1999 News
About Cannabis and Drug Policy
March 12-18

Friday, March 12, 1999:
• Re: Making a hash of the law (A letter to the editor of the Bulletin, in Bend, Oregon, applauds the newspaper for opposing state representative Kevin Mannix's HB 3502, which would nullify the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act. "It's perhaps most constructive to note that Mannix won his seat in Salem by less than 300 votes. But old 'Mad Dog' Mannix does serve one good purpose. He is a prime example of how this 'winner take all' election system fails and why so many Oregonians have given up on it. Here's a man who got into office by the skin of his teeth. Yet he is warmly embraced as though he won by a landslide and appointed by the Republican leadership to the Chair of the very powerful House Judiciary Committee. Then, the first thing he does is try to overthrow the will of The People!")
• Guinea-Pig Kubby (Orange County Weekly gives an update on the prosecution of Steve Kubby, the medical-marijuana patient/activist and 1998 Libertarian candidate for California governor who was recently busted on cultivation charges. "Orange County is leading the way on this issue - the media, the OC Weekly, the Orange County Register, the OC Libertarians, Marvin Chavez," Kubby said. While in Orange County, Kubby will undergo medical examinations so doctors can try to learn more about why Kubby's use of marijuana seems the sole barrier between life and death from an incurable form of adrenal cancer. Kubby has already announced plans to run for governor again in 2002. His wife, Michele, a UC-Berkeley graduate with degrees in political science and international studies, is considering a run for the U.S. senate.)
• Medical Marijuana Debate Continues In House (The Keene Sentinel says advocates for marijuana law reform, including Dr. Lester Grinspoon, a Harvard Medical School professor, testified Wednesday before the New Hampshire House Criminal Justice subcommittee in favor of two bills sponsored by Rep. Timothy N. Robertson, D-Keene that would allow the medical use of marijuana and decriminalize those who possess the herb. Nicholas Pastore, the former police chief in New Haven, Connecticut, said the nation's war on drugs was a failure. The jails are full of marijuana smokers who have no history of violence and pose no danger to society, he said.)
• Two Million Prisoners Are Enough (An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by John J. DiIulio Jr., a professor of public policy at Princeton University, says the justice system is becoming less capable of distributing sanctions and supervision rationally, especially where drug offenders are concerned. It's time for policy makers to change focus and aim for zero prison growth. Five reforms to aim for include: Repeal mandatory minimum drug laws. Reinvent and reinvest in probation and parole. Stop federalizing crime policy and modify federal sentencing guidelines. Study and promote faith-based crime prevention and restorative justice. And redouble efforts at juvenile crime prevention.)
• Stop The Prison Madness And Build Schools (Syndicated columnist Carl Rowan observes in the Grand Rapids Press, in Michigan, that that while bond issues to build schools often fail, the United States is building a 1,000-bed jailhouse or prison every week. Millions of Americans, conservative and liberal, are awakening to the reality that incarcerating 400,000 people on drug charges has not reduced the curse of drug abuse in America. The uprising against the current outrageous situation seems great enough that any number of politicians might take the lead without fear of falling to the old cries, "soft on crime." Enough Americans seem now to understand that the current punitive policy has been a failure. Still, both will and courage to admit error and change policy seems to be in short supply in Washington these days. Millions of more voices are needed.)
• Feds Rebuff Medical Marijuana Researchers (UPI says the Institute of Medicine study commissioned in 1997 by the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, is scheduled for release on Wednesday, March 17. No original research has been allowed by the federal government for more than 10 years. Several cases illustrate how the government has stonewalled would-be scientists. Researchers who want to conduct clinical trials on the efficacy of medical marijuana say the government publicly invites such studies, but privately works to quash them. Ultimately, the researchers tell United Press International, the federal government unfairly works to end the movement to legalize the drug as a medicine for seriously ill patients.)
• Customs Service Reworks Controversial Airport Drug Searches (Florida Today says new statistics show the number of cocaine and heroin smugglers caught at airports dropped by one-fourth in 1998, while investigations and lawsuits alleging abusive tactics have increased. So the Customs Service is retraining officers who check airline passengers for drugs and trying new technology to reduce the need for invasive body searches.)
• Gramm and Boxer Sponser Legislation That Would Alter the U.S. Drug-Certification Process (The Orange County Register says a political odd couple, conservative Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas and liberal Sen. Babara Boxer of California, introduced legislation Thursday that would revamp the current process that causes an annual rift between the United States, Mexico and other countries battling the illegal international trade in supposedly controlled substances.)
