Thursday, February 25, 1999:
NORML Foundation Weekly News Release (U.N. calls for medical marijuana research, maintains hardline on recreational use; Body Shop owner sends White House hemp, congratulations; South Dakota governor proposes mandatory jail time for pot offenses; South Carolina mulls making sale of urine a felony offense)
Trial begins in dispute over responsibility in smoker's death (The Associated Press says a Multnomah County Circuit Court jury on Wednesday heard opening statements in a lawsuit brought by the family of Jesse D. Williams of Portland, a lifetime cigarette smoker and lung cancer fatality whose survivors are seeking $110 million in damages from Philip Morris. His family says Philip Morris Inc. duped Williams into thinking smoking wasn't harmful. The cigarette company says Williams knew the health risks. Legal experts say the trial's outcome could have national significance, coming as it does after a San Francisco jury's groundbreaking award earlier this month of $51.5 million to a former smoker with inoperable lung cancer.)
AG Seeks Pot Reclassification (Yahoo says California Attorney General Bill Lockyer will travel to Washington, D.C., next week to ask the federal government to re-classify marijuana as a prescription drug.)
Bay Area Coalition for Alternatives to the War on Drugs sponsors workshop Friday in Oakland (The Oakland Tribune publicizes a public meeting that will focus on such topics as "Drugs and the CIA," featuring former Los Angeles police narcotics officer Michael Ruppert. Other topics include the courts, youth drug prevention, and jury nullification.)
Government: State voters approved the use of medical marijuana. The feds should honor that. (An op-ed in the Los Angeles Times by California state senator John Vasconcellos says state and federal governments have colluded to thwart the will of voters who passed Proposition 215 in California. Together, they closed most of the providers of medical marijuana in California, threw several legitimate caregivers in jail and currently are preventing a seriously sick defendant - author Peter McWilliams, now in failing health as a result - from using medical cannabis. A tidal wave of support for medicinal marijuana has begun in the Western United States. The future of many federal officials will depend, in large part, on whether they ride that wave into a compassionate future or, standing in the way, are rendered irrelevant by the voters.)
Peter McWilliams Hearing 3:30 p.m. Friday in Los Angeles (The best-selling author, medical-marijuana patient/activist and federal defendant invites Southern California activists to attend his court hearing tomorrow, where he will seek permission to resume using cannabis to combat AIDS.)
Is The Party Over For The Hash Bash? (The Detroit News says Republican state senators Beverly Hammerstrom and Mike Rogers, who represent districts bordering Ann Arbor, have co-sponsored a bill in the Michigan legislature that would prohibit local communities from enacting drug ordinances with penalties less severe than state law. The bill was introduced about a month before the 28th annual Hash Bash, scheduled for the first Saturday of April. Ann Arbor levies a $25 fine for marijuana possession. It's the only city that deviates from the state law, which calls for a $100 fine and up to 90 days in jail.)
Discrimination Plagues Act (An op-ed in the Cavalier Daily at the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville, by Adam J. Smith of the Drug Reform Coordination Network points out the racial and social iniquities to be fostered by the Higher Education Act's ban on aid to students convicted of possessing marijuana or other controlled substances.)
Coalition Protests Government's Hard-Line Drug Policies (According to the Los Angeles Times, more than two dozen scholars and activists joined in Washington, D.C., to protest the federal government's anti-drug strategy, and accused the White House of spreading misinformation. The campaign, organized by the Virginia-based nonprofit group Common Sense for Drug Policy, issued a letter to the White House drug czar, saying participants were "deeply troubled" by Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey's "inaccurate and misleading statements" in opposition to needle exchange programs and medicinal marijuana, among other issues.)
DEA: Mexican Cartels Penetrate U.S. (The Associated Press says Thomas Constantine of the Drug Enforcement Administration reported Wednesday to a Senate panel that monitors illegal-drug trafficking that the leaders of Mexico's most powerful drug trafficking organization, the Arellano-Felix group, appear to be immune from any law enforcement effort. Constantine said corruption in Mexican law enforcement has no parallel with anything he has seen in 39 years of police work. The DEA chief sidestepped a question from Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., as to whether Mexico should be certified as an ally in the United States' war on some drug users. But, he said, there has been a dramatic increase over the past five years in the "penetration" of the United States by Mexican illegal-drug importers.)
D.E.A. Chief Warns Senate On Traffickers In Mexico (The New York Times version)
Mexico Rails At U.S. Drug Cop's Finger-Pointing (According to Reuters, Mexican Interior Minister Francisco Labastida said DEA director Thomas Constantine was "totally wrong" to hold Mexican crime syndicates responsible for a large chunk of the drug distribution, violence and crime north of the border. Constantine told a Senate hearing on Wednesday that Mexican illegal-drug traffickers had more money and firepower today in the United States than the Mafia ever did in its heyday.)
Don't Advocate A Trial, Advisers Told (According to the Sydney Morning Herald, in Australia, Prime Minister John Howard's hand-picked advisory body on drugs has been told the Government will never support a heroin-maintenance trial and is not interested in receiving contrary advice, even though up to 12 of the 15 council members favour the option.)
PM Puts Drugs On Agenda (The Age, in Melbourne, says Australian Prime Minister John Howard will try to enlist the support of state and territory leaders for his war on drugs by offering more money for anti-drug education and rehabilitation programs when he meets the premiers on April 9.)
This Is A Potty Situation, Surely? (An op-ed in the Independent, in Britain, by Sue Arnold, a medical marijuana patient, responds to the sentencing yesterday of Eric Mann, a Welsh grandfather, to a year in prison for growing cannabis to relieve his arthritis. At least this way he'll be guaranteed a regular supply without having to grow his own. Everyone knows that getting hold of pot in prison is easier than growing it organically oneself on the outside, as Mann did. "When I talked about the Welsh Connection to my friend Lester Grinspoon yesterday, his chief concern was that even now Mr Mann was being prescribed some really dangerous drug to relieve his arthritic symptoms by well-meaning prison authorities - aspirin for instance.")
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