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

Inmates On Hold Burden Jails (The San Jose Mercury News says that even
as crime in California falls to its lowest levels in decades, a ballooning
population of prisoners awaiting trial is filling the state's county jails
to record levels. Unsentenced inmates - men and women whom judges
have refused to release until their cases go to trial and who cannot come up
with bail - were once a minority in the state's jails. But in the past
10 years, their ranks have swollen by 50 percent, surpassing those
jailed for minor crimes, according to statistics from the California Board
of Corrections.)

Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 18:54:22 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US CA: Inmates On Hold Burden Jails
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Marcus/Mermelstein Family (mmfamily@ix.netcom.com)
Pubdate: Mon, 14 Dec 1998
Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Contact: letters@sjmercury.com
Website: http://www.sjmercury.com/
Copyright: 1998 Mercury Center
Author: Noam Levey

INMATES ON HOLD BURDEN JAILS

Fewer being let out while awaiting trial

Even as crime in California falls to its lowest levels in decades, a
ballooning population of prisoners awaiting trial is filling the state's
county jails to record levels.

Unsentenced inmates -- men and women whom judges have refused to release
until their cases go to trial and who cannot pay the bail to get out --
were once a minority in the state's jails. But in the past 10 years, their
ranks have swollen by 50 percent, surpassing those jailed for minor crimes,
according to statistics from the California Board of Corrections.

The population surge has accounted for nearly all the growth in county jail
populations statewide since the late '80s. It has pushed up the costs of
criminal justice and is prompting questions about how the courts are doing
their job.

In Santa Clara County, three of every five prisoners are unsentenced. In
Alameda County, it is seven of 10.

In San Mateo County, which has studied the problem extensively, a recent
analysis of the county's courts suggests that the jail crunch may be the
result of court decisions to release fewer people while their cases are
processed.

Judges in the Peninsula county said they were unaware of the trend and
argue they are just watching out for the public's safety. But the
plummeting release rates -- which have dropped by half since the early '90s
-- are troubling county leaders who have been forced to scramble for money
to watch the bulging jail population.

``It's incredibly frustrating,'' said San Mateo County Sheriff Don Horsley.

``If I had sentenced prisoners, I might be able to do something with
them,'' he said, listing alternatives for sentenced inmates. ``With these
unsentenced prisoners, I have no options. . . . They have to stay in jail.''

This population shift has not been cheap for California's counties, many of
which have spent the past decade or more wrestling with serious
overcrowding in their jails.

Santa Clara County spent more than $65 million in the mid-'80s to build a
new jail after being placed under court order to reduce crowding. San Mateo
County completed its own new $35 million lockup in Redwood City four years
ago.

And just this fall, with that new jail filling to record levels primarily
as a result of unsentenced inmates, San Mateo County was forced to commit
$1.5 million more to hire sheriff's deputies to watch all the new inmates.

San Mateo County this decade has not experienced the same level of increase
as other counties around the state. There are still more sentenced than
unsentenced inmates in San Mateo County's jails, according to the
California Board of Corrections.

Similar trend

But San Mateo County is becoming more and more like its neighbors. While
the number of sentenced inmates in the county has declined steadily over
the past six years, the unsentenced population has increased by more than a
third.

Some county leaders, including the sheriff, lay responsibility for the
increases squarely with the courts, who decide daily how many unsentenced
prisoners will be locked up.

Every afternoon, on the fourth floor of the San Mateo County Hall of
Justice, a judge or commissioner reviews the day's crop of accused drug
users, unlicensed drivers and the occasional murderer or rapist, and with a
quick glance over each file, decides whether to set the accused free or to
set bail and send the inmate back to jail.

These decisions are usually made with information from the county bar
association's Release on Own Recognizance Program, which interviews inmates
before their ``in-custody hearings'' and recommends release for those who
meet certain criteria, such as residency in the county and stable employment.

Earlier this decade, about two-thirds of inmates who were recommended for
release would be set free by the court at the in-custody hearing. Today,
the release rate has dropped to 35 percent, according to an analysis
prepared for the county by the program.

Misdemeanor releases down

And, the own recognizance program found, the release rate for those accused
of misdemeanors has fallen most dramatically.