• The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 82 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original publication featuring drug policy news and calls to action includes - Internet campaign convinces Congress to condemn "Know Your Customer," battle not yet over; George Bush Jr. hires private eye to dig up own past; Report: US anti-drug forces corrupted; Alaska bill introduced to amend state's new medical marijuana law; Drug policy campus activism conference; Washington state bill would increase judges' discretion in drug cases; Judge denies California AIDS patient's urgent plea for medical marijuana; Federal judge allows medical marijuana class action suit to proceed, questions why government supplies medical marijuana to some patients, not others; Events; Online petitions)
• DrugSense Weekly, No. 89 (The original summary of drug policy news from DrugSense opens with the weekly Feature Article - How important is the drug policy reform effort? by Rolf Ernst; The Weekly News in Review features several articles about Drug War Policy, including - Smugglers corrupting U.S.'s anti-drug forces, study says; War on drugs needs a new battle plan; America's misguided drug war; Chronic pain under treated, expert says; and, Senators join outcry to halt new bank rules. Articles about Law Enforcement and Prisons include - Less crime, more criminals; Criminal justice system just plain bizarre; Incarceration won't solve drug problem; and, US criticism of China rings hollow in US prisons. Articles about Medical Marijuana include - MP challenges Rock pot move; The Kubby prosecution; Not fit to print? The medical marijuana class action hearing; and, a letter to the editor, Medical marijuana. International News includes - another letter to the editor, Copy successful anti-drugs policy; Expert rejects zero tolerance stand; Caribbean nations suspend US treaty; and, New drug army rules atop 'Golden Triangle.' The weekly Hot Off The 'Net publicizes a transcript from the medical marijuana class action lawsuit in Philadelphia; and gives the URL for a RealVideo episode of television's "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher" featuring Joe Califano and singer Dave Matthews. The Fact of the Week documents that the "Land of the Free" is No. 1 in imprisoning its citizens. The Quote of the Week cites state senator John Vasconcellos, the Democrat from Santa Clara, California.)
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  Saturday, March 13, 1999:

• Don't Exaggerate (A letter to the editor of the Hood River News, in north central Oregon, by Sandee Burbank of Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse, debunks recent assertions about marijuana by Maija Yasui of the state Commission on Children and Families. MAMA thinks it is better to teach children skills to evaluate the risks of all drug use and provide them with accurate information about all drugs. This will serve them far better than lies.)
• State failed inmates who had X-rays, judge rules (The Oregonian says Multnomah County Circuit Judge Michael Marcus ruled Thursday night that the Oregon Department of Corrections has not followed a state law intended to protect the health of 69 former inmates exposed to radiation experiments between 1963 and 1973. Marcus said the state had failed to adequately notify the former inmates, failed to provide psychological counseling and failed to conduct a study to determine the long-term effects of the testing. A law passed in 1987 required the Department of Corrections to provide for any resulting medical needs of the men. Instead of issuing an injunction, Marcus ordered the state to make changes and told the two sides to try to come up with a resolution based on his findings.)
• 1 in 4 Oregon high schoolers drops out (The Oregonian says an Oregon Department of Education report released Friday shows 25.26 percent of Oregon students who enter high school will drop out before graduating. The four-year rate projected for Portland Public Schools was 40 percent. If you don't understand the connection to the war on marijuana users, check out Portland NORML's "Oregon Services Plundered for Drug War" page.)
• Los Angeles Million Marijuana March (A list subscriber publicizes the reform rally scheduled for Saturday, May 1.)
• Million Marijuana March Rallies Scheduled Around the Globe May 1 (A preliminary press release from Cures Not Wars, in New York, publicizes reform rallies scheduled in Seattle and elsewhere.)
• Drug War Backfires (A staff editorial in the New York Times finds encouragemnt in a statement by the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, in the newspaper's recent article about how the 1986 crack cocaine scare has created a booming prison-industrial complex. "We have a failed social policy and it has to be re-evaluated," said McCaffrey, who also repeated a statement he made after replacing Lee Brown, that "We can't incarcerate our way out of this problem." Unfortunately, the newspaper fails to note that such hypocritical statements by McCaffrey have been consistently contradicted by his budget priorities.)
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  Sunday, March 14, 1999:

• Democracy overruled (A letter to the editor of the Oregonian urges Oregon residents to contact their state representatives and ask them to oppose Rep. Kevin Mannix's attempt to nullify the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act by voting against HB 3502.)
• Compassionate Use Benefit - Call 530-272-5333 (A list subscriber publicizes a public gathering featuring speakers with information about medical marijuana, plus music and festivities, April 10 in Grass Valley, California. The NORML Foundation is sponsoring the event.)
• Due Process Key in Eviction Law (A staff editorial in the Los Angeles Times pans the experimental new California law that mandates fines for landlords in Buena Park who refuse to evict someone the police allege is a drug-law offender, even if that person has not been convicted of anything. A landlord who runs afoul of the law four times in a year can be jailed.)
• Incarcerated By Illusions? (An op-ed in the Oakland Tribune by Sean Gonsalves, a former Oakland resident who writes for the Cape Cod Times, recalls William James' observation that some people who think they are thinking are really only re-arranging their prejudices. Such "thinking" colors the popular "debate" on race and the American criminal justice system. Whenever Gonsalves writes a column about the numerous studies indicating racism is part and parcel of the criminal "justice" system, some self-proclaimed "conservative" writes to point out the "obvious" reason there are a disproportionate number of blacks behind bars: blacks commit more crime than white people do! It's that kind of thinking that probably led J.S. Mill to say: "Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that all stupid people are conservative.")
