1999 News
About Cannabis and Drug Policy
January 22-28

Friday, January 22, 1999:
• Oregon Medical Marijuana Act patient application instructions (A list subscriber forwards the latest draft - rendered into an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file here - of proposed guidelines for patients seeking to obtain a registry card from the Oregon Health Division.)
• A local medical marijuana case (Floyd Ferris Landrath of the American Antiprohibition League, in Portland, seeks your support for Diane Densmore, the Portland medical-marijuana patient/activist busted for saving sick people's lives at the Alternative Health Center. Please show up for a probation hearing 1:30 pm Tuesday, Jan. 26, in Room 216 of the Multnomah County Courthouse, 1120 SW Fourth Ave. Densmore is seeking early release because she is destitute and can no longer pay the fee for the electronic bracelet she is forced to wear.)
• Patients Air Frustrations With Pot Law (An Associated Press article in the Herald, in Everett, Washington, says medical-marijuana patients told lawmakers in Olympia Thursday about their frustrations with Initiative 692, the new voter-approved medical marijuana law. The problems include doctors who won't write a recommendation out of fear of the federal government, having to grow the herb themselves, not knowing how much constitutes a 60-day supply, and not having any easy source of accurate information. When patients turn for answers to the state Department of Health, they are rebuffed or just quoted the text of the statute. A legislative analyst said the Health Department cannot write rules that would offer a clearer interpretation because the initiative does not explicitly give the department rulewriting authority. And state officials are wary of drawing the wrath of the federal government.)
• Snohomish County treasurer won't face drug charge (The Seattle Times says Snohomish County Treasurer Bob Dantini will not be charged with cocaine possession because, according to authorities, the evidence against him is too slight to take to trial. It consists of a vial of cocaine found in the shoe of a woman who turned it over to authorities while attempting to get Dantini busted. Dantini's lawyer characterizes the woman as a scorned, jealous former lover who was drunkenly irate over another woman.)
• Support Rich Evans in San Francisco Jan. 27 (A list subscriber asks medical marijuana activists to show up for Evans' arraignment, 9 am Wednesday at 850 Bryant.)
• Libertarian Party Candidate Arrested (An Orange County Register news account catches up with yesterday's staff editorial about the cultivation bust of Steve Kubby, the medical-marijuana patient/activist and 1998 California gubernatorial candidate.)
• '98 Candidate Is Arrested In Marijuana Case (The Contra Costa Times version)
• Stifling Dissent (A letter to the editor of the Orange County Register says the cultivation bust of Steve Kubby, the medical-marijuana patient/activist and Libertarian candidate for California governor, shows that once again political dissidents are being "rounded up." Could it be related to the fact that the United States has signed the International Convention on Drugs treaty, which specifically calls for the suppression of free speech on drug issues?)
• Drug Lord Sentenced After 20-Year Flight (The San Francisco Examiner says a federal judge on Friday sentenced recaptured fugitive Nicholas Sand to an additional five-year term, to be served consecutively. Sand, a disciple of Augustus Owsley Stanley and one of the Bay Area's leading manufacturers and distributors of LSD, fled a 15-year prison sentence in 1976 while out on appeal.)
• Parole board frees woman imprisoned for 20 years on drug charge (The Associated Press says Michigan officials unanimously agreed Friday to release JeDonna Young, 44, who was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 1978, making her the first person freed under a new law that allows parole for lifers after 20 years. Ms. Young was driving with her boyfriend James Gulley in 1978 when Detroit police stopped her car and found nearly 3 pounds of heroin. Gulley said it was his; Ms. Young said she didn't know it was there. They were both convicted. Gulley died in prison last year.)
• New additions to the Stanton Peele Addiction Web Site (A press release provides summaries of case studies and other papers recently added to the web site of the only treatment specialist belonging to the Drug Reform Coordination Network.)
• The Cannabis Nation Radio Hour - We're High on Air! (A news release from Cannabis Culture magazine in British Columbia publicizes a new syndicated radio show devoted exclusively to cannabis issues - plus a list of about 80 stations in British Columbia that will broadcast the show.)
