1999 News
About Cannabis and Drug Policy
February 12-18

Friday, February 12, 1999:
• Campus weapons violations top 540 (The Oregonian says a report by the state Department of Education shows Oregon public schools also expelled 692 students for violations involving alcohol and other drugs during the 1997-98 academic year.)
• Former California Candidate, Wife to Make First Public Appearance Sunday (A press release on U.S. Newswire announces a news conference to be held in conjunction with the Libertarian Party of California state convention at the San Jose Doubletree Hotel. Steve Kubby, the medical-marijuana patient/activist and 1998 Libertarian candidate for governor, and his wife, Michele, will speak about their recent Prop. 215 arrest for cultivating marijuana.)
• Police Sued Over Arrest, Pot Seizure (The Los Angeles Times says Dean Jones of Simi Valley filed a lawsuit Thursday against the city's Police Department, alleging that officers illegally arrested him and seized marijuana plants that he was cultivating for medicinal use. Jones, 62, is seeking an injunction against the department forcing officers to investigate whether a person is allowed by law to cultivate marijuana before making an arrest or seizing pot plants.)
• Narc Dog Sniffs Out 'Niner Fan (San Francisco Chronicle columnist Scott Ostler says the money that Christine Clark Fed-Ex'd to a friend in Virginia to pay off a losing bet on the 49ers-Falcons playoff game was delivered by two badge-flashing narcs who thought the package seemed suspicious - maybe because it was the shape and size of a Cheech and Chong doobie.)
• A Selective Passion For Truth (Arkansas Times columnist Mara Leverett follows up on her call last week for less scrutiny of President Clinton's dealings with Monica Lewinsky and more scrutiny of his connection to Barry Seal's officially sanctioned cocaine smuggling through Mena airport. Republican Arkansas U.S. Representative Asa Hutchinson, the House manager who has been so aggressive in his prosecution of Clinton, expounding repeatedly on his desire only to get at "the truth" of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair, was the U.S. attorney for western Arkansas back in the 1980s, when he had a chance to prosecute Seal, the smuggler, and expose the drug trade's connections to Clinton, Bush, and the CIA. But in fact, various witnesses indicate Hutchinson stymied several investigations into alleged drug-trafficking at Mena. At the time, and to this day, Hutchinson casts himself as an anti-drug crusader.)
• Public Education With A Twist: Office Of National Drug Control Policy Reaches Youth In Unconventional Ways (A press release on PR Newswire from the White House drug czar's office about your tax dollars at work says ONDCP will spend some of its new $2 billion anti-drug advertising budget on an online concert Feb. 15 by an Australian rock band, Silverchair.)
• McCaffrey: Headed For Red Cross? (According to the Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, today's Washington Times says the White House drug czar will take the helm at the American Red Cross by June 1, and a search for the third Clinton drug czar is underway.)
• Using Diet To Combat Addiction (The Toronto Star says that when Kathleen DesMaisons, the head of Radiant Recovery, an addiction centre in New Mexico, seriously delved into the research about sugar, brain chemistry, mood disorders and alcoholism, there was a lot to review. Besides scores of scientific papers and journals linking sugar and brain chemistry to alcoholism, there were many books published. Her research became the basis for a diet program with an unheard of 92 per cent recovery rate for alcoholics. This has stayed at 85 per cent in a five-year follow-up. Recovery rates for alcoholism programs vary from as low as 25 per cent to about 50 per cent, depending on the support available and how recovery is defined. Today she believes that even people who are not addicted to alcohol or other drugs can have a skewed body chemistry that plunges them into a type of sugar sensitivity that leads to what has often been labelled "an alcoholic personality" - prone to mood swings, poor impulse control, and excess in many aspects of living. Her research became her doctoral thesis, then a book, "Potatoes Not Prozac," now being released in paperback.)
• Clinton To Visit Mexico For Crucial Negotiations (A Knight-Ridder news service article in the Orange County Register says U.S. President Clinton is traveling to Merida, on the Yucatan Peninsula, to meet Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo on Monday for their seventh - and probably most important - summit. The meeting may yield new agreements on fighting drug traffickers.)
• Mexican official balks at certification (According to UPI, Francisco Labastida Ochoa, Mexico's interior minister, criticized the unilateral American practice of certifying drug-war allies in a radio interview today in Mexico City, in advance of a trip to Mexico by U.S. President Clinton on Sunday and Monday.)
• Cocaine Production Exploding (According to UPI, General Barry McCaffrey, citing previously secret CIA crop estimates that now will be made public periodically, told a group of diplomats and academics at the University of Miami Thursday that coca production rose 26 percent in Colombia last year. He also said that between 1995 and 1998, coca cultivation declined by 56 percent in Peru and 22 percent in Bolivia.)
• U.S. Rethinks Anti-Drug Aid To Colombia (A Dallas Morning News article in the Orange County Register says a decision by Colombian President Andres Pastrana to halt anti-drug efforts and extend leftist rebel control over a giant demilitarized "peace zone" the size of Switzerland has prompted a potentially serious policy dispute with Washington, putting $289 million in U.S. drug war funding under scrutiny.)
• Peru Army No. 2 Arrested In Drug Case, Sources Say (Reuters says an anti-drugs court in Peru ordered the arrest of Gen. Tomas Marky, the army's second-in-command. Gen. Marky was detained early this month following accusations by an army lieutenant - himself in prison on drug-trafficking charges - that the general failed in 1995 to inform authorities that he had confiscated traffickers' suitcases believed to hold $1 million.)
