-------------------------------------------------------------------

The NORML Foundation Weekly Press Release (Pair of Lawsuits
Challenge New Louisiana Drug Testing Requirements; Man Held
In Oklahoma Jail For Possessing Legal Weed Still Faces Court Battle;
Senate Mulls Whether To Prohibit Possession Of Large Amounts Of Cash
By Travelers; New Roadside Test Can Detect Drug Impairment, Police Claim;
Federal Officials Say No To Montana Hemp Beer Maker)

From: NATLNORML@aol.com
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 18:32:13 EDT
Subject: NORML WPR 10/1/98 (II)

The NORML Foundation Weekly Press Release

1001 Connecticut Ave., NW
Ste. 710
Washington, DC 20036
202-483-8751 (p)
202-483-0057 (f)
www.norml.org
foundation@norml.org

October 1, 1998
	
***

Pair of Lawsuits Challenge New Louisiana Drug Testing Requirements

October 1, 1998, Baton Rouge, LA: A suit filed today by NORML Legal
Committee member William Rittenberg argues that a new law requiring
elected officials to undergo random drug testing is unconstitutional.
State Rep. Arthur Morrell, a fourteen-year Democrat from Orleans Parish,
is the plaintiff in the suit.

"I don't like to be overly optimistic, but it looks like an easy
lawsuit [to win,]" said Rittenberg, who seeks to enjoin the state
statute. Rittenberg's complaint says the drug testing law violates
protections against unreasonable searches and seizures guaranteed by the
U.S. and state constitutions. The suit also maintains that the statute
is in violation of his plaintiff's rights to due process and his rights
against self incrimination.

Rittenberg's challenge follows a class action suit filed last week by
the Louisiana American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of state judge
Philip O'Neill. "All we are doing is ... slowly ... chipping away at our
constitutional rights," O'Neill said. "If allowed to continue, we will
still have the drug problem but no constitutional freedoms."

Rittenberg said that the state will automatically consolidate both
cases.

Backers of the court challenge are confident that a 1997 Supreme Court
ruling striking down a similar Georgia drug testing law will apply to the
Louisiana statute. In that case, the high court found that drug testing
political candidates without individualized suspicion and absent "special
needs" was unconstitutional. Rittenberg argues that officials enacted
the Louisiana statute "merely for symbolic reasons" and not in response
to any special governmental need justifying an "arbitrary governmental
intrusion."

NORML Executive Director R. Keith Stroup, Esq. agrees. "The desire to
set a good example is insufficient to justify an exemption to the Fourth
Amendment," he said.

Rittenberg added that a separate state statute mandating drug testing
for virtually all residents receiving moneys from the state -- including
welfare recipients, state employees, state university students, and those
holding state contracts -- is also vulnerable to a constitutional
challenge.	

For more information, please contact either Keith Stroup of NORML @
(202) 483-5500 or William Rittenberg of The NORML Legal Committee @ (504)
524-5555.

***

Man Held In Oklahoma Jail For Possessing Legal Weed Still Faces Court
Battle

October 1, 1998, Montpelier, VT: A Vermont man who spent 25 days in
an Oklahoma jail for possessing legal herbs still faces prosecution by
unrelenting state officials.

"He's not guilty of anything but being black and having ... dreadlocks
and driving in Oklahoma," said attorney Jim Hadley, who is handling the
case.

Police jailed defendant George Singleton earlier this year on
suspicion of possession of a controlled substance after seizing a bag of
what they presumed was marijuana during a traffic stop. Blood tests
later found Singleton to be drug and alcohol free, and identified the
herbs in question to be rosemary and mullein. Shockingly, police
continued to hold Singleton in custody under a little known state law
prohibiting an individual from possessing any substance that looks
similar to an illegal drug.

Singleton made bail after 25 days, but must return to Oklahoma next
Thursday to face charges of driving under the influence, The Associated
Press reported. State officials admitted the charge is unusual
considering blood tests determined Singleton was drug free at the time of
his arrest.

"It is an unusual case because of the fact that we don't have proof of
any illegal substance," Oklahoma District Attorney Gene Hayes said. The
state will not go forward with charges that Singleton possessed a
"look-alike" substance, the AP reported.

"The absurdity of this prosecution illustrates how far our laws have
run amok because of our nation's misguided war on marijuana smokers,"
said attorney Tanya Kangas, director of litigation for The NORML
Foundation.

For more information, please contact Tanya Kangas of The NORML
Foundation @ (202) 483-8751.

***

Senate Mulls Whether To Prohibit Possession Of Large Amounts Of Cash By
Travelers

October 1, 1998, Washington, D.C.: Legislation introduced in the
Senate recently seeks to allow law enforcement to confiscate the money of
individuals traveling with more than $10,000 cash.

"This legislation predetermines that anyone possessing large amounts
of cash must be a criminal," charged NORML Executive Director Keith
Stroup, Esq. "It places a presumption of guilt on the defendant and
forces owners to go to court and prove their innocence if they wish to
reclaim their money. Essentially, this bill seeks to give the government
a license to steal under the guise of fighting the war on drugs."

The Drug Currency Forfeitures Act, sponsored by Sens. Max Cleland
(D-Ga) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), states that police may seize cash
from individuals traveling through defined "drug transit areas." The
bill broadly defines such areas to mean any port-of-entry, airport, or
highway.

"The idea that any American should have to explain to the police where
their money came from is offensive, and the idea that the police can
pocket your money if they don't like your answers is downright criminal,"
said Libertarian Party National Director Steve Dasbach.

The bill currently awaits action by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

For more information, please contact either NORML Foundation
Litigation Director Tanya Kangas, Esq. @ (202) 483-8751 or George Getz of
The Libertarian Party @ (202) 333-0008 Ext. 222.

***

New Roadside Test Can Detect Drug Impairment, Police Claim

October 1, 1998, Chicago, IL: New technology unveiled by Illinois
state police can allegedly determine whether a driver is under the
influence of marijuana and other drugs by gauging an eye's response to
light. Police said that the device, known as EYECHECK, will be tested in
four locations across the state, but failed to estimate when or if the
technology will become a standard part of police equipment.

EYECHECK resembles a pair of binoculars. Police will ask drivers
suspected of being under the influence to peer into the equipment. Three
flashes of light dilate the pupils, and the device then measures the
response to the stimuli. Proponents of the technology claim that
EYECHECK works faster and more efficiently than blood and Breathalyzer
tests.

Presently, urinalysis is the most common type of test used to
determine marijuana consumption; however, the test can not detect
impairment or how recently the drug was consumed.

For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre or Paul
Armentano of The NORML Foundation @ (202) 483-8751.

***

Federal Officials Say No To Montana Hemp Beer Maker

October 1, 1998, Missoula, MT: A state microbrewery seeking to unveil
a new line of hemp beer for commercial distribution found federal
officials less than enthusiastic. Representatives from the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms recently told the brewery to stop making
the beer because the agency was "concerned about the image it presents to
young people."

Tim O'Leary, who heads the Kettlehouse microbrewery, criticized the
BATF's decision to ban his product. "They're trying to keep something
(hemp seeds) that has no effect on people out of a product that can
really have an effect on people if they use it unwisely," he said. "That
seems just a bit absurd."

O'Leary wished to join at least half a dozen breweries nationwide that
already manufacturing hemp beer. The beers substitute sterile hemp seeds
for barley and hops at different parts of the brewing process. Hemp
proponents maintain that the seeds give beer a creamier head and herbal
flavoring.

For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre of The
NORML Foundation @ (202) 483-8751 or NORML board member Don Wirtshafter
of The Ohio Hempery @ (740) 662-4367.

				- END -

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Tougher Pot Penalty - No - Measure 57 Invites Selective Enforcement
(A Staff Editorial In The Eugene, Oregon, 'Register-Guard' Opposes
The Initiative That Would Recriminalize Less Than One Ounce Of Marijuana,
Saying If Tough Laws And Tough Rhetoric Were The Answer
To America's Drug Problem, The Problem Would Have Been Solved
Long Ago)

Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 22:33:05 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US OR: Editorial: Tougher pot penalty: No
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Olafur Brentmar
Pubdate: Thu, 1 Oct 1998
Source: Register-Guard, The (OR)
Contact: rgletters@guardnet.com
Website: http://www.registerguard.com/

TOUGHER POT PENALTY: NO --

Measure 57 Invites Selective Enforcement

If tough laws and tough rhetoric were the answer to America's drug problem,
the problem would have been solved long ago. Supporters of Measure 57,
which would stiffen the penalty in Oregon for possession of small amounts
of marijuana, have both legal and rhetorical purposes in mind: They want
state law to send a stronger anti-drug message. The actual result, however,
would be to weaken the already shaky credibility of Oregon's drug laws.
Voters should reject Measure 57.

For 25 years, Oregon has treated possession of small amounts of marijuana
as a violation, a noncriminal act in the same league as a traffic offense.
Such a mild penalty, members of the 1997 Legislature felt, makes Oregon
seem tolerant of drugs. Lawmakers passed a bill making possession of less
than one ounce of marijuana a Class C misdemeanor, and Gov. John Kitzhaber
signed it. Opponents gathered enough petition signatures to refer the bill
to the Nov. 3 ballot.

A no vote would keep Oregon law as it is, with possession of less than one
ounce of marijuana punishable by a fine of $500 to $1,000. A yes vote would
allow the Legislature's bill to take effect: Possession of any amount of
marijuana would then become punishable by up to 30 days in jail, plus the
$500 to $1,000 fine. Measure 57 also imposes tighter conditions on the
diversion programs through which some have marijuana possession charges
dropped in exchange for an agreement to obtain drug treatment.

Oregon's current policy came about partly because the state's political
leaders at the time, including Gov. Tom McCall, believed jail time and a
criminal record were disproportionate punishments for most people arrested
with small quantities of marijuana. They were right. The penalties for
possessing other drugs, selling marijuana and possessing amounts of
marijuana greater than one ounce have remained heavy. This sensible
ordering of priorities has permitted the criminal justice system to devote
its attention to hard drugs and distributors.

If Measure 57 is approved, as a practical matter few people arrested in
small-time pot busts will spend any time in jail. Prosecutors would still
have the option of charging offenders with a violation, and according to
legislative testimony they would choose that option in an estimated 40
percent of cases. Most other cases would end with plea bargains. For most
casual marijuana smokers, the penalty for possession would be serious on
paper but minor in practice, thereby eroding the credibility of all drug
laws. And the cases of the few people who did end up behind bars on charges
of possessing less than an ounce of marijuana would raise issues of
selective enforcement while taking up jail space needed to hold other, more
serious criminals, including drug offenders.