• Ontario students file suit over strip search (The Associated Press says nine ninth-grade students are suing local and provincial school authorities for $100,000 each. The boys were among 19 ninth-graders at Kingsville District High School in southwestern Ontario who were told to strip on Dec. 4 after a student complained that $90 had been stolen from his gym bag. No money was found.)
• Papal Blessing Unlikely For Mexican Saint Of Narcos (Reuters says Pope John Paul may not know or approve, but the country where he was due to arrive for a four-day visit on Friday has a "Patron Saint of the Drug Traffickers" in its panoply of unofficial icons. In Culiacan, the capital of Mexico's northern state of Sinaloa, a plaster image stands in a rudimentary "chapel" in honour of Jesus Malverde, a Mexican-style Robin Hood who robbed the rich to help the poor earlier this century. The chapel now attracts a following of misfits - everyone from common crooks to big-time drug dealers.)
• Marilyn Manson Gives Drugs For Christmas (According to World Entertainment News Network, the so-called shock rocker told Australian journalists that he can't be bothered visiting department stores, but still has to wrap his presents "to avoid the suspicions of the police in case they stop me.")
• Student Drug Use Report Withheld (The Sydney Morning Herald, in Australia, says the withdrawal of a report said to show alarming patterns of drug use among adolescents, based on the 1996 Australian School Students' Alcohol and Drugs Survey, has been condemned as politically motivated. The report was the second this week to have its release cancelled. On Wednesday a drug users' advocacy group abruptly cancelled the release of a needle exchange report that contradicted State Government policy.)
• The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 75 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original compilation of news and calls to action regarding drug policy, including - Will Foster parole denied; Senate Republicans push a Drug-Free Century Act; New York Mayor Giuliani reverses himself on methadone; California gubernatorial candidate Steve Kubby arrested for medical marijuana; Humboldt residents testify to environmental harmof anti-marijuana helicopters; and an editorial by Adam J. Smith, Standing at the schoolhouse door.)
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  Saturday, January 23, 1999:

• Treasurer Says Cloud Removed (According to the Daily Herald, in Everett, Washington, Snohomish County Treasurer Bob Dantini said Friday he was relieved to learn that he would not face criminal prosecution based on his former fiancee's allegations, including her charge that he used cocaine.)
• Let Users Get Drugs At Corner Store (A letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, from parents who lost their 19-year-old son to heroin, says Bos Scaggs' understandably emotional notion of a "plague of heroin" is misguided. Heroin is not a poison. It is the prohibition of various substances that poisons users.)
• ACLU Questions Aspects Of Drug Search In Schools (The Billings Gazette covers a search of schools by a drug-sniffing dog in Deer Lodge, Montana. Out of 350 students, three were charged with drug possession and a fourth was cited for being under 18 and having cigarettes. But Scott Crichton, executive director of the Montana ACLU in Billings, says "they're pushing the line . . . when they are searching kids themselves and going into the parking lot.")
• Customs officers stole drug cash, Mountie says (The National Post, in Canada, says court documents discovered by the newspaper show that customs officials at Pearson International Airport in Toronto who were supposed to fight money-laundering were themselves involved in the theft of at least $1 million in "drug" cash and its transfer to various foreign accounts. Information sworn Wednesday by Sergeant Robin Smith of the London, Ontario, RCMP proceeds-of-crime unit outlines the basis for 12 charges.)
• Hemp crop was meant for oil production (A letter to the editor of the Toronto Star says Canadian entrepreneur Paul Wylie rots in a Nicaraguan prison - presumed guilty - because the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency continues to prop up the ridiculous and evil prohibition of cannabis hemp.)
• Marijuana myths go up in smoke, man (The Calgary Herald reviews the book, "Romancing Mary Jane: A Year in the Life of a Failed Marijuana Grower," by Michael Poole. The author is not saying that everybody should smoke marijuana, and "I'm not convinced that I should smoke marijuana. But I am convinced that some of my opinions about it need reconsidering. The book has accomplished its mission. Whether you think marijuana should be legal or not, this is a bold, engaging and thought-provoking work.")
