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Yes on Initiative 692, medical marijuana (A staff editorial
in The Seattle Times says the ballot measure puts an intensely private
medical decision in the hands of those who know what's best
for their health - doctors and patients.)

From: "Bob Owen@W.H.E.N." (when@olywa.net)
To: "-News" (when@hemp.net)
Subject: Yes on Initiative 692 (medical marijuana)
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 10:10:04 -0700
Sender: owner-when@hemp.net

Copyright (c) 1998 The Seattle Times Company

Posted at 06:48 p.m. PDT; Sunday, October 18, 1998

Seattle Times Editorial
Yes on Initiative 692 (medical marijuana)

SHOULD patients with terminal illnesses or debilitating pain be allowed to
smoke marijuana prescribed by their doctors without fear of criminal
prosecution?

That is the question posed by Initiative 692. Voters should say yes to this
responsible and compassionate measure that puts an intensely private medical
decision in the hands of those who know what's best for their health:
doctors and patients.

Last fall, voters wisely rejected Initiative 685, a sweeping drug-policy
reform measure that would have revised penalties for drug possession and
allowed medical use of marijuana - as well as many other controlled
substances such as LSD and heroin. The message sent by I-685's overwhelming
defeat: Keep it simple, keep it narrow, and ensure the safe prescription of
pot strictly for pain relief.

The new and improved measure before voters this year is a model for other
states. First, I-692 deals with medical marijuana only - not an entire class
of drugs. It clearly prohibits the use of marijuana for non-medical
purposes. Licensed, certified physicians must authorize and provide valid
documentation that the potential benefits of medical marijuana outweigh the
risks for a qualifying patient. Tightly drawn criteria for qualifying
patients must be met. The patient must have a terminal or debilitating
medical condition defined as cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy,
glaucoma, or intractable pain unrelievable by any other standard medical
treatment.

New medical conditions can be added only with approval of the Washington
state Medical Quality Assurance Board.

To address legitimate concerns about "sending the wrong message to kids,"
there are strong safeguards in place against the open, circus-like
atmosphere of cannabis clubs in California. The measure explicitly forbids
public use or display of medical marijuana, makes it a class C felony to
fake medical documentation, and does not allow medical-marijuana use to be a
defense against reckless driving.

The initiative is silent on how doctors and patients will obtain the
prescribed drug. Many will simply continue to subscribe to an existing
nonprofit medical marijuana network, the acclaimed Green Cross Patient Co-op
on Bainbridge Island, which provides controlled, doctor-supervised supplies
to patients with spinal cord injuries, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and cancer.
I-692 would remove the wink-and-nod law-enforcement climate under which the
network currently operates. The state Legislature should persist in
bipartisan efforts to work with Green Cross and secure research funding for
a state-sponsored distribution system.

Illicit drug use is a serious problem. But a narrow class of sick people
should not be held hostage by inflexible, tough-on-crime policy. I-692 would
free suffering patients from the threat of jail, giving them compassionate
respite to worry about their finances, their families, and their futures.

***

When away, you can STOP and RESTART W.H.E.N.'s news clippings by sending an
e-mail to majordomo@hemp.net. Ignore the Subject: line. In the body put
"unsubscribe when" to STOP. To RESTART, put "subscribe when" in the e-mail
instead (No quotation marks.)

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Oakland Rally - Monday 3-6 PM (A bulletin from California NORML
invites supporters of medical-marijuana patients' rights to protest
against the US government for shutting down the Oakland Cannabis
Buyers' Cooperative.)

Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 23:40:16 -0800
To: dpfca@drugsense.org
From: canorml@igc.apc.org (Dale Gieringer)
Subject: DPFCA: Oakland Rally - Mon. 3-6 PM
Sender: owner-dpfca@drugsense.org
Reply-To: dpfca@drugsense.org
Organization: DrugSense http://www.drugsense.org/dpfca/

There will be a rally in support of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers
Cooperative today, Monday Oct. 19th, 3pm-5pm. Barring a stay from the 9th
District Court of Appeals, the club will be turning its keys over to the US
Marshalls, while members and supporters re-organize to continue providing
access to medical marijuana to needy pateitns in Oakland and elsewhere.
The rally will take place at 1755 Broadway, between 19th and 18th, near the
19th St. BART station.

Please show your support - be peaceful, non-violent, and insistent!

***

Dale Gieringer (415) 563-5858 // canorml@igc.apc.org
2215-R Market St. #278, San Francisco CA 94114

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Only California Uses Deadly Force in Inmate Fights (A lengthy examination
in The Los Angeles Times of a unique phenomenon in California - prisoners
being killed in order to break up inmate fights. Since 1994, state prison
guards breaking up brawls have killed 12 inmates and seriously injured 32.
In the rest of the nation, only six inmates were fatally shot, all while
trying to escape.)

Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 16:58:56 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US CA: LAT: Only California Uses Deadly Force in Inmate Fights
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Jim Rosenfield
Pubdate: Sun, 18 Oct 1998
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 1998 Los Angeles Times
Contact: letters@latimes.com
Fax: 213-237-4712
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Author: Mark Arax, Mark Gladstone, Times Staff Writers

ONLY CALIFORNIA USES DEADLY FORCE IN INMATE FIGHTS

Since 1994, state prison guards breaking up brawls have killed 12 and
seriously injured 32. In rest of nation, only six inmates were fatally
shot, all while trying to escape. Despite efforts to cut down on
prison shootings, guards in California continue to kill and wound
inmates engaged in fistfights and melees, a practice unheard of in
every other state.

Since late 1994, when the Department of Corrections shooting policy
came under criticism for its role in widespread inmate deaths, 12
prisoners have been shot dead and 32 wounded by guards firing assault
rifles to stop fights.

In all other states combined, statistics and interviews show, only six
inmates were fatally shot by guards in the same period--all of them
while trying to escape. In no other state do guards shoot at inmate
fighters, choosing instead to break up brawls and melees with pepper
spray, tactical teams or warning shots.

Even in Texas, a state whose sprawling prison system is often compared
to California's for its hard-nosed tactics and violent gangs,
correctional officers shot and killed only one inmate--an
escapee--during the past four years.

None of California's 12 recent fatal shootings took place at Corcoran
State Prison, where seven inmates were shot dead from 1989 to 1994,
making it at the time the deadliest prison in America.

The 44 fatal and serious shootings since late 1994 have occurred at
maximum security prisons up and down the state. Only one of the
inmates was armed with a weapon or was inflicting serious injury at
the time the fatal shot was fired, a Times review of the cases has
found. No corrections officer was facing peril, and not a single
inmate was attempting to escape.

More than three-quarters of the shootings were deemed proper by
Department of Corrections review boards.

Only three gunners received any form of discipline--two were given
reprimands and one served a 180-day suspension.

"Shooting to break up a fight is something you never see outside of
California. It just doesn't occur," said Lanson Newsome, a former
deputy commissioner of Georgia state corrections and now a consultant
who has reviewed dozens of California prison shootings.

"Fistfights can be stopped very easily and are stopped all over the
country without deadly force.