The Legislature allocated $600,000 to cover the costs associated with
marijuana recriminalization during the first biennium, but that would not
be nearly enough. The state's fiscal impact statement places the biennial
cost at $2.4 million. Cost, however, is a secondary matter. The key
question is whether Measure 57 would contribute to an effective anti-drug
effort in Oregon. A generally empty threat of jail time for people at the
bottom of the marijuana distribution pyramid would do nothing to combat the
state's biggest drug problems, which involve methamphetamine and heroin.
The current law is in line with current practice, and the voters should
keep it that way by defeating Measure 57.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

150 Inmates Riot At Corcoran Prison's Substance Abuse Facility
('The Fresno Bee' Says About 300 To 400 Inmates Were In The Exercise Yard
When Something Or Someone Triggered About Half The Crowd Into Fist Fights
Wednesday Morning)

Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 19:25:22 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US CA: 150 Inmates Riot At Corcoran Prison's Substance Abuse
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: Fresno Bee, The (CA)
Contact: letters@fresnobee.com
Website: http://www.fresnobee.com/
Pubdate: 1 October 1998

150 INMATES RIOT AT CORCORAN PRISON'S SUBSTANCE ABUSE TREATMENT
FACILITY (Headline by Newshawk)

San Joaquin Valley news briefs

CORCORAN, Calif. (AP) -- A riot involving about 150 inmates erupted at
Corcoran State Prison's Substance Abuse Treatment Facility, prison
officials said.

About 300 to 400 inmates were in the exercise yard when something or
someone triggered about half the crowd into fist fights Wednesday morning,
said Manuel Porras, the prison's community resources manager.

No one was seriously hurt. Most of the injuries were minor cuts and
scrapes, he said.

A correctional officer fired one warning shotgun blast and it took the
prison staff about five minutes to quell the conflict, Porras said.

Those inmates involved in the fight will be subject to a routine
disciplinary process, spokeswoman Margot Bach said. The warning shot by a
guard also will be investigated.

The facility, also known as Corcoran II, opened last year to provide
counseling and prevention services to inmates with chronic drug and alcohol
abuse problems. It houses about 1,000 low-to high-level security inmates.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Kubby Makes His Case (A staff editorial in The Orange County Register
illuminates the political views of Steve Kubby, a medical marijuana
patient/activist and the Libertarian Party candidate for governor of California.)

Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 05:44:31 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US CA: Editorial: Kubby Makes His Case
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: asobey@ncfcomm.com http://www.kubby.com
Source: Orange County Register (CA)
Section: Editorial
Contact: letters@link.freedom.com
Website: http://www.ocregister.com/
Pubdate: Thu, 01 Oct 1998

KUBBY MAKES HIS CASE

Libertarian candidate Steve Kubby's presence certainly would have livened
up the stuffy first three gubernatorial debates between Republican Dan
Lungren and Democrat Gray Davis.

Mr. Kubby is hopeful that he might be included in the next debate,
scheduled for Oct. 15. In an editorial board meeting with us this week, he
charged that two major candidates "basically agree on everything" and that
debate organizers are "driving people away" by not opening up to
third-party candidates. Mr. Kubby also differs from the other candidates in
being an entrepreneur, not a politician. He publishes Alpine World Magazine.

Here are Mr. Kubby's responses to the six "values" questions we have been
asking candidates this year:

1. What is the role of government in an individual's life?

"I don't believe the government works," Mr. Kubby said. "I believe in the
free market and local control instead of regulation and bureaucracies.
Government has created more problems than it solves." He promised to be a
governor who "will stand up" to the federal government and, if elected,
might advocate suing the federal government over its handling of Social
Security. "Either they put up hard assets or California opts out," he
asserted.

That's the kind of idea that would light a debate. While we'd have to look
such a crusade more closely, we agree that government should be reduced.

2. How did you vote on Prop. 209, the initiative calling for an end to
affirmative action, or preferences?

Mr. Kubby wasn't clear on his position. He opposes preferences and said
"affirmative action shouldn't be mandated by government." But on Prop. 209
he said, "I don't vote on anything I don't understand." He called Prop. 209
"complex" and said there should be fewer and simpler laws - little more
than the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.

We would favor fewer regulations, but we see two concerns with his
response. Well-written law might appear to be complex when it is, in fact,
precisely crafted. And, in this case, Prop. 209 was one of the clearer
propositions we've seen. We supported it.

3. Do you support targeted vouchers or scholarships for students in the
poorest performing school districts? He favors vouchers. "I'm just for
anything that puts choices and alternatives in front of parents," he said.

"I would form a program on an interim basis that puts parents in control."

We favor vouchers, with certain cautions, because they likely will improve
education quality though competition and offer better opportunity for
individual students.

4. Would you favor daytime curfew laws whereby police could stop and
question people under the age of 18?

Mr. Kubby completely opposed such laws, which he said are part of a bad
trend in which young people are being "taught disrespect for our laws
instead of teaching them the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and what
it means to live in a free society. Spend a day as a kid and you'll see the
constant harassment by police, the Highway Patrol and others - the pressure
put on the guilty and innocent alike."

We have also opposed daytime curfews because they assume a child is guilty
until proven innocent.

5. Would you vote for an across-the-board income tax reduction?

He favors cutting the state income tax in half over four years, which would
drop the top rate to 4.6 percent from 9.2 percent. "My first goal is to get
government off people's backs, to show people a government that's leaner,"
he said. We favor an absolute minimum amount of taxes.

6. Should marijuana for medical purposes be available legally?

Mr. Kubby made his political reputation as a major sponsor of and
fund-raiser for Proposition 215, which legalized medical marijuana in
California, with a doctor's recommendation. He recounted how marijuana has
helped him overcome pheochromocytoma, a cancer of the adrenal glands. He
had been told by doctors he might live from six months to three years, but
has survived 23 years since then.

We backed Prop. 215.

Mr. Kubby realistically doesn't expect to win in November, but he aims to
"exceed expectations" of voters and party members. Though not as well known
as the major-party candidates, Mr. Kubby believes this election could
springboard him to another candidacy within his own party, or, perhaps the
better-funded Democratic Party in years ahead

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Pot Found In Dead Activist's Blood (The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa,
California, says preliminary drug tests show Earth First! activist
David Chain had smoked marijuana sometime before he was killed
by a falling tree while protesting logging operations by Pacific Lumber
Company. Steven Schectman, an attorney representing Chain's family,
said "It's just another attempt to smear environmental activists.")

Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 02:32:49 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US CA: Pot Found In Dead Activist's Blood
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: d9
Source: Press Democrat, The (CA)
Contact: letters@pressdemo.com
Website: http://www.pressdemo.com/
Pubdate: Thur, 1 Oct 1998
Author: Mike Geniella

POT FOUND IN DEAD ACTIVIST'S BLOOD

EUREKA -- Humboldt County authorities said Wednesday preliminary drug tests
show Earth First! activist David Chain had smoked marijuana sometime before
he was killed by a falling tree while protesting logging operations by
Pacific Lumber Co.

Traces of marijuana linger in the body for 30 days or more, said Coroner
Frank Jager, so it's possible that Chain hadn't smoked pot for several days
or even weeks before the Sept. 17 accident.

Despite the positive test, Jager said that he isn't yet able to determine
whether the Austin, Texas, man smoked marijuana on the day of his death.

"We plan to conduct further tests which should allow us to determine that,''
Jager said. "But the results could take up to six weeks."

Steven Schectman, an attorney representing Chain's family, criticized
authorities for releasing results of the preliminary drug tests.

"It doesn't mean anything,'' Schectman said. "He could have smoked a little
pot a month ago. It's just another attempt to smear environmental
activists."

Schectman also complained drug tests weren't performed on the logger, whom
activists believe deliberately cut a tree to fall toward Chain and other
activists, who were protesting timber cutting by Pacific Lumber Co. at a
site near Grizzly Creek State Park.

"Why not?'' Schectman asked. "Because they assumed from the beginning that
Chain was responsible for his own death."

Chain, 24, died from severe head injuries after being struck by a falling
redwood, according to autopsy results disclosed Wednesday by Jager.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

TSU Officer Charged In Theft, Sale Of Drug ('The Houston Chronicle'
Says Russell Lovell Simpson, A Texas Southern University Police Officer,
Was Charged Friday With Stealing Two Kilos Of Cocaine
From An Undercover Officer, Then Selling It To Another Undercover Officer)

From: "W.H.E.N. - Bob Owen" (when@olywa.net)
To: "-News" (when@hemp.net)
Subject: TSU officer charged in theft, sale of drug
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 20:50:11 -0700
Sender: owner-when@hemp.net
10:07 PM 10/1/1998

TSU officer charged in theft, sale of drug

Copyright 1998 Houston Chronicle

A Texas Southern University police officer was charged Friday with stealing
two kilos of cocaine from an undercover officer, then selling it to another
undercover officer.

Russell Lovell Simpson, 28, of the 17100 block of Imperial Valley, was on
duty, in uniform and driving his marked TSU patrol car when he delivered the
cocaine in exchange for $30,000, police said. He was charged with
manufacture and delivery of a controlled substance, and has been freed on
$100,000 bail.

Simpson was arrested without incident by Houston SWAT officers after the
transaction in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant in the 3700 block
of Scott about 2 a.m. Sept. 25.

Simpson, who had worked for TSU since Aug. 1, had been the subject of an
undercover investigation for about three weeks, said HPD spokesman John
Cannon.

TSU Police Chief Cordell Lindsey said Simpson, who came to TSU from the Fort
Bend County Precinct 2 Constable's Office, was fired immediately after his
arrest.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Pouring Billions Into Bottomless Dungeons (An excellent op-ed
in the Shepherd Express ponders the soaring cost of prisons in Wisconsin -
and other states - in the face of declining crime rates. If citizens are so
willing to pay any price for more prisons, why are politicians so reluctant
to say right out loud how absurdly expensive the price will be?)

Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 05:24:23 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US WI: OPED: Pouring Billions Into Bottomless Dungeons
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: Shepherd Express (WI)
Contact: editor@shepherd-express.com
Website: http://www.shepherd-express.com/
Pubdate: Wed, 1 Oct 1998
Author: Joel McNally, editor of Shepherd Express. Address e-mail to
joel@shepherd-express.com

POURING BILLIONS INTO BOTTOMLESS DUNGEONS

One of the biggest political myths around is that voters in these fiscally
conservative times will not tolerate wasteful spending on huge government
programs that don't work.

On the contrary, whenever politicians want to spend more money to lock up
human beings, too much is not enough. All a candidate has to do to "go
negative" on the issue is accuse his opponent of voting against excessive
government spending on prisons.

The state Department of Corrections has just proudly announced a 50%
increase in the number of prisoners it expects to put behind bars over the
next three years.

In a clear demonstration of our priorities, the projected 22.5% budget
increase for prisons is more than double the budget increase proposed for
the other statewide effort to get people's minds right--the University of
Wisconsin System.

There are two other things you should know about a government spending
increase of such enormous magnitude:

1. This is not taking place against a backdrop of burgeoning crime. Crime in
Wisconsin is in decline, just as it has been around the nation. The state
crime rate dropped 10% over the last decade.

2. That mind-boggling 50% increase in the number of people to be
incarcerated is grossly underestimated. The Department of Corrections admits
its figures do not include a single additional prisoner as a result of the
so-called "truth in sentencing" law.