• 'One Joint Changed My Life' (The Times, in London, says a friend who showed Clare Hodges how to roll her first joint transformed her life. The former television producer had suffered from multiple sclerosis for nine years and was experiencing bladder spasms that made sleeping at night almost impossible. Shortly afterwards Mrs Hodges and two other MS patients founded the Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics. The group's first major breakthrough came in 1997 when the British Medical Association voted overwhelmingly for cannabis products to be made available on prescription.)
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  Sunday, January 24, 1999:

• Employee drug tests challenged on philosophical, technical grounds (The News Tribune, in Tacoma, Washington, examines the brief history of urine testing in the United States, noting a 1996 survey from the American Management Association showed that employee drug testing among major U.S. firms increased by 277 percent in the previous 10 years, to 81 percent of all businesses polled. The association admits that "no finding . . . can confirm with statistical certainty that testing deters drug use," since marijuana consumers make better employees. The ACLU is encouraging companies to instead use computer-assisted performance tests that measure eye-hand coordination and response times.)
• Junkie Nation (The Los Angeles Times prints an excellent review of four books: "Drug Crazy: How We Got Into This Mess and How We Can Get Out," by Mike Gray; "Ending the War on Drugs: A Solution for America," by Dirk Chase Eldredge; "The Fix: Under the Nixon Administration, America Had an Effective Drug Policy. We Should Restore It. (Nixon Was Right)," by Michael Massing; and "Webs of Smoke: Smugglers, Warlords, Spies and the History of the International Drug Trade," by Kathryn Meyer and Terry Parssinen)
• Dark Alliance: the CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion (A review of Gary Webb's book in the Los Angeles Times ignores the CIA's recent corroboration of Webb's "Dark Alliance" series for the San Jose Mercury News and continues the newspaper's campaign against Webb. It asserts, for example, that "To maintain against this backdrop that the Contras and the CIA played a key part in spreading crack seems a grab for headlines.")
• ACM-Bulletin of 24 January 1999 (An English-language news bulletin from the Association for Cannabis as Medicine, in Cologne, Germany, focuses on a new dronabinol/THC preparation from the Bock pharmacy in Frankfurt, Germany, extracted from industrial hemp and manufactured in conjunction with the company THC Pharm at one-quarter the cost of synthetic Marinol; and the questioning in the U.S. of states rights being trumped by federal law.)
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  Monday, January 25, 1999:

• Volunteer with Portland police linked to bank heist (The Oregonian says Louie Lira Jr., a gang outreach worker and volunteer with the Portland Police Bureau, served as a lookout during the Nov. 4 holdup at a Southeast Portland Wells Fargo bank. Lira was deported in 1985 after being convicted of robbery and drug charges in California. Police say their background check didn't include running Lira's fingerprints, begging the question, how many other criminals have been recruited by the Portland police force?)
• Doctors prescribe more antidepressants than any other drug, records show (According to the Associated Press, an investigation of Oregon Health Plan records by the Statesman Journal, in Salem, Oregon, shows that doctors prescribe more antidepressants for poor children in Oregon than any other drug, although such drugs have not been tested or approved for children by the Food and Drug Administration. The use of such drugs is increasing. Administrators of the Oregon Health Plan, which covers poor Oregonians, say doctors supplied nearly 10,000 Oregon children with psychotherapeutic drugs last year.)
• Federal claims on tobacco settlement make Oregon's share uncertain (The Associated Press says the federal Health Care Finance Administration claims it is entitled to $109 billion of the $196 billion settlement that 46 states hope to receive over the next 25 years. That means Oregon's annual share of the extorted funds - originally estimated at $2.2 billion - will come out to $71.9 million during the coming budget cycle instead of $180.6 million.)
• Spending tobacco money proves tricky for lawmakers (The Oregonian version)
• Court Date Set For Medical Marijuana Activists (MSNBC/KNBC, in Los Angeles, says the federal trial of Todd McCormick, Peter McWilliams and other defendants who thought they were protected by Proposition 215 will begin Sept. 7 in Los Angeles. McCormick is also due in court March 17 for a bail revocation hearing.)