"In the vast majority of cases in California, there's really no excuse
for shooting. It's just the way they've been trained." State
corrections director Cal Terhune said the 12 fatal shootings and 32
injuries, although disturbing, represent a sharp drop from a few years
earlier when Corcoran, Pelican Bay, Old Folsom and Tehachapi prisons
were convulsed with fights and gunshots.

>From 1989 to late 1994, according to official figures, correctional
officers in California killed 24 inmates and wounded 175 statewide,
many of these shootings during fistfights and other altercations in
which no inmates wielded weapons.

Terhune, who took over the top job in 1997, cites revisions in the
official shooting policy and better training for the declining numbers
over the last four years. "I am very pleased in the direction that
it's gone. We're going to continue to push, through alternatives and
training, to really make the use of lethal force the absolute minimum,
as a last resort," he said.

"Unfortunately, we are doing it at absolutely the worst time. We've
had an upturn in gang activities, skirmishes. So far we've been lucky.
. . . If we can keep the killings down--both inmate-on-inmate and our
own shootings during this particular time--it's going to be a pretty
good test." California is one of a handful of states in which guards
carry high-powered rifles inside maximum security units. Most states
limit firearms to a few guard towers that ring a prison.

Corrections officials cite the singular nature of California's vast
and complex system--33 prisons with 159,000 inmates, many of them
rival gang members--as rationale for gunner posts inside the units.
They contend that the uniquely violent nature of California prison
gangs compels them to use deadly force on occasion.

Moreover, the state's prison guard union contends that guns are a
necessary equalizer in a prison system that has one of the lowest
officer-to-inmate ratios in the nation.

But critics say that prison guards have used their guns far too often.
They maintain that changes in shooting practices--changes that the
state undertook in 1994 amid newspaper reports and an FBI
investigation of one shooting--have not gone nearly far enough. They
say the continued practice of shooting and killing inmates to prevent
fights from turning deadly is illogical and runs counter to the
methods of every other state.

The practice has resulted in numerous lawsuits costing California
taxpayers at least $6 million in legal fees and damage awards since
1994.

"The other states have found a way to protect officer safety and yet
at the same time prevent the taking of life," said James Chanin, a
Berkeley attorney who won a $300,000 settlement from the state on
behalf of the victim's family in a 1993 prison shooting death.

"It's too high a price, both in dollars and in lives." In the wake of
recent state legislative hearings that focused on allegations of
brutality and official cover-up at Corcoran, The Times examined dozens
of inmate shootings beyond the walls of the San Joaquin Valley prison
and interviewed lawyers, shooting experts and corrections officials in
every region of the country. The review of California shootings over
the past decade shows that guards may not be setting up rival inmates
to fight as they did in Corcoran, but the end result is often the same.

Deadly force is used to break up fights and melees that haven't turned
deadly.

A Death in Salinas Like so many of the recent incidents, the events
leading to the death of inmate Mark Anthony Perez in February seemed
routine. Perez, a 25-year-old San Jose man convicted of assault with a
deadly weapon, was fighting in a tiny recreation yard at Salinas
Valley State Prison.

His opponent, Darren Halliwell, was bigger and stronger. Halliwell had
already shaken off the blows of another inmate wielding a sharp
object. That inmate had left the scene and it was just Halliwell and
Perez, neither landing anything close to a knockout, according to the
Monterey County district attorney's office and inmate witnesses.

Then came a shout to stop fighting and a warning shot of nonlethal
wood blocks fired by an officer in the control booth above. Before the
officer could discharge a second warning round, a gunner in a nearby
tower fired the fatal bullet.

The district attorney cleared that gunner of any wrongdoing even
though he had fired while the other officer had control of the scene.

"My test is a simple one," said Assistant Dist. Atty.

Terry Spitz. "Could I convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt [that
the gunner] had no basis for believing he had to act to defend
Halliwell? Under that standard, a jury would never return a verdict of
guilty. That's not to say if you look at it from a civil standard, a
jury would not find differently." Perez's family is pursuing a civil
lawsuit.

"Why did he shoot? They were just fighting. They were just punching
each other," Emma Perez, the victim's widow, said. "These guns are
shoot-to-kill guns, not guns to stop someone from fighting. The bullet
just shattered my husband's leg bone. The coroner said it was like a
snowstorm inside." Many of the 44 fatal and serious shootings since
1994, like the Perez incident, took place in recreation yards or
housing units built with special features that allow guards almost
complete control.

Inside these high-security units, every movement to and from a cell is
monitored, and guards perform complete body checks for homemade weapons.

Such control, experts say, should reduce the need for deadly force. In
other states, these units are the settings in which guards utilize
nonlethal measures such as batons, pepper spray and tear gas.

"Shooting at inmates involved in a fistfight sounds a little
farfetched," said Chas Simmons, a research analyst for the Alabama
Department of Corrections.

"You wouldn't do it if you were working for the police department or
the sheriff's office. And if you're shooting real bullets, make no
mistake, you're trying to kill them." Many states, including Alabama,
Texas, Mississippi, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio, respond
to prison violence by employing emergency response teams specially
trained to break up inmate fights. A few states, such as New York,
have shot at inmate fighters in years past but only in the most dire
situations, such as during a deadly stabbing.

"We have found a way to be effective without shooting at inmates,"
said Pam Pattison of the Indiana corrections system. "We always fire a
warning shot first. Then we send in emergency response teams with
radios and pepper spray." "We tell inmates to stop, and if they don't,
we send in a team and pull them off each other," said Joe Andrews of
the Ohio corrections department, which houses 50,000 inmates, the
fifth-largest number in the country. "We've never had an officer
killed, and I can't recall any [officers] who were severely injured
while breaking up a fight." Although California guards are also
equipped with radios, batons and pepper spray, they often shoot before
summoning emergency response teams and exhausting less-lethal options,
corrections officials concede.

Part of the problem is rooted in a shooting practice that varies from
prison to prison. All of California's 26 maximum security lockups are
supposed to adhere to a single state policy that allows deadly force
only as a "last resort," after guards have considered or tried other
"reasonable and available" means to stop a fight.

But The Times found that several prisons cling to their own
conflicting practices.

At Salinas Valley and Pleasant Valley, officers have failed to employ
or consider less lethal options before firing deadly shots at fighting
inmates, according to official incident reports. At other prisons,
such as Corcoran and Pelican Bay, firing a deadly shot is now all but
forbidden unless an inmate is escaping or endangering staff.

It is state policy for guards to issue a verbal command to stop
fighting and then to fire a wood or rubber block warning shot. If the
fight continues and one inmate poses "imminent great bodily harm" to
another, gunners are trained to chamber a real bullet and fire at the
aggressor's torso.

But a breakdown of shootings over the past decade reveals that
imminent great bodily harm means different things to different guards.
Many officers have responded with deadly force even in the absence of
inmate weapons or injury. Some gunners didn't fire a warning shot
before the fatal shot.