• Prosecutors Turn Their Sights on California's Mexican Mafia (The New York Times says cops in California are turning their sights once again on la Eme, known as the Mexican Mafia, one of California's oldest and most powerful prison gangs, charging its members under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act with waging a brutal campaign for control of Southern California's gangs and drug trade. Those often in harm's way from la Eme are the group's own members. Federal prosecutors hoped to break the gang's power by sprinkling members throughout the larger federal prison system. That somewhat weakened la Eme. But as a result, a truce that was once enforced by the Mexican Mafia is in tatters, and 24 people have been killed on the streets of East Los Angeles in the resulting gang war over the last six months.)
• U.S. Medical-Marijuana Movement Awaits Key Report (Reuters says the $1.1 million report on medical marijuana from the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine, commissioned by the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, will be released Wednesday. The U.S. battle over medical marijuana has been waged on the streets, in the courts and at the ballot box. This week the fight focuses on science. The report is supposed to assess claims that marijuana can alleviate suffering associated with everything from AIDS and cancer to glaucoma and chronic pain. While few believe the report will offer specific policy recommendations, marijuana-law-reform activists say that even a suggestion that further research should be conducted would be powerful new ammunition.)
• Study shows link between smoking during pregnancy, adult crime (The Associated Press says a study published in this month's Archives of General Psychiatry is the first to examine the relationship between mothers who smoke tobacco and their children's adult behavior. The researchers - from Emory University in Atlanta, the University of Southern California and the Institute of Preventive Medicine in Denmark - found that more than a quarter of the men whose mothers had the highest levels of smoking and delivery complications were arrested for a violent crime as an adult. However, David Fergusson, a psychiatric epidemiologist at the Christchurch School of Medicine in New Zealand, wrote an accompanying editorial saying there is not enough research to add prenatal smoking to the list of established risk factors for adult crimes.)
• Dealer To The Desperate Faces Court (The Province, in Vancouver, British Columbia, says AIDS patient Ernest Stanking faces a trial May 3 in a Port Coquitlam courtroom on a charge of possession for the prupose of trafficking. For the past 15 years, Stanking has been growing a forest of top-notch pot in his Port Coquitlam back yard. He sniffs at the hydroponic stuff grown quickly - and profitably - in basements across the Lower Mainland. "There's only one way you can grow medical marijuana," he insists. "It's in the ground, in clean living soil." Stanking supplies about 130 medical marijuana patients - people who suffer from AIDS or cancer - for $125 an ounce, about one-third the going rate.)
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  Monday, March 15, 1999:

• Report says state failing to meet its own goals in many areas (The Associated Press says the Oregon Progress Report, which gauges 92 indicators of the state's economic, social and environmental health, suggests Oregon is flunking its own Year 2000 goals for fighting child abuse, job distribution and halting high-school dropouts. Kay Toran, director of Services to Children and Families, blames an increase in child abuse on an increase in "substance abuse," without clarifying whether she was talking primarily about legal alcoholics, tobacco consumers, people who need coffee in the morning, or just casual pot smokers. "When you have parents that are addicted, they aren't able to provide the care and nurturing children need," she said, without clarifying the role of prohibition in making certain addictions more damaging than others.)
• Oregon at its best earns C-plus grades in progress (The Oregonian version)
• Medicinal marijuana nears mainstream (USA Today focuses on the experiences of JoAnna McKee of the Green Cross in Washington state in an update on the political battle for medical marijuana. The medicinal use of the herb is now legal all along the West Coast, and more state ballot victories seem likely. On Wednesday the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, is expected to release a long-awaited study commissioned by White House drug czar Barry McCaffrey on the effectiveness of marijuana as a medicine.)
• Communities Sue Over Crack Epidemic (The Associated Press says two federal civil rights lawsuits were filed in Oakland and Los Angeles today against the CIA and U.S. Justice Department. The lawsuits, which claim the federal government did nothing to stop neighborhood crack-cocaine sales in the 1980s, were partly prompted by last year's disclosure of a 1982 agreement between CIA Director William Casey and former Attorney General William French Smith that the spy agency had no duty to report drug crimes to the Justice Department. The lawsuits were filed on behalf of "mostly black residents whose babies were born addicted to crack, whose relatives died in drug-related drive-by shootings and whose communities were affected by crowded emergency rooms and gutted business districts.")
• Senate Considers Marijuana Proposal (The Duluth News-Tribune says Minnesota citizens and legislators who favor a medical-marijuana bill proposed by Rep. Karen Clark, DFL-Minneapolis, are counting on the growing support among cancer patients and the popularity of Gov. Jesse Ventura to push their bill through the legislature. The measure will receive its first hearing Tuesday morning in a senate committee. A move to tighten the bill's language appears likely.)