• Pete Brady also busted in California (A list subscriber says the bust of Steve & Michelle Kubby has obscured the bust of a visitor to the Kubbys' house, a writer for High Times, Hemp Times and Cannabis Culture magazines and a bona fide medical marijuana user under Proposition 215. On probation for a 1994 marijuana cultivation charge, Brady faces much more trouble than the Kubbys.)
• Pot Laws And Big Brother (A brief letter to the editor of the San Luis Obispo County Telegram-Tribune says government in California needs prohibition in order to keep its 32 prisons full and correctional officers employed.)
• Balto. County To Provide Drug Test Kits (The Baltimore Sun says the Baltimore County Bureau of Substance Abuse will begin a pilot urine-testing program this week that will let parents know within minutes if their child has taken "drugs" and, if so, provide immediate counseling. But the newspaper doesn't discuss the ramifications of its revelation that the test to be used is only 95 percent accurate. So unless more than 5 percent of those tested have actually used prohibited substances, more kids will yield false positives than true positives.)
• Magistrate Attacks Drug Testing Delays (The Daily Telegraph, in Australia, says Newcastle Local Court Magistrate Mick Morahan criticised the Division of Analytical Laboratories at Lidcombe for what he called an unacceptable 10 week delay in the testing of drug samples required for criminal court proceedings. Morahan expressed concern that the problem was contributing to long delays within the court system, and the newspaper says at least one murder investigation has been impeded by the backlog.)
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  Tuesday, January 26, 1999:

• Portland: Free Screening of "Sex, Drugs & Democracy," 1/28 (A news release from the Drug Reform Coordination Network says director Jonathan Blank and producer Barclay Powers will attend the showing Thursday night at the Fifth Avenue Cinema of the documentary about the success of Dutch cannabis policies.)
• Steven Dons: New Information Developed (A list subscriber who's apparently been reading the Portland NORML news notes prohibition agents from the Marijuana Task Force apparently became interested in the future cop killer while violating a legal settlement in which they had agreed to stop using a "trap-and-trace" device identifying callers who telephoned American Agriculture, the hydroponics store at Southeast 92nd Avenue and Stark Street.)
• Records Show Drugs On Treasurer's Shirt (The Herald, in Everett, Washington, says police documents obtained Monday by the newspaper allege traces of cocaine were found in the pocket of the pajamas worn by Snohomish County Treasurer Bob Dantini during a May altercation with his former fiancee. Dantini indicates the woman is trying to frame him, and the woman has stopped cooperating with authorities. No charges will be filed and Dantini will seek re-election.)
• Drug Tests Support Claims Against Snohomish County Official (The Seattle Times version)
• Cops Spied on Kubbys' Bedroom (A list subscriber and associate of Steve Kubby, the medical marijuana patient/activist and 1998 Libertarian for California governor, says the police report on the investigation that led to Kubby's bust for cultivation last Tuesday indicated prohibition agents videotaped Kubby and his wife and co-defendant from a hill behind their home with a clear view of the master bedroom. A DEA agent also lied to the Kubbys' landlord in an attempt to have her evict them.)
• Lockyer Won't Get Involved In Prosecution Of Gubernatorial Candidate (According to the Associated Press, a spokeswoman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer told the Auburn Journal that Bill Lockyer would not intervene in the prosecution of the 1998 Libertarian candidate and his wife, who are accused of growing marijuana at their home, despite their status as medical-marijuana patients.)
• Banks' Big Brother (A staff editorial in the Gazette, in Colorado, pans the Know Your Customer rule proposed for banks in the United States, which would be obligated ot track the transaction histories of depositors and develop profiles on them, in search of behavior deemed suspicious. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and three other federal agencies are accepting public comment until March 8.)