At the same time, crime in the county is down. In the past year, as the
number of unsentenced inmates in the county jail has increased most
noticeably, arrests for violent felonies and violent misdemeanors have
dropped, the program found.

``It's hard to understand why judges feel it's necessary to keep more
people in jail,'' said San Mateo County Supervisor Rich Gordon, one of
several county leaders who are questioning the court's decisions.

Gordon and others are asking if judges are changing their approach to
releasing those charged but not convicted of crimes.

Members of the San Mateo County bench interviewed in recent weeks said they
were unaware of this trend. And most categorically dismissed the idea that
they are being tougher on unsentenced inmates.

``The judges who are doing the in-custody (hearings) are the same ones who
have been doing them for 10 years,'' said San Mateo County's presiding
judge, Judith Kozloski. ``I can't imagine there's been any change in the
way they look at things.''

No decision

Judge Richard Livermore, who started his career on the bench presiding over
in-custody hearings in the early '90s and is now presiding over them again,
said he knows of no decision to change the way the courts release prisoners.

Most judges instead suggest that it is those arrested who have changed.

``It used to be that if a person was arrested and then released, he would
come to court when he had to. Not anymore,'' said Judge Gregory Jensen, a
19-year veteran of the San Mateo County bench. ``People know that if you
get arrested and released and you don't show up for court, you'll never be
caught. . . . There's no more respect for the court.''

Jensen said the courts have been forced to keep people in jail so they
don't run away while their cases are being processed.

Others, including Commissioner Joseph Gruber, who presides over many of the
county's in-custody hearings, said the courts are seeing more unsentenced
inmates with long criminal records, who have violated their parole or who
have illegally immigrated to this country.

And, the 22-year veteran of the bench noted, as law enforcement has taken a
more aggressive approach to domestic violence, he is seeing more accused
spousal abusers. ``These are not people you want to just release back into
their homes,'' Gruber said.

There is some statistical evidence that some inmates at the in-custody
hearings are different. Police are indeed arresting more people for
domestic abuse. There are more inmates facing conviction under California's
``three strikes, you're out'' law.

The ``three strikes'' law is prompting more accused felons to take their
cases to trial and hence stay in jail longer, according to Bill Crout,
deputy director of the Board of Corrections. But Crout and others say the
law can only explain a portion of the growth statewide.

Beyond this, there are few indications that those being denied release by
the courts today are much different than those who were released five or
six years ago.

Released prisoners are in fact less likely to flee than they were earlier
this decade, statistics from the own recognizance program show. In 1993,
11.1 percent of those released on their own recognizance by the courts did
not return when scheduled. Last year, the failure to appear rate had
declined to 8.6 percent, according to the program.

It is unclear if those denied release are any more criminal today, but at
least in the past year while release rates have continued to decline, the
inmates appear to have become, if anything, less dangerous.

Last year, 11.5 percent of those who were recommended for release but
denied by the court were classified as higher-risk based on their criminal
history. This year, just 7.7 percent were so classified, according to the
own recognizance program.

Police may, as Gruber suggested, be arresting more people wanted for parole
violations or immigration problems, but these inmates would not affect the
release rates because the program does not recommend them for release.

Instead, county leaders are suggesting that the lower release rates most
likely reflect the bench's increasingly hard-line approach toward everyone.

``The courts are becoming more and more just like us,'' Horsley said.
``They hear the politicians talking tough about crime. They see the new
crime laws passed by the Legislature. . . . And they sense the mood of the
public.

Sensitive to critics

``They are stung by criticism of liberal judges who are soft on crime.
Nobody wants to be the judge who releases a drunk driver who then hits a
mother and child.''

This get-tough attitude has never pleased defense attorneys, but it is
increasingly worrying some county leaders, who say the tough line taken
toward unsentenced inmates is costing taxpayers millions while delivering
little added security.

``There's no question we should be tough on crime,'' said county Supervisor
Mike Nevin, a retired San Francisco police officer and one the court's
harshest critics. ``But we have a responsibility to talk about who's in our
jails and make sure we are locking up the right people.''

Some, including the sheriff, have suggested that inmates arrested for less
serious crimes could be put on electronic monitoring or some other form of
supervision while they await trial instead of being confined to the jail.
But those ideas have attracted little interest from the bench.