• The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 78 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original compilation of news and calls to action regarding drug policy, including - As certification debate nears, Mexico declares "total war" on drugs; White House releases drug strategy amid criticism from reformers; New York state's top judge calls for rethinking of Rockefeller drug laws; County requests federal okay to conduct medical marijuana study; Impact of the closure of a needle exchange program; an editorial by Adam J. Smith, Young entrepreneurs and the culture of prohibition)
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  Saturday, February 13, 1999:

• Outpatient Commitment Bill (A list subscriber forwards an alert from Support Coalition Northwest, in Eugene, asking you to take action against a bill being drafted by Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers that would radically expand "involuntary outpatient commitment." Already allowed in 40 states, including Oregon, the Orwellian and Kafkaesque law currently requires psychiatric patients to take certain drugs in order to remain free - no matter how useless or toxic such drugs are to them. The Myers bill would reportedly allow any two Oregonians to begin the process of an "investigation and intervention" of any other Oregonian who was not yet commitable. After an "investigation," if the subject refused to appear before the judge, the subject could be arrested. The judge could then order the subject to follow a "treatment plan," including taking psychiatric drugs against his or her will.)
• Patients get wrong mixture in dialysis (The Oregonian says one Portland-area patient is in critical condition and 84 others had abnormally low levels of sodium bicarbonate in their blood after they received the wrong kind of chemical solution this week during their dialysis treatments by Providence St. Vincent Medical Center and Providence Newberg Hospital.)
• Rogue Of The Week (Willamette Week, in Portland, jumps on the bandwagon of Oregon media trying to whip up voters' emotions over Oregon's new medical marijuana law, faulting Mike Assenberg for not knowing his rights under the voter-approved initiative.)
• Police Impound Store's Alleged Drug Paraphernalia (The Herald, in Everett, Washington, says local prohibition agents confiscated bongs, cigarette lighters, scales and other alleged drug paraphernalia from the Evergreen Smoke Shop Thursday afternoon.)
• Medical Synthetic Marijuana Is Expensive (A letter to the editor of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin rebuts an earlier letter from a drug warrior opposing medical marijuana.)
• Book Can Help Explain Medicinal Marijuana (Another letter to the editor of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin rebuts untrue statements about marijuana by plugging "Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts: A Review of the Scientific Evidence," by Lynn Zimmer, Ph.D., and Dr. John P. Morgan.)
• Ventura Says He'll Sign Hemp Bill (According to UPI, Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura told a radio talk-show Friday in the Twin Cities that he and state Agriculture Commissioner Gene Hugoson both support an industrial hemp bill pending in the state senate.)
• Judge Asks Sheriff For Drug Case List (The Topeka Capital-Journal, in Kansas, says Shawnee County District Judge Eric Rosen on Friday ordered Sheriff Dave Meneley to hand over a list of cases investigated by five of his prohibition agents. Rosen also ordered the district attorney's office to hand over copies of recent memos between prosecutors and the sheriff's office in which District Attorney Joan Hamilton requested explanations from Meneley for the decreased weight of the marijuana seized in the arrest of Carlos Hernandez, who is seeking dismissal of two drug charges from 1995.)
• Texas Inmates Tell U.S. Judge Of Abuses (A New York Times article in the San Jose Mercury News says Texas prisoners and their lawyers have been arguing for three weeks that the federal court supervision to which the state's prison system has been at least partly subject since 1980 should continue. Much of the testimony from prisoners has been a grim litany of abuses and humiliations. One man described being locked in a cage for five days. Another suffered a stroke, but his guards, failing to recognize it, simply ridiculed his stumbling gait rather than immediately summoning medical help. Yet another, driven to despair by abuse, tried to kill himself by biting into his arm until he hit a vein. Prisoners told of being raped by other inmates, beaten by guards, and covered in pepper spray. With 73 prisons and more than 140,000 prisoners, Texas's correctional system is second in size only to California's.)
• With Liberty For Some: 500 Years Of Imprisonment In America (The Economist, in Britain, reviews the new book by Scott Christianson, "A Land Of Bondage," which examines the origins of the United States' prison-industrial complex. After Russia, America has the highest rate of imprisonment in the world. One in every 163 Americans is in jail or prison, a rate six times the average in Europe. America's zeal for imprisonment is usually attributed to a recent shift towards harsh law-enforcement policies, especially against drug users. To some degree, this is true. The number of people locked up has tripled since 1980. But the recent surge is not an anomaly. Bondage of one sort or another has played a central role in American history from the beginning. Popular support for mass incarceration and ever longer prison sentences is not merely a by-product of the past two decades' war on crime, but a consistent and ugly side of American society which has remained unquestioned for far too long.)
• Clinton To Go To Mexico Tomorrow (The Associated Press says Mexico's war against drug traffickers, highlighted by a new $400 million, land-sea-and-air battle plan, tops the agenda for a two-day meeting between U.S. President Clinton and Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo beginning Sunday on the Yucatan Peninsula.)
• Mexico Anti-Drug Cooperation Key To Clinton Trip (The Reuters version)
• Clinton's Visit To Mexico Shadowed By Paradoxes (A different Associated Press article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer tries to explain the Mexican perspective on relations with the United States, and the role of the drug war in that relationship. While U.S. drug war hawks criticize Mexico for refusing to extradite its citizens to face American charges, Mexican officials have been trying for three years to convince a U.S. court to return former Deputy Attorney General Mario Ruiz Massieu to face charges of corruption and obstruction of justice. U.S. courts have said they lack evidence.)
• Mexico slams U.S. Drugs Certification Policy (According to Reuters, Mexican Interior Minister Francisco Labastida criticised the United States on Friday ahead of a visit by President Clinton, saying Washington's practice of certifying allies in the war on drugs was unfair and inhibited cooperation. Diplomats from both countries said the certification issue was not a topic scheduled for discussion by Clinton and Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo. But the two will dedicate a big part of their meeting to drawing up new accords linked to the "Binational Alliance against Drugs," created in May 1997 during Clinton's first visit to Mexico.)
• Mexico Freed Drug Suspect, Official Says Release Ordered Despite Warrant (The Washington Post says the Mexican attorney general's Organized Crime Unit recently captured Humberto Garcia Abrego, the man believed to be the country's most notorious drug money launderer, detained and interrogated him for three weeks, and then set him free despite a federal warrant for his arrest.)