And despite a state policy that every shot must be a "clear shot,"
gunners routinely fired into a tangle of combatants. In at least 10
cases over the past decade, The Times found, the bullet missed the
intended target and killed or injured the wrong inmate.

"One of the things we needed to stress more in training was you have
to have a clear shot," said Steve Cambra, a deputy director for state
corrections. "Obviously, we didn't stress that enough because we've
had too many situations where the officer has hit a victim." Until
recently, there has been little incentive to change. None of the 24
fatal shootings from 1989 to late 1994 was found to be improper by
department review boards, The Times found. Over the past four years,
in the face of media scrutiny and an ongoing federal investigation,
four of the 12 fatal shootings and six of the injuries have been ruled
"not in compliance." Despite this new willingness to judge the
shootings critically, the department's discipline has amounted to the
two reprimands and suspension since late 1994.

And not a single gunner has been prosecuted by a local district
attorney's office.

The Past Becomes the Future Guards in California prisons added
firepower after the rise of militant black inmates and prison gangs in
the 1960s and '70s. At Soledad and San Quentin, guards and inmates
alike were thrown off tiers, stabbed and killed during major riots.

Like war, the battles spawned myth and shaped the thinking of many
officers who would later assume command of the Corrections Department.
And it colored the rhetoric of a clique of guards who would go on to
build a union, the California Correctional Peace Officers Assn., into
one of the most powerful political forces in the state.

The violence reinforced the view that prison gangs in California were
a more virulent strain, that guards needed to be armed and that
prisons needed to be designed with a new architecture--one that
promised absolute control.

"One of the founding tenets in this [new] design was that the
firepower was part of the design," said Terhune. "And because of the
design and the firepower, it enables [the department] to reduce the
staffing." Before Corcoran and Pelican Bay opened in 1989 and 1990,
California concentrated its most violent and problem inmates inside
high-security units at the California Correctional Institute at Tehachapi.

As part of state policy designed to make rival prisoners get along,
guards began mixing enemy gang members into the same small exercise
yards. Into this mix were thrown ex-gang members and small-time
criminals sent to Tehachapi's administrative discipline units for
minor transgressions, including filing complaints about poor prison
conditions, according to accounts from inside the prison.

The integrated yard policy at Tehachapi backfired. It baited sworn
enemies into repeated fights and endangered former gang members who
were promised protection for telling their secrets. The fights brought
a kind of siege mentality to the prison.

Guards soon began shooting at rival inmates engaged in
fistfights.

Four inmates were shot and killed at Tehachapi from 1989 to 1993,
according to official reports.

One was involved in a small melee, and three others were engaged in
stand-up fistfights in which no warning shots were fired, no weapons
were found and no inmates had inflicted any serious injuries. The
bullets that killed them were designed not to exit the body but to
explode on impact.

Vincent Eugene Durham, a 23-year-old Los Angeles native, had been
imprisoned for grand theft and was six months shy of his April 1992
release date when he was gunned down in a fistfight.

"You mean to tell me all the guards in that prison can't break up two
guys fighting?" asked his uncle, Willie Fields. "If you have to use
pepper spray or batons, fine. Anything short of shooting and killing.

"It was like that guard took aim on an animal. Just like he was
hunting. Aimed at his head, his temple, and fired." Like Tehachapi's
other shootings, the department's review board found that the gunner
had justifiable cause to kill Durham.

Shootings Draw Controversy After the security housing unit with its
problem inmates shifted from Tehachapi to Corcoran, so did the
violence. From 1989 to 1994, seven inmates were fatally shot and 43
wounded by guards firing rifles into exercise yards at Corcoran.

A few disgruntled Corcoran staffers decided in 1992 they would try
something new to break up the fights: "We sent a team to respond to a
fight and no one got hurt and we resolved the conflict without
discharging a firearm," recalled Steve Rigg, a former lieutenant who
revealed abuses at Corcoran to the FBI. "The higher-ups in Sacramento
heard about it and said, 'You will not do that again. You will not put
staff in jeopardy.' "That became a turning point. The Corcoran way of
quelling violence--shooting first and then asking questions--became
the state's way." Throughout the early to mid-1990s, Calipatria State
Prison, amid the farm fields of Imperial Valley, nearly matched
Corcoran with 22 fatal and serious shootings.

In September 1993, a 29-year-old drug violator named Robert Moore
became embroiled in a fistfight with his cellmate, according to the
state's account. The two men initially heeded an officer's warning to
stop fighting; then Moore resumed his attack. The gunner fired a
warning shot followed by a fatal shot that struck Moore in the neck,
fragments of bone and bullet slicing through the main artery in his
heart.

The state shooting review board cleared the gunner and determined that
he killed Moore by mistake, intending only to disable him. Moore's
mother sued, arguing that the 9-millimeter bullet was deadly by
design. The officer had fired even though Moore wasn't wielding a
weapon or inflicting great bodily harm. She won an out-of-court
settlement for $300,000.

In late 1994, with the deaths and lawsuits mounting, the state's
shooting practices came under harsh attack in a series of articles in
the Orange County Register. The FBI had already launched a probe into
one fatal shooting at Corcoran. This was followed by a far-reaching
federal court opinion in 1995 that found that state prison policies
"promoted the use of lethalforce" in 20 fatal and serious shootings at
Pelican Bay State Prison.

Under pressure, corrections officials conceded that the state policy
on deadly force was vague and poorly written and that officers were
unclear on what constituted great bodily harm.

Some guards were told by supervisors that a wound that required seven
stitches qualified; others were told that if one fighter carried a
weapon as small as an ordinary staple, that would dictate the use of a
firearm.

As part of the conflicting standards, some prisons had issued gas guns
that fired wood blocks as a way to stop fistfights without deadly
force. Other wardens sneered at the new weapon.

"We went through the shooting policy and tweaked it," Cambra said. "We
changed our training, used more situational-based scenarios . . .
changed the lesson plan. And [we] stressed putting the [gas gun] in
the control booth to give the officer a less than lethal alternative."
Signs of Change Cambra and director Terhune said the downturn in
fatal and serious shootings during the past four years is proof of the
department's more restrained approach. Of the 12 fatal shootings since
late 1994, four involved inmates engaged in fistfights, seven happened
during melees and one during a riot.

Although the numbers have come down, California still stands alone in
its readiness to use deadly force.

Other states rarely consider the use of deadly force even in larger
melees and riots with weapons.

"We run a different kind of system than California," said Jim Flateau
of the New York Department of Corrections. "We have many officers down
in the yard, and they will break up a fight. If an inmate has a
weapon, our officers can and do fire warning shots, and inmates almost
always comply." Martin Horn, head of the Pennsylvania Department of
Corrections, said he hesitated to second-guess California because each
prison population presents its own challenges.

"If an inmate has a [knife], we will isolate and contain it without
the use of a firearm," Horn said.

"Breaking up fights, that's part of what an officer gets paid to do
here. Some of our officers do get hurt, but we have a relatively small
number of inmate-on-inmate assaults." In Texas, second only to
California with 144,000 inmates, deadly force is almost always
reserved for inmates attempting to escape.

