Thursday, January 14, 1999:
NORML Foundation Weekly News Release (Body's Own Marijuana-Like Agents Holds Hope For High Blood Pressure Patients; Marijuana For Pain, MS Trials Approved In England; Support for Medical Marijuana, Industrial Hemp Strong, State Survey Shows; Oklahoma Governor To Decide Medical Marijuana Patient's Fate This Month)
Federal agents arrest man who aided police (According to the Oregonian, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service says Louie Lira, who did anti-gang work in Portland for the last eight years and served as an unpaid volunteer with the Portland Police Bureau's Crisis Response Team, is really Gerardo Morales Alejo, who was deported to Mexico in 1985 after robbery and drug convictions in California.)
Weapons will boost firepower for police (The Oregonian says that with little discussion or debate, the Portland city council awarded a $103,771 contract Wednesday to Specialized Armament Warehouse of Chandler, Arizona, to provide the Portland Police Bureau with 175 semiautomatic rifles. Officials didn't cite any local incidents that might have turned out more favorably if police had had bigger guns.)
Air scope turns up heat on crime (The Oregonian says the Oregon State Police have a new helicopter equipped with a Forward-Looking Infrared Detection unit, or FLIR, that will allow them to find the warm bodies of fleeing felons in the dark. One assumes the unit will spend the rest of its time flying around looking for midnight gardens.]
Three firefighters slightly injured after propane explosion (The Associated Press notes Multnomah County has apparently resorted to forfeiture by other means in its campaign to take the property where a Portland prohibition agent was justifiably homicided in 1979 during a warrantless break-in.)
Senate briefing I-692 (A list subscriber forwards a notice from Washington state senator Jeanne Kohl about a Department of Health briefing in Olympia Jan. 21 regarding implementation of Initiative 692, the voter-approved medical marijuana law.)
A Drug Sniffing Society (Officials at Boise High School who are considering urine tests for students who wish to participate in extracurricular activities cause Boise Weekly columnist Bill Cope to come out against the drug war. One of these days, we Americans - Idaho Americans in particular and Canyon County Americans in particular - are gonna have to sit down and figure out exactly what and how much we're willing to give up to keep waging the war on illegal drugs. Don't expect it to happen anytime real soon, though. To conduct a reasonable community discussion that might result in some reasonable community solutions, it's going to take some reasonable community leaders. At this point in the endless war, you'd have more luck spearing squid out of Lake Lowell than in finding a local official with the guts to suggest the drug problem has not been, nor will it be, solved by the us-versus-them policy that's been flopping about on the deck of America's ship of state for three decades now, all the time crushing more and more of what keeps the boat afloat in the first place.)
Political Shift May Usher In New Pot Club (The San Francisco Chronicle says that despite pledges from the federal government to shut her down, Jane Weirick, the executive director of the San Francisco Patients Resource Center, plans to open a new medical marijuana dispensary. She hopes to have the facility running in six weeks or less, as soon as she locates a building to house the club. The Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative has agreed to handle the club's eligibility paperwork and issue membership cards. Organizers are hoping the election of Bill Lockyer as Attorney General will lead to a compromise with the federal government that would allow medical marijuana dispensaries to re-emerge in California to fulfill the mandate of Proposition 215.)
2 Convicted for Running Indoor Marijuana Farms (A cautionary tale in the Los Angeles Times says Drug Enforcement Administration agents picked up the trail of the defendants, Daniel Carson Adams, and his son-in-law, Earl Martin Torgerson, by staking out a hydroponics equipment store in North Hollywood and following one of the suspects after he purchased supplies. Six defendants have now been convicted for growing more than 1,800 plants in three houses. All face mandatory minimum federal sentences, except the leader of the conspiracy, Gary Manuel Margado, who was the chief witness against the others, apparently in an attempt to shorten his 10-year term.)
San Francisco Marijuana Reform Forum Feb. 11 (A bulletin from the Lindesmith Center West publicizes a public meeting featuring Keith Stroup of NORML and Dale Gieringer of California NORML.)
