WPR]
The Bolivian government, encouraged by the U.S., has already embarked on a
policy of elimination by 2002 of all illicit coca fields--fields not
licensed to produce coca solely for traditional uses, including coca tea.
The UN plan would go further in that it essentially calls for total
elimination of a crop that has been part of Andean culture for centuries.
A popular song in Bolivia is "La Coca No Es la Cocaina" (The Coca Leaf
Isn't Cocaine). And in an effort to explain this to visitors to the
country, a coca museum has just opened its doors. The Incas and then the
Spanish discovered hundreds of years ago that the coca leaf was a stimulant
that gave stamina to manual workers and travelers and thus became part of
the social fabric of Andean life. Then, in 1886, Frank Robinson gave an
inspired name to a soft drink that combined coca leaves, the cola nut, and
gas. Soon the coca leaf had indirectly become, through Coca Cola, part of
the social fabric of the U.S. and the world. It was not until 1914 that the
narcotic element of Coca-Cola was removed from the drink, but more than 180
tons of coca leaf still go to the U.S. every year on license for use in
flavoring the world's most popular fizzy beverage. While all this can be
examined in a civilized way at the museum, what has been happening in
Bolivia and elsewhere in Latin America where the coca leaf is grown is more
complex and alarming.
Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia are essentially under orders from the North to
destroy all crops, or at least all crops not currently excluded for
traditional uses. Since Bolivia is estimated to produce a quarter of the
world's coca leaf and about 30 percent of its cocaine, it is inevitable
that there will be further pressure on the country to reduce even the
licensed crops.
The Bolivian government's current strategy, entitled With Dignity, includes
moving more than 10,000 families out of the main coca-growing region and
assisting them in alternative crop production. In this strategy, they have
the backing of the UN, the US., and the European Union.
All of which is of not much comfort to the likes of Inez Morales and her
husband, Uriano, whose tiny coca crop in Chapar, three hours from
Cochabamba in Bolivia, has just been destroyed by troops. As a speechless
Uriano twists his battered hat in his hands, Inez says that her entire
livelihood has been destroyed in the 10 minutes or so it took a band of
fresh-faced troops to swing their machetes through her crops.
Inez is typical of many of the coca growers who have not grown rich through
the association with cocaine but who have made a living from the crop after
the collapse of the Bolivian tin industry in the mid-1980s and the
subsequent flight to the coca fields for survival. The cocaleros (coca
farmers) claim that 10 people have died in clashes over the elimination
policy, though the government claims this figure is exaggerated.
Evo Morales, a young member of congress and a spokesman for the cocaleros,
says: "They are not only taking our coca, they are taking our land. They
want us out of here so that foreign mineral companies can move in."
Is there a solution? Ken Bluestone, of the Catholic Institute for
International Relations, has worked in the area for years and argues that
the legitimate uses of coca--in tea, toothpaste, and medicines--should be
exploited. This would allow the farmers and their families to remain and
lead productive lives. On the other hand, Marie Elisa Martinic, of the UN
Drug Control Program, says its officials are dubious that there is really a
market for alternative use of the coca leaf that could in any significant
way take the place of cocaine production. They argue for a different form
of alternative production--bananas, pineapples, palm hearts, yucca, and
other legal plants--and for compensation for the cocaleros who have to
abandon their fields.
But the UN's decision could lead to the end of a way of life for thousands
of people.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Cannabis - The Truth (The British Edition Of 'Reader's Digest'
Tries To Revive Reefer Madness With A Specious List Of Accusations
Backed By Unreferenced Pseudo-Scientific Research,
Presented In Much The Same Format As 'Exposing Marijuana Myths')
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 1998 21:23:01 -0400
To: rlake@mapinc.org
From: Richard Lake (rlake@mapinc.org)
Subject: UK: Reader's Digest: Cannabis - The Truth
Newshawk: webbooks@paston.co.uk (CLCIA)
Souce: Reader's Digest
Pubdate: September 1998
Contact: magreplies@readersdigest.co.uk
Website: http://www.readersdigest.co.uk/
Note: (in magazine) Has your family debated the cannabis issue? We welcome
your letters for possible inclusion in a future issue. Please write to
Readers Reply e-mail us at magreplies@readersdigest.co.uk
Note: (From Richard Lake, Sr. Editor, DrugSense News Service) Our newshawk
writes "PLEASE write in reply to this article." We noted another email
address on the website above: editors@readersdigest.co.uk Letter writers
may wish to send email to both addresses. You can improve your chances of
having your Letter to the Editor published by considering the tips and
links to other resources at: http://www.mapinc.org/3tips.htm
CANNABIS - THE TRUTH
Don't Be Fooled By The Legalisation Lobby's Persuasive Campaign - This Is A
Dangerous Drug
In a carnival atmosphere, more than 11,000 people rallied in London's
Trafalgar Square one Saturday last March. They waved banners proclaiming
"Free the Weed" and "Legalise It". At the front of the parade strode tall,
shaggy-haired Howard Marks, the veteran cannabis smuggler who had spent
seven years in a US prison for racketeering. The campaign, organised by the
Independent on Sunday, had also attracted the support of a galaxy of
high-profile business people, actors, academics, rock stars and
politicians. The pro-cannabis bandwagon has been trundling on and off for
more than 30 years. This London rally was peddling the latest fashionable
angle: cannabis, the healing herb. On hand were wheelchair-bound multiple
sclerosis sufferers gratefully expounding on the pain-relieving properties
of cannabis. Several claims made on their behalf were simply the latest in
a long line of myths and half-truths deployed over the years to sustain a
determined campaign to legitimise a dangerous drug.