There never has been a more dishonestly named law. Gov. Tommy Thompson and
the Department of Corrections adamantly refuse to tell the truth about
"truth in sentencing." If the law isn't going to keep a whole lot more
people in prison longer, what was the point?

The biggest "lies in sentencing" are being told right now by the governor
and corrections officials. They keep saying there is no way of knowing how
many additional prison cells, if any, will be needed under "truth in
sentencing."

Well, let's try to help them out with the math. Under the previous law, a
prisoner was eligible for mandatory release after he or she had served
two-thirds of the sentence. Now, all prisoners will serve 100% of their
sentences. The difference between two-thirds and 100% is one-third.

So, let's see. We're going to have 50% more prisoners in the system and
they'll be serving sentences that are 33% longer. Multiply the whole thing
by pi or something, and we'll need to spend hundreds of billions of dollars
to build new prisons from here to kingdom come. Give or take a couple dozen
Supermaxes.

The response from "lock 'em up" politicians in both parties is that the
public doesn't care how much it costs. Law-abiding citizens are willing to
pay whatever it costs to lock up those monstrous, subhuman,
senior-citizen-raping, blood-feasting animals who are lurking in the shadows
ready to pounce on innocent voters on their way to the polls.

Since there are nowhere near 25,000 such murderous fiends in Wisconsin,
politicians have to keep cranking up the inflamed rhetoric to keep the voter
support for building new prisons at an all-time high.

If citizens are willing to pay any price for more prisons, why are
politicians so reluctant to say right out loud how absurdly expensive the
price will be? In order to keep expanding prisons at the present rate, all
politicians have to do is raise taxes for corrections 50% every three years.
Also, when "truth in sentencing" kicks in, they may have to discontinue a
few of the less important government services such as education, public
health, parks and highways.

We have seen the future of corrections in Wisconsin and it is a geriatric
prison in Chippewa Falls. When most people think about crime in the
simple-minded stereotypes politicians encourage, they probably picture
scary, soulless teenagers or professional thugs in their 20s. But when you
lock up people and throw away the key, time does not stand still.

So now we are actually talking about spending millions of dollars to operate
a geriatric prison to protect us all from sickly and aged offenders. We
wouldn't want those vicious old codgers shuffling out the revolving door of
some prison after 60 or 70 years to resume their lawless ways. Of course,
the biggest danger at that point might be that they would bore us all to
death with stories about how much better crime used to be in the old days.

It's easy to understand the temptation to keep offenders locked up until
they become frail old geezers pushing their walkers and croaking, "Hand over
your pocket book, by cracky!" That's because those who come out of prison
earlier are almost certain to be more dangerous than when they went in.

Prisons no longer make any pretense of attempting rehabilitation. Many, many
offenders have drug and alcohol problems. One thing that's very hard to get
in prison is drug treatment. What's easy to get is drugs.

Not only do prisons do very little to change those in their custody for the
better. The current political philosophy is to make prisons into even more
destructive institutions. Politicians are systematically removing all
positive amenities from prisons that recognize inmates as human beings. As
prisons become colder, harder and meaner, so do their human byproducts.

Combined with conservative political efforts to deny legitimate employment
to anyone convicted of a crime, a very strong argument can be made that our
prison system increases crime and reduces public safety in Wisconsin.

But at least it is a huge government program that is exorbitantly expensive.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

10-Year-Old Boy Accused Of Having Marijuana At Waukesha School
('The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel' Notes Cannabis Prohibition
Continues To Exacerbate The Problem It Was Supposed To Resolve -
Officials Said The Boy Also Had More Than $100 And Is The First Student
Caught With Drugs At A Waukesha Public Elementary School)

Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 09:48:35 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US WI: 10-Year-Old Boy Accused
of Having Marijuana at Waukesha School
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: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
Contact: jsedit@onwis.com
Fax: (414) 224-8280
Website: http://www.jsonline.com/
Pubdate: Thu, 01 Oct 1998
Author: Mike Johnson of the Journal Sentinel staff

10-YEAR-OLD BOY ACCUSED OF HAVING MARIJUANA AT WAUKESHA SCHOOL

He's first elementary pupil in district to be caught with drugs, officials say

Waukesha -- A 10-year-old student is accused of having marijuana and more
than $100 in cash at school in what officials said is the first case of a
student being caught with drugs at a Waukesha public elementary school.

The boy faces an expulsion hearing before the School Board on Tuesday
night, a school official said. School officials found the drugs and cash on
him Sept. 23.

After school officials said they found the marijuana, a rolling paper and
cash in the boy's pants, he told them everything -- including the pants --
belonged to an older brother, who is in high school.

"The kid has a story to tell. The story, unfortunately, has changed," said
Gilbert Wilkins, the executive director of administrative services for the
Waukesha School District.

The fifth-grader at Prairie Elementary School is believed to be the
youngest pupil in Waukesha County to be accused of having marijuana on
school grounds.

"This would be the youngest that I know of," said District Attorney Paul
Bucher, who is deeply involved in the Drug Abuse Resistance Education
program in the schools.

The student was turned in by fellow students who told administrators they
saw him handling the marijuana on the playground.

The boy was searched and officials found a small amount of marijuana, a
single rolling paper and "a large amount of money," Wilkins said.

Wilkins said the cash was "over $100 but less than $200." He refused to say
exactly how much money the child had.

Bucher said, "Even if I wasn't involved in DARE, I'd be concerned about a
10-year-old allegedly possessing marijuana and having $100 to $200 in cash.
Any right-thinking individual would be concerned. Nobody in my office
carries that amount of cash in their pockets."

Wilkins said there was no evidence the 10-year-old was selling marijuana to
other students.

"He's not a person suspected of being a drug dealer or a gang-banger,"
Wilkins said. "He's a good kid from a good family. . . . He's 10. That's
the really sad part about it.

"We'll have to deal with it and get on with life."

Superintendent David Schmidt said even if the marijuana belonged to the
boy's brother, the fifth-grader was aware of school rules that prohibit
drugs.

"Our policy is to take kids to expulsion when drugs and alcohol are
involved," Schmidt said. "He knew the rules. School districts have to draw
the line somewhere.

"I've watched this whole drug and alcohol thing, and it starts getting
younger and younger, and that concerns me deeply."

Asked what the normal penalty for being caught with marijuana was, Wilkins
replied: "There is no normal in this situation. We've not had an elementary
school child with possession of marijuana before."

If the child is expelled, he would be the fifth student expelled for
possession of marijuana or drug paraphernalia this school year. The other
four, all high school students, were expelled for the rest of the semester.

Said School Board member Kathleen Briggs: "I've been a board member for
eight years, and I don't recall any drug incidents with an elementary
school kid.

"To think that's (marijuana) filtering down to elementary schools, that's
pretty scary."

Waukesha police Lt. Hal Kump said the case remains under investigation.

"Of course it's concerning," Kump said. "It's concerning when it's a
16-year-old. It's concerning when it's a 35-year-old. It indicates how the
younger people are being exposed to controlled substances. It's very
disturbing."

It's not the first time in the Milwaukee area that a fifth-grader has been
caught with marijuana.

In May 1997, an 11-year-old Milwaukee Public Schools fifth-grader was
turned in to police by his parents who suspected he was selling drugs.
Police searched the youth and found 30 grams of marijuana and a pager.

While the officers were holding the pager, it beeped and displayed a
number. Police dialed the number, and a man answered and said he wanted to
buy marijuana from the boy.

Linda Spice of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Thou Shalt Not (The October issue of The Washingtonian
features an intellectual portrait of Joe Califano, a former heavyweight
Washington lawyer and adviser to two presidents, now reborn as the scourge
of illegal drugs - and of anyone who dares to disagree with him. Califano's
drug-research center, the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse,
started five years ago at Columbia University, has become the loudest voice
in drug policy debate.)

From: Ty Trippet (TTrippet@sorosny.org)
To: TLC_ACTIVIST (TLCACT@sorosny.org)
Subject: Oct. Washingtonian: Joe Califano Thundering Against Drugs...
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 14:44:56 -0500
Sender: owner-tlc-activist@server.soros.org

The following article is from the October edition of Washingtonian Magazine.
Washingtonian

Work: 202-296-3600
Other: http://www.infi.net:80-Washmag/
E-Mail: washington@dc.infi.net

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
Letters to the editor should be mailed to:

Ms. Landis Neal
Washingtonian Magazine
1828 L St., N.W., Ste. 200
Washington, DC 20036
Telephone: 202-296-3600
E-mail: washington@dc.infi.net
URL: http://www.infi.net:80-Washmag/
EDITOR: Pub. Eleanor Merrill; Ed. John A. Limpert

Ty Trippet
Director of Communications
The Lindesmith Center

400 West 59th Street
New York, NY 10019
212-548-0604
212-548-4670-fax
mailto: ttrippet@sorosny.org
http://www.lindesmith.org

***

Thou Shalt Not.

Once a presidential adviser and legal heavyweight, Joe Califano now is
thundering against drugs. And woe be to those who doubt his data or get in
his way.

By Christopher Shea; Christopher Shea is a senior writer at the
Chronicle of Higher Education.

Even by Washington standards, the drug debate is uncompromising and partisan.
President Clinton claims that the number of Americans using drugs has
declined by 50 percent since 1979, and earlier this year he laid out plans to
cut drug use in half again over the next ten years.

House Speaker Newt Gingrich scoffed at the Clinton proposals, which he called
a "hodge-podge of half steps and half truths." He wanted all drug use
eliminated in four years.

Amid all the posturing and confusion, one voice suffers no doubt. When
politicians or journalists need information about drugs, they often turn to a
university-based "expert" who is certain where others are cautious and who
compares drug policies he dislikes to "playing Russian roulette with our
children."

The expert is Joe Califano, former heavyweight Washington lawyer and adviser
to two presidents, now reborn as the scourge of drugs -- and of anyone who
dares to disagree with him.

Started five years ago, Califano's drug-research center, the National Center
on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA) at Columbia University, has become
the loudest voice in the drug debates.

If you've heard that marijuana is a "gateway drug" that opens the door to
cocaine and heroin, that's CASA and Califano. If you've read that marijuana
is far more harmful now than it was when Al Gore, Newt Gingrich, and other
politicians dabbled with it -- so deadly that it should now be considered a
"hard drug" -- that's probably because of Califano.

Every few months, Califano sends a fresh series of statistics coursing
through the press. Examples include the claim that the proportion of female
college students who get drunk on weekends has tripled over the past few
decades.

But it's on the Washington Post op-ed page that Califano gets his biggest
play -- and achieves something close to Old Testament thunder.

When the billionaire philanthropist George Soros contributed $ 650,000 to the
campaigns to make medical marijuana legal in California and Arizona, Califano
crowned him "the Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization." He accused Soros of
manipulating compassion for the terminally ill as part of a scheme to make
marijuana, cocaine, and heroin as available as tobacco and beer.

When parents told pollsters that they thought their kids might try marijuana
at some point in college, Califano responded with a Post column that called
the parents' attitude "infuriating," adding, "Instead of chorusing 'We're mad
as hell and we're not going to take it anymore,' too many boomer parents
utter a sigh of resignation that is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy for
their children."