• Prison System Grows Fat From Fear And Greed (Milwaukee Sentinel Journal columnist Eugene Kane ponders the prison-industrrial complex in Wisconsin after reading Eric Schlosser's article in the December issue of the Atlantic Monthly, which defines the complex as "a confluence of special interests that has given prison construction in the United States a seemingly unstoppable momentum." Gov. Tommy Thompson has based his political fortunes on building more prisons while cutting welfare for the poor. Doreatha Mbalia of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee took a look at the difference in money spent for prisons and education and found that Wisconsin spends $241 million to incarcerate minorities, compared with $81.3 million in funding grants earmarked for minority students. In some neighborhoods young people come to view prison as a rite of passage instead of college. A few months ago in Milwaukee, young people were buying orange jumpsuits similar to those issued to inmates at Milwaukee County Jail, to wear as fashion statements.)
• State's Highest Court Asked To Decide Free Speech Issue (The Associated Press says the Maryland Supreme Court will decide whether Wayne N. Davis of Ocean City was exercising his right to freedom of speech in 1991 or hindering prohibition agents in the line of duty when he disclosed the identity of two undercover narcs.)
• Senate Backs Bill To Add Drug Prosecutors (The Florida Times-Union says the Georgia state senate unanimously passed a bill yesterday to provide additional prosecutors to go after "drug" peddlers. The bill was proposed by Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor last fall during an election campaign in which he admitted using cocaine in his 20s without ever being arrested. Hiring, equipping and training one additional prosecutor for each of the 47 judicial circuits in Georgia would cost an estimated $3.6 million the first year, but the bill doesn't include any funding. "The costs to the state are relatively low when the benefits are considered," Taylor said. Apparently nobody asked to see his cost-benefit analysis.)
• Cuban Exile Arrested In Drug Case (According to the Miami Herald, Drug Enforcement Administration officials said Monday that one of the seven Cuban exiles charged in Puerto Rico with plotting to kill Fidel Castro has been arrested in Miami in a major cocaine-smuggling case.)
• Assassination Suspect Charged (The UPI version)
• Jails nearing crisis: report (The Montreal Gazette says a wide-ranging, year-long study of Quebec's 17 prisons, released yesterday by the provincial ombudsman, Daniel Jacoby, finds dangerous overcrowding, rampant drug use and a tension-ridden system that must be fixed immediately. Jacoby saved his most critical comments for the zero-tolerance drug policy, saying it was "a fiasco that hasn't achieved its goals." He estimated that between $40 million and $60 million in drugs flow through the prisons annually. "There is a commercial enterprise of drug dealing in the prisons," he said. Jacoby went so far as to characterize the explosion of drug use in prisons as an unintended effect of the province's crackdown on outlaw bikers and warring criminal gangs. Reacting to the report, Public Security Minister Serge Menard said, "We're in the strange situation where criminal activity is going down, but the number of prisoners is going up." Last year, Quebec cut $5.2 million from its prison budget and 600 workers were laid off from the correctional system.)
• US Anti-Drug Chief Criticizes IOC Bribe Scandal (Reuters says the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, criticized the Olympic bribery scandal on Monday, saying it raised doubts about whether the International Olympic Committee could police illegal drug use by its athletes. McCaffrey, who is leading a U.S. delegation to an IOC conference on drugs in sports next month in Lausanne, Switzerland, said IOC reforms are needed if the sporting body is to stop its athletes from using illegal drugs and end blood doping.)
• Lettuce: Nature's Narcotic (The Daily Telegraph, in Britain, says the most commonly mentioned remedy for insomnia is lettuce. In a learned article in the British Medical Journal, Dr Tony Carter, a consultant anaesthetist at North Staffordshire Hospital, points out that, in France, the wild lettuce, Lactuca virosa, is a commonly used sedative and, combined with other herbal compounds, induces anaesthesia. The lettuce - also advertised as a smoking herb in High Times, by the way - contains morphine-like chemicals.)
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  Wednesday, January 27, 1999:

• Marijuana Probation Terms Relaxed (The Oregonian says Multnomah County Circuit Judge Janice Wilson eased the terms of probation Tuesday for Diane R. Densmore, convicted of drug dealing for operating the Alternative Health Center in Portland, which dispensed marijuana for medicinal use. The judge also allowed Densmore to apply to the state Health Division to use marijuana for her own health problems under the voter-approved Oregon Medical Marijuana Act. The paper notes too that in Multnomah County, home-detention prisoners of the war on some drug users are now obliged to fund the system that persecutes them an average of $12 per day just for those earning minimum wage.)