``You have to consider the safety of the community,'' Kozloski said. ``It
may be that (release) isn't granted as readily, but maybe that's as it
should be. . . . I think that's what the people want.''

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

DC & Medical Marijuana on All Things Considered (A transcript
of a National Public Radio newscast about Congress quashing Initiative 59,
the District of Columbia medical-marijuana initiative.)

Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 06:12:26 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: MMJ: Transcript: DC & Medical Marijuana on All Things
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Frank S. World
Source: All Things Considered
Copyright: National Public Radio, 1998
Pubdate: Mon, 14 Dec 98
Forum: http://www.npr.org/yourturn/
Website: http://www.npr.org/
Realaudio: Direct link to the RealAudio clip (Barr begins at 2:11):
http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/19981214.atc.05.ram
Note: Yes, MAP does accept transcripts of radio and TV shows and news
broadcasts at editor@mapinc.org

Website introduction:

DC & MEDICAL MARIJUANA -- Carol Van Dam reports that more than a month
after Washington DC voters cast their ballots in a referendum to legalize
marijuana for medical purposes, no one knows the outcome of the vote.

That's because shortly before the November election, Congress added an
amendment to the city's budget barring it from spending any money on the
medical marijuana initiative. But the city couldn't stop the vote from
taking place, because the ballots - with the initiative on them - had
already been printed. DC officials say the amendment is an unconstitutional
interference in their right to hold a local election and they and the ACLU
have filed suit to allow the results to be revealed.

TRANSCRIPT of segment on I-59, the DC medical marijuana Initiative from
NPR's All Things Considered-Air Date 12.14.98. The segment aired at 1 hour
and 20 minutes into the show.

LEAD IN: Its been a month since voters in the District of Colombia cast
their ballots in a legally binding referendum to legalize marijuana for
seriously ill patients. No one knows the outcome of the initiative, even
though all it takes is the press of a button. That button may never be
pressed if a judge stands behind a new law forbidding the district to spend
as much as one dime on the medical marijuana initiative.

Carol Van Dam filed this report.

For Wayne Turner, legalizing marijuana for medical purposes used to be a
patients rights issue. But when he saw his partner, Steve Michael suffer
from what's called "the wasting syndrome", a byproduct of AIDS, the drive
for the medical marijuana initiative got personal for Turner:

(Turner #1 643 He went from 185 to about 110 in 2 and a half months. So he
used just a little bit of marijuana and he didn't like it. He didn't like
the smell or the taste, but it was enough to get him to eat. That bought us
a couple of extra months at the end of his life.")

The medical community is undecided on the value of marijuana.

Michael, who died in May, was the sponsor of a ballot initiative to
legalize the possession and distribution of marijuana for the seriously
ill. If approved, the measure would also force the city to provide poor
patients with affordable marijuana. Shortly before his death, Michael
removed his name as sponsor of the drive and added Turner's; knowing the
sponsor had to be a living DC resident. And, he made Turner promise to
never give up the fight:

(Turner #2: 656) "His death really mobilized people in a very powerful way.
Part of our AIDS activism is turning grief into action. And I lost Steve. I
mean I watched him suffer. I wasn't gonna lose his initiative too.")

But Turner has been unable to make good on that promise because of
legislation introduced by Representative Bob Barr of Georgia. Barr says
medical marijuana initiatives are simply a back door attempt to legalize
illicit drugs. Barr saw the DC referendum as an opportunity to do
something about it.

Unlike any state, the district budget must be approved by congress. So
Barr inserted into the DC budget bill an amendment banning the city from
spending any money on the medical marijuana initiative. The Georgia
lawmaker rejects assertions by DC officials that his amendment has thwarted
the will of city residents:

(Barr #1 900) What we're saying is that the federal taxpayer dollars are
not to be used to be part of an effort to legalize marijuana. That's what
this is a thinly veiled effort to legalize mind-altering drugs, namely
marijuana. My constituents, who pay federal tax dollars to support the
District of Colombia, and obviously, most taxpayers around the country
because most members voted for my amendment feel the same way. They're
simply saying you in DC do what you want but you're not using our money to
do it.").