So deep is Califano's loathing of tobacco that he rejects any deal between
state attorneys general and the tobacco industry as the devil's work. The
resulting compromises, he writes, represent a "sordid piece of money-changing
in the temple of the American bar."

"Big Tobacco knows that the way to the hearts of Washington and plaintiff's
lawyers," he said, "is through their pocketbooks."

Joe Califano now lives in New York, but he's still very much a Washington
operator. Until the late 1980s, Califano was a fixture here. A Harvard Law
graduate, he did a Defense Department stint under Robert McNamara during the
Kennedy years and then became Lyndon Johnson's chief domestic-policy adviser
and a co-architect of the Great Society. He would later write one of the
sharpest memoirs of the period, The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson.

After Richard Nixon's election, Califano settled in at the powerhouse
Williams & Connolly law firm, where he replaced a lockstep compensation
system with an "eat what you kill" approach that rewarded the partners who
brought in the most business -- notably himself. Eventually he would become
known as the "half-million-dollar man" -- a reference to his
then-stratospheric salary.

It was as Jimmy Carter's Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare that
Califano made his biggest splash, especially for his opposition to tobacco,
which he deemed "slow-motion suicide" and "Public Health Enemy No. 1."

Charlie Rose, a former Democratic congressman from the tobacco-growing state
of North Carolina, responded by saying, "We need to educate Mr. Califano with
a two-by-four."

President Carter fired Califano in 1979, mostly because even when he was
right on the issues, Califano's blunt, high-profile, self-promoting approach
cost Carter too many political allies.

Califano returned to the law, first at his own firm, then at Dewey &
Ballantine, which was dusty when he arrived but grew to be one of the most
profitable firms in Washington. In 1992 he left to found CASA. "I'm not made
to practice commercial law, really," he said at the time. "I've made money at
it, but now I wake up every morning ready to roar."

Drug research is an unglamorous field that doesn't usually attract the kind
of donations that go to cancer treatments or AIDS work, but Califano's CASA
hums along on a $ 8-million annual budget. Unlike white-coated researchers
and scholars in elbow patches, Califano can pick up the phone and call
buddies like Michael Eisner, chairman of the Disney company, to help
underwrite a fundraiser featuring Liza Minnelli, the pop star Brandy, and a
keynote speech by President Clinton.

CBS, Chrysler, and Mobil have contributed heavily to CASA, and the board of
directors sparkles with such names as Nancy Reagan and Betty Ford.

"For decades I have followed the field of substance-abuse research, and I
have never seen a phenomenon like the rise of CASA," said David Hamburg,
president emeritus of the Carnegie Corporation and a Califano supporter.
"In a few years it has become one of the most respected and significant
sources of information and policy advice. There is nothing like it."

Last spring, Califano may have pulled off his biggest policy coup. According
to the Post, just as President Clinton was preparing to place the government
behind efforts to slow the spread of AIDS by distributing clean needles to
addicts -- a plan long urged by health officials and backed by the Department
of Health and Human Services -- Califano sent Clinton a letter pleading with
him not to.

That letter, together with the opposition of Califano's like-minded ally,
drug czar Barry McCaffrey, sunk the plan and led to a backpedaling press
conference by Donna Shalala, secretary of HHS.

Califano's political clout, the forum that the Washington Post has given him,
and the luster lent by his Columbia University title sit uneasily with many
scholars who have spent their careers studying the drug issue.

"I view his work with the utmost amusement," says Joseph D. McNamara, who
served as a New York City cop before becoming police chief of Kansas City,
Missouri, and then San Jose, and who now studies drug policy at Stanford
University's conservative Hoover Institution. "What CASA does is present
information in a kind of hysterical-crisis mode, which is very similar to
what the government does."

McNamara got a typical Califano scolding after he argued, on the Post's op-ed
page, for shifting the front of the war on drugs from prisons and border
interdiction to prevention and health care. McNamara said the United States
could benefit by looking at Europe, where drug use is viewed more as an
endemic health problem than as pure crime.

A week later, Califano weighed in with a blistering defense of the status quo
in a Post op-ed. "The first casualty of most pro-legalization arguments is
reality," he wrote. "If these ideas ever became policy, the next would be
America's children."

McNamara's views went beyond playing Russian roulette with children, he
wrote. They were the equivalent of "slipping a couple of extra bullets in
the chamber."

McNamara calls the response "pharmacological McCarthyism."

"It's as rotten and dangerous as the original McCarthyism," he says.
"What he is trying to do is cut out any kind of objective debate by labeling
people who are critical of current drug policies as 'legalizers.' . . . It's
hard to call a guy who's been a cop for 25 years a pothead."

Califano "has so much corporate money that he bought himself a place at
Columbia, but he's not playing by the same rules that all other faculty and
research centers have to play by," says Craig Reinarman, a sociologist at the
University of California at San Cruz. "It seems to me that he wants to have
it both ways. He wants to be the anti-drug ideologue, to go out there and
make impassioned speeches, and to some degree be a star, but he gets his
money and his connection to Columbia on an entirely different basis.

"If he wants to do that, fine; but don't pretend you're a Columbia University
scholar when you're not -- you're Ralph Reed."

Other researchers complain that Califano's take-no-prisoners approach to the
drug debate has created a climate in which raising questions about
zero-tolerance arguments, or the likelihood of a drug-free America, are seen
as little short of treason.

I had a chance to talk with Califano last fall at CASA's headquarters. He's
now ensconced in the Carnegie Towers, a postmodern edifice on 57th Street in
Manhattan, on the same block as Carnegie Hall and 50 blocks south of
Columbia's campus.

Califano's office is decorated with emblems of past glories. A THIS IS A
NON-SMOKING WORKPLACE sign sits on his desk. On the wall to his left is a
framed letter from President Johnson, commemorating the day he left public
service for the law: "You were the captain I wanted, and you steered the
ship well."

At 67, Califano still looks fit and powerful, with a demeanor that carries a
hint of the streets of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, where, before he
went off to college at Holy Cross, he and his friends used to brawl with
gangs from rival neighborhoods. He is sharp, with a gruff voice and a no-bull
tone.

"I don't think there's any right or left in the drug war, or if drug war is
even the right term," he says. "Basically, I think substance abuse and
addiction is one of the greatest threats to this country. You know, Toynbee
said of the great civilizations -- he studied 16 civilizations -- he said
that the only thing that ever happened from an enemy without is that they
gave the coup de grace to an expiring suicide.

"This is a really internal problem for the United States, and it's an
enormous threat to our young people, and it's also an enormous threat to our
political system because of the corruption issues."

He brushes off the idea that his center's work is colored by ideology or
personal predisposition -- or anything but research. "The first step here is
to get the facts out and to get people to understand the facts, and where
they lead, they lead," he says. "I have absolute conviction that if we can
get the facts out, and if we can get enough bright people interested in this
subject, we can deal very successfully with it.

"The field is full of very dedicated people, counselors and others, but it's
not full of the kind of brilliant people who are working on cancer and heart
disease, or the kind of brilliant people who are selling automobiles or
cereals or what have you. I think we have here at CASA the brightest group of
people that have been ever put under one roof on this planet to deal with
this problem."

Califano's Columbia drug center has 55 staff members, but only one is a
tenured member of the Columbia University faculty -- Herbert Kleber, a
psychiatrist with a top research record, who served as a drug-policy adviser
under William Bennett. Other university professors and administrators
sometimes advise on projects.

The official line at the center is that editorializing and policy advice
amount to only a fraction of what CASA does.

CASA sponsors a program called "Opportunity to Succeed" that brings
together parole officers and social workers to help prisoners with drug
problems in four cities. It is undertaking a nationwide evaluation of 200
treatment programs, from intense residential regimens like Phoenix House
to outpatient centers that offer a few hours of counseling weekly.

It is also exploring nontraditional alternatives, such as acupuncture, which
has a large following among ex-addicts. A site director for the acupuncture
study, a doctor at the University of California at San Fransciso, calls it
"as good as anything funded by the National Institutes of Health."

The research process is a slow one, often with ambiguous results -- which
makes it unsuited to Califano's style. CASA's big splashes in the press
usually come from research reports that cobble together the most alarming
data on drugs, which Califano then goes on the road to promote: High school
students say marijuana is easier to buy than alcohol. Forty percent of
13-year-olds know someone who uses acid, heroin, or cocaine. Forty-five
percent of college students go on drinking "binges."

In many cases, the findings aren't new, but drawn by Califano's star power,
newspapers report them -- even though, in almost every case, they ignored
the more-nuanced scholarly articles from which they are drawn. Only the New
York Times occasionally ignores the CASA reports, frustrating CASA's PR
people.

"Their usefulness has been that they have the capacity to take hundreds of
studies and condense them," says one public-health professor at Columbia,
who confesses some awe and envy of Califano's influence with the press. "But
their condensing process has the tendency to throw out at least half of the
baby with the bathwater."

As he did with McNamara, the ex-cop, Califano often slams his critics as
"legalizers," suggesting that they would like to see marijuana and cocaine
sold from Good Humor trucks parked outside schools. But the debate, most
protest, isn't really between those who want to protect children and those
who don't care about them -- everybody's "for" children. The real debate is
between two different ways of looking at the war on drugs.

From 1980 to 1997, the federal drug-control budget rose from $ 1 billion
to $16 billion, and the number of people imprisoned for drug violations rose
from 50,000 to 400,000. The chief indication that we're on the right path,
Califano says, is that the number of people who use illegal drugs regularly
has dropped by half since 1979, from 25 million to 13 million. Marijuana
accounts for almost all of the drop.

Over the same period, the number of hard-core cocaine addicts has stayed
steady at about 2 million, and drug use has become far deadlier. "In 1980 .
. . no one had ever heard of the cheap, smokable form of cocaine called
crack, or drug-related HIV infection or AIDS," writes Ethan Nadelmann,
the director of the Lindesmith Center, a drug-policy research institute in
New York, in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs. "By the 1990s, both had
reached epidemic proportions in American cities."

Half of all cases of AIDS -- the second highest cause of death in the United
States for people ages 25 to 44 -- stem from injected-drug users sharing
needles. Most researchers think that's a devastating problem, at least as
important as the number of people who occasionally smoke marijuana. The
American Medical Association, the National Academy of Science's Institute of
Medicine, the National Institutes of Health, and President Bush's National
AIDS Commission have all endorsed needle-exchange programs to attack it.
The message they are trying to get across is that drug abuse is bad, but
dying of AIDS is worse. Califano helped undermine the chance to put their
proposals into action.

"The tragedy of Joe Califano," says Nadelmann, "is that his anti-drug
fanaticism has made him indifferent both to the scientific evidence and to
the broader consequences of demonizing drug users."

As a leader of the war on drugs, Califano sets himself apart from other
experts who seem willing to step back from their political passions to point
out where policies don't square with the research. In 1972, for example,
Richard Nixon brought together a commission of experts to examine the US
approach to the problem. Headed by Raymond Shafer, a former Republican
governor of Pennsylvania, the commission was far from leftwing, yet it
advocated pretty much what Califano now calls Russian roulette: acknowledging
that drugs cannot be eliminated from society, treating drug use as a social
problem as much as a crime, and recognizing that law enforcement sometimes
has high financial and moral costs that bring few returns.