"We use gas and human teams to quell [riots]," said Larry Todd of the
Texas Department of Corrections.

"Routine fights, of which we have plenty, are broken up with the
use-of-force teams or an abundance of pepper spray." A Riot at New
Folsom No one disputes that what took place at New Folsom prison on
Sept. 27, 1996, was a riot between Latino and black inmates armed with
knives and other homemade weapons. Scores of fighters in the main
exercise yard refused to heed verbal and gunshot warnings. When it was
over, one Latino inmate lay dead and four black inmates were wounded.

At a glance, it would seem the riot was just the sort of spasm that
would warrant the use of deadly force.

But lawyers representing the injured prisoners and the family of the
dead inmate, Victor Flores, say an examination of the shooting reveals
numerous missteps by officers.

According to deposition testimony in an ongoing civil case, prison
supervisors were warned about the likelihood of racial violence that
morning but failed to intervene. One reason is they were busy planning
a retirement dinner for an associate warden. Any warning of impending
violence, the attorneys contend, should have shut down the recreation
yard that day.

If the 22-year-old Flores was wielding a weapon during the fighting,
it was nowhere to be found when the gunner took aim. Flores had not
only ceased trading blows with any black inmates, but he was in a
prostrate position when the fatal shot rang out, according to his attorneys.

They point to an autopsy report, which shows the bullet entering
Flores' buttock and lodging in his midsection, as proof that he was
lying on the ground.

The officer who fired said Flores was crouched slightly but still
moving quickly toward the backs of other guards. Fearing harm, he
decided to fire a shot to disable Flores.

Prison officials waited several months before notifying the Sacramento
County district attorney's office of the fatal shooting. Prosecutors
investigated the incident and concluded that the gunner had reason to
assume that Flores carried a weapon and was rushing toward officers,
even though no weapon was found.

A corrections review board, 17 months after the incident, determined
that the shooting failed to comply with department policy. Director
Terhune, however, decided against any discipline.

In a letter to the gunner, then-acting Warden Suzan Hubbard said she
empathized with his difficult job: "I am pleased to advise you that
after much scrutiny . . . no adverse personnel action will be taken."
Questions and Deaths Continue No prison over the past two years has
used more deadly force than High Desert in Susanville. The
$273-million state-of-the-art facility below the juniper- and
sage-covered mountains in Lassen County is one of the most beleaguered
in the state.

Three wardens have come and gone since the prison opened two years
ago. The new warden still lacks the resources for job training and
vocational programs that help hold down violence at other prisons.
Nearly half the 4,100 inmates are given nothing to do and lack even
pencils to write family. The prison spends weeks at a time in 24-hour
lock-down.

Critics say the prison's insistence on mixing sworn enemy gangs into a
single exercise yard--the same integration policy that tore apart
Tehachapi and Corcoran--has led to racial warfare. Guards have shot
and killed three inmates and wounded 11 in six shootings since 1996.

Inmates and lawyers representing the victims allege that the prison
officers set up Corcoran-style fights and larger melees, and then use
the violence as an excuse to gun down inmates. The state denies it,
and the FBI has been investigating.

The state's most recent fatal prison shooting took place in May when a
guard at Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga gunned down a
convicted drug dealer during the welter of a dining hall melee.

Octavio Orozco, 23, was not among the initial fighters but was helping
other Latino inmates kick a downed black inmate before he was struck
in the head by a .223-caliber bullet, according to an official
incident report.

No warning shot was fired, and no weapon was found on Orozco or any of
the other half-dozen fighters. The black inmate whose life was said to
be in danger--the gunner's reason for firing the deadly shot--had no
serious injuries.

"Octavio died for nothing," said his sister Maria Orozco, one of eight
siblings who grew up in Pomona and Baldwin Park.

"I asked one of the officers, 'Is it your procedure to shoot prisoners
in the head when they're fighting?' He said, 'No, we were trying to
disable him. It was meant to hit him in the shoulder.' " Some top
corrections officials acknowledge that certain prisons, including High
Desert and Salinas Valley, remain hot spots for questionable shootings
and that some wardens still hesitate to utilize emergency response
teams.

Over the past year, Terhune has dispatched deputy director Cambra to
prisons throughout the state to underscore that bullets are a last
resort.

"I'm trying to go around to all of them," Cambra said. He said in his
visits he underscores the importance of supervisors sitting down with
officers and reviewing, point by point, past shootings. That is
"probably better training than two hours of classroom instruction."
Don Novey, president of the prison guards union, says the state should
double its academy training for new correctional officers from six
weeks to 12 weeks. "I don't think we have near enough firepower
training in life-and-death situations. It's way behind the curve."
Although Novey acknowledges that side-handle batons and pepper spray
can be effective weapons in breaking up inmate fights, he says the
size and violent makeup of California prisons dictate the use of guns.
He points out that in an effort to save money, California operates its
prisons with fewer guards than other states--but arms them.

"How else are you going to control 4,000 to 5,000 inmates with the
leanest staffing ratio in the nation?" he said. "Most inmates know
that a weapon is up there for their protection too. If that officer
doesn't quell the disturbance, there are going to be several people
stabbed." He said that if the shootings do raise questions, such as
the 1994 killing of a Corcoran inmate that prompted the FBI probe,
guards are the victims of bad policy. "We match up well with the FBI,
and they damn well know it. We've never had a Waco or a Ruby Ridge in
our prison system." The Orozco shooting, as well as the fatal shooting
of Perez this year at Salinas Valley, is still under review by the
Department of Corrections.

For years, officials concede, the internal review boards that judged
fatal shootings were rubber stamps consisting of high-ranking officers
who often worked at the same prison where the shootings took place. If
a gunner said certain key words--that he saw the "glint" of a weapon
or the "slashing" motion of an inmate--it was enough for the review
board to clear the shooting, even if no weapon was found.

Cambra said that is changing. Review boards, no longer stacked with
insiders, are now finding more officers in violation of policy. But
critics say the department continues to shy away from punishing
gunners who have crossed the line.

"The fact that the department has ruled a shooting outside of policy
has no deterrent effect if you're not going to punish the officer,"
said John Scott, a San Francisco attorney who has sued the Department
of Corrections in two wrongful death and injury cases.

"If you want to know why an officer can shoot and kill someone and
still be promoted, you need to look at the power of the prison guard
union and its legions of lawyers. The department just doesn't want to
take them on in disciplinary matters," Scott said.

Director Terhune denies that the union has a say-so in discipline, but
he agrees that his department needs to do more to cut down on fatal
and serious shootings. Toward that goal, he continues to test less
lethal options such as water cannons to break up fights.

"It's possible you could get it down to zero," he said. "We may find
something that is totally nonlethal but still manages to control . . .
major disturbances. It's possible you could get it down to zero, but
there would be a lot of [inmate-on-inmate] fatalities."

* * *

Danger Zone

The following compares figures for the state's prison system with
those for the rest of the country.