Though Congress passed Barr's amendment on a voice vote, District residents
were able to vote for or against the initiative on Election Day because the
ballots had already been printed. Exit polls paid for by supporters show
the referendum passed overwhelming. Yet the results remain a mystery
because the district is barred from counting the votes.

The ACLU filed a lawsuit attempting to have the congressional action ruled
unconstitutional. DC chapter Executive Director Mary Jane DeFrank says
they're also trying to get the ballot results released under a freedom of
information request:

(De Frank #1 758 "We think its outrageous that district residents cast
their ballots and we are unable to find out even what the results are. But
we are also in court, suing the DC Board of Elections and Ethics, that's
who we have to sue, asking them to release the results and to certify the
results of the ballot election that we had.")

Strange as it may seem, the Board joined the ACLU in the suit against
itself, saying it agreed Congress overstepped its boundaries. In the
meantime, to comply with the new law, Alice Miller, the Board's executive
director, instructed her computer specialist not to push the button that
would spit out the results of Initiative 59. Miller says the Board is
stuck between a rock and hard place:

(Miller #1 56 "We've got two laws telling us to do two different things and
that's why we're in the position that we're in and that's why we've gone to
court to get the court to tell us what to do.")

Miller says the cost to certify the initiative would be less than 500
dollars. She says the Board has stiffed the printer for 168 dollars while
it awaits a ruling by a federal judge.

The DC Corporation Counsel, which normally defends the City against
lawsuits, represents the board of elections and ethics in the suit.
Counsel spokesman Walter Smith says the Barr amendment violates the first
amendment rights of DC residents:

(Smith #1 "This is a provision that interferes with basic political
processes. The right of the people to express their viewpoint on issues of
public importance.)

But Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, who chairs the congressional
panel that oversees all legislation involving the District, sees nothing
wrong with the Barr amendment:

(Davis #1` " I think if Congress doesn't want the city to become a drug
zone, they have a right to do that. That's Congress' purview and if
President Clinton wants to sign the bill with that in, he has the right to
do so and that's exactly what happened in this case.)

And the Clinton administration agrees with Davis. The justice department
has decided to represent congress in the suit. On the same day Dc's
Referendum was supposed to be held, Alaska, Arizona, Nevada Oregon and
Washington State all passed medical marijuana initiatives.

In DC, All sides are hoping the federal district court judge will end the
impasse once and for all. A hearing is scheduled for December 18th.

For NPR News, I'm Carol Van Dam in Washington.

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

New Surveillance Proposed for Bank Accounts (Reuters and Wired
say a proposed government plan that has drawn fire as an Orwellian intrusion
into Americans' privacy would require US banks to monitor their customers
and alert federal officials to "suspicious" behavior.)

Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 12:34:43 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: New Surveillance Proposed for Bank Accounts
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: General Pulaski
Pubdate: Mon, 14 Dec 1998
Source: Reuters
Copyright: 1998 Reuters Limited.
Author: Declan McCullagh

NEW SURVEILLANCE PROPOSED FOR BANK ACCOUNTS

WASHINGTON (Wired) - US banks must monitor their customers and alert
federal officials to "suspicious" behavior under a government plan that has
drawn fire as an Orwellian intrusion into Americans' privacy.

A set of proposed regulations released last Monday requires banks to review
every customer's "normal and expected transactions" and tip off the IRS and
federal law enforcement agencies if the behavior is unusual.

"It turns us into surveillance agents for the government," said John
Ehrensperger, compliance director for Atlanta-based Sun Trust Bank.
Ehrensperger stressed that he was not speaking on behalf of his employer.

Adopting so-called "Know Your Customer" programs will stifle drug-related
money laundering, the Federal Reserve Board has claimed for years. "The
proposed regulations will reduce the likelihood that banks will become
unwitting participants in illicit activities," the proposed rules say.

Government officials argue the rules are not overly intrusive, and that
privacy critics are overreacting.

"It's overly alarmist," said Bob Moore, a spokesman for the Federal Reserve
Board. "We're not going to invade anyone's privacy."

Unless regulators change their minds, banks will be required to comply no
later than 1 April 2000. The Federal Reserve, the Office of Thrift
Supervision, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal
Deposit Insurance Corporation have published identical requirements. As
written, the rules will not apply to credit unions.