• The Need For Weed (Willamette Week, in Portland, belatedly discovers how the voter-approved Oregon Medical Marijuana Act is so weak that cancer sufferers and other seriously ill patients still have to resort to illegal means to obtain medicine - or go without. Even those who can wait six months to grow plants have to obtain seeds or starts illegally. The free weekly shopper also promotes the myth that some cannabis buyers' clubs in California became "notorious hangouts for recreational users" - a media-generated lie that partly explains why patients in Oregon have to cope with the ridiculous limitations of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act.)
• Data give bad news on teen substance abuse (The Oregonian says the 1998 Oregon Public School Drug Use Survey of nearly 20,000 students in grades 6, 8 and 11 at 230 schools across the state showed that 43 percent of 11th-graders drank alcohol, nearly one in three smoked cigarettes, and nearly one in four used an "illicit drug" - almost invariably, marijuana - in the month prior to the survey. The state's most complete indicator of drug and alcohol use among young people also indicated that among eighth-graders, one in four drank, one in five used tobacco, and nearly one in five used marijuana. Since there was no increase in marijuana use, according to an accompanying graph, the newspaper tries to sensationalize the non-news that drug use cuts across all socioeconomic groups, while ignoring the startling evidence that current drug policy has more than doubled the deaths from hard drugs since 1993. Both the survey takers and the newspaper equate marijuana with heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine, calling it an "illicit drug," while denying that alcohol and tobacco are drugs, and illicit for teens, yet seem to wring their hands about how kids aren't listening.)
• Butane sniffing, called huffing, is a growing health threat (The Associated Press notes prohibition agents are trying to capitalize on the death of an 18-year-old man in Salem, Oregon, who sniffed butane after hearing that it would enhance the high from marijuana. Dave Driscoll, a so-called drug recognition expert for Salem police, said of the fatality that "It sounds like a typical sad end result of typical huffers.")
• Kubbys To Enter Pleas Jan. 28 (U.S. Newswire says recent California gubernatorial candidate Steve Kubby and his wife, Michele, will plead not guilty tomorrow morning in Placer County Superior Court to a variety of charges stemming from their marijuana arrest last week. According to Steve Kubby, a medical-marijuana patient/activist, "An anonymous letter with vague accusations - information called 'weak and non-specific' by Det. Don Atkinson of the El Dorado County Sheriff's Department - was the 'probable cause' under which four different law enforcement agencies monitored our every move for the past six months.")
• Shasta County Medical Marijuana Meeting Feb. 2 (An action alert from California NORML asks reformers to attend a meeting Tuesday of the county board of supervisors, where the Shasta Patient Alliance will urge supervisors to recognize and honor California's medical marijuana law and respect patients' rights. The meeting was prompted by the busts of medical-marijuana patient/defendants Kim & Rick Levin, charged with cultivating 41 unsexed marijuana seedlings.)
• We Thought You Knew (A staff editorial in the Echo, the student newspaper at the University of Central Arkansas, responds to a critic of the newspaper who is angry that it printed a humorous memoir in its opinion section last week, about a staff writer's first experience smoking marijuana. There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for the staff's deviance - the First Amendment, not to mention a famous decision by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.)
• Honor Student Charged in Robbery (The Associated Press says a high school honor student and gymnast in the Detroit suburb of Berkley, Michigan, has been charged with armed robbery and is a suspect in several others, allegedly to support a heroin habit. Sarah Plumb, 16, is in a juvenile lockup, awaiting trial as an adult on charges that could land her a life sentence.)
• Air Force Drug-Use Program Threatened (The Air Force Print News, an internal Air Force wire service providing copy to service newspapers, says Air Force drug testers have banned the use of hemp seed oil products, claiming they contain tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. The Armed Forces Institute of Pathology has found some level of THC in all hemp seed and hemp oil products tested, which might seem to counter previous research showing that the human body manufactures THC metabolites from hempseed oil. Lt. Col. Peter Durand of the Air Force Surgeon General's Office, the program manager for the Air Force drug abuse prevention and treatment program, said that without the ban on hemp products, drug users who failed urine tests could hide their crime simply by claiming they ingested a hemp-based dietary supplement.)