• Jail Breeds Gang 'Virus' Say Analysts (The Edmonton Sun, in Alberta, says a program to be broadcast tonight on CBC's "Rough Cuts," produced by Katerina Cizek, a filmmaker who documented Winnipeg's street gang problem, shows that a divide and conquer anti-gang policy in Manitoba prisons has sent the once local problem countrywide.)
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  Sunday, February 14, 1999:

• Medical Marijuana Collides With Power Politics (Sacramento Bee columnist Peter H. King recounts the recent cultivation bust of Steve Kubby, the medical-marijuana patient/activist and 1998 California gubernatorial candidate. Prohibition agents obtained a search warrant after they observed Kubby showing a plant to a man they believed was a customer. In reality, the man was Pete Brady, a correspondent for High Times magazine.)
• Diluted cocaine may be tied to Richmond killings (According to the Contra Costa Times, in California, police in the Bay Area community of Richmond theorize that a recent spate of shootings and perhaps even two of this year's homicides may be linked to an alleged shortage of cocaine. Police believe the supposed shortage is caused by their successful interdiction efforts and as a consequence, there is an increase in "bunk dope" cut with everything from detergent to plasterboard.)
• Valentine's Massacre Marked End Of Era (Katie C. Moore, a columnist for the Daily Herald, in in Arlington Heights, Illinois, says the warehouse where bootleggers killed their rivals in 1929 was demolished in 1967, when a Canadian businessman purchased the wall, once stained with the blood of the seven gangsters executed in front of it, and rebuilt it, brick by brick, in a men's club in Saskatchewan. "There's no question that what [Al Capone] did in the 1920s and '30s laid the foundation for organized crime today," said Ross Rice, a spokesman for the FBI. Some of the Mafia leaders of the 1970s were Capone's underlings in the 1920s. While street gangs and mob crime families do not now deal in illegal alcohol, they still have their hands in drugs, gambling and businesses in the Chicago area.)
• Study shows minorities more likely to do time for drug-related crimes (The Associated Press says a study by the Connecticut General Assembly's Office of Legislative Research found that while 62 percent of those arrested on drug offenses in 1997 were white, that group made up only 11 percent of those serving prison time for drug convictions. Statistics from the U.S. Justice Department show that nationwide, blacks account for 38 percent of those arrested for drug offenses and 59 percent of those convicted.)
• Dad Fights School On Drug Tests (UPI says the father of a teenager who was suspended from school in Ewing, New Jersey, for refusing to take a drug test after he fell asleep in class, says he and his son are ready to fight the school board.)
• 19 Inmates Moved In Bid To Bust Drug Ring (The Washington Post says hundreds of prison guards and state police, under the guise of conducting an emergency drill, yesterday removed 19 inmates from Maryland's maximum security House of Correction in Jessup. The exercise was intended to break up a network that officials said was dealing drugs and bootleg liquor in the 1,200-prisoner institution. Three correctional officers were also stopped as they came to work when special ion-scan machines at the prison entrance detected illegal drugs on their bodies.)
• Newspaper: Probes launched into Customs Service (According to the Associated Press, the Miami Herald said Sunday that investigators from the U.S. Senate and Treasury Department had launched nationwide probes into alleged mismanagement in the U.S. Customs Service. The probes were prompted in part by stories in the Herald that recounted dozens of examples of employees whose careers flourished despite instances of dating drug smugglers, tampering with evidence, skimming seized drug cash and having sex with a paid informant.)
• Federal Probes Target Customs (The Knight-Ridder news service version in the San Jose Mercury News)
• Clinton To Discuss Drug War, Trade In Mexico (Reuters says U.S. President Clinton was due to arrive in the Yucatan city of Merida Monday for talks with Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo that will focus heavily on the two countries' strained alliance in the drug war.)
• Clintons, Lawmakers Headed For Mexico (The UPI version notes Clinton was accompanied by two dozen members of Congress. On March 1 Clinton is expected to certify Mexico as a fully cooperating ally in the war on some drug users.)
• Clinton Turns Focus To Mexico (The Chicago Tribune version)
• Clinton And Zedillo To Talk About Drug War (The Houston Chronicle version)
• Clinton for Mexico for quick summit (The Associated Press version)
• Clinton To Go To Mexico (A different Associated Press version goes into more detail on the behind-the-scenes certification struggle.)
• U.S. Is Brushing Off Mexico's Drug Data (A New York Times piece about the annual contortions experienced by the United States government while certifying Mexico as an ally in the drug war says that by most statistical measures, the Mexican record looks especially bad this year. Drug seizures by the Mexican police have fallen significantly. Nearly all of the most important Mexican narcotics traffickers identified last year remain at large. The promised extraditions of some Mexican drug suspects to the United States have not materialized, and drug enforcement programs have been rocked by a series of public conflicts between the two governments. But "This is not about what Mexico has done," said one official with the Clinton administration. "This is about convincing the Hill that whatever Mexico has done is enough.")
• Pot Gets Judge's Approval (The Sunday Mail, in Australia, says Justice Alan Demack of Queensland last week discharged an invalid pensioner, 54, who had pleaded guilty to unlawfully producing and possessing a dangerous drug and two related charges. The judge ruled that marijuana use is acceptable for pain relief and noted once Anthony George Bulley used marijuana, he was able to stop using oral narcotics.)
• US Tinky Stink Makes British Week (A Boston Globe dispatch from London says the Brits are beside themselves over the Rev. Jerry Falwell's "Parents Alert" Thursday to guard children against the alleged gay influence of Tinky Winky, the largest of the four Teletubbies, the British import that has become a staple on US public television for toddlers. Commenting on stupidity among Americans is a favorite pastime here, but it takes a vivid imagination to find anything sexual about the Teletubbies. In London, teenagers and young adults have been known to take drugs and hold parties watching tapes of the show. Some critics here have suggested the underlying theme of the children's series is not sex, but the ingestion of prodigious amounts of hallucinogens.)