In the case of marijuana, the Shafer commission argued, the millions spent on
law enforcement, the time diverted from investigating violent crimes, and the
ruining of people's careers through prosecution outweighed the harm of using
marijuana.

In the late 1970s, President Carter was still able to endorse that view, and
in 1982, a National Academy of Sciences commission echoed it. Today, almost
no politician on the national level would dare concede the validity of such
views, and for that, Califano deserves a large share of credit.

After Califano wrote a damning book about the Carter administration,
Governing America, Jody Powell, Carter's press secretary, called Califano's
book the ultimate example of the "if only they'd listened to me" memoir: "His
criticisms of others might have been taken more seriously if he had been
somewhat more willing to acknowledge that somewhere along the way he,
JoeCalifano, might have made a mistake, a misstep, or even a judgment that
could be reasonably questioned with the benefit of hindsight."

Califano hasn't been immune to mistakes and missteps. Take his proposals to
curb health-care costs -- a topic, like drugs, that has been a long-standing
interest. In the 1960s, he hit upon the idea of driving down health costs by
radically increasing the number of students graduating from medical school in
the United States: from some 8,000 to 16,000. The more doctors, the more
competition, his argument went. The move had the opposite from intended
result. Since all those new doctors were getting reimbursed by insurance
companies for whatever they did, the "reform" only increased the number of
doctors doing expensive procedures.

Don't look for any apologies from Califano. His writing on health care,
which he continued through the 1980s and '90s, has the same tone of
confidence and scorn for enemies as his talk on drugs. He calls doctors
"the medicine men" and blames high costs on their greed.

Formulating drug policy is at least as complex as combating health-care
costs. Often, the problem is oversimplification. Much of Califano's polemical
fury is directed at marijuana because it is the most popular illegal drug and
also the one that people tend to shrug their shoulders at.

There's also the fact that most of the people fighting the war on drugs or
commenting on it -- Al Gore, Newt Gingrich, Dan Quayle, CASA's Dr. Kleber -
have tried it.

Teenagers who smoke marijuana, Califano argues, are 85 times more likely to
try cocaine than those who haven't. Until a few years ago, he would note that
this relationship is "only statistical," but then note that we used to think
the connection between smoking and lung cancer was statistical, too.

Lately, he has dropped all equivocation. In a press conference last fall and
in a Post column titled "Marijuana: It's a Hard Drug," he said that CASA's
research had, at last, weeded out any confounding factors -- poverty,
depression, single parents, grades -- and proved that marijuana leads people
to crave other drugs.

Some 80 million Americans -- about a quarter of the population - have used
marijuana, and yet not many baby boomers moved on to mainlining. "The Great
Pot Experiment" produced millions of conventional, productive, upstanding
citizens, plus a few journalists," Michael Kinsley once wrote. If that's an
exaggeration, it's no more so than Califano's thesis that marijuana sends
people down the road to cocaine addiction.

Califano also claims that cigarettes and alcohol are gateway drugs, but he
doesn't take the step that should follow, given his logic: that smoking and
drinking cause marijuana use.

"What's disturbing about his center is that there are certainly people who
know better, who are experts, who will consistently lump correlation together
with causation and lump all drug users together," says McNamara, the former
police chief. "I don't know if Califano knows better or not, but the things
they say and do are very hard to justify on a professional level. It's a
propaganda war, and the motivation, I think, is that the ends justify the
means."

A striking example of Califano rhetoric came in a 1995 paper on drug
legalization, where CASA confronted the arguments made by libertarians such
as William F. Buckley and Milton Friedman that government should take
minimal actions against drug use, except where children are concerned.

Reasonable people can disagree about how far the government can go to protect
people from themselves and from the harm that some drug users cause, and
Buckley and Friedman represent one extreme. But CASA's dismissal of
civil-liberties arguments was harsh. It pointed out that philosophers have
said that freedom does not include the right to choose to place oneself into
slavery. "Clearly," the report adds, "drug addiction is a form of
enslavement."

When I asked Califano about civil liberties, he stressed his commitment to
them but said drug laws were not an issue. "There are civil-liberty problems
in every aspect of law enforcement, and I spent a lot of time when I was in
government on those issues," he said. "In the Johnson years, we passed the
first bail-reform acts. We did all that stuff. There are plenty of abuses,
but it's not a question of this law or that law. It's a question of what kind
of cops you have."

His overriding goal, he said, was to protect children, and every law, and in
fact all of CASA's work, has to be evaluated by that measure. I asked him to
set kids aside for a minute. Should a 45-year-old, I asked, have the right to
light up a joint on his back porch with no one around?

He cut me off before I could get it out. "Should a 45-year-old have the
right to shoot heroin in his backyard?" he barked. "Should a 45-year-old have
the right to, you know, snort cocaine in his backyard? Should a 45-year-old
have the right to put a bullet through his head? Okay?"

In some ways, Califano's style distracts from his genuine accomplishments in
combating the abuse of alcohol and tobacco. He deserves credit for launching
the anti-smoking revolution, and for pushing for steep taxes on cigarettes
and alcohol long before it was trendy.

Last fall, a group of prominent drug-policy experts and law-enforcement
officials sent representatives to Washington to call for a truce in the
debate on drugs. The discussions, they said, had degenerated into shouting
between two groups stereotyped as "drug warriors" and "legalizers." The 36
signers of the statement said that they, like most people who have studied
the problem, fit in neither description.

"In this climate," said the group, "every idea, research finding, or proposal
put forth is scrutinized to determine which agenda it advances." They decried
the "symbolic" laws that get passed in place of policies based on scientific
research and called for a period of calm in which reason could be heard.

Who could oppose this manifesto for common sense? "It's hard for me to
imagine anyone at CASA signing our principles," said one of the researchers.
"I think Califano's views are sufficiently wedded to the absolute commitment
to the status quo that I suspect he would have found our statement to be more
radical than it is." Neither Joe Califano nor anyone else at CASA signed on
to the truce.

Picture: Califano is rarely without a popular cause. Here he attacks
student-loan defaulters while serving as HEW secretary; Photos 1 and 2,
Whether he's discussing women and substance abuse with Betty Ford or
appearing with Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Concert of Hope, Califano brings
a formidable Rolodex to his fight against drugs. AP/WIDE WORLD

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Addiction Is a Brain Disease - and It Matters (An article in The National
Institute of Justice Journal by Alan Leshner, the director of NIDA,
the National Institute on Drug Abuse, selectively emphasizes the fundamental
elements of addiction to argue that there is no distinction between "soft"
and "hard" drugs.)

Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 09:44:20 -0900
To: dpfor@drugsense.org
From: Ed Glick (gina@proaxis.com)
Subject: DPFOR: NIJ Journal-Alan Leshner
Sender: owner-dpfor@drugsense.org
Reply-To: dpfor@drugsense.org
Organization: DrugSense http://www.drugsense.org/

Hi All:

I recieved NIJ Journal yesterday with a cover story on addiction. Alan
Leshner uses scientific "research" to reinterpret addiction as a
physiological disease - which it is - and then selectively emphasizes the
fundamental elements of addiction, like inability to control usage, to throw
mj into the same class as cocaine. He argues there is no distinction
between "soft" and "hard" drugs.

Of course there is. Meth-amphetamine rapidly and permanently burns out the
neural circuits. Pot doesn't. Cause and effect has no place in his logic.
Sorry if it is too long- Attachments don't seem to work for me. I am a
computer neandathol.

Ed Glick

Text version is posted below. PDF can be downloaded at:
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij/new.htm#journal237

***

Title: National Institute of Justice Journal 237.
Series: N/A
Author: NIJ
Published: October 1998
Subject: drug treatment, gun violence, technology
in law enforcement, international issues,
community policing
91 pages
157,000 bytes

***

Figures, charts, forms, and tables are not
included in this ASCII plain-text file. To view
this document in its entirety, download the Adobe
Acrobat graphic file available from this Web site
or order a print copy from NCJRS at 800-851-3420.

***

U.S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs
National Institute of Justice

National Institute of Justice Journal
October 1998

Addiction Is a Brain Disease--and It Matters

Director's Message

The content of this fall edition of the National
Institute of Justice Journal is indicative of the
broad spectrum of NIJ's research and development
activities and interests.

For example, the lead article, "Addiction Is a
Brain Disease--and It Matters," summarizes a
message delivered by Dr. Alan I. Leshner, Director
of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, at one of
NIJ's annual research and evaluation conferences.
The scientific insights reported by Dr. Leshner
have important implications for NIJ's Arrestee
Drug Abuse Monitoring program and the joint NIJ-
ONDCP (Office of National Drug Control Policy)
treatment-oriented efforts to help break the link
between drugs and crime (see "Breaking the Cycle
of Drug Abuse in Birmingham" in the July 1998
issue).

The National Criminal Justice Reference
Service (NCJRS), a centralized national
clearinghouse of criminal justice information, is
sponsored by the Office of Justice Programs
agencies and the Office of National Drug Control
Policy. Registered users of NCJRS receive the
National Institute of Justice Journal and NCJRS
Catalog free. To become a registered user, write
NCJRS User Services, Box 6000, Rockville, MD
20849-6000, call 800-851-3420, or e-mail
askncjrs@ncjrs.org.

***

Contents

Issue No. 237

Features

Addiction Is a Brain Disease--and It Matters
Alan I. Leshner

Addiction Is a Brain Disease--and It Matters

by Alan I. Leshner*

*Alan I. Leshner, Ph.D., is Director of the
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). This
article is based primarily on what Dr. Leshner
wrote in Science (October 3, 1997) and reflects
his presentation at the July 1997 Research and
Evaluation Conference, sponsored by the National
Institute of Justice and other components of the
Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of
Justice.

Dramatic advances over the past two decades in
both the neurosciences and the behavioral sciences
have revolutionized our understanding of drug
abuse and addiction. Scientists have identified
neural circuits that are involved in the actions
of every known drug of abuse, and they have
specified common pathways that are affected by
almost all such drugs. Research has also begun to
reveal major differences between the brains of
addicted and nonaddicted individuals and to
indicate some common elements of addiction,
regardless of the substance.

However, a dramatic lag or gap exists between
these advances in science and their appreciation
by the general public or their application in
either practice or public policy settings. For
example, many, perhaps most, people see drug abuse
and addiction as social problems, to be handled
only with social solutions, particularly through
the criminal justice system. On the other hand,
science has taught that drug abuse and addiction
are as much health problems as they are social
problems. The consequence of this perception gap
is a significant delay in gaining control over the
drug abuse problem.