12 Fighting inmates shot to death by California prison guards since late
1994.

6 Inmates shot to death by prison guards in all other states since 1994.

0 Inmates shot to death in California while trying to escape.

6 Inmates shot to death in all other states while trying to escape.

32 Inmates wounded by California prison guards since late 1994.

Sources: State Corrections Department, Corrections Compendium

Shootings of Inmates

Since late 1994, when the Department of Corrections' shooting policy first
came under harsh criticism for its role in widespread inmate deaths, 12 more
prisoners have been fatally shot by guards while fighting. Here is a
breakdown of those 12 incidents by institution.

(1) Pelican Bay State Prison Dead: 1 Sept. 21, 1994: Roger White, 27,
shot in head during a fight between two inmates in which White was wielding
a steak knife. Warning shot fired.

(2) High Desert State Prison Dead: 3 Feb. 4, 1998: David Soloman Torres,
29, shot in lower back during a melee involving 18 inmates. Warning shot
fired.

Dec. 26, 1997: John Pruitt, 29, shot in buttock during melee involving 30
inmates. Warning shots fired.

June 19, 1996: Refugio Ruano, 32, shot in head during melee involving
22 inmates. Warning shot fired.

(3) California State Prison (New Folsom) Dead: 1 Sept. 27, 1996: Victor
Flores, 22, shot at the end of a riot involving 200 inmates, after which 56
knives were found. Flores was not carrying a weapon. Warning shot fired.

(4) San Quentin State Prison Dead: 1 Sept. 30, 1994: Timothy Price Pride,
40, fatally shot in chest during a death row fistfight. Warning shot fired.

(5) Salinas Valley State Prison Dead: 1 Feb. 21, 1998: Mark Anthony Perez,
25, shot in leg during a fistfight with another inmate. Warning shot fired.

(6) Pleasant Valley State Prison Dead: 1 May 7, 1998: Octavio Orozco, 23,
shot in the head during a fight with four inmates. No warning shot fired.

(7) Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility Dead: 1 Dec. 30, 1994: Michael
C. Colvette, 23, fatally shot in head during a melee involving 12 inmates.
Warning shot fired.

(8) Calipatria State Prison Dead: 1 March 8, 1995: Tim Jones, 27, shot in the
back during a fistfight with another inmate. Warning shot fired.

(9) Centinela State Prison Dead: 2 Jan. 10, 1996: Raymond Nevarez, 30, shot
during a fistfight with another inmate. No warning shot fired.

Sept. 26, 1994: Juan Hernandez, 22, shot in chest during a fight involving
six inmates. Warning shot fired.

Source: California Department of Corrections.

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

Seeing Through The Haze Of Medical Marijuana (An op-ed
in The Las Vegas Review-Journal by General Barry McCaffrey,
the White House drug czar, opposes Question 9, the Nevada medical marijuana
initiative, calling it a sham that provides cover for widespread trafficking
in illegal drugs.)

Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 08:53:55 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US NV: McCaffrey OPED: Seeing Through The Haze Of Medical
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: compassion23@geocities.com (Frank S. World)
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)
Contact: letters@lvrj.com
Website: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/
Copyright: Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1998
Pubdate: 18 Oct 1998
Author: Barry R. McCaffrey Special to the Review-Journal Fax: 702-383-4676

SEEING THROUGH THE HAZE OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Proven scientific processes, not the ballot box, should determine what
drugs can be used to treat our ills

On Election Day, residents of Nevada will be asked to vote on marijuana.
The state ballot features a referendum that would legalize cultivation,
distribution, possession and consumption of marijuana ostensibly for
medical purposes. We should all seek safe and effective medicine to treat
medical ills, but our collective interest is better served when proven
scientific processes minister to disease - not the ballot box.

The Nevada pro-pot amendment is a lead-in to drug legalization. This
amendment does not represent the grass-roots sentiments of Nevadans. It is
part of a stealthy national movement, bankrolled by well-known pro-drug
groups that have provoked similar measures in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado,
Oregon, Washington state, and the nation's capital. Advocates of drug
legalization have admitted that they couched the marijuana question in
medical terms to camouflage the issue.

We can't afford to send the wrong message to our children about marijuana
or other illegal drugs. Juvenile marijuana usage rates have skyrocketed in
the past six years. Kids now begin smoking pot in the sixth and seventh
grades. Half of today's teens do so before completing high school. Many
will suffer from decisions made while their judgment is impaired by the
psychoactive effects of this drug. Indeed, marijuana is now the second
leading cause of car crashes among young people (after alcohol). If we
lower the societal barriers further, then marijuana use among youth surely
will escalate along with the negative consequences of drug abuse. This was
Alaska's experience after a pro-pot ruling essentially decriminalized the
drug in the 1970s.

A leading medical journal recently warned readers about the risks posed by
unscientific medicine. This journal outlined how American health has
benefited from remedies whose safety and efficacy have been validated by
statistically reliable evidence and randomized, controlled clinical
studies. Arbitrary dosages, contaminated ingredients, and harmful or deadly
components largely have been eliminated from American medicine. This
marijuana referendum would turn its back on such progress and return us to
the medical dark ages when leeches were used to suck blood from sick
patients. There is no sense in subverting the scientific process for
assessing, testing and approving medications by resorting to a non-medical,
political process.

If pot were such a wonderful medicine, why haven't more doctors prescribed
Marinol -- the real "medical marijuana?" The active ingredient in the
cannabis leaf, THC, is synthesized in measured dosages as Marinol, a
prescription drug that has been available for 15 years. The FDA has
encouraged the pharmaceutical industry to develop other methods for
administering THC -- for example, by patch, suppository or inhaler. Such
developments may make it easier for more individuals to realize the
possible therapeutic benefits of THC under controlled, prescribed conditions.

Any purported medicine smoked in unmeasured amounts and unknown purity is
suspect. No one argues that people should eat moldy bread instead of taking
a penicillin capsule. Pills are cleaner, safer and more efficacious than
smoke. Crude marijuana, unlike Marinol, contains a host of tars and other
dangerous substances that have no therapeutic value. If components of
marijuana other than THC are found to be medically valuable, the current
scientific process will approve those components for safe use.

Nevada doesn't need wholesale experimenting with dangerous home remedies.
We should avoid sham "medicine" that provides cover for widespread
trafficking in illegal drugs. Now is the time for concerned citizens to say
"yes" to their communities, their children and themselves by voting "no" on
this pro-drug referendum. It's better to be safe than sorry.

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

Marijuana Seizures Multiply With Fall Harvest (The Arizona Daily Star
says the fall marijuana harvest is under way, loads of weed are coming across
Arizona's southern border with Mexico, and the Border Patrol has snagged
more than a ton of it since Wednesday.)

Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 16:59:05 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US AZ: Marijuana Seizures Multiply With Fall Harvest
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: Sun, 18 Oct 1998
Source: Arizona Daily Star (AZ)
Contact: letters@azstarnet.com
Website: http://www.azstarnet.com/

MARIJUANA SEIZURES MULTIPLY WITH FALL HARVEST

With the fall marijuana harvest, loads of weed are coming across
Arizona's southern border - and the Border Patrol has snagged more
than a ton of it since Wednesday, spokesman Rob Daniels said.