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  Monday, February 15, 1999:

• Survey respondents feel good about how Oregon is run (The Associated Press says a telephone survey released today by the Oregon Progress Board and the state Office of Economic Analysis found that 41 percent of respondents said the state was doing a good job of "controlling drug use," an increase of 2 percent from a 1996 survey.)
• Good times are rolling, survey says (The Oregonian version)
• Ex-Candidate Defends Drug Use (The San Jose Mercury News says Steve Kubby, the medical-marijuana patient/activist and 1998 Libertarian candidate for California governor who was recently busted on cultivation-related charges, together with his wife, Michele, told a Libertarian state convention in San Jose Sunday that "There were no sales." Kubby turned over most of his time Sunday to his wife, who talked with emotion about what their family has been through. "We have no business anymore," she said of their online magazine. "They have taken our computer, our printer, our digital scanner. They took all our plants, all our lights. They've destroyed our business and our life.")
• Kubbys Reassure Libertarians (The Sacramento Bee version)
• Bay Area briefs (The Sacramento Bee version)
• Drug Reform: It's Time (A staff editorial in the Times Union, in New York, says the modest reforms of the state's Rockefeller-era mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines for drug offenders proposed by the chief judge of New York, Judith Kaye, are a welcome beginning toward returning sanity, not to mention justice, to the drug war. Gov. Pataki and the legislature should lend their support.)
• Reform Rockefeller Drug Laws (A staff editorial in the Daily Gazette, in New York, also endorses Judge Kaye's call for reforming the state's Rockefeller-era mandatory-minimum sentencing guidelines for drug offenders.)
• Group Attempts Overturn Of Financial Aid Drug Act (The Cavalier Daily at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, describes the Drug Reform Coordination Network's effort to organize college students nationwide to overturn the Higher Education Act's ban on aid to students convicted of possessing a supposedly controlled substance, including marijuana. U.S. Representative Mark Souder, R-Ind., introduced the provision last spring and it was signed into law Oct. 7.)
• Mexico Greets Clinton Like An Old Friend (The News & Observer, in North Carolina, says President Clinton basked in a warm reception Sunday in Merida, Mexico, the tropical capital of the Yucatan, on arriving for talks with Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo. The affectionate welcome came even though the leaders are expected to address such thorny issues as drug policy and immigration during the one-day visit.)
• 15 Feb 1999 Survey of German Language Newspapers (Translations of three items include - an article titled "Contribution to ending the War on Drugs," in Nordkurier Online, which says Martina Bunge, the Schwerin social affairs minister, voiced the opinion that decriminalizing drugs could help end the war on drugs, as well as strike a "blow for freedom." A Berliner Zeitung article looks at the projected crackdown making it illegal to drive with a blood alcohol level of more than 0.5 per cent. And the visit to Mexico of our American friend, Bill Clinton, is covered by Die Welt.)
• Egypt Judge Jailed For Cocaine Possession (Reuters says Edmond Hefzi, an Egyptian judge, has been sentenced to three years in prison with hard labour for 70 grams.)
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  Tuesday, February 16, 1999:

• Alert - Medical Marijuana Under Attack (John Sajo of Voter Power responds to list subscribers' alarm over news of an attempt by Rep. Mannix in the Oregon legislature to dismantle the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, saying Oregonians for Medical Rights are carefully watching the legislature and are working to prevent any changes to OMMA. Sajo also forwards the text of a resolution drafted by Voter Power that has been introduced by Rep. Jo Ann Bowman, calling on the federal government to reschedule marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. The idea behind the resolution is to have those who won the marijuana votes last fall set the agenda, not the people who lost. "Mannix and our other opponents will help us in the long run. We need them to articulate their ideas, which are no longer aligned with most voters.")
• Hyping The Drug War (A staff editorial in the Orange County Register pans the Clinton administration's latest drug-war battle plan, saying the real issue is whether America should continue to step up its drug war, or seek out less politically expedient, but more promising approaches. What's missing is the realization that most low-level drug use poses no harm to society. Most disturbing about the administration's plan: It uses the specter of a teen drug epidemic to maintain popular support. But the nation's drug problem is most severe among aging baby boomers. Focusing on the teen drug problem is dishonest.)
• Just Say So: D.A.R.E. Doesn't Work (An op-ed in the San Francisco Examiner by Kendra E. Wright of Family Watch says drug education and prevention will never succeed as long as DARE - the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program - is ensconced in 70 percent of our children's schools. Over the last five years, studies have been conducted for the federal General Accounting Office and Justice Department and for the California Department of Education. They describe how DARE and other anti-drug programs fail to reach the teenagers most at risk of drug abuse. Joel Brown of Berkeley-based Educational Research Consultants was hired by the California Department of Education to conduct one of the most extensive qualitative studies of drug education programs to date. He found that DARE and other programs may actually be hurting our kids.)
• Lawmakers Consider Bills To Permit Use Of Marijuana For Medical Reasons (The Honolulu Star-Bulletin says three committees in the Hawaii legislature considered two different bills today that would allow the medical use of marijuana. While commending Gov. Ben Cayetano for introducing HB 1157, advocates for medical marijuana patients generally preferred the less restrictive HB 1341, submitted by House Health Chairman Alex Santiago.)
• Drugs Won't Pay (An editorial in the Cavalier Daily at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, argues against the Drug Reform Coordination Network's campaign to organize college students to overturn the ban in the Higher Education Act on student loans to anyone convicted of possessing marijuana or other supposedly controlled substances.)
• Hemp Beer Served Aboard Air Force One (The online Drudge Report says stewards passed out Hemp Golden Beer Monday evening to the president, members of Congress, the press and other personnel returning from Mexico aboard Air Force One. The tasting came just weeks after the Air Force banned the use of all products containing hemp oil - including Hemp drinks. "The president tasted, but did not swallow," laughed one reporter aboard the plane.)