Part of the lag and resultant disconnect comes
from the normal delay in transferring any
scientific knowledge into practice and policy.
However, other factors unique to the drug abuse
arena compound the problem, such as:

--The tremendous stigma attached to being a drug
user or, worse, an addict. The most beneficent
public view of drug addicts is as victims of their
societal situation. However, the more common view
is that drug addicts are weak or bad people,
unwilling to lead moral lives and control their
behavior and gratifications. To the contrary,
addiction is actually a chronic, relapsing
illness, characterized by compulsive drug seeking
and use.[1] The gulf in implications between the
"bad person" view and the "chronic illness
sufferer" view is tremendous. As just one example,
many people believe that addicted individuals do
not even deserve treatment. This stigma, and the
underlying moralistic tone, is a significant
overlay on all decisions related to drug use and
drug users.

--Ingrained ideologies. Some who work in the drug
abuse prevention and addiction treatment fields
also hold ingrained ideologies that, although
usually different in origin and form from the
ideologies of the general public, can be just as
problematic. For example, many drug abuse workers
are themselves former drug users who have had
successful treatment experiences with a particular
treatment method. They therefore may zealously
defend a single approach, even in the face of
contradictory scientific evidence. In fact, many
drug abuse treatments have been shown to be
effective through clinical trials.[2]

These difficulties notwithstanding, we can and
must bridge this informational disconnect if we
are to make real progress in controlling drug
abuse and addiction. It is time to replace
ideology with science.

Drug abuse and addiction as public health problems

What has the science shown and what are the
implications? At the most general level, research
has shown that drug abuse is a dual-edged health
issue as well as a social issue. Drugs have
well-known and severe negative consequences for
abusers' health, both mental and physical. But
drug abuse and addiction also have tremendous
implications for the health of the public, since
drug use, directly or indirectly, is now a major
vector for the transmission of many serious
infectious diseases, particularly HIV/AIDS,
hepatitis, and tuberculosis--and for the
infliction of violence as well. Because addiction
is such a complex and pervasive health issue,
overall strategies must encompass a committed
public health approach, including extensive
education and prevention efforts, treatment, and
research.

Science is providing the basis for such public
health approaches. For example, two large sets of
multisite studies[3] have demonstrated the
effectiveness of well-delineated outreach
strategies in modifying the HIV-risk behaviors of
addicted individuals, even if they continue to use
drugs and do not want to enter treatment. This
runs counter to the broadly held view that addicts
are so incapacitated by drugs that they are unable
to modify any of their behaviors. It also suggests
a base for improved strategies for reducing the
negative health consequences of injection drug use
for the individual and for society.

What matters in addiction?

Scientific research and clinical experience have
taught us much about what really matters in
addiction and where we need to concentrate our
clinical and policy efforts. However, too often
the focus is on the wrong aspects of addiction,
and efforts to deal with this difficult issue can
be badly misguided.

Any discussion about psychoactive drugs inevitably
turns to the question of whether a particular drug
is physically or psychologically addicting. In
essence, this issue revolves around whether
dramatic physical withdrawal symptoms occur when
an individual stops taking a drug--what is
typically called physical dependence by
professionals in the field. The assumption that
often follows is that the more dramatic the
physical withdrawal symptoms, the more serious or
dangerous the drug must be.

This thinking is outdated. From both clinical and
policy perspectives, it does not matter much what
physical withdrawal symptoms, if any, occur.
First, even the florid withdrawal symptoms of
heroin addiction can now be easily managed with
appropriate medications. Second, and more
important, many of the most addicting and
dangerous drugs do not produce very severe
physical symptoms upon withdrawal. Crack cocaine
and methamphetamine are clear examples. Both are
highly addicting, but cessation of their use
produces very few physical withdrawal symptoms,
certainly nothing like the physical symptoms
accompanying alcohol or heroin withdrawal.

What does matter tremendously is whether a drug
causes what we now know to be the essence of
addiction: compulsive drug seeking and use, even
in the face of negative health and social
consequences.[4] These are the characteristics
that ultimately matter most to the patient and
where treatment efforts should be directed. These
elements also are responsible for the massive
health and social problems that drug addiction
brings in its wake.

Addiction is a brain disease

Although each drug that has been studied has some
idiosyncratic mechanisms of action, virtually all
drugs of abuse have common effects, either
directly or indirectly, on a single pathway deep
within the brain, the mesolimbic reward system.
Activation of this system appears to be a common
element in what keeps drug users taking drugs.
This is not unique to any one drug; all addictive
substances affect this circuit.[5]

Not only does acute drug use modify brain function
in critical ways, but prolonged drug use causes
pervasive changes in brain function that persist
long after the individual stops taking the drug.
Significant effects of chronic use have been
identified for many drugs at all levels:
molecular, cellular, structural, and
functional.[6] The addicted brain is distinctly
different from the nonaddicted brain, as
manifested by changes in brain metabolic activity,
receptor availability, gene expression, and
responsiveness to environmental cues. Some of
these long-lasting brain changes are idiosyncratic
to specific drugs, whereas others are common to
many different drugs.[7] We can actually see these
changes through use of recently developed
technologies, such as positron emission
tomography. The common brain effects of addicting
substances suggest common brain mechanisms
underlying all addictions.[8]

That addiction is so clearly tied to changes in
brain structure and function is what makes it,
fundamentally, a brain disease. A metaphorical
switch in the brain seems to be thrown following
prolonged drug use. Initially, drug use is a
voluntary behavior (see "When Does Drug Use Start?
How Does It Proceed?"), but as that switch is
thrown, the individual moves into the state of
addiction, characterized by compulsive drug
seeking and use.[9]

Understanding that addiction is, at its core, a
consequence of fundamental changes in brain
function means that a major goal of treatment must
be either to reverse or to compensate for those
brain changes. This could be accomplished through
either medications or behavioral treatments
(behavioral treatments alter brain function in
other psychobiological disorders[10]). Elucidation
of the biology underlying the metaphorical switch
is key to the development of more effective
treatments, particularly antiaddiction
medications.

Addiction is not just a brain disease

Of course, addiction is not that simple. Addiction
is not just a brain disease. It is a brain disease
for which the social contexts in which it both has
developed and is expressed are critically
important. The case of the many thousands of
returning Vietnam war veterans who were addicted
to heroin illustrates this point clearly. In
contrast to addicts on the streets of America, it
was relatively easy to treat the returning
veterans' addictions. This success was possible
because they had become addicted while in an
almost totally different setting from the one to
which they returned. At home in the United States,
they were exposed to very few of the conditioned
environmental cues that had initially been
associated with their drug use in Vietnam.
Exposure to those conditioned cues can be a major
factor in causing persistent or recurrent drug
cravings and drug use relapses even after
successful treatment.[11]

The implications are obvious. If we understand
addiction as a prototypical psychobiological
illness, with critical biological, behavioral, and
social context components, our treatment
strategies must include biological, behavioral,
and social context elements. Not only must the
underlying brain disease be treated, but the
behavioral and social cue components must also be
addressed, just as they are with many other brain
diseases, including stroke, schizophrenia, and
Alzheimer's disease.

Addiction is a chronic, relapsing disorder

Addiction is rarely an acute illness. For most
people, it is a chronic, relapsing disorder. Total
abstinence for the rest of one's life is a
relatively rare outcome from a single treatment
episode. Relapses are more the norm. Thus,
addiction must be approached more like other
chronic illnesses--diabetes, chronic hypertension-
-than like an acute illness, such as a bacterial
infection or a broken bone.[12] This has
tremendous implications for how we evaluate
treatment effectiveness and treatment outcomes.
Viewing addiction as a chronic, relapsing disorder
means that a good treatment outcome--and the most
reasonable expectation--is a significant decrease
in drug use and long periods of abstinence, with
only occasional relapses. Thus, a reasonable
standard for treatment success is not curing the
illness but managing it, as is the case for other
chronic illnesses.[13]

Conclusion

Addiction as a chronic, relapsing disease of the
brain is a totally new concept for much of the
general public, for many policymakers, and, sadly,
for many health care professionals. Many of the
implications have been discussed above. But there
are others.

At the policy level, understanding the importance
of drug use and addiction for the health of
individuals and of the public affects many of our
overall public health strategies. An accurate
understanding of the nature of drug abuse and
addiction also affects our criminal justice
strategies. For example, if we know criminals are
also drug addicted, it is no longer reasonable to
simply incarcerate them. If they have a brain
disease, imprisoning them without treatment will
be futile. If they are left untreated, their crime
and drug use recidivism rates are frighteningly
high. However, if addicted criminals are treated
while in prison, both types of recidivism can be
reduced dramatically.[14] It is therefore
counterproductive not to treat addicts while they
are in prison.

At an even more general level, understanding
addiction as a brain disease also affects how
society approaches and deals with addicted
individuals. We need to face the fact that even if
the condition initially comes about because of a
voluntary behavior (drug use), an addict's brain
is different from a nonaddict's brain and the
addicted individual must be dealt with as if he or
she is in a different brain state. We have learned
to deal with people in different brain states for
schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease. As recently
as the beginning of this century, we were still
putting individuals with schizophrenia in
prison-like asylums, whereas now we know they
require medical treatments. We now need to see the
addict as someone whose mind (read: brain) has
been altered fundamentally by drugs. Treatment is
required to deal with the altered brain function
and the concomitant behavioral and social
functioning components of the illness.

Understanding addiction as a brain disease
explains in part why historic policy strategies
focusing solely on the social or criminal justice
aspects of drug use and addiction have been
unsuccessful. They are missing at least half of
the issue. If the brain is the core of the
problem, attending to it needs to be a core part
of the solution.

***

Notes

1. O'Brien, C.P., and A.T. McLellan, Lancet 347
(1996): 237.

2. Ibid.; McLellan, A.T., et al., in Treating Drug
Abusers Effectively, ed. J.A. Egertson et al.,
Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1997.

3. Booth, R., et al., Drug Alcohol Depend. 42
(1996): 11; Colon, H.M., et al., AIDS Educ. Prev.
7 (1995): 195; Stephens, R.C., et al., in Handbook
on Risk of AIDS, ed. B.S. Brown and G.M. Beschner,
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993: 519-556; and
Wiebel, W.W., et al., J. Acquired Immune Defic.
Syndr. 12 (1996): 282.

4. American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th
ed., Washington, DC: American Psychiatric
Association Press, 1994; and Institute of
Medicine, Pathways of Addiction, Washington, DC:
National Academy Press, 1996.

5. Koob, G.F., Trends Pharmacol. Sci. 13 (1992):
177; and Koob, G.F., et al., Semin. Neurosci 6
(1994): 221.

6. Hyman, S.E., Neuron 16 (1996): 901; Nestler,
E.J., Neuron 16 (1996): 897; Melega, W.P., et al.,
Behav. Brain Res. 84 (1997): 259; Ortiz, J., et
al., Synapse 21 (1995): 289; Volkow, N.D., et al.,
Am. J. Psychiat. 147 (1990): 719; Nestler, E.J.,
et al., Mol. Psychiat. 1 (1996): 190; and Self,
D.W., and E.J. Nestler, Annu. Rev. Neurosci. 18
(1995): 463.