The latest seizure came about 7:30 a.m. Friday, when agents near Why
pulled over a Dodge pickup on Arizona 85, according to a Border Patrol
news release. Inside the truck's camper shell they found 1,094 pounds
of marijuana, its odor masked by pine-scented air fresheners.

The 19-year-old driver was arrested, and the marijuana turned over to
the Drug Enforcement Administration, the release said.

Agents near Naco made two large seizures Wednesday and Thursday,
Daniels said. About 2 p.m. Thursday, the Border Patrol received
reports of people carrying backpacks across the border west of Naco.

Two agents tracked the group to a tree under which they were resting,
Daniels said. But when the agents approached, the group spotted them
and fled. Under the tree, the agents found 650 pounds of marijuana in
22 bundles.

About 10 p.m. Wednesday, agents spotted two trucks illegally crossing
the border east of Naco's port of entry, Daniels said. When the agents
began trailing them, the pickups made U-turns in front of the Naco
Border Patrol station and headed back south.

One of the trucks had mechanical trouble and pulled over before
reaching the border, Daniels said. Inside, the agents found 799 pounds
of marijuana. The occupants escaped, and the other truck made it back
across the border.

Visit the National Border Patrol Council's Tucson Sector site.

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

61-year-old grandmother found guilty for role in drug conspiracy
(An Associated Press article in The Orlando Sentinel says Daphne "Ma" Creary,
a former security guard at Port Everglades, Florida, faces a minimum 10-year
prison sentence after pleading guilty Friday to one count of conspiracy
to import cocaine, allegedly in concert with more than a dozen
other dockworkers. "My life and my grandkids' lives are at stake,"
said Creary, who is raising three grandchildren. "They need me.")

From: "Bob Owen@W.H.E.N." (when@olywa.net)
To: "-News" (when@hemp.net)
Subject: 61-year-old grandmother found guilty for role in drug conspiracy
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 23:01:18 -0700
Sender: owner-when@hemp.net
Newshawk: ccross@november.org
Source: The Orlando Sentinel
Pubdate: 10/18/1998
Online: http://www.orlandosentinel.com

61-year-old grandmother found guilty for role in drug conspiracy

Associated Press

WEST PALM BEACH -- A 61-year-old woman grandmother pleaded guilty for her
role in a massive dockworker drug conspiracy at Port Everglades.

Former security guard Daphne "Ma" Creary faces a minimum of 10 years in
federal prison after pleading guilty Friday to one count of conspiracy to
import cocaine.

"My life and my grandkids' lives are at stake," said Creary, who is raising
three grandchildren. "They need me."

As part of the plea bargain arrangement, Creary admitted to helping
unionized dockworkers take duffel bags filled with 150 kilograms of drugs
from containers at the busy South Florida port over a three-year period
beginning January 1995 Creary initially told U.S. District Judge Daniel
T.K. Hurley she was forced to participate in the deals, but later changed
her story.

"They didn't threaten me," Creary said. "I knew exactly what was going on."

Creary was one of 14 current and former Port Everglades dockworkers and
security guards indicted in early March. She is the second major figure in
the case to plead guilty and cooperate with authorities.

Mark Knight, a member of the International Longshoremen's Association,
pleaded guilty in June. Knight, who worked at the Sea Land Service shipyard,
was supposed to be sentenced on Friday, but sentencing was indefinitely
postponed. Drug Enforcement Administration and customs agents last week
arrested seven more people, including another key figure, accused drug
dealer Willie Edward Jackson, a stevedore with the Teamsters union.

Authorities have identified Jackson, fellow Teamster crane operator Cecil
"Big Dirty" McCleod, and ILA stevedore Malcolm Edwards as the leaders of
three competing smuggling cells at the port.

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

Judges Should Get Drug Tests For Presuming All Are Guilty (Baltimore Sun
columnist Gregory Kane pans the US Supreme Court's decision two weeks ago
not to review a case out of Indiana, where overzealous school officials
imposed mandatory drug testing as a condition for participating
in extracurricular activities. The four students and their parents
who protested and filed suit must have had the curious idea that a thing
called presumption of innocence still exists in America.)

Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 12:25:28 -0700
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US MD: OPED: Judges Should Get Drug Tests For Presuming All
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Explorer
Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)
Contact: letters@baltsun.com
Website: http://www.sunspot.net/
Copyright: 1998 by The Baltimore Sun, a Times Mirror Newspaper.
Pubdate: 18 Oct 1998
Author: Gregory Kane

JUDGES SHOULD GET DRUG TESTS FOR PRESUMING ALL ARE GUILTY

The nine nerveless Nellies currently ensconced on our Supreme Court have
just committed the wimp-out act of the year. Two weeks ago, the
pusillanimous justices refused to review a case out of Indiana, where
overzealous school officials imposed mandatory drug testing as a condition
for participating in extracurricular activities.

Picture it now. Chess club members puffing on a joint while they decide to
use a King's Gambit or a Sicilian Defense opening. Math club members
smoking crack between discussions on the finer points of number theory.

These things must have happened in Rushville, Ind. It was there that school
officials instituted the mandatory drug testing ruling for extracurricular
activities. Four of the students and their parents protested and filed
suit. They must have had the curious idea that a thing called presumption
of innocence still existed in America and that the drug-testing program
flew in the face of it.

Well, America is changing. That presumption-of-innocence thing is becoming
old hat, especially in light of the increasingly laughable "drug war." In
the drug war, everyone's presumed guilty.

It started with random drug testing of servicemen, which was reasonable
enough. Soon, welfare recipients were added in some states, and there's a
certain logic to that. Taxpayers have a right to be assured their tax
dollars are not being used to subsidize addiction. But isn't it going too
far to demand that a high school student who wants to be in the chess or
math club has to pass a drug test?

Already, some private companies are requiring potential employees to take
drug tests as a condition of being hired. Private employers probably figure
they are saving themselves big headaches down the road, but it's another
example of the notion of presumption of innocence being further eroded. In
the drug war, everyone's presumed guilty. You have to prove your innocence.

If that's the way this thing is going to go, fine. But let's expand the
pool of those presumed guilty. Let's expand the list of those who should
have mandatory drug tests. Let's not just pick on high school students,
welfare recipients and lowly enlisted men in our armed services. Let's
demand drug testing for society's honchos. We can start with the Nine
Ninnies on the high court -- and don't even bother to pardon the pun.

After all, we don't want these veritable juggernauts of jurisprudence to
make a decision while under the influence of the Good Lord only knows what.
Why should we presume their innocence? The very nature of their job means
they are in a position to adversely affect society much more than a high
school student or welfare recipient. We should be assured they're drug-free.

Why not the president? President Clinton would be the perfect chief
executive to initiate such a program. His judgment in the Monica Lewinsky
affair was so stupid that we could reasonably assume he did it under the
influence of something. So, let's give him one of those urine flasks and
see what's up.