• He Dares Question Idiocy Of Drug War On College Campus (Columbus Dispatch columnist Steve Stephens reflects on an encounter with Heath Wintz, 21, a clean-cut, well-spoken sophomore studying environmental engineering at Columbus State Community College, in Ohio. Wintz was gathering signatures last week, seeking to reform the U.S. Higher Education Act of 1998, which allows murderers and rapists to obtain federal student aid, but not pot smokers. That idiocy, however, is not what turned Wintz against the drug war. DARE did that, back when he was in middle school. In an earlier attempt to petition, campus officials and security guards forced him to scram. Some students refuse to sign Wintz's petition because they fear government reprisal. One can't fault them. In times of war, there's no such thing as paranoia. Stephens' stand on casual drug use resembles Hillary Rodham Clinton's on casual adultery: He doesn't endorse it, but he tolerates it for the sake of the Constitution.)
• Federal Judge OKs Pot Case (UPI briefly notes U.S. District Judge Marvin Katz in Philadelphia has refused to dismiss a class-action lawsuit seeking access to medical marijuana.)
• Ballplayer Killed In Police Chase (UPI notes police in Tallahassee, Florida, nabbed one man and 28 bags of cocaine early Friday after a high-speed chase ended at an Interstate 10 interchange. The suspect's car crashed into a van carrying a baseball team from Bluefield State College in West Virginia, killing Shannon Stewart, a freshman.)
• Study Links Prenatal Smoking To Offspring's Criminal Actions (The Philadelphia Inquirer publishes the Reuters version of yesterday's news about the study published in the March issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry, a subsidiary of the American Medical Association. Researchers looked at the arrest histories of 4,169 men born between 1958 and 1961 in Copenhagen, Denmark, and found that those born to women who smoked during pregnancy ran a higher risk of criminal behavior. The researchers speculated the correlation was caused by central nervous system damage from cigarettes.)
• Doubling Of Prison Population Has U.S. On Track To Be Leading Jailer (According to an Associated Press article in the Chicago Tribune, a Bureau of Justice Statistics report released by the U.S. Justice Department Sunday indicates the number of American adults imprisoned in county, state and federal jails and prisons in mid-1998 was a record 1.8 million, an increase of 4.4 percent from mid-1997. The number of prisoners has more than doubled in the last 12 years. There were 668 inmates for every 100,000 residents in the U.S., compared to 685 out of every 100,000 in Russia. However, a planned amnesty of 100,000 prisoners in Russia and the expectation of continued increases in the U.S. inmate population means the United States will likely become the world's leading jailer in a year or two. Even worse, the wire service neglects to mention the total correctional population is actually more than 7.3 million, much greater than in Russia, which can't afford to supervise 5.5 million people on probation, parole, under house arrest, doing community service and so on, as reported in the latest BOJ figures released at the end of 1996.)
• Prison Population Still Rising, but More Slowly (The Washington Post version notes the federal prison system is growing faster than state prisons and local jails, with drug offenders making up 60 percent of the federal inmate population. Only 23 percent of state prisoners have been convicted of drug-related crimes - but the figures for local jails are omitted. Similarly, the newspaper notes parole violators now account for about 35 percent of inmate admissions, but doesn't say how many of such inmates were violated for failing junk-science urine tests or committing other "non-drug" offenses that were really drug offenses.)
• Inmate Population Reaches Record 1.8 Million (The New York Times version)
• Prison Population 1.8 Million, Rising (The Oakland Tribune version)
• The Drug War Has Failed (A New York Times staff editorial in the International Herald-Tribune agrees with the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, when he says "We have a failed social policy and it has to be re-evaluated." Unfortunately, the newspaper's opinion that that "The drug war was created in reaction to a wave of urban violence triggered by crack cocaine" is so patently ignorant that nobody but a moron would ever look to the New York Times for insight again.)
• War On Drugs Has Woman In Hiding (The Coast Independent, on the Sunshine Coast, in British Columbia, recounts the case of Renee Boje, 29, an American on the Sunshine Coast who is facing deportation to California, where she's wanted by the federal government on charges related to Peter McWilliams' indictment for conspiracy to cultivate marijuana. Boje says she was hired only to do free-lance artwork for a magazine Todd McCormick was publishing. The B.C. Compassion Club Society is providing two lawyers to help Boje, who faces an April 19 extradition hearing.)
• War On Marijuana Waste Of Time, Money - Critics (The Halifax Daily News, in Nova Scotia, describes the enormous amount of resources spent by Canadian police to detect, prosecute and punish marijuana growers such as Leland Dosch of rural Saskatchewan. Police taped 2,000 hours of his family's phone calls, studied his daily routine and even broke into his home to plant listening devices. Then, in a carefully planned raid of his farmhouse, they found only 30 immature plants and a kilogram of herb. The Dosch case and others like it - as well as the latest statistics showing marijuana accounting for 72 per cent of all drug offences in Canada - have some experts questioning the wisdom of devoting so much time and money to battle a drug that many people regard as harmless and millions of Canadians use. "There's nothing more costly than a drug case for Canadian criminal justice," said Alan Young, a professor at Osgoode Hall law school in Toronto.)