South Dakota Governor Proposes Mandatory Jail For Drug Offenses (USA Today says Gov. Janklow told state lawmakers in his State of the State address that anyone caught with "drugs" in South Dakota should have to spend at least 30 days in jail.)
Marijuana Inhaling May Be Healthy (The Daily O'Collegian at Oklahoma State University covers a campus teach-in by the Drug Policy Forum of Oklahoma. Michael Pearson, the forum's organizer and a registered pharmacist, said studies have proven marijuana to be helpful with multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injury spasms, high blood pressure, migraines, joint pain, menstrual problems, asthma and rheumatism. Pearson said patients get prescriptions for Valium from doctors and then trade it on the black market for marijuana, which is rumored to be more effective. Drug companies are reluctant to accept the drug because a plant is difficult to patent, he said, and because marijuana works as an anti-depressant. "What would happen to Prozac and other drugs that make up half [the drug companies'] money?")
Progress Made In War On Drugs, Federal Official Reports (The Daily Herald, in Arlington Heights, Illinois, says Donald Vereen Jr., deputy director of the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy, told the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce that use of marijuana among eighth-graders did not increase in 1997.)
Drug Testing Expands (The Washington Post, which apparently does not consider alcohol to be a drug, says the number of "drug addicts" released on parole and probation in Maryland who are now required to take twice-weekly urine tests has increased five-fold in the past two months under the state's new "Break the Cycle" program. Under the plan, all 25,000 drug addicts on parole and probation in Maryland eventually will be required to undergo treatment and frequent testing - and face swift, escalating punishments if they skip a treatment session or test positive for "drug" use. The enterprise faces a range of obstacles, particularly if large numbers of ex-offenders test positive and the state is unable to "punish them effectively.")
Clinton To Propose Spending $6 Billion To Battle Crime (The Orange County Register says President Clinton was scheduled to venture across the Potomac River today to Alexandria, Virginia, to unveil a new community-policing initiative. The five-year, $6 billion anti-crime package would fund the last 11,500 police officers of the 100,000 a Clinton initiative began to put on the street in 1994.)
Police don't have to tell how to get seized property back, high court rules (An Associated Press article in the Miami Herald says the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously threw out a California couple's lawsuit, prompted by the difficulty they had recovering cash taken by police during a search of their home. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, "Once the property owner is informed that his property has been seized, he can turn to . . . public sources to learn about the remedial procedures.")
DrugSense Focus Alert! PBS Frontline gives reform a major boost (DrugSense asks you to write a letter to the Public Broadcasting Service and other media praising Frontline for its Jan. 12 television documentary on federal drug informants. Plus URLs where you can view or listen to the program.)
Pray For Peace Foundation News, December 1998-January 1999 (A periodic summary of drug policy and other news from the Pray for Peace Foundation, whose members are "committed to the legalization of sacred natural medicines for spiritual healing, for all people.")
Anti-pot fungus poses eco hazard (Now magazine, in Canada, says the U.S. Congress passed a $690 million anti-drug package this week that included $23 million for a fungus purported to kill marijuana, poppy and coca plants. Unspecified scientists are criticizing the project, saying other plants may be susceptible to the bio-engineered fungus. For example, they note that an alkaloid similar to one in the coca plant is also present in tobacco and coffee plants.)
900 In Trials To Test Claim That Cannabis Has Medical Benefits (The Daily Mail, in Britain, says the legalisation of cannabis moved a step closer yesterday as doctors announced details of the first medical trials for the herb. Over the next three years, 900 sufferers of multiple sclerosis and post-operative pain will be given regular doses of cannabis through an inhaler or as a pill. If the drug is shown to ease the volunteers' symptoms without causing side effects, doctors could be prescribing cannabis pills to some of Britain's 85,000 MS sufferers within five years.)
Weekly Action Report on Drug Policies, Year 5 No. 2 (A summary of European and international drug policy news, from CORA in Italy)
Bytes: 91,100 Last updated: 2/23/99