Ditto for all those elected officials in the line of succession. Vice
President Al Gore, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Senate President Pro Tem
Strom Thurmond and others in line for succession can queue up right behind
Clinton and do their duty.

Next in line would be every member of Congress. Enlisted men in our armed
services, who've probably long wondered if members of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff are subjected to the random drug tests they are, would probably be
delighted to know the same rules applied to the top brass.

Federal and state judges should be added to the list, as well as lawyers.
Doctors should face mandatory drug testing or lose their licenses to
practice. Under the presumption-of-guilt mania now sweeping the country,
states could require all licensed drivers to take mandatory drug tests. All
too many motorists are ripping and racing along our highways and streets as
if they're under the influence of something anyway.

Add school board members, superintendents, principals and teachers to the
list. This is the logical extension of the Rushville mandatory drug-testing
edict. Officials there couldn't have overlooked it. If you don't trust
students, why trust those entrusted to educate them?

There's one final group that should be subjected to mandatory drug testing:
newspaper columnists. That should allay the fears of those readers who may
be wondering if this one was written under the influence of something.

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

Rebagliati's payoff eludes gold medallist (The Calgary Herald
suggests admitted pot smoker Ross Rebagliati is cashing in on endorsements
after winning the Olympic gold medal in snowboarding,
while another gold medal winner, Catriona LeMay Doan,
seems to be losing out due to the speed skater's abstemious image.)

From: creator@islandnet.com (Matt Elrod)
To: mattalk@listserv.islandnet.com
Subject: Rebagliati's payoff eludes gold medallist
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 08:32:51 -0700
Lines: 74
Newshawk: creator@mapinc.org
Source: Calgary Herald (Canada)
Contact: letters@theherald.southam.ca
Pubdate: Sun 18 Oct 1998
Author: Lori Ewing, Calgary Herald

Rebagliati's payoff eludes gold medallist

One's hip, the other's wholesome.

Ross Rebagliati and Catriona LeMay Doan share gold medals from their
athletic exploits in Nagano seven months ago. But that's where the
similarities end.

Rebagliati has cashed in big on last February's infamous
marijuana-fuelled doping scandal that saw him win-lose-regain his
Olympic gold medal. On the other hand, LeMay Doan's endorsement record
since the Games suggests it ain't hip to be square.

LeMay Doan's agent promises you'll see much more of the Calgary-based
speedskater in the coming months. But, thus far, several major
promotional deals have failed to materialize.

``It kind of makes a farce of our society,'' says LeMay Doan. ``But I
wouldn't give anything to have his (Rebagliati's) situation. I'm
against the whole thing. I get very vocal on any kind of drug issue. I
think it's sad more than anything.''

Rebagliati has cashed in as the official spokesman for Roots, has a CD
of his favourite songs being produced, has even turned down movie
parts. It's been a seven-month high no amount of dope could ever
provide -- the pot of gold that keeps on giving.

LeMay Doan says she's had one major speaking engagement (three weeks
ago in Ottawa) and admits her ``fee was big.'' She re-signed with
sponsor AMJ Campbell Van Lines. Her agent Elliot Kerr of the Landmark
Group in Toronto says she has a multi-year deal with Oakley, and she's
signed with the Ford modelling agency.

``We're also in very serious negotiations with a food company, a
cereal company, an automobile company, a clothing company,'' says
Kerr. ``So we have a ton going on right now, and hope to have it
wrapped up before the skating season begins.''

LeMay Doan has her doubts. But she's not going to worry about it.

``I don't have the energy . . ,'' she says. ``(Husband) Bart and I
don't talk about it too much. We don't say, `Why don't we make $50,000
a year?' We make enough to get by. But sometimes, if I think about it,
yeah, it frustrates me. I'll see things and think: I could do a good
job for that.''

Rebagliati's allure, says his Toronto agent, Nathale Cook of
International Marketing Group, is his unique situation.

``This young man, for better or for worse, was on the front page of
almost every newspaper in the world,'' says Cook.

``Ross, through this ordeal in Nagano, tapped into something in
Canadians. Typical Canadian kid, stuck up for his friends, was honest.
The Canadian public was very supportive of him. He presented himself
well in the face of adversity,'' says Cook.

``If you ask him if he'd do it again, he says no, not in that way,''
she adds. ``You wouldn't wish this on anybody.''

Figures bandied about the athletic grapevine suggest Rebagliati has
earned close to $1 million from his Olympic adventure. Cook says he
has realized nowhere near that amount. Experts in sports marketing
estimate his Nagano windfall was probably closer to $100,000 to
$200,000 -- still ample for a Canadian Olympic athlete.

``Most national team athletes live on less than $10,000 a year,'' says
Cook.

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

Reefer Gladness (According to The Edmonton Sun, one of the top pain doctors
in Edmonton, Alberta, says she has new evidence marijuana use may boost
physical strength in people with a rare muscle disease. Dr. Helen Hays
and a rehab medicine specialist, Dr. Rubin Feldman, started running tests
last January on a 31-year-old Edmonton-area man suffering from a rare
neurological disease that causes severe stiffness and cramping
in the muscles. "The results were remarkable," said Dr. Hays. "We recorded
a dramatic improvement in his physical strength when he was using" marijuana.
Dr. Hays said she and Dr. Feldman are preparing a paper for publication.)

From: creator@islandnet.com (Matt Elrod)
To: mattalk@listserv.islandnet.com
Subject: Canada: Reefer Gladness
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 09:12:53 -0700
Lines: 76
Newshawk: creator@mapinc.org
Source: Edmonton Sun (Canada)
Contact: sun.letters@ccinet.ab.ca
Pubdate: October 18, 1998
Author: Doug Beazley
Note: An abbreviated version of this article appeared in the Calgary Sun
under the headline: Doc Finds Pot Helps Patient's Pain

REEFER GLADNESS

An Edmonton study suggests marijuana can help patients with chronic pain

One of the city's top pain doctors says she has evidence marijuana
use may boost physical strength in people with a rare muscle disease.

"That's what was so intriguing ... we've never heard of anyone
getting a result like that," said Dr. Helen Hays.

Hays, a palliative care specialist, runs a referral practice in the
city for people who suffer chronic pain. She sees several people who
use pot to control their discomfort.

"I know many of them are using (marijuana) and don't want to mention
it," she said. "I don't always ask."

About a year ago, Hays had a visit from a 31-year-old Edmonton-area
man suffering from a rare neurological disease that causes severe
stiffness and cramping in the muscles.

"It's very painful and it makes my limbs weak ... I have to be
fighting against my own muscles all the time," said Hays's patient,
who wants to be referred to only as Kevin in print.

"The pain started when I was 25. I've tried probably 15 different
drugs. The only one that worked at all gave me extreme muscle tremors.
That's why I started using marijuana."

Kevin said smoking grass helps control his pain and made him feel
physically stronger. Hays and rehab medicine specialist Dr. Rubin
Feldman started running tests on Kevin last January, trying to work
out what the pot was doing to him.

"Dr. Feldman used a test over (three months) that determines how much
weight a certain set of muscles can lift," said Hays.