• Clinton Talks Of Self Renewal (An Associated Press account of the U.S. president's visit to Mexico concludes by confirming "Stewards passed out Hemp Golden beer" on the trip back home aboard Air Force One.)
• Panel Finds Too Many Crime Laws (The Associated Press says a 56-page report prepared over two years by a blue-ribbon task force sponsored by the American Bar Association and chaired by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III has concluded that the avalanche of new laws Congress has passed since 1970 to make America's streets safe has failed. "There is no persuasive evidence that federalization of local crime makes the streets safer for American citizens," says the report. More than 40 percent of all federal criminal laws enacted since the Civil War were passed since 1970.)
• Many Anti-Crime Laws Not Needed, Study Says (The Orange County Register version)
• Meese Panel Urges Curbs on Federal Offenses (The New York Times version)
• Tougher Laws Fail To Stem Use Of Drugs (The Dayton Daily News, in Ohio, briefly notes the American Bar Association has released a new report showing illegal drug use has increased despite record expenditures on punishment.)
• Medicinal Marijuana Battle to Heat Up with Release of Long-Awaited Institute of Medicine Report Next Month (A press release from the Marijuana Policy Project, in Washington, D.C., says MPP is preparing to challenge the likely interpretation of the Institute of Medicine's long-awaited medicinal marijuana report, to be released in mid-March. Government officials are sure to misrepresent the report's findings in order to justify the existing laws prohibiting the use of medicinal marijuana.)
• Australian report on cannabis and testosterone (According to the Australian Associated Press, a new study by Professor Jayashri Kulkarni, director of psychiatry for the Dandenong Area Mental Health Service, showed that in a small group of 40 males, those with the highest levels of testosterone also showed the highest levels of cannabis use - as well as symptoms of psychosis. The study suggests there may be a biological reason why males use cannabis more prevalently than females, which until now has been put down to social factors. Plus more research on cannabis, THC and reproductive biology.)
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  Wednesday, February 17, 1999:

• Legislators Aim To Tighten Medical Marijuana Law (The Statesman Journal, in Salem, Oregon, says that three months after voters approved medical marijuana at the ballot box, Rep. Kevin Mannix and the Oregon Police Chiefs Association unveiled draft legislation today that would strip some of the measure's provisions. Aspects of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act to be dismantled would include the so-called "affirmative defense" for those who exceeded the three-plant limit; and the mandate that police preserve marijuana seized from someone who claims a medical marijuana defense. "Starting from the assumption that we don't approve of the law, we would generally welcome constructive clarification of the law," said Bob Applegate, a spokesman for Governor Kitzhaber. Follow this link to the Oregon legislature's web site for the email addresses of your state senator and representative - and please send a brief protest note.)
• Three men stage home-invasion robbery in Vernonia (A cautionary tale in the Oregonian says three men between the ages of 16 and 19 burst into a home in a quiet neighborhood thirty miles northwest of Portland on Monday and held two women at gunpoint, apparently believing they would find a marijuana grow operation. The newspaper doesn't say whether the victims intended to complain to their state legislators for maintaining a public nuisance by perpetuating marijuana prohibition.)
• NewsBuzz: Coveting Their Assets (Willamette Week, in Portland, says state Rep. Jo Ann Bowman of North Portland has drafted a bill that would siphon half of all forfeited "drug" assets away from local police departments and use it to fund programs to help parolees be successful when they finish their mandatory minimum sentences, such as alcohol and drug treatment programs, job-readiness training, child care, and housing. Although Bowman is on the House Judiciary Committee, she's concerned that the police lobby is so powerful her bill will never get a hearing.)
• Readin', Writin' and Ritalin (Willamette Week, in Portland, says the state of Oregon released a survey three weeks ago showing that kids' use of marijuana, cocaine and speed had leveled off over the past two years. What the survey didn't show is the extraordinary increase in kids' use of Ritalin, a Schedule II controlled substance. While kids have been learning to say "no" to drugs, their parents have been learning to say "yes" to Ritalin. Drug Enforcement Agency figures show Ritalin use has soared more than 700 percent in the '90s. Experts in Portland estimate that nearly 5 percent of all school-age children take it - more than 4,000 kids in Multnomah County alone.)
• Marijuana Backers Wary Of Tinkering (The News Tribune, in Tacoma, Washington, says the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys is already lobbying the legislature to nullify Initiative 692, the state's new medical marijuana law, claiming they only want to improve it, of course. But Senate Bill 5704 would allow the state Department of Health to write rules to flesh out the law. Its primary sponsor, Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, who supported the initiative, said the department could clarify the law without encroaching on patients' newfound rights. The really bad bill is SB 5771.)
• Former Prosecutor Held In Drug Case (The Seattle Times refuses to name the former King County deputy prosecutor who was arrested last night in North Seattle for investigation of possession of methamphetamine residue and paraphernalia. Last year, the former prosecutor, 36, was accused of possessing a crank pipe in the King County courthouse.)
• THC-Treated Rats Lived Longer, Had Less Cancer (AIDS Treatment News, in San Francisco, summarizes and comments on a 126-page draft report of a major toxicology study of THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. The study was completed over two and a half years ago, and passed peer review for publication, but has been kept quiet until this month, when someone leaked copies of the draft report. The public apparently has never been told about this research - for example, the drug-reform movement seems not to have known about its existence. It may have been hushed because its findings are not what the drug-war industry wants. "The newly available Federal toxicology study provides the best evidence yet that the risks of THC are small. What other drug would increase life expectancy of rats when given in huge overdoses daily for two years?")
• High crimes? Writer faces jail after interviewing medical marijuana activist (The San Francisco Bay Guardian recounts the case of Pete Brady, a medical marijuana patient and freelance journalist whose New Year's Day interview with fellow patient/defendant Steve Kubby may land him five years in a California prison. Brady's arrest for possession of about an ounce of marijuana came on the last day of his five-year probation term for possession.)