• Financial Notes - The Buying Power Of Illegal Narcotics (An op-ed in the Independent, in Britain, by David Yallop, the author of "Unholy Alliance," says the international market for supposedly controlled substances amounts to $500 billion a year. "Imagine a multi-national company so big that its annual turnover is equal to China's gross national product. A company whose gross turnover for just one financial year is sufficient to buy at current market value the world's three largest public companies, General Electric, Royal Dutch Shell and Microsoft. A company where just 10 days turnover is in excess of the combined assets of the world's top 50 banks.")
• Weekly Action Report on Drug Policies, Year 5, No. 10 (A summary of European and international drug policy news, from CORA, in Italy)
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  Tuesday, March 16, 1999:

• Hemp for Health & Wealth (A press release - rendered into an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file here - from Sister Somayah Kambui, the medical-marijuana activist and sickle-cell anemia patient, publicizes the May 1 Million Marijuana March at Magic Johnson Park in Los Angeles.)
• CIA Sued For Not Reporting Drug Trade (The San Francisco Chronicle says two Oakland women filed a class-action lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oakland against the Central Intelligence Agency Monday, alleging that the agency's decision not to report drug smuggling to other authorities in the 1980s caused the crack epidemic to spread in inner-city communities. A similar suit was filed in Los Angeles.)
• Suit Blames CIA For Crack Epidemic (The version in the Oakland Tribune says the lawsuits are based on testimony from CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz when he appeared before the House Intelligence Committee a year ago today.)
• Drug Crimes Allegation Leads To CIA, Justice Suit (The San Francisco Examiner version)
• Suits Allege U.S. Failed To Stanch 'Crack' Epidemic (The San Jose Mercury News version)
• Communities Sue U.S. Agencies Over Lack Of Drug Interdiction (The Orange County Register version)
• CIA, Justice Department Sued Over Cocaine Damage (The Seattle Times version combines accounts from Knight Ridder Newspapers and the Associated Press.)
• Officials working out details on medical marijuana bill (The Minneapolis Star-Tribune says a medical marijuana bill proposed by Minnesota state senator Pat Piper faced an uncertain future Tuesday after a senate panel hearing.)
• Stealing By The State (According to a staff editorial in the Cincinnati Post, prosecutors in Hamilton County, Ohio, spent hours last January convincing a jury that Michael Nieman was an innocent victim, a jeweler murdered in his bed by a stripper girlfriend who just wanted his money. But as soon as the trial was over, federal prosecutors turned around and launched legal proceedings to seize Nieman's house, vehicles, cash, jewelry and other assets, arguing that he had really been a drug dealer, even though he had no record of drug crimes. The Hamilton County sheriff helped seize Nieman's estate. An attorney for Nieman's daughter called it legalized stealing. The attorney is right. Congress and states such as Ohio should sharply curb their pre-conviction asset forfeiture laws.)
• Prison Population: 18 Million, Growing (A staff edtitorial in the Daily Herald, in Arlington Heights, Illinois, suggests the latest U.S. prison population figures are a good thing because they have reduced crime. The editors express fleeting concern about mandatory minimum sentences and the fact that the prison population includes a "disproportionately large number of black men," which has "serious implications" for urban black communities. Failure to find ways to improve the situation "could carry devastating economic and cultural consequences," as if they weren't happening already.)
• The 'War On Drugs' Cannot Be Won (A letter to the editor of the Standard-Times, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, says the drug war is not, as advertised, a war "against drugs." Like all wars, it is a war against people. It may be "excused" by shouting the talismanic word "drugs," but drugs are just inanimate objects. The war is against the people of America and, now, all the peoples of the world.)
• They Are Humans, Not 'Cockroaches' (Another letter to the editor of the Standard-Times responds to a New Bedford resident who likened neighborhood drug dealers to "cockroaches," explaining why "we could get a lot further on this problem if we could remind ourselves that drug dealers, hard-core addicts and others whom we don't approve of are human beings and fellow citizens in need of help and education, and not cockroaches to be exterminated.")
• Incarceration Rates A Victory For Prisons (An op-ed in the Standard-Times, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, by Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project, in Washington, D.C., says the United States' latest prison-population figure, 1.8 million, is six times the number of people incarcerated just 25 years ago. Since the 1980s, every state has adopted some form of mandatory sentencing, most often for drug offenses. Half the states have also enacted a "three strikes and you're out" law, requiring a sentence of up to life without parole for a third felony. To divert money to education and other needed services, Mauer recommends several reforms lawmakers should embrace: Divert drug offenders to treatment. Reconsider mandatory sentencing. And divert low-level property offenders to community-based supervision.)
• When A Bad Policy Fails (Syndicated columnist Sean Gonsalves of the Cape Cod Times, in Massachusetts, discusses the report released two weeks ago by the Network of Reform Groups, "The Effective National Drug Control Strategy," which concluded that the so-called war on drugs had failed to protect America's children from drug abuse and had failed to reduce the availability of cocaine and heroin. The report was released on the same day the drug czar testified before a House subcommittee on his fiscal year 2000 budget request.)