Testing started during a stretch when Kevin wasn't smoking pot, and
continued after he started using again.

"The results were remarkable," said Hays. "We recorded a dramatic
improvement in his physical strength when he was using (marijuana).

"We have no idea why this should happen, or whether it might apply to
another disease. It's an open door ... a whole new line of
questioning."

Hays said she and Feldman are preparing a paper for publication. Dr.
Feldman could not be reached for comment.

Hays said she hopes the study won't be a magnet for flak in the
controversy over whether to legalize marijuana.

"I've never tried the stuff myself ... I don't want anyone to get the
idea I've got a supply or something," she said, chuckling. "I think
the time has come to have a national debate about what we're going to
do with the marijuana law. We have to be cautious ... but the time has
come to talk about it."

Kevin said he'd be grateful for the right to use marijuana for his
condition without worrying about getting busted.

"I live with fear every day," he said. "I don't know when the SWAT
team's going to bash in my door and handcuff me in front of my wife
and children.

"There's no logical reason for this to be illegal. But every medical
user I ever heard of who went public got busted for his trouble."

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

Weeding Out Pain (The Edmonton Sun recounts several cases of local patients
receiving miraculous benefits from cannabis, including a breast cancer victim
so impoverished by years of supporting the black market that she can
no longer afford it and is dying in a community shelter. "Marijuana is just
a weed," she says. "People don't kill people on it, they don't rob banks.
I met a lot of people on marijuana who wouldn't have been worth two cents
without it. But the government's got to blackmail you. You use their drugs
or you don't use any drugs at all.")

From: creator@islandnet.com (Matt Elrod)
To: mattalk@listserv.islandnet.com
Subject: Canada: Weeding Out Pain
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 09:17:03 -0700
Lines: 142
Newshawk: creator@mapinc.org
Source: Edmonton Sun (Canada)
Contact: sun.letters@ccinet.ab.ca
Pubdate: Sunday, October 18, 1998
Author: Doug Beazley

Weeding out pain

It's a grey autumn day, and a damp wind's chasing dead leaves across
the lawn. Mary sits and watches the leaves through the window, browses
through a week-old Chatelaine, takes shallow breaths from the oxygen
tube strapped beneath her nose. Mary's dying of breast cancer - she's
had it for 15 years.

Twin mastectomies only slowed it down. She's living in the company of
a lot of other critically ill people in a community shelter she
doesn't want to see named - any more than she wants her own true name
in print.

At 53, her wishes are as simple as they are beyond reach: money enough
to live on her own again, money enough for marijuana to kill her pain.

"This is where marijuana has brought me ... because of how I had to
live to get it," she says, sparking up a filter-tip in the shelter's
tiny smoking room.

"What I had to spend on it, because it's against the law. Marijuana
was the only thing that made life bearable, and now I can't get it. I
don't have any money. I don't have anyplace else to go."

Cancer made a victim of Mary twice: first by slowly eating away at her
life, and second by giving her the kind of pain only pot could cure -
at least temporarily.

"It helps the pain, the sleeplessness, elevates my mood, my energy, my
appetite," she says.

"Doing without never used to be an option."

The law doesn't discriminate between people who smoke grass for sport
and those who use it to cope with the symptoms of killing or chronic
illnesses.

But pot-smoking's hardly rare among the seriously ill in Edmonton -
particularly with people with chronic pain.

People like Patrick Gignac, a 29-year-old unemployed glazier busted by
RCMP last month for growing marijuana in his Leduc home. He's waiting
on a court date.

"Look, I'm not even a drinker," he says. "I smoked pot when I was a
teen, or at parties, but that was seldom.

"When I got hurt, the doctor told me there was a 30% chance I'd never
be able to use my arms for work again. My life was basically screwed.
Marijuana helps me feel and live like a normal person."

Gignac says he managed to destroy his shoulder joints over the years
with a series of bad falls.

Bursitis, tendinitis and rotator cuff damage made his limbs too weak
for him to handle a desk job, let alone construction work. "I've had
the shoulders operated on twice," he says. "They had my arm completely
off at the shoulder once, trying to rebuild the joint.

"I was 130 pounds ... I'm six feet tall. I couldn't lift five pounds.
At times my whole neck and back would just seize up in one big muscle
cramp. I was on six types of medication - three drugs for the pain,
and three to deal with the side effects of the first three. I was sick
all the time, every day."

In 1992, Gignac started smoking grass regularly for his pain. The
effects were immediate, he says. For one thing, he needed fewer pills.

"I was at a point where a doctor told me the next step was morphine.
Well, what the hell do you do when the morphine stops working?" he
says. "No thanks. The marijuana killed the nausea I was getting from
the drugs ... I was never supposed to be able to do any physical work
ever again. I got my glazing ticket back and I went back to work.
Marijuana was the difference between being basically useless and
living a normal life."

Gignac plans to fight his drug charge by arguing that he has a medical
right to marijuana use protected under the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms.

It's a legal defence that's already set a precedent in the case of pot
user Terry Parker, who beat charges of cultivation and possession in
Toronto last year by arguing he needed the marijuana to control his
epilepsy. And the scientific evidence supporting the medical use of
marijuana to treat the symptoms of cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis
and other diseases is growing.

A top pain specialist in Edmonton's medical community says she has
evidence, soon to be published, that points to a whole new therapeutic
application for cannabis in people with certain types of muscle
disorder.

Dr. Helen Hays partnered with a local physiotherapist in a three-month
study of a patient with a rare muscular condition that causes
cramping, tremors and extreme weakness. The patient frequently smoked
pot to take the edge off his symptoms. Hays' study suggests the weed
was actually increasing his physical strength as it reduced his
crippling pain.

"That's what was so intriguing - we've never heard of anybody getting
a result like that," she says.

"But it's a scientific fact ... our tests showed his strength
increased when he was using cannabis."

There's little mystery about pot's effect on pain. A set of receptors
in the brain - the same nerves that cannabis use engages, says Hays -
also play a significant role in how people sense pain.

And doctors have long been able to prescribe marijuana derivatives for
pain and nausea.

Synthetic versions of pot's hallucinogenic component THC are extremely
costly, though, and rarely covered by private medical plans.

But the effect of marijuana on physical strength is a mystery - one
that strengthens the case for at least a medical dispensation for
marijuana use among the chronically ill, says Hays.

"Look, a lot of the people I see in my practice have run the gamut
from acupuncture to physiotherapists to naturopaths, with no success,"
she says. "They've spent vast sums on their pain. I know many of them
are using (marijuana) and don't want to mention it ... I don't always
ask. I think the time has come to have a national debate about what
we're going to do with the marijuana law. We have to be cautious ...
but the time has come to talk about it."

For Mary, it's a simple enough matter of the federal government
learning to mind its own business.

"Marijuana is just a weed. People don't kill people on it, they don't
rob banks. I met a lot of people on marijuana who wouldn't have been
worth two cents without it. But the government's got to blackmail you.
You use their drugs or you don't use any drugs at all."

Copyright (c) 1998, Canoe Limited Partnership.

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