Myth 1: Smoking cannabis has valuable medicinal uses.
Fact: Smoked cannabis has never been officially accepted as having any
medical use whatever. Cannabis is an immensely complex drug that has over
400 compounds, including more than 60 chemical derivatives - cannabinoids -
which, when ignited, covert to 2,000 chemicals. It is these cannabinoids
that have provided relief from pain, nausea and weight loss in some people
with MS, cancer and Aids.
Yet, as People Cardy, chief executive of the Multiple Sclerosis Society,
says, "Other sufferers have had unpleasant side effects." Doctors agree
that while orally administered THC (delta 9-tetrahydrochloride - the main
psychoactive ingredient of cannabis) may have some limited use as a
therapeutic drug, smoking cannabis does not. Other toxic constituents in
smoked cannabis could actually increase the risk of pneumonia and weaken
the immune system in Aids and cancer patients.
Therefore, while there is support for new research into the effects of
cannabinoids, the British Medical Association's stance on cannabis itself
is unequivocal: "It is unsuitable for medicinal use."
Myth 2: Cannabis does you no harm.
Incorrect: Researchers at the University of Mississippi have collected more
than 13,000 technical studies on cannabis - hundreds of them pointing to
its malign effects. One group of 12 young people, who had never smoked
cigarettes but who'd been regular users, developed head and neck cancers -
formerly seen virtually only in the over sixties.
Doctors note that babies born to mothers who smoked cannabis just before or
during pregnancy, tend to be smaller and prone to sleeplessness.
In adolescent pot-smokers, tests have shown memory loss persisting for six
weeks after they had stopped daily cannabis use. Frequent exposure to THC
can disrupt ovulation and reduce men's sperm counts.
The mental health organisation SANE points out that cannabis can cause
hallucinations and paranoid delusions similar to those in schizophrenia.
"There is evidence that the psychotic effects may trigger a prolonged
schizophrenic illness or cause a relapse in an established illness."
Even more disturbing, today's cannabis is very different from that smoked
in the 1960's. Its new forms of "skunk" and "Nederweed" have a THC potency
up to 40 times that enjoyed by the "hippy" generation.
At an international symposium in Paris in 1992, more than 50 scientists
concluded, "The toxicity of cannabis is today well established,
experimentally and clinically. This drug adversely affects the central
nervous system, the lungs, the immune and reproductive functions."
Myth 3: It's far better to smoke cannabis than cigarettes.
Wrong: Professor John Henry, head of Accident and Emergency at St Mary's
Hospital, London, and for 16 years a consultant at Guy's Hospital poisons
unit, explains: "In smoked cannabis, the tars that cause lung cancer are
far nastier than the ones in cigarettes.
"Not only does the cannabis cigarette have no filter, but it is smoked
differently. With ordinary cigarettes, the smoke is briefly drawn into the
lungs, then puffed out. With cannabis, it is drawn into the lungs and held
there, giving the tars a greater chance to act."
The BMA confirms this view: "Smoking a cannabis cigarette leads to three
times greater tar inhalation than smoking a tobacco cigarette. The levels
of tar retained in the respiratory tract are also three times higher.
Chronic cannabis smoking therefore increases the risk of cardiovascular
disease, bronchitis, emphysema and probably carcinomas of the lung."
Myth 4: Cannabis is not addictive.
False.: In a 1996 survey of 200 long-term cannabis users, the National Drug
and Alcohol Research Centre in Sydney, Australia, found that 92 per cent
were dependant on cannabis and 40 per cent were severely dependant.
Withdrawal symptoms included insomnia, night sweats, depression and
appetite fluctuations. "Many people insist that you can't get addicted to
pot," says Wendy Swift, a psychologist leading the survey. "Our research
shows you can. And the longer you use cannabis, the greater the risk of
dependency."