• Medical-Marijuana Fight Is About Power, Not Medicine (Sacramento Bee columnist Peter H. King, syndicated in the Orange County Register, discusses the cultivation bust of medical-marijuana patient/activist Steve Kubby, the 1998 Libertarian Party candidate for California governor.)
• Medical Pot Bill Advances (The Hawaii Tribune-Herald says the Hawaii House of Representatives' Health and Public Safety committees agreed to forward a medical-marijuana bill to the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday following a hearing that lasted more than three hours in which people who were ill or caring for sick people made sometimes eloquent pleas for legislative relief. The committees combined elements of two bills - one submitted by Gov. Cayetano, one crafted by Health Committee Chairman Alex Santiago. If the bill becomes law, Hawaii would become the first state to approve use of medical marijuana through the legislative process.)
• Authorities Release Account Of Shooting, Say Marijuana Found In House (An Associated Press article in the Topeka Capital-Journal says prohibition agents in Osawatomie, Kansas, shot Willie Heard dead early Saturday when he picked up a .22-caliber rifle in his bedroom after they burst into his house. Police had a warrant to look for crack cocaine but all they found were two or three roaches. Heard's 16-year-old daughter, who was sleeping on the couch when officers burst in, said they never identified themselves.)
• Friend in Oklahoma City (A list subscriber forwards a note explaining why Oklahoma Governor Keating refused to sign the parole papers for Will Foster, the medical marijuana patient originally sentenced to 93 years in prison on cultivation charges. Keating was a member of the DEA under Reagan. His reputation rests largely on his stance against "drugs.")
• Apathy, America's Greatest Vice (An op-ed in the Little Rock Free Press by Jack Page, a veteran of the Proposition 215 campaign in California and now president of NORML Arkansas, faults the apathy that allows marijuana prohibition to continue. "Marijuana has become the symbol of oppression in our country and across the globe. . . . As an insider I'd like to reveal a little known fact about the now historic Prop. 215. . . . Just as we were resigning ourselves to failure, it happened. Someone very rich and powerful in the state got busted buying marijuana for a sick family member.")
• The Nazi Comparison (A compelling op-ed in the Rock River Times, in Rockford, Illinois, by Dr. John Beresford, a retired psychiatrist who visited Nazi Germany in his youth, says America's vast network of prisons, boot camps, and jails invites comparisons to the detention machinery of totalitarian regimes. With its war on some drug users, America is treading the same path as Nazi Germany. The War on Drugs and Hitler's war on anyone he took exception to share the same symptoms. Where it all ends depends on reformers' efforts.)
• Best Drug Policy Is Straight Ahead (An op-ed in Newsday by Marsha Rosenbaum of the Lindesmith Center West says the Clinton administration's new plan to reduce drug use by half by the year 2007 is a natural response to our country's ongoing struggle with drug use. The problem is that Clinton's plan is just more of the what we've already been trying - and look at the results. More drug education, of the sort existing already, cannot be expected to reverse the trend. Indeed, study after study shows that current drug education programs have no effect on drug use whatsoever. Quite simply, they lack credibility. Our first priority ought to be gaining the trust of young people.)
• TV Notes: Bad Hair Days (New York Times television reviewer Lawrie Mifflin praises the CBS Morning News for Roberta Baskin's three-part series this week on hair testing for illegal-drug use. Many experts say the tests are unreliable and possibly racially biased. Testing the testers, Baskin found that different labs came up with widely different results on samples from identical heads of hair. Drug testing labs also came up with different results on hairs of darker or lighter color but exposed to the same level of drugs.)
• Testing The Drug Test Labs (A CBS news broadcast by Roberta Baskin says she had identical batches of eight hair samples tested by three corporations - Associated Pathologists Laboratories in Las Vegas; United States Drug Testing Laboratories, outside Chicago; Psychemedics' home testing kits. The results showed just how flawed hair testing can be. "Consider this: if drug testing labs were wrong just one percent of the time, it would add up to 250,000 wrong results.")
• Ex-Officer Found Guilty In Drug Case (The Philadelphia Inquirer says a federal jury yesterday convicted Peter Henry, a former Philadelphia police officer, of using his police credit-union account to help launder the gains of his extended family's illegal marijuana dealings.)
• Nighttime Drug Raid - Wrong House (The Miami Herald describes a recent home invasion by prohibition agents in Hallandale, Florida. Wrong apartment. Wrong building. Mixed-up search warrant. Innocent people terrorized. Wrong man arrested, humiliated and jailed in his wife's underwear.)
• Police Officer Perjury Not Rare, Observers Say - Indictment May Be a First in Pr. George's (The Washington Post says Cpl. Rickey Rodriguez Davis, a nine-year police veteran in Prince George's County, was indicted on two counts of perjury in connection with his 1994 court testimony that fellow officer Timothy J. Moran did not hit a handcuffed man. Moran later admitted in federal court that he did hit the man. "Officers are more likely to get struck by lightning" than prosecuted for perjury, said Chris Slobogin, a University of Florida law professor. "It's extremely rare for prosecutors to indict what is essentially a co-worker," Slobogin said. In Philadelphia, at least 283 cases of police perjury have been dismissed in the wake of a corruption scandal involving two officers who were convicted of framing suspects and lying on the witness stand.)
• Medical Marijuana: AIDS Activists Call On McCaffrey To Intervene (According to the Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, this morning's USA Today says a coalition of 17 AIDS organizations has written a letter to General Barry McCaffrey, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, asking him to speed government approval of marijuana for medical uses, contending that just "as promising AIDS medications have been made available prior to final Food and Drug Administration approval, so too should marijuana, when recommended by a physician." Government officials are waiting for an Institute of Medicine study due out next month before taking further action.)