• Property Seizures Trample the Constitution (A staff editorial in the Greensboro News & Record, in North Carolina, says in America, no one can take your property except through a legal process involving a finding of guilt. So says the Constitution of the United States in Articles IV, V and XIV. But don't kid yourself. Administrative actions based on nothing more than allegations of criminality, and not court trials, are taking property from people who many times are set free and not even prosecuted. The spreading of the practice and the piling up of evidence of abuses and injustices has coalesced civil rights advocates and politicians such as Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., who are pushing for reforms of the forfeiture laws, mainly by mandating that government has to show "clear and convincing evidence" for taking the property.)
• Drug Testing Positivity Rates Down 65% in Past Decade (A press release from SmithKline Beecham, the largest processor of urine tests in the United States, features biannual statistics on the percentages of workers who tested positive for supposedly controlled substances in the last six months. As usual, nobody tested positive for alcohol, and not a single false positive is noted. Needless to say, no mention is made of the recent study suggesting companies that resort to drug testing suffer almost 20 percent lower productivity.)
• Marijuana Report Expected Next Week (A UPI brief inaccurately says the Institute of Medicine report reviewing the research on marijuana as medicine will be released "next Wednesday," though in fact the release date is tomorrow.)
• NORML Special News Bulletin - Politics, Science Clash In IOM Medical Marijuana Report (NORML says the Institute of Medicine's review of the scientific literature on medical marijuana is a political rather than a scientific document, finding that cannabinoids hold value as medicine to treat a number of serious ailments, but should not be used by most patients until a non-smoked, rapid onset delivery system becomes available. Allen St. Pierre of NORML said, "It is nothing less than an act of political cowardliness for the IOM to admit that inhaled marijuana benefits some patients, while at the same time recommending to those patients that their only alternative is to suffer." The IOM report did dismiss allegations that marijuana is causally linked to the subsequent use of other illicit drugs, that the drug has a high potential for addiction, or that it holds short term immunosuppressive effects. The researchers also concluded that "the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range tolerated for other medications.")
• Marijuana Rescheduling Facts (An email from Jon Gettman, the former director of NORML who for years has been successfully fighting a lawsuit against the federal government to reschedule marijuana, comments on the Institute of Medicine report to be released tomorrow. "If the IOM report concludes that marijuana has an abuse potential less than cocaine and heroin, then the IOM report will have verified the scientific argument made by my rescheduling petition.")
• IOM and the Drug Free America Foundation, Inc. Agree: Smoking Marijuana is Not Medicine (A press release on Business Wire from the Drug Free America Foundation, in St. Petersburg, Florida, mischaracterizes the Institute of Medicine report on medical marijuana to be released tomorrow.)
• U.S. Said To End Mexico Drug Probe (According to the Associated Press, the New York Times reported today that an undercover U.S. probe into Mexican drug trafficking was shut down by the Clinton Administration even as U.S. Customs agents were looking at Mexico's defense minister, Gen. Enrique Cervantes, as a suspect.)
• Top Mexican Off-Limits To U.S. Drug Agents (The original New York Times version)
• U.S. Reportedly Closed Cash-Laundering Probe That Implicated Official (The Chicago Tribune version)
• U.S. May End Mexico Drug Probe (The Associated Press says the Mexican embassy formally asked the Clinton administration Tuesday to respond to charges from a former U.S. customs official that his undercover probe into Mexican drug trafficking was shut down after the name of Mexico's defense minister surfaced in it.)
• Americans Now The Most Jailed People On Earth (The Irish Independent recounts yesterday's news about the latest statistics from the U.S. Justice Department.)
• US Has 1.8 Million In Prison (The version in Britain's Independent notes America's prison population is so large that it distorts US unemployment figures and skews the voting register. Texas and Louisiana both have more than 700 per 100,000 of their populations in jail, well over the Russian figure of 685 per 100,000.)
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  Wednesday, March 17, 1999:

• 60 Oregonians declare intent to use marijuana (The Oregonian says the Oregon Health Division won't issue registration cards for patients protected by the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act until May 1. But Dr. Grant Higginson, state health officer, says 60 people have sent in the paperwork needed to get the cards.)
• Dope Meddlers (Willamette Week, in Portland, describes the attempt by state representative Kevin Mannix to nullify the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, incorrectly asserting that "even proponents" of Measure 67 "conceded that it needed some fine-tuning.")
• City must explain 'trap and trace' or concede it's illegal, judge says (The Oregonian says Multnomah County Circuit Judge Michael Marcus yesterday gave Portland until March 29 to either disclose how its Marijuana Task Force used a "trap and trace" telephone tap at the American Agriculture hydroponics store to identify 20 defendants now charged with growing the herb - or to concede that the practice was illegal. If the city refuses to reveal the phone-tapping information and will not concede the practice is illegal, it also could dismiss the cases or seek an immediate appeal of Marcus' ruling that would take the proceedings to the Court of Appeals before the cases proceed.)
