Thursday, February 4, 1999:
NORML Foundation Weekly News Release (Post-arrest approval for medical marijuana no protection, California appeals court rules; Increased penalties, prison sentences don't deter drug use, ABA study finds; Athletic association mandates drug testing for Louisiana high school students; Portland, Oregon schools offer students $1,000 incentive to snitch on classmates)
Lockyer Task Force to Look at Medical Marijuana Law (The San Francisco Chronicle says California's new attorney general, Bill Lockyer, invited about 35 law enforcement officials, health professionals, politicians and medical-marijuana patient advocates to the state Justice Department's Sacramento office yesterday for the first meeting of a new task force whose mission is to clear up the legal questions still remaining more than two years after the passage of Proposition 215.)
Criminal Prosecution Body Count Grows In War On Medical Marijuana (Orange County Weekly surveys local law enforcement officials' war on medical marijuana patients, particularly the six-year sentence handed down last week to Marvin Chavez of the Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support Group. Jim Silva, the attorney for Chavez, said, "Judge Borris' decision took me completely off-guard. It may change the whole political landscape. Marvin only provided marijuana to patients or to undercover cops pretending to be patients. But Judge Borris didn't even consider that as a mitigating factor in his sentencing." Silva said the 30-page probation report used to justify Chavez's sentence noted, "Mr. Chavez says he would continue to travel around the state and 'educate' people about medical marijuana." Silva says "The report makes it abundantly clear they don't want Marvin to exercise his rights to free speech.")
Kubby To Test State Pot Law (Tahoe World, in California, examines the prosecution of Steve Kubby, the 1998 Libertarian candidate for governor, and his wife, Michele. Both are Olympic Valley residents and medical-marijuana patients and both are charged with possession of marijuana for sale, cultivation of marijuana, and conspiracy. Christopher Cattran, the deputy district attorney, said the approximately 300 marijuana plants found in four grow rooms in the Kubbys' home "was for more than personal use." But then, police also estimated the value of each plant at $14,000, so what do they know? Kubby noted there is no limit to the amount of cannabis patients can grow under Proposition 215. Michele Kubby said, "My husband has a terminal illness. No one else has survived this illness. My question is, how much is too much?")
Some Good News Re: Peter Baez (A list subscriber forwards news that a judge in San Jose County, California, ruled in favor of all three motions heard today in the case of the former operator of Santa Clara County's only medical marijuana dispensary.)
Court Says Airline, Rail Workers Can Sue for Disability Bias (An Associated Press article in the Sacramento Bee says the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that an airline mechanic who was fired in May 1996 for using Marinol, a prescription drug consisting of synthetic THC, the primary cannabinoid in marijuana, can sue for disability discrimination. The three-judge panel also ruled unanimously that the victim of drug testing could also claim he was fired in violation of public policy, which could bring punitive damages for emotional distress. Saridakis' doctor prescribed Marinol to relieve the pain and insomnia he suffered from injuries.)
The Erosion Of Our Rights (San Diego Union Tribune columnist Joseph Perkins writes in the Oakland Tribune about recent encroachments on civil liberties carried out or sought by police in Buena Park, California, who stopped every car looking for invalid licenses; by police in New York City, who want the DNA of anyone arrested; and by police in three Northern California cities - Palo Alto, Menlo Park and San Pablo - who want to keep "problem drinkers and common drunkards" from being served by local merchants. One need not be soft on crime to recognize that when the government is able to chip away at any of our rights under whatever seemingly reasonable pretext, it is not long before it finds other seemingly reasonable pretexts to further erode those rights until those cherished rights no longer exist for all practical purposes.)
Major Ariz. Pot Smuggler Of '80s Is Buried After Shooting in Mexico (The Arizona Daily Star says Manuel Federico Meraz Samaniego, a former resident of Douglas who was convicted of running a multimillion-dollar marijuana smuggling operation in the 1980s, was shot and killed early Monday in a small farming village near Casas Grandes, Chihuahua. According to Chihuahua police, Samaniego was shot in what is believed to have been an ongoing dispute with another former drug kingpin.)
3 Boston Police Officers Fail A First Drug Test (The Boston Globe says the Boston Police Department, which implemented a policy Jan. 4 of drug testing all 1,500 patrol officers, confirmed yesterday that three officers of 197 given hair tests so far had come up positive for unspecified illegal substances.)
Study strengthens smoking-cocaine-miscarriage link (The Associated Press says a study in today's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine regarding 970 pregnant women who sought emergency room treatment for miscarriage or other problems at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia found no link between marijuana or alcohol use and spontaneous abortion. The report suggested smokers were almost twice as likely to miscarry as non-smokers, and cocaine users were nearly 1 1/2 times as likely to miscarry as non-users. Still, the link between cocaine use and miscarriage was not entirely persuasive, said an accompanying editorial by Dr. James Mills of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The increased risk was small, and other factors could have skewed the results. "One of the things we have learned from this study is that self-reporting is far from perfect," said Dr. Roberta Ness of the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, the lead author of the report.)