7. Nestler, E.J., J. Neurosci. 12 (1992): 2439;
Robinson, T.E., and K.C. Berridge, Brain Res. Rev.
18 (1993): 247; Terwilliger, R.Z., et al., Brain
Res. 548 (1991): 100; and Koob, G.F., Neuron 16
(1996): 893. See also notes 6 and 7.

8. Leshner, A.I., Hospital Practice: A Special
Report, Minneapolis: McGraw-Hill, 1997; Koob,
Trends in Pharmacol. Sci.; Koob et al., Semin.
Neurosci; Koob, Neuron; Nestler et al., Mol.
Psychiat.; and Self and Nestler, Annu. Rev.
Neurosci.

9. The state of addiction--both the clinical
condition and the brain state--are qualitatively
different from the effects of large amounts of
drugs. The individual, once addicted, has moved
from a state where drug use is voluntary and
controlled to one where drug craving, seeking, and
use are no longer under the same kind of voluntary
control, and these changes reflect changes in
brain function. But the exact mechanisms involved
are not known. For example, it is not clear
whether that change in state reflects a relatively
precipitous change in a single mechanism or
multiple mechanisms acting in concert, or whether
the shift to addiction represents the sum of more
gradual neuroadaptations. Moreover, there are
individual differences in both the vulnerability
to becoming addicted and to the speed of becoming
addicted. For some individuals the metaphorical
switch moves quickly, whereas for others the
changes occur quite gradually (see notes 6, 7, and
8).

10. Baxter, L.B., et al., Sem. Clin.
Neuropsychiat. 1 (1996): 32.

11. Childress, A.R., et al., NIDA Res. Monographs
84 (1988): 25; Daley, D.C., and G.A. Marlatt, in
Substance Abuse: A Comprehensive Textbook, 3rd
ed., ed. J.H. Lowinson et al., Baltimore: Williams
& Wilkins, 1997; O'Brien, C.P., Pharmacol. Rev. 27
(1975): 535; O'Brien, C.P., et al., Addictive
Behav. 15 (1990): 355; and Grant, S., et al.,
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 93 (1996): 12040.

12. O'Brien and McLellan, Lancet.

13. See notes 1 and 2.

14. Inciardi, J.A., et al., J. Drug Issues 27
(1997): 261; and Wexler, H.K., and D.S. Lipton, in
Drug Treatment and Criminal Justice, ed. J.A.
Inciardi, Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications,
Inc., 1993: 261-278.

***

WHEN DOES DRUG USE START? HOW DOES IT PROCEED?*

Studies indicate that children most often begin to
use drugs at about age 12 or 13, and many
researchers have observed that although some young
teens move from the illicit use of legal
substances (such as tobacco and alcohol) to the
use of illegal drugs (marijuana is usually the
first), the majority do not. This progression from
tobacco and alcohol use to later use of illicit
drugs has been observed in a number of studies.
The precise order of drug use in this progression
is variable and seems to parallel social attitudes
and norms and the availability of drugs. But it
cannot be said that smoking and drinking at young
ages cause later drug use.

Nor does this sequence imply that the progression
is inevitable. It does say that for someone who
ever smoked or drank, the risk of moving on to
marijuana is 65 times higher than that for a
person who never smoked or drank. The risk of
moving on to cocaine is 104 times higher for
someone who smoked marijuana at least once in his
or her lifetime than for a person who never did.**

Research suggests that this progression, if it
does occur, depends on a number of complex
biological, psychological, and social
environmental factors, such as early involvement
with antisocial, drug-using people. Indeed, all
these possibilities could play a part.

*Text for this sidebar was recently provided by
the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

**Figures are from an analysis of 1991-93 data
from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse.

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Group Stops Needle Exchange After Leader Is Rearrested (The Bergen Record
says the only AIDS organization openly distributing clean needles to drug
users in New Jersey has decided to stop the practice after its director,
Diana McCague, was arrested Tuesday for the second time.)

Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 18:45:10 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US NJ: Group Stops Needle Exchange After Leader Is Rearrested
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: kewright@erols.com
Source: Bergen Record (NJ)
Contact: newsroom@bergen-record.com
Webform: http://www.bergen.com/cgi-bin/feedback
FAX: (201) 646-4749
Website: http://www.bergen.com/
Pubdate: Thu, 01 Oct 1998
Author: Carol Ann Campbell, Staff Writer

GROUP STOPS NEEDLE EXCHANGE AFTER LEADER IS REARRESTED

The only AIDS organization openly distributing clean needles to drug users
in New Jersey has decided to stop the practice after its director, Diana
McCague, was arrested Tuesday for the second time.

McCague, who flouted New Jersey's drug paraphernalia laws, said her
organization will fight in the courts instead of continuing to hand out
syringes, a practice the organization believes will slow the spread of HIV,
the virus that causes AIDS.

Investigators from the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office arrested
McCague and a colleague, Derick Moore of Clifton, after McCague handed a
packet of syringes to an undercover officer Tuesday night. McCague founded
the Chai Project in 1994. Last year the organization, which operates out of
a van, gave out 48,000 needles to 450 drug users.

"More people in Middlesex County will be infected with AIDS as a result of
this arrest," McCague said. "The government is completely uncompassionate
and is happy to just let people get sick and die. More women and babies
will be at risk because of this."

McCague has been much admired by AIDS activists who believe needle exchange
programs are needed in New Jersey, where the sharing of unclean needles is
the single leading cause of HIV. Unclean needles especially contribute to
the spread of HIV among women and children.

But supporters of needle exchanges faced the formidable opposition of
Governor Whitman, who has long said such programs send out the wrong
message to children, and appear to condone drug use. Whitman has asked her
own Advisory Council on AIDS, which came out in support of needle
exchanges, to drop the issue.

McCague has been open about her organization's continued distribution of
syringes even after her first arrest in 1996. McCague has so far been
unsuccessful in her court appeals to overturn that earlier conviction. She
is now appealing to the New Jersey Supreme Court. There's been no decision
about whether the high court will hear the case.

Middlesex County Assistant Prosecutor Ron Kercado said his office received
no directive from Whitman or Attorney General Peter Verneiro to make an
arrest in this case.

"It was a matter strictly done by Middlesex County prosecutors," Kercado
said. "We have made it a point publicly in the past that if needles are
being distributed it is a violation of the law, and we will take action."

He said he could not comment on the charge that the incidence of AIDS will
now rise in Middlesex County.

"We have said all along that this is not a matter for the prosecutor, but
for the Legislature, to determine," Kercado said. "The courts have said you
cannot distribute needles, no matter how good your intentions."

McCague could face a six-month jail term if convicted, plus a $1,000 fine
and the loss of her driver's license. She has already forfeited her
license, however, because of her first arrest, and that has cost her a job
as a taxi driver. Supporters have donated money to help her pay her bills,
and her attorney, Alan Silber of Weehawken, is defending her for free.

The Senate Health Committee recently approved a bill that would allow for a
three-year, private needle-exchange program, and another bill to allow the
sale of syringes without a prescription. Both bills are awaiting a vote by
the full Senate.

Axel Torres Marrero, director of public policy for the Hyacinth AIDS
Foundation, called the arrest of the Chai workers "unfortunate. . . . In
the face of this epidemic our laws are not responding. Diana believes in
her cause and is trying to save lives."

McCague said the organization will still hand out information about drug
treatment to addicts, as well as condoms and bleach to clean syringes,
which, McCague said, is "better than nothing."

Copyright 1998 Bergen Record Corp.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Hemp Out Of Fashion At Spring Valley High School (The State, a newspaper
in Columbia, South Carolina, says school administrators at Spring Valley High
School have banned necklaces made out of hemp this fall, saying "sources" tie
it to the marijuana drug culture.)

Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 06:41:54 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US SC: Hemp Out Of Fashion At Spring Valley High School
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)
Pubdate: Thursday, 01 Oct 1998
Source: The State (Columbia, SC)
Contact: edcyber@thestate.infi.net
Website: http://www.thestate.com/
Author: Lori D. Roberts, Staff Writer

HEMP OUT OF FASHION AT SPRING VALLEY HIGH SCHOOL

Necklaces made out of hemp twine are no longer welcome at Spring Valley
High School.

Administrators at the Richland 2 school banned the necklaces this fall,
saying "sources" tie it to the marijuana drug culture.

Hemp is made from the stalk of the cannabis plant. Marijuana is made from
the plant's leaves and flowers.

The hemp ban is part of Spring Valley's school's dress code. That code also
bars students from wearing short-shorts or bag-and-sag jeans, and T-shirts
with designs suggestive of drug, tobacco and alcohol use, violence or sex.

The hemp necklace ban has raised the ire of some Spring Valley students.
They say hemp articles are part of a harmless trend, a sign of creative
self-expression, not drug use or endorsement.

"I make my own (hemp necklaces and jewelry)," said Jennifer Treisch, a
15-year-old Spring Valley sophomore, who added she doesn't do drugs. "I
like the look of natural things, and I see hemp as a strong and natural fiber.

"The rule is really ... pointless. I just feel the administration is
focusing more on enforcing rules than on our education."

Steve Bates, executive director of the state American Civil Liberties
Union, agrees. "It's silly. You could smoke it (hemp) all day long and not
get high."

While other Midlands schools ban offensive clothing, no other district
surveyed Monday knew of a similar ban of hemp products. A Richland 2
spokesman said the hemp issue hasn't arisen at Richland Northeast or Ridge
View, the district's two other high schools.

Some see the ban as another indication of ever-tightening public school
discipline.

Various schools encourage uniforms, ban book bags and enforce
zero-tolerance policies for weapons, violence and substance abuse. Most
recently, a Dutch Fork High School student was expelled for bringing a
Swiss Army knife on a JROTC field trip.

"The authoritarian nature of schools is becoming ridiculous," said the
ACLU's Bates. "There seems to be a phenomenon that if we can control every
aspect of students' lives their grades will go up."

`Related to drug activities.'

Hemp does not contain the level of the mind-altering chemical
tetrahydrocannibol (THC) found in the marijuana plant's leaves and buds.

Federal law does not allow hemp to be grown in the United States. But it is
not against the law to use hemp in industrial products, such as hemp
clothing, paper products, soap, rope and fuel. Manufacturers and retailers
of those products rely on hemp imported from other countries.

Hemp has been the subject of controversy across the country, pitting
farmers who want to grow it as a cash crop against law-enforcement
agencies. They argue the push to legalize hemp is really just a smoke
screen to legalize marijuana.

"Even though we know there are other legitimate uses for hemp, we don't
think it is appropriate for school," said Genny White, Spring Valley's
assistant principal.

So far, the hemp ban applies only to necklaces. Students continue to wear
hemp rings, belts and hemp tennis shoes, made by Adidas. Students also use
lip balm made from hemp oil.

White said the school has not banned other hemp products, in part, because
officials can't identify a hemp-fiber shirt, for example.

"The necklace is just pretty obvious," she said. "We don't go looking for
it, but if it's right in front of you, we deal with it."

Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said wearing hemp necklaces is not a
criminal offense. However, school resource officers, deputies placed in
many middle and high schools, are charged with assisting schools in
enforcing dress codes.