• Judge orders city to explain pot-tracking method or admit it's illegal (The Associated Press version)
• NewsBuzz: Passing the Sniff Test (The Willamette Week version)
• Police volunteer goes to prison for illegal immigration (The Oregonian says Louie Lira Jr., a former employee of the Portland Youth Gang Outreach program and a volunteer with the Portland Police Bureau, was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison Tuesday for entering the country as an illegal immigrant twice in the past 15 years. The newspaper fails to mention Lira was deported the first time partly because of a drug offense. The Mexican national still faces a trial over an accusation that he used his police-issued scanner to assist a Nov. 4 bank robbery in Southeast Portland.)
• Marijuana Facts (Another letter to the editor of the Hood River News, in Hood River, Oregon, debunks recent assertions about marijuana by Maija Yasui of the state Commission on Children and Families, and recounts a few more government lies that led to or have perpetuated pot prohibition.)
• Scientific Report Says Marijuana May Be Medically Useful (An Associated Press article in the Argus Observer, in Oregon, summarizes the report on medical marijuana released today by the Institute of Medicine.)
• New Government Study Vindicates People's Vote on Medical Marijuana (A press release on PR Newswire from Washington Citizens for Medical Rights summarizes the Institute of Medicine report released today. Dr. Rob Killian, sponsor of Washington state's successful 1998 state ballot proposal on medical marijuana, says "The Federal Government can no longer make the claim that marijuana has no medical value. The only issue that remains is for our political leaders to find a way to provide this safe and effective medicine to our patients who need it.")
• Campus Crime Stoppers conjures visions of Big Brother (A letter to the editor of the Oregonian from a Grant High School junior criticizes the Campus Crime Stoppers program that pays up to $1,000 to student informers in Portland whose tips lead to the arrests, but not necessarily the convictions of other students for such crimes as smoking marijuana off campus after school. "The use of monetary incentives makes a commodity of citizenship and corrupts our sense of community responsibility. Instead of teaching students how to think about right and wrong, these programs teach that everything is for sale.")
• Socal Group Expects Good News From Drug Report (According to UPI, Americans for Medical Rights, in Southern California, says it's expecting good news from the report to be issued this morning by the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine in Washington, D.C.)
• Institute of Medicine Confirms Medical Value of Marijuana, Sidesteps Critical Drug Policy Concerns (California NORML says the $1.1 million review of the scientific literature on medical marijuana commissioned by the White House drug czar in 1997 confirms the herb offers potential therapeutic benefits for a broad range of symptoms, including pain relief, nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation. While dismissing the notion that marijuana is a gateway to drug abuse, or that its medical use sends a dangerous message to children, it refrains from judgments about current marijuana laws. The full report is online at http://www2.nas.edu/medical-mj/index.html.)
• Data Supports Medical Pot Argument (The Oakland Tribune summarizes the Institute of Medicine report released today.)
• Medical pot gets cautious kudos (The San Francisco Examiner version)
• Lockyer on medical marijuana (A list subscriber forwards a press release about the IOM report from California Attorney General Bill Lockyer.)
• Institute of Medicine Report on Medicinal Cannabis to Be Released March 17, 1999 (The Colorado Hemp Initiative Project forwards a summary of the IOM report by Jeff Jones of the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, who asks you to call today requesting the resignation of the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, based on his statement in 1996 to the effect that "marijuana has no shred of medical evidence to show it has therapeutic qualities." Plus, a request from the Marijuana Policy Project, in Washington, D.C., asking you to call your U.S. seantor and representative, seeking support for H.R. 912, the medical-marijuana bill recently introduced by Rep. Barney Frank.)
• Backers Call Medical Marijuana Report a Victory (The Arizona Daily Star interviews several locals who offer "pro" and "con" views about today's release of the Institute of Medicine report, "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base.")
• Backers Praise Report On Pot Medical Uses Cited By Federal Study (The Arizona Republic summarizes the Institute of Medicine study on medical marijuana.)
• School Drug Testing Proposal Moves Through Senate (The Tulsa World says Oklahoma House Bill 1289, sponsored by state Rep. Dale Smith, D-St. Louis, and state Sen. Brad Henry, D-Shawnee, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. For the first time, the bill would give schools legal authority to drug test tens of thousands of students who engage in extracurricular activities, including sports, band, debate, choir or any other school-connected activity. The House has already approved the bill. Apparently everyone knows whether the governor will sign it.)
• Medical marijuana bill hits snag (The Minneapolis Star-Tribune says a state senate committee held a hearing Tuesday on a medical-marijuana bill introduced by Sen. Pat Piper, DFL-Austin, which would allow adults with a physician's recommendation to possess 1 ounce of marijuana. The committee meets again tonight to try to reconcile differences.)