• AIDS Groups Plead For 'Medical Marijuana' (The original USA Today version)
• Body & Mind; Kids Getting More Antidepressants (The Cincinnati Enquirer says dentists are concerned about the rapid increase in children taking antidepressants, because a common side effect of such drugs is reduced saliva production. Children on antidepressants are at increased risk of developing cavities and mouth infections because saliva coats teeth with protective minerals and is a natural bacteria-fighter. According to a 1998 study by IMS, a research company, 800,000 American children were prescribed Prozac, Zoloft or Paxil, three common antidepressants, and another half million were taking anti-seizure drugs.)
• U.S. Customs Admits Its Own Drug Corruption (The New York Times says U.S. Customs Service officials acknowledged Tuesday in a report to Congress that the agency had failed to combat corruption aggressively. In an atmosphere of neglect, internal affairs inquiries languished and were sometimes impeded because of infighting. In addition, the agency announced Tuesday the appointment of William A. Keefer, a former federal prosecutor, to head Internal Affairs. Keefer is replacing Homer J. Williams, a Customs official who was transferred after he became the subject of a federal inquiry in California into whether he told a colleague that she was under scrutiny in a corruption case.)
• Minuet in Mexico (An op-ed in the Washington Post by Michael Kelly, the editor of National Journal, ponders the annual certification of Mexico as an ally in the United States' drug war, and finds the Clinton administration hypocritical, but doesn't say whether Mexico should be decertified or the dance should be ended by Congress.)
• Policeman Tipped Off Friend Over Raid (The Sydney Morning Herald, in Australia, says Senior Constable Christan Bruce, a crewman on a New South Wales police helicopter, admitted to the NSW Police Integrity Commission yesterday that he had tipped off a friend and former police officer that police were about to raid his home for ecstacy and cocaine. The phone was tapped. The hearing continues today.)
  Bytes: 157,000 Last updated: 3/13/99
  

  Thursday, February 18, 1999:

• The NORML Foundation Weekly Press Release (AIDS Coalition Demands White House Legalize Medical Marijuana; Medical Marijuana Opponents Mount Challenges In Oregon, Washington; Medical Marijuana Gains Ground in Hawaii)
• Firefighter exposed to chemicals (The Oregonian says neighbors saw three people leaving a house Wednesday in Gresham, Oregon, a suburb east of Portland, before smoke started coming out of it and they called 911. A Gresham firefighter was exposed to chemicals associated with the manufacture of methamphetamine, but returned to work later. The newspaper doesn't say whether the victim intended to complain to his state legislators for maintaining a public nuisance by perpetuating the prohibition on amphetamine-related drugs.)
• Suicide Law Painless, Oregon Says (An Associated Press article in the Chicago Tribune says a report published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine by Oregon health officials summarizes the state's first year of experience with the nation's only physician-assisted-suicide law. The study found 15 terminally ill people in Oregon had used the law to end their lives. There was no evidence they suffered painful, lingering deaths as opponents had warned. The authors said fears that the law would be used as an easy way out by people afraid of financial ruin or extreme pain proved unfounded. Rather, officials found that the law so far had been invoked overwhelmingly by strong-willed patients who wanted to exercise some control over the way they died.)
• Suicide backers to Legislature: Hands off suicide law (According to the Associated Press, backers of the physician-assisted suicide law passed by Oregon voters say a favorable report released Wednesday by the state Health Division shows there's no need for the legislature to try again to revise the state's Death with Dignity Act.)
• 15 Oregonians chose assisted suicide in '98, report says (The Oregonian version)
• Lawmakers question whether federal dollars paying for assisted suicide (The Associated Press says Republicans in the Oregon House of Representatives are questioning whether Oregon is complying with federal law by covering assisted suicides in its health plan for the poor. Congress in 1997 prohibited the use of federal funds for assisted suicide. The Oregon Health Plan is funded in part by federal Medicaid dollars, but state officials have said assisted suicides are paid for entirely by the state.)
• Former King County Deputy Prosecutor Faces Drug Charges (The Seattle Times updates its story yesterday, saying Douglas Willas Miller, 36, is the name of the man arrested Tuesday night and charged with attempting to sell $2,400 worth of amphetamines to an undercover officer. Miller resigned last year after he was arrested for bringing cocaine into the King County Courthouse.)
• Drug Arrest Tests The Charmed Life Of Ex-Prosecutor (The Seattle Post-Intelligencer version says what proved to be Miller's undoing was a former roommate who had been his alibi in the courthouse incident.)
• The hidden war - Narcs are arresting medical pot patients and the state is investigating their doctors (The Sacramento News & Review says that more than two years after California voters approved Proposition 215, a behind-the-scenes war is still raging. Dozens of patients have been investigated, arrested and jailed for growing pot. And now a number of physicians who have recommended marijuana to patients under the provisions of Prop. 215 are being investigated by the Medical Board of California. The investigation of Dr. Alex Stalcup, a physician in the Bay Area community of Concord, is but one of the grand ironies of the war against Prop. 215. The prominent physician is considered by law enforcement officials to be one of the nation's leading authorities on illegal drugs and has worked for years as a consultant to the California Narcotics Officers Association.)
• Jailbird or Lab Rat? Medical Expert Says Kubby Should Be Studied, Not Busted (Orange County Weekly, in Costa Mesa, California, says Steve Kubby, the medical marijuana patient/activist, 1998 Libertarian candidate for governor, and now cultivation defendant, credits the herb for his surviving malignant pheochromocytoma, a rare form of adrenal cancer that is generally fatal within five years of its diagnosis. Now Kubby has a champion. USC Medical Center's Dr. Vincent DeQuattro first diagnosed Kubby's disease 15 years ago. In a letter to Placer County authorities, Dr. DeQuattro, one of America's leading specialists on the disease, said he contacted a colleague in Michigan who is also an expert on the disease and on Kubby's treatment. "He told me that every patient other than Steve with Steve's condition had died" within the usual five-year time frame. "Steve was the only survivor," Dr. DeQuattro wrote.)