"It probably gives the impression that it is somehow related to drug
activities or the drug culture," Lott said of the hemp necklace ban.

That leaders feel that way offends Treisch.

"I feel violated," she said. "I'm being stereotyped as a drug user since I
wear hemp necklaces. I'm not a drug user."

Student Emily Prytherch said the ban is raising an issue many students
hadn't even thought about.

"Everybody wears it, even those people who have never seen drugs," said
Prytherch, also a 15-year-old sophomore.

"They ask, 'What's wrong with it?' If they (the administration) left it
alone, there wouldn't be any problem. They're causing problems by trying to
ban it."

`Really kind of refreshing?'

White said two students appealed the ban to Spring Valley's administrators,
presenting well-thought-out arguments. No other complaints have been heard.

Treisch, one of the students who appealed, said she believes she took a
risk, taking a stand against the policy. But, she said, young people need
to speak up.

"People these days just don't want to stand up for their rights," said
Treisch. "It seems they (adults) think we're just kids who are ... just
going to conform to their rules.

"Well, hemp is an issue I really feel strongly about."

Don McCallister, owner of Loose Lucy's in Five Points, said hemp products
have proven popular at his store.

Hemp twine, the most popular product, costs about $5 for an 80-yard roll,
McCallister said. A finished hemp necklace with beads already on it is less
than $10.

"It's fairly fashionable," McCallister said. "It really does seem to be the
hobby and crafts-making aspects of hemp that make it popular.

"It's really kind of refreshing to see kids wanting to be creative rather
than wanting to just play video games or watch TV."

Copyright 1998 The State.

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DARE And Programs Like It Don't Work - So Why Are They Still Around?
(A Letter To The Editor Of 'Playboy' Recounts The Failures
Of The Government's Favorite Drug-Education Boondoggle,
And Why It Doesn't Work)

Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1998 04:37:18 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: DARE and Programs Like It Don't Work
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: The Media Awareness Project of DrugSense
Source: Playboy magazine
Section: The Playboy Forum
Pubdate: October, 1998
Contact: forum@playboy.com
FAX: (312) 951-2939
Mail: The Playboy Forum Reader Response, PLAYBOY, 680 North Shore Drive,
Chicago, IL 60611
Author: Chip Rowe

DARE AND PROGRAMS LIKE IT DON'T WORK - SO WHY ARE THEY STILL AROUND?

JUST SAY NO

The job of keeping kids ignorant is big business. Consider the popularity
of "just say no" programs that claim to prevent students from taking drugs.
Numerous studies have shown they don't work. That hasn't stopped the
government from wasting billions of dollars to fund them.

The federal government allocates about $2 billion annually to youth drug-
and violence-prevention programs (the total cost, including state, local
and private funding, has been estimated at $8 billion). This past July, the
government launched a taxpayer-funded, $1 billion "just say no" advertising
campaign. President Clinton announced the campaign at a United Nations
special session that pushed the theme "A Drug-Free World: We Can Do It."
Actually, we can't. The war against drugs has failed miserably, in large
part because it is punitive, racist and overly broad. The imbalance is as
obvious as it is tragic. Only a third of the $17 billion Clinton pledged
for the war on drugs in his UN speech will be used to help addicts. The
rest will be parceled out to law enforcement.

Prohibition has become a mantra among those in power, to the exclusion of
all other strategies. Yet studies have shown that abstinence programs aimed
at youth, such as Drug Abuse Resistance Education, have no long-term
effect. That hardly matters. Buoyed by the Drug-Free Schools and
Communities Act of 1986, which requires schools to launch zero-tolerance
programs if they want federal funds, DARE has achieved incredible status.
By its own accounting, the program reaches 26 million children in 75
percent of the nation's schools. It also has been exported to 44 countries.

DARE began as a police action. In 1983, Daryl Gates, then chief of the Los
Angeles Police Department, sought a way to prevent drug crimes in schools.
DARE sent its first ten officers to 50 schools. Today, the group boasts
that its instructors receive "special training in areas such as child
development, classroom management, teaching techniques and communication
skills." How much training? About two weeks' worth, after which the police
officer provides his services as a teacher, psychologist, counselor and
drug expert.

Armed with a teaching manual from DARE America (the nonprofit organization
that administers the curriculum), the uniformed officer visits a school
each week for four months to instruct fifth- or sixth-graders on personal
safety, assertiveness, self-esteem, "managing stress" (a principal reason
kids take drugs, according to DARE) and the dangers of mind-altering
substances, including alcohol and tobacco. The students take time from
their reading, writing and math lessons to organize skits, watch videos and
complete assignments in their DARE workbooks. The officer also encourages
students to submit written questions. Inquiries such as "Why do my parents
smoke marijuana after I go to bed?" are forwarded to authorities at the
cop's discretion.

The problem with "just say no" education is the same one that has plagued
drug propaganda since Congress approved the Harrison Narcotics Act in 1914:
It doesn't survive a reality check. Abstinence education preaches that all
drug use constitutes abuse, all drugs are equally dangerous, lifetime
abstinence is a realistic goal and recreational drugs such as marijuana
serve as gateways to narcotics. It claims to teach kids to make decisions,
but dictates the correct decision and punishes those who make any other
choice. If a student is caught experimenting, he or she is kicked out of
school as part of a zero-tolerance sensibility. The kids who most need help
making decisions about drugs, even the straight-A students, are ostracized.

The most harmful effect of "just say no" may be the damage it does to the
credibility of teachers and parents. When students first try
"mind-altering" marijuana, they quickly discover it doesn't make them ill
or lead them into a spiral of addiction (if they watch the news, they must
wonder why some sick people smoke marijuana to feel better). Teenagers
learn through experience that adults spout hyperbole and distort by
omission on the topic of drugs. As a result, useful distinctions may not be
made. In the introduction to Buzzed: The Straight Facts About the Most Used
and Abused Drugs From Alcohol to Ecstasy, the psychologist and two
pharmacologists who compiled the book offer this example: "Not too long
ago, it was widely reported that a well-known basketball player, Len Bias,
died after he used cocaine. This story has been used repeatedly to
illustrate the dangers of cocaine. However, most people who use cocaine do
not die as a result, and cocaine users and their friends certainly know it.
If horror stories are the principal tools of drug education, it does not
take long for people to recognize that such accounts do not represent the
whole truth."

Copyright (c)1998 Playboy Enterprises, Inc.

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Drug-Free Schools - Federal Failures Prove Case For Oversight (A staff
editorial in The Sacramento Bee discusses the Safe and Drug-Free Schools and
Communities Act, which has cost $6 billion during the last decade. The US
Department of Education only last July began requiring school districts to
spend federal anti-drug money on programs backed by research. A task force of
18 national experts is now working to define for the Department of Education
just what "research-based" and "effective" mean when it comes to anti-drug
and anti-violence programs.)

Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 15:23:47 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US CA: OPED: Drug-Free Schools:
Federal Failures Prove Case
For Oversight
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: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Contact 1: opinion@sacbee.com
Contact 2: http://www.sacbee.com/about_us/sacbeemail.html
Website: http://www.sacbee.com/
Pubdate: Thu, 01 Oct 1998

DRUG-FREE SCHOOLS: FEDERAL FAILURES PROVE CASE FOR OVERSIGHT

More than a decade and $6 billion after Congress began funding the Safe and
Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act, the U.S. Department of Education only
last July began requiring school districts to spend federal anti-drug money
on programs backed by research.

A task force of 18 national experts is now working to define for the
Department of Education just what "research-based" and "effective" mean when
it comes to anti-drug and anti-violence programs.

The long-overdue exercise comes only after a shocking waste of money on
programs that have had little effect on either school safety or drug use.
The programs, as described in Sunday's Forum section, range from purchase of
metal detectors designed to keep guns off campus to anti-drug "edutainment"
by free-lance puppeteers and motivational speakers, to fishing trips and
drug-free party kits.

In a well-meaning nod to local control, school districts were given free
rein to spend the anti-drug money as they thought best. But few educators
are equipped to examine the hundreds of anti-drug programs on the market,
and few teachers are trained in effective delivery of the anti-drug message,
let alone in counseling young substance abusers.

Some districts qualified for as little as $200 of the federal funding --
hardly enough to justify the paperwork involved.

And nobody was monitoring whether the programs local districts chose were
useless, or even did more harm than good. Given how the federal program was
structured, it's no wonder money was used in some questionable, if not
ridiculous, ways.

That the Safe and Drug-Free Schools Act has so far proved to be a national
embarrassment should serve as a cautionary tale for other untested school
programs now being pushed for their political appeal.

Whether a policy is about social programs or social promotion, it should be
judged on outcomes, not popular notions of what might seem to work. School
districts should be given flexibility to pick programs that fit local needs,
but then should be held accountable for results.

The tale of the federal drug-free schools effort is also useful as a
reminder that public money aimed at solving social problems should be
targeted for use where problems are known to exist.

Spreading money in a thin veneer over every school district in the land
leaves not enough for those districts that need the most help.

The challenge now is not to scrap the anti-drug program altogether because
of its misguided past, but to target those federal dollars to the districts
that most need it. Those districts should be given a choice only among a
list of programs with a successful track record.

Research so far shows the most effective programs teach kids how to
skillfully handle all sorts of relationships with others -- those "life
skills" that help us survive difficult situations and painful emotions
without resorting to drugs, alcohol or violence.

Those skills are tough to teach, especially to children who have few adults
around to model them successfully. But surely dollars focused in that
direction would do more to help kids than puppets that just say no.

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US Probes Agents Named By Mexican Drug Suspect (According To 'Reuters,'
The US Justice Department Said Thursday It Had Begun An Investigation
Into Why The Names And Telephone Numbers Of Three Of Its Agents -
From The FBI, The Drug Enforcement Administration, And The Customs Service -
Plus A Number Of Mexican Federal Law Enforcement Officers, Including Members
Of An Elite Anti-Drug Unit, Were Listed In The Notebook Of A Suspected
Mexican Drug Trafficker)

From: "W.H.E.N. - Bob Owen" (when@olywa.net)
To: "-News" (when@hemp.net)
Subject: U.S. Probes Agents Named By Mexican Drug Suspect
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 20:27:21 -0700
Sender: owner-when@hemp.net

Thursday, October 1, 1998

U.S. Probes Agents Named By Mexican Drug Suspect

WASHINGTON--The United States has begun an investigation into why the names
and telephone numbers of three of its agents were listed in the notebook of
a suspected Mexican drug trafficker, the Justice Department said Thursday.

"We are looking at those agents," Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder
told a news conference.

The notebook contained the names of U.S. agents from the FBI, the Drug
Enforcement Administration and the Customs Service, plus a number of Mexican
federal law enforcement officers, including members of an elite anti-drug
unit.

The names were found on documents seized during a raid in June on the
suspected drug trafficker's operation in the Mexican resort city of Cancun.

Asked if the U.S. agents would have to take lie-detector tests like the
Mexican agents did, Holder replied, "It is my expectation that we would
treat them the same way we treat our Mexican partners."

Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All Rights Reserved