• Colombia's Internal Security (Jane's Defence Weekly gives the more-or-less official US interpretation of Colombia's civil war as a struggle between democratic nationalists with the government against Communist drug traffickers with FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. "It is believed" that FARC charges a 20 percent tax on coca in the regions it controls, adding up to $230 million in 1997. "It is widely believed" that FARC and the cartels can only be dealt with by the police and military acting together. Now, US policy is beginning to warm to this view and as a result greater ties are being formed between the US armed forces and its Colombian counterparts.)
• DrugSense Weekly, No. 83 (The original summary of drug policy news from DrugSense opens with a note - About this week's issue. The weekly feature article explains the Significance of the Kubbys' arrest, by Thomas J. O'Connell, M.D. The Weekly News in Review features Medicinal marijuana advocate, wife busted; Outrage in law; Lockyer won't get involved in prosecution of gubernatorial candidate. Recently published letters to newspaper editors include - Medical marijuana and the legal mess; Pot laws and big brother; Maine doctor should look at the facts of marijuana; Lockyer on medical pot; Failed drug policies and the heroin glut; Drug tests a waste; It's time to honestly review drug policy; and Let users get drugs at corner store. The weekly Hot Off The 'Net feattures the Free The Kubbys Web Action page. The DrugSense Tip Of The Week looks at subscribing to and unsubscribing from various services and lists. The Quote of the Week cites Bill Clinton.)
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  Thursday, January 28, 1999:

• NORML Foundation Weekly News Release (Justice Department Rejects Judge's Request To Expand Medical Marijuana Distribution Program; Minnesota Pins Agriculture Hopes On Hemp; Governor Rejects Parole For Medical Marijuana Patient Will Foster; California A.G. Won't Intervene In High Profile Medical Marijuana Bust)
• Steven Dons/MTF Fiasco, 1 year later (A commemorative news release from Floyd Ferris Landrath of the American Antiprohibition League, in Portland, says Colleen Waibel, the Portland police officer killed by Steven Dons during a warrantless break-in by the Marijuana Task Force, died a meaningless death in a meaningless war.)
• Drug (Warrior) Reform (Seattle Weekly portrays Chris Hurst, a veteran King County prohibition agent who is currently a police officer in Black Diamond, Washington, a newly elected state legislator, and purported opponent of the war on some drug users. "I've worked at this so long, I've put the same people in prison three times." That's how Hurst came to realize he was helping throw money and lives away: "We're going broke, and we're not dealing with the real problems. It costs a fortune to house someone in prison, and we're increasing our prison population at an exponential rate. There's got to be better way." Hurst is among a broad coalition of House Republicans and Democrats that wants to expand drug courts, which the free weekly shopper apparently thinks will make the drug war more affordable.)
• Marvin Chavez sentencing tomorrow, Jan. 29 (A list subscriber asks supporters of the medical-marijuana patient/activist and founder of the Orange County Cannabis Co-op to attend the court Friday morning at Orange County Superior Court in Westminster, California.)
• Letter from Dave Herrick (A list subscriber forwards a letter from the California medical-marijuana martyr sentenced by Orange County to four years in prison after being denied a Proposition 215 defense. Herrick notes, among other things, that Blacks Law Dictionary defines a "care giver" as an individual, organization, or entity. Herrick and his lawyers are asking reformers to write letters to California media publicizing his appeal.)
• David Herrick's Address (A list subscriber urges you also to write to the incarcerated California medical-marijuana patient himself.)
• Advocates Of Marijuana Legalization Split And End Rift (The Blade, in Toledo, Ohio, says the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws will resolve a rift in the northwest Ohio chapter of the grass-roots organization by splitting the group. One will be in Toledo, and the other will remain in Port Clinton.)
• Weekly Action Report on Drug Policies, Year 5, No. 4 (A summary of European and international drug policy news, from CORA in Italy)
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