Drug Study At Odds With Drug Czar Findings (USA Today says a study released Thursday by the American Bar Association found that increased drug arrests and longer prison sentences had not impeded illegal drug use. The report used statistics from several federal reports and surveys to find that illegal drug use increased 7 percent from 1996 to 1997, to 14 million people. The report contradicts a study earlier this year by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Barry McCaffrey, the ONDCP director, said he had not seen the ABA study, but said the general issues it raised were being addressed. There were 1.2 million Americans arrested on drug charges in 1997.)
Keep Financial Privacy, New Legislation Urges (The Denver Post says U.S. Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican, unveiled a far-reaching legislative package Wednesday that would, among other things, block proposed anti-money-laundering rules that would track the habits of bank customers. At least two federal banking agencies are reconsidering the proposed "Know Your Customer" rules in response to the public outcry that started in December.)
Hitting A Wall Of Opposition (According to the Chicago Tribune, federal regulators said Wednesday in Chicago that the "Know Your Customer" regulations proposed for U.S. banks would be rewritten or even scrapped because of public outcry.)
GOP Wants Drug Smuggling Stopped (The Associated Press recounts recent Republican agitation for increased interdiction efforts in the war on some drug users. About 14 percent of President Clinton's proposed budget for 2000 would go to interdiction programs, compared with nearly 18 percent in 1999. The wire service fails to point out who wins when traffickers' cost of increasing production is cheaper than the government's cost of increasing interdiction.)
Drug Approved To Fight Heroin Addiction (The Daily Telegraph, in Australia, says the Australian Drug Evaluation Committee has approved the anti-addiction drug Naltrexone, which can rescue heroin and alcohol addicts from their deadly habits. The drug, to be marketed as Revia, will be available by prescription beginning in March. The drug reportedly can remove cravings and is seen as superior to methadone, which is a replacement for, not a counter to, dangerous drugs. Previously, Naltrexone has been available only in trials of rapid detoxification programs. Desperate heroin addicts have paid up to $30,000 for treatments in the US and Israel.)
Needle Swap Could Get Nod (The Age, in Melbourne, Australia, says that after the newspaper revealed yesterday that a teenager whom authorities knew was HIV-positive was sent to the Malmsbury youth training centre, where he shared a syringe with six other boys, the state government indicated it was prepared to consider experimenting with needle exchange programs in juvenile jails. The opposition party called instead for the appointment of a panel of experts for advice on the issue.)
There Must Be An Election Due Soon (A letter to the editor of the Canberra Times, in Australia, explains why Andrew Refshauge, the New South Wales Health Minister, didn't have the public's best interests in mind when he suspended a needle-exchange program in Redfern after a photo appeared in the Sun-Herald the day before showing an as-yet unidentified boy injecting an unknown substance.)
McLeish Set To Create A Taskforce Of Drug Busters (The Scotsman says Henry McLeish, the Scottish home affairs minister, will create a taskforce to oversee a new multi-million pound campaign against "drugs." Under the proposals, the Scottish Crime Squad - which already spends 90 per cent of its time tackling drugs, at an annual cost of £7 million - would be doubled in size from 100 to 200 officers to create a new Drug Enforcement Agency. Drugs squads in the eight individual police forces in Scotland would also be increased in strength by 100 officers. Mr McLeish has also proposed changing the law to allow the civil courts to confiscate the assets of suspected drug dealers, a system already in place in the republic of Ireland and in the US.)
Chirac Calls For EU To Harmonise Anti-Drug Laws (Reuters says French President Jacques Chirac told an audience in Lisbon, Portugal Thursday that illegal drug use in Europe was reaching "dramatic" levels, and urged European Union members to agree on common laws to help fight the problem - which he previously has identified as the Netherlands.)
Doping Summit Ends In Disarray (The Associated Press says the International Olympic Committee "drug summit" in Lausanne, Switzerland, which ended Thursday, laid the groundwork for major anti-drug initiatives in the future. But AP editorializes that what progress was made fell far short of the tough, immediate action the IOC needed to reassert its legitimacy. The IOC had to back off the two main planks of the meeting: creating an international anti-doping agency and imposing a mandatory minimum two-year sanction for positive drug tests.)
Weekly Action Report on Drug Policies, Year 5, No. 5 (A summary of European and international drug policy news, from CORA in Italy)
Bytes: 100,000 Last updated: 2/22/99