When a bank detects any "suspicious activity," current regulations require
that the company complete a five-page report that includes the customer's
name, address, Social Security number, driver's license or passport number,
date of birth, and information about the transaction.

The banks are required to telephone law enforcement "in situations
involving violations requiring immediate attention."

The bank sends the information to a computing center in Detroit, where it
becomes part of the Suspicious Activity Reporting System, a mammoth
searchable database jointly administered by the IRS and FinCEN that went
online in April 1996. Over a dozen agencies-including the FBI, IRS, Secret
Service, bank regulators, and state law enforcement-share access to the
data.

The proposed rules require banks to determine the "source of a customer's
funds"- such as payroll deposits-and authorize federal agents to inspect
"all information and documentation" of accounts upon request.

An alliance of conservative, libertarian, and privacy groups is mobilizing
to fight the Know Your Customer plan.

"The idea that the average American is going to have to justify to a
federal agency where they got their money and how they used it- and
proving it to those agents-is just beyond the comprehension of most
Americans," said Lisa Dean, vice president of the Free Congress
Foundation. "It's not done in a free society."

Dean is preparing a report to be published by the end of December, but in
the meantime she's encouraging groups to submit their own comments to the
government by the 8 March 1999 deadline. The American Civil Liberties
Union believes the proposed rules are "a major concern" and an unwelcome
extension of the drug war, said legislative council Rachel King. The ACLU
plans to fight the proposal, as will the Electronic Privacy Information
Center, director Marc Rotenberg said.

In 1996, Federal Reserve Board Governor Edward Kelley ordered the agency
to begin developing Know Your Customer regulations, and the first draft was
finished in summer 1997.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's money
laundering task force also has endorsed Know Your Customer rules, calling
them "the cornerstone" of the group's recommendations to member nations.

"The program should also be designed to allow banking organizations to
monitor the transactions of their customers to ensure that they are
consistent with their expected transactions, and identify and report, as
necessary, those transactions that are unusual or suspicious," Herbert
Biern, a top Fed official, told the House banking committee in June 1998.

The Fed and other banking regulators that have developed the rules say no
new laws are required, arguing existing law gives them more enough
authority.

"The FDIC has the statutory authority to promulgate this proposed
regulation," the agency said.

But Congressman Ron Paul, a Texas Republican who serves on the House
Banking committee, plans to nix their plans. "This massive new
program-euphemistically called 'Know Your Customer'-would convert our
nation's banks into wholly owned subsidiaries of the government-wide
movement to invade every aspect of Americans' privacy," Paul wrote in a
recent column.

Paul plans to introduce legislation early next year to prevent Know Your
Customer from becoming reality, an aide said.

"These costs get passed on to consumers," said Brad Jansen, legislative
assistant to Paul. "We've already effectively deputized bank tellers. Now
we're making them private investigators as well."

In the final draft of the rules, the effective date was postponed from
October 1999 to April 2000 to allow for Y2K repairs of banks' computer
systems.

Some banks have opposed the measure, but outcry has been muted since
federal law immunizes financial institutions from liability when disclosing
suspicious customer activities to the government.

"The majority of our membership doesn't need to fill out more forms and
profile people because they already know them," said Steve Scurlock,
executive vice president of the Independent Bankers Association of Texas.

"They've seen these people for the last 20 years," Scurlock said. "They go
to church with them. They coach their sons in Little League baseball. To
have more forms to fill out is exactly the wrong thing to do."

These regulations are another example of the government asking the private
sector to do its dirty work, economist Richard Rahn argues.

"Businesses ought not to do the things that government should do. And
governments ought not to be in business," said Rahn, CEO of Novecon and
author of the forthcoming book The End of Money.

The combination of sky-high compliance costs for banks and the relatively
few money laundering prosecutions isn't worth it, Rahn said. "The real cost
of each money laundering conviction is more than $100 million dollars," he
said.

Rahn estimates that between 1987 and 1996, banks have filed more than 77
million currency transaction reports-weighing in at 308,000 pounds-with the
US Treasury. That's 531 pounds per conviction.

(Reuters/Wired)

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

Rx: Marijuana (Dan Baum, author of "Smoke and Mirrors,"
writes in The Nation that he once thought the main problem for medical
marijuana patients was marijuana's classification under Schedule I
of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control Act of 1970,
which describes it as having a high potential for abuse and no accepted
medical use. Moving it to Schedule II would make clinical research possible
and eventually permit prescriptions. In the present political climate,
however, this course seems unlikely.)

Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 16:29:14 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: RX;Marijuana
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: John Smith
Pubdate: 14 December 1998
Source: Nation, The (US)
Author: Dan Baum
Contact: letters@thenation.com
Website: http://www.thenation.com/
Copyright: 1998, The Nation Company

RX: MARIJUANA

Initiatives authorizing the medical use of marijuana passed in five states
in the last election. (Another one would have passed in the District of
Columbia, according to exit polls, but it was consigned to limbo by a
blatantly antidemocratic amendment introduced by Representative Bob Barr
forbidding federal funds to be spent tallying the vote.) On this subject
the words of Dr. Lester Grinspoon, a leading authority on the drug (he is
author of Marijuana: The Forbidden Medicine) and professor of psychiatry at
Harvard Medical School, are apropos: "As the number of people who have used
marijuana medicinally grows, the discussion is turning from whether it is
effective to how it should be made available."

I once thought the main problem was its classification under Schedule I of
the Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control Act of 1970, which describes it
having a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. Moving it to
Schedule II (Representative Barney Frank has introduced a bill to do just
that ) would make clinical research possible and eventually permit
prescriptions. In the present political climate, however, this course seems
unlikely.

Schedule II drugs must undergo rigorous, expensive, and time-consuming
tests before they are approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Who
would pay for the tests? Not the drug companies, because there is no profit
for them in marijuana, which can't be patented.

Only the US government has sufficient resources to explore medical
marijuana, but it opposes loosening present restrictions on clinical research.

A second problem is that as a Schedule II drug, marijuana would still be
classified as having a high potential for abuse, as well as limited medical
use. Pharmacies might be reluctant to carry it, knowing the DEA would be
keeping close tabs on them. The DEA could hound physicians who, by its
standards, prescribed cannabis too freely or for purposes that the
government considered unacceptable. Many thousands of people now obtain it
illegally, often at great risk, to relieve conditions ranging from appetite
loss due to AIDS to pre-menstrual syndrome and chonic pain, and they are
teaching doctors that marijuana has therapeutic uses and that the risks now
associated with obtaining it are needless.

A half million citizens are arrested in this country each year for
possession of marijuana, many of htem for medical purposes.

Regulated availability under the same rules applied to alcohol may be the
only way to make its judicious medical use possible. Fortunately, patients
and doctors have now begun to create the conditions for the enormous change
in our understanding of this drug that will make it possible to implement
new laws and policies."

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

Herbal Medicine (A letter to the editor of Time
wonders why the magazine's special issue on herbal medicine
never mentioned marijuana, the one herb thousands of Americans take
for anxiety, fatigue, chronic depression, nausea, pain and other ailments.)

Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1998 11:07:34 -0800
From: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org (MAPNews)
To: mapnews@mapinc.org
Subject: MN: US: PUB LTE: Time: What About Marijuana?
Sender: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Reply-To: owner-mapnews@mapinc.org
Organization: Media Awareness Project http://www.mapinc.org/lists/
Newshawk: Doc Hawk
Source: Time Magazine (US)
Contact: letters@time.com
Website: http://www.time.com/
Copyright: 1998 Time Inc.
Pubdate: 14 Dec 1998
Author: Chris L. Legreid
Note: On 23 Nov 1998 Time published an issue with herbal medicines as the
cover article.

WHAT ABOUT MARIJUANA?

Time failed to mention the one herb thousands of Americans take for
anxiety, fatigue, chronic depression, nausea, pain and other ailments:
marijuana. In spite of the fact that laws make possession or use of
marijuana a worse crime than assault in some states, thousands of people
recognize the value of this natural herb. Strange how society can sanction
the use of processed drugs and purely manufactured substances yet harbor
such defiant hostility toward one of nature's gifts.

Chris L. Legreid

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

Loud music as addictive as drugs, study says (The Ottawa Citizen
says a study published last week in Ear and Hearing, by researchers
at Northeastern University, supposedly found that people who "need"
high-decibel music experience the same withdrawal symptoms as substance
abusers. The group adapted a 32-question survey used to diagnose alcoholism
and recruited 90 self-professed loud-music lovers, eight of whom showed signs
of addiction. However, according to Will Hunter, a substance-abuse specialist
and one of the researchers, "There really is no need to be worried. It needs
to be clinically significant distress or impairment - which means pretty
serious.")