• Panel delays decision on medical marijuana (The St. Paul Pioneer Press version says the Minnesota Senate Health and Family Security Committee postponed a vote on the medical marijuana bill in order to allow the bill's sponsor and top officials in Gov. Jesse Ventura's administration to try to negotiate compromise amendments addressing the concerns that Public Safety Commissioner Charlie Weaver said Governor Ventura has with the bill. The committee is tentatively scheduled to resume debate on the bill 7:30 p.m. tonight at the Capitol.)
• Medical marijuana use still mired in politics (Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Doug Grow describes the hearing Tuesday for a medical-marijuana bill before a Minnesota senate committee. The witnesses poured out their pain. They explained that marijuana had comforted them when other drugs had failed. They were passionate and powerful. But the unhearing drug warriors mouthed the same old canards. The people who testified about their horrific pains only could shake their heads at the old, cold words they were hearing. It's 1999 in most of the world, but in government, we're still in dense, dark times whenever the subject is medicinal use of marijuana. Even Gov. Jesse Ventura's cabinet was sending mixed messages.)
• Record For The Man Imprisoned Longest (Boston Globe columnist David Nyhan discusses America's prison-industrial complex and the recent statistics on America's prison population. The Guinness Book of World Records notes Paul Guidel is the man imprisoned longest in the United States. He was 17 when he committed second-degree murder. He lived in a New York prison for 68 years, eight months, and two days before being released at age 85. But he's got a lot of company these days, and there's no hope of reform in the near term. Longer sentences and harsher penalties sound great on the evening news to fearful voters, eager-to-please pols, and those making money off the billions we spend for new $100,000-a-pop prison cells, where it costs 30 grand a year to keep some wretch locked up. Academic studies have shown a direct correlation between voters' fear of crime and media hype, tabloid outrages exploited by news reports, with television the leading offender. "If it bleeds it leads" is cynical TV shorthand for the allure of bloody tales to jack the ratings up. Our print brethren gasp trying to catch up in the titillation department. The ultimate result is harsher treatment of criminals.)
• Official U.S. Report Backs Medical Use Of Marijuana (Reuters says the Institute of Medicine report released today looks likely to prompt a thorough review of U.S. efforts to ban almost all marijuana use as dangerous drug abuse. Cannabinoids work on both the brain and the body. They can help to modulate pain and alleviate other symptoms of serious illness such as anxiety, lack of appetite, and nausea. Regarding the smoking of herbal cannabis, the IOM report says, "We acknowledge that there is no clear alternative for people suffering from chronic conditions." To help these patients, the report suggests doctors be allowed to carry out single-subject clinical studies. Bill Zimmerman, director of Americans for Medical Rights, said "They are in effect saying that most of what the government has told us about marijuana is false . . . it's not addictive, it's not a gateway to heroin and cocaine, it has legitimate medical use, and it's not as dangerous as common drugs like Prozac and Viagra.")
• Study: Marijuana Helps Fight Pain (The Associated Press version)
• Federal Panel Recommends Scientific Trials Of Medical (A slightly different Associated Press version in the Seattle Times)
• Report: Marijuana May Have Medical Uses (The UPI version has a hard time getting past drug-warrior preconceptions.)
• Marijuana Report Draws Mixed Reactions (A quite different UPI version quotes Dr. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard Medical School, who wrote 20 pages of criticism as a peer reviewer for the IOM report, saying "they certainly have shied away from an honest assessment of its use as a medicine." Grinspoon criticized the report for, among other things, emphasizing the hazards of smoking. He said machines have been developed overseas that allow for the vapors of marijuana to be delivered to patients without smoking the plant. Dr. Kathleen Boyle, a psychologist at the UCLA Drug Abuse Research program, said she was "pleasantly surprised" by the report . . . . "but I think they too narrowly focused on AIDS and cancer-type diseases.")
• Federal Report Reignites Medical Marijuana Debate - Panel Finds Therapeutic Benefits (The CNN version)
• Marijuana's Components Have Potential as Medicine; Clinical Trials, Drug Development Should Proceed (The official National Academy of Sciences press release about the Institute of Medicine report being released today.)
• IOM Medical Marijuana Report is Important First Step in the Right Direction (A press release from the Drug Policy Foundation comments on the Institute of Medicine's review of the scientific literature on marijuana as medicine.)
• U.S. Government Study: Benefits of Medical Marijuana Outweigh Risks, Long-Awaited Science Review Concludes (A similar press release from the Lindesmith Center)
• Institute of Medicine Releases Report on Medicinal Marijuana (A company press release from Roxane Laboratories, Inc., the manufacturer of Marinol, ungrammatically asserts that the ONDCP and IOM agree that "chemically-defined drugs" such as Marinol is the future of cannabinoid drugs.)
• Reefer Madness or Reefer Medicine? (Cable News Network broadcasts a panel discussion about the medical marijuana report released today by the Institute of Medicine. Mary Tillotson moderates commentary from General Barry McCaffrey, former cancer patient Richard Brookhiser of the National Review, Betty Sembler of Drug