Professor Heather Ashton, a psychopharmacologies at the University of
Newcastle, has studied the effects of drugs on the human brain for more
than 20 years. She points to recent animal studies showing that the THC in
cannabis activates precisely the same reward areas in the brain as cocaine,
heroin, amphetamines and alcohol, and releases the same chemicals in
similar amounts. "This effect is believed to be the basic common action of
all drugs that produce a recreational "high" and cause drug dependence in
man."
Myth 5: Legalisation would break the link between "soft" and "hard" drugs.
There is no guarantee this would happen - and if it didn't, results could
be disastrous. Legalisation could both give the green light to thousands
more users and take away the legal protection that many young people
actually seem to welcome in reinforcing their own instincts not to take the
drug.
Professor Ashton believes that there will always be a proportion of users
who, having become habituated to the drug's escapist buzz, will want to
move on to harder drugs. "There is evidence that, as you get tolerant to
the "high" you take bigger and bigger doses. After a while you reach a
ceiling, and so you go on to more potent drugs."
Recovering addict Lorne Wing, 30, form north London tells of his natural
progression from cannabis to LSD, amphetamines, ecstasy, crack cocaine,
heroin. "With each new drug, I would always draw a line and say, "This is
it. I'm not going to do the next drug." But I always did. As I moved from
one to another, I kept smoking cannabis. I when I eventually decided to
come off drugs, I found cannabis the hardest to give up. "Thousands of
dealers make obscene amounts of money out of cannabis. What do people
imagine they would do if cannabis was legalised? Become computer
programmers, start running shops? Of course not. They would stick in the
only business they know - and push even harder drugs."
Myth 6: Decriminalising cannabis has worked in other countries.
It hasn't. The Netherlands set cannabis apart from hard drugs - by allowing
its sale in coffee shops - in the hope of keeping young people away from
hard drugs. But many of Amsterdam's 400 coffee shops were supplied by
organised crime and began selling hard drugs as well. More than a third
have now been closed down but the city is left with 6,000 drug addicts, who
are responsible for up to 15 per cent of all property crime. The
Netherland's own Ministry of Justice is reported to have decribed Amsterdam
as "the crime capital of Europe."
In Alaska, the experiment was little happier. After cannabis was
decriminalised for adults in 1975, the rate or drug use by 12 to 17 year
olds became twice as high as the average in other US states; crime went up,
not down. Citizens' groups, believing the law was thwarting drug-prevention
efforts, collected more than 20,000 signatures on a petition, forced a
referendum and in 1991 got cannabis recriminalised.
Myth 7: Cannabis users only put themselves at risk.
Not so. Cannabis causes problems for others as well as for its users. In
many countries it is the most common drug, apart from alcohol, to be
detected in people involved in traffic accidents. In a recent Government
survey, ten per cent of drivers tested positive for cannabis (more than 80
per cent of whom weren't above the legal alcohol limit).
While we can now test for the presence of cannabis, there is no way of
measuring degree of intoxication or behavioural disturbance, as there is
with alcohol. Whereas alcohol can be sweated out at one unit per hour, the
narcotic effects of a single joint can last more than 24 hours and traces
can remain in the body for as long as a month.
More frighteningly still, in 1991 US tests on experienced air pilots -
using flight simulators - showed that they had difficulty landing their
aircraft more than 24 hours after a single joint. Yet, before testing, they
had no idea their competence was reduced. Says Professor Ashton, "With the
time and space distortion created by cannabis, the prospect of a world in
which motorists, pilots, train drivers and doctors could legitimately use
the drug is extremely worrying."
Legalizers endlessly claim that we have lost the war against cannabis, and
so its time to change the law.
However, as Chief Superintendent Peter Gammon, president of the Police
Superintendent's Association of England and Wales, says, "It is frankly
disastrous to suggest that we could ever hope for all out victory, any more
than we can win the war on murder or burglary."
But we could do better. Peter Stoker of the National Drug Prevention
Alliance points to the successful campaign in the US. There, with parents,
teachers, drug workers and police all taking an unequivocal line on the
dangers, the number of people who stated that they'd used drugs in the
previous month fell from 25.4 million in 1979 to 12 million in 1992.
This month the Government issues welcome new guidelines on drug education
in Britain's schools. Too often in the past, teaching materials have
concentrated on harm reduction, aiming to help youngsters use drugs safely.
Yet cannabis can never be used "safely".
States south London GP Clare Roden, a police doctor for 27 years, "There
are some sights you never get used to. Most typically, the young man living
on a rundown estate, taking the new high-grade cannabis in such prodigious
quantities that he is admitted to mental hospital in an acute psychotic
state: anxious, shaking and paranoid." She concludes, "Legalisation of
cannabis would be an act of unbelievable irresponsibility."
Copyright Reader's Digest Association Ltd
to the 1998 Daily News index for August 27-September 2