From: creator@islandnet.com (Matt Elrod)
To: mattalk@listserv.islandnet.com
Subject: US MA: Loud music as addictive as drugs, study says
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 08:50:22 -0800
Lines: 101
Newshawk: creator@mapinc.org
Source: Ottawa Citizen (Canada)
Contact: letters@thecitizen.southam.ca
Pubdate: Monday, December 14, 1998
Author: Allison Hanes

Loud music as addictive as drugs, study says

Researchers find those who need high-decibel fix experience same symptoms
as substance abusers

Whether you prefer to blast Mozart, left, or James Hetfield of
Metallica, the effects are equally troubling. Loud music addicts can
experience hearing loss and symptoms of withdrawal like mood swings,
lethargy and depression.

Listening to Mozart or Metallica cranked full-blast may be an
addiction, a group of American researchers concludes.

People dependent on a high-decibel "fix" may experience the same
symptoms and side effects as alcohol, tobacco and drug addicts, says a
study published last week in Ear and Hearing by researchers at
Northeastern University in Boston.

The group adapted a 32-question survey used to diagnose alcoholism and
recruited 90 self-professed loud-music lovers, eight of whom showed
signs of addiction. The addicts displayed symptoms such as craving,
loss of control over their music-listening habits, detrimental side
effects like hearing loss, an infringement on other activities and
symptoms of withdrawal like mood swings, lethargy and depression.

Mary Florentine, a professor of audiology research and one of the
study's authors, says people with noise-induced hearing loss who
insisted they couldn't stop cranking their stereos planted the seeds
for the project. She adds that the subjects themselves suspected their
music-listening habits might be out of control.

"This doesn't apply to the normal condition of teenage music
listening, where teenagers will listen to music for long periods of
time. The problem is when it's too loud for too long and it's taking
over their lives."

The range of loud-music addicts crosses lines of gender, age and
musical taste, and takes in people ages 15 to 58 who listened to music
ranging from heavy metal to classical.

"We had a 56-year-old man who listened to classical music and would
blast classical music and his normally hearing daughter would tell him
'dad, turn it down'," Prof. Florentine says. "So it doesn't appear to
make any difference what type of music, it's just that the person
likes that type of music."

This voracity for volume is surfacing as one of a number of new
addictions linked to technological change, like addiction to gambling
at video-lottery terminals and obsession with the Internet.

Soren Buus, a professor of electrical and computer engineering who did
the number-crunching, says despite the 10 per cent addiction rate in
the study, loud-music addiction would be rare in society at large.

"A good part of the population we recruited in a CD store, so I don't
think we should expect to find anywhere near 10 per cent of the
population as a whole would have this problem," he says. "But one or
two per cent, maybe."

The study says music can be loud without being annoying and the more a
person enjoys a song, the louder they tend to play it -- to the point
that well-liked music may be perceived as less loud than unliked music
even when played at the same intensity.

The researchers say this, coupled with the popularity of equipment
like walkmans, is what prompts people to pump the volume in the first
place.

Music "has the capacity to induce rapid potent changes in mood and
level of arousal, the ability to reduce negative states and the
tendency to elicit the experience of craving," the study says. "These
three elements seem to be present in all addictive substances around
which patterns of addictive behaviour tends to develop."

The study, which has been in the works for three years, will next have
loud-music addicts clinically diagnosed by a psychologist.

Will Hunter, is director of substance-abuse at Mayo Regional Hospital
in Maine, and one of the researchers. He says he was surprised by the
results because his background in addiction research made him a
natural skeptic.

"My criteria for looking at the results was very stringent," says Mr.
Hunter. "I was especially careful to avoid a false positive above all
else."

But Mr. Hunter says while high-decibel dependence is possible, family
members shouldn't jump to the conclusion that their loved one who
loves music is an addict.

"There really is no need to be worried," he says. "It needs to be
clinically significant distress or impairment -- which means pretty
serious."

Copyright 1998 Ottawa Citizen

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

[End]