• Very Important Message from Peter McWilliams (Marijuananews.com forwards a message from an unwell Peter McWilliams announcing an ACLU press conference Feb. 19 in Los Angeles regarding McWilliams' prosecution. McWilliams also shares a statement of support for him issued today by California state Senator John Vasconcellos, who eloquently pleads with the federal government to quit killing the medical-marijuana defendant by denying him access to cannabis. The viral load of the best-selling author has risen from fewer than 400 copies per milliliter to more than 250,000.)
• Letter from Marvin Chavez (A list subscriber forwards a letter from the medical-marijuana patient and founder of the Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support Group, recently sentenced to six years for helping sick people. Please write a letter to Chavez - here's his address.)
• Exploration Of Medical Marijuana Should Go On (A staff editorial in the Honolulu Advertiser suggests the debate in the medical community among politicians, quacks, and real physicians over the medical utility of marijuana would be enough to scare most lawmakers away from considering reform. Fortunately, Gov. Ben Cayetano and a handful of state legislators are more farsighted than that. The House Health Committee has - admittedly with reservations - kept alive Cayetano's proposal to permit the medical use of marijuana. The decision to move the debate forward, to give Hawaii a real chance to decide for itself whether this idea makes sense, is both progressive and sensible.)
• Medical Use Of Marijuana Sends Right Message (A letter to the editor of the Honolulu Advertiser addresses the concern that allowing sick people to use marijuana as medicine would send a "mixed message" to young people about condoning marijuana use. In supporting humane policies regarding the health needs of our sickest community members, we are sending a message to our children that we care about - and have compassion for - those of our neighbors who are suffering most and need our help. To do anything less is not only immoral, but sends the message to our children that we will not do everything in our power to care for those in our community who are suffering, even though we have the means to do so.)
• Medical Marijuana Alleviates Suffering (A letter to the editor of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin rebuts a drug warrior's flawed reasoning.)
• NYPD officer arrested in North Carolina for trafficking cocaine (The Associated Press says Andre Formey, a New York City police officer, was arrested Thursday while driving through North Carolina with his five children, ranging in age from 2 to 14, and more than two pounds of cocaine.)
• Drug Use Doesn't Deserve Aid (An editorial by freshman Erin Perucci, an associate editor for the Cavalier Daily at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, defends the Higher Education Act's ban on aid to students convicted of possessing marijuana.)
• Drug War Has Been Lost (A letter to the editor of the Tampa Tribune, in Florida, says making drug abuse a medical problem instead of a criminal one could prevent 10,000 deaths a year, cut major and minor crime by 50 percent, allow everyone to have cheap or free medical care, stop drug dealers and cartels from making money, stop gangs, cut medical costs 30 percent to 90 percent, stop 10 million lives from being destroyed each year, and provide a 25 percent tax cut to everyone.)
• AIDS Groups Issue First Call for Drug Czar to Approve Medical Marijuana (A press release on PR Newswire provides more details about yesterday's letter from the heads of 17 AIDS organizations to General Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office for National Drug Control Policy, asking for physicians to be allowed to prescribe marijuana as an emergency measure to people with HIV/AIDS without further research. Includes the text of the letter and its signers.)
• AIDS Groups Urge U.S. to Approve Medical Marijuana (The Reuters version)
• Iranian Aide Says Executions No Answer To Drugs (According to Reuters, Iran's official news agency, IRNA, on Thursday quoted Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabai, the Iranian president's designated expert on drug issues, saying "The execution of this country's youth is no loss to mafia gangs which direct the region's drug trade." Iran has executed nearly 2,000 drug dealers and traffickers since 1989. However, 2,500 of its police and soldiers have been killed in clashes with drug traffickers in the past 20 years. Official statistics indicate one out of every 50 Iranians is "addicted to drugs, mostly opium." Unofficial estimates say the rate is three times that.)
• Russia Police Seizing Just 12 Percent Of Narcotics: Official (According to Itar-Tass, in Russia, Vladimir Kharetdinov, the head of Moscow's prohibition force, told a news conference Thursday that police at the present time seize only 10 percent to 12 percent of all "drugs" smuggled into Russia. Moscow is the destination of 80 percent of the smuggled drugs.)
• Weekly Action Report on Drug Policies, Year 5, No. 7 (A summary of European and international drug policy news, from CORA, in Italy)
• DrugSense Weekly, No. 86 (The original summary of drug policy news from DrugSense leads with the weekly Feature Article - Something you can do right now! The Weekly News in Review features several articles about domestic drug policy, including - Gore: drug policy to tackle `spiritual problem'; Accountability promised for drug effort; Major antidrug effort is unveiled; and, Federal `drug war' strategy is bound to fail - again. Articles about drug policy and Mexico include - Mexico strains drug ally status; Mexico rejects extradition for 5; and, Mexico slams U.S. drugs certification policy. Articles about Law Enforcement & Prisons include - Drug money investigation to be started; 19 inmates moved in bid to bust drug ring; and, Drug reform: it's time. Articles about Medical Marijuana & Hemp include - Auburn grand jury to hear Kubby marijuana case; Medical marijuana collides with power politics; Human body found to produce its own version of marijuana; and, Ventura says he'll sign hemp bill. International News includes - Cocaine production exploding; Peru army No. 2 arrested in drug case, sources say; Myanmar raps Britain, U.S. over drug talks; I won't budge on heroin: PM; and, 'Contribution to ending the war on drugs'. The weekly Hot Off The 'Net notes a RealAudio interview with Larry Hirsch regarding his medical marijuana class action suit. The Fact of the Week notes National Guard drug agents are much more numerous than DEA agents. The Quote of the Week cites Thomas Sowell.)
  Bytes: 150,000 Last updated: 4/15/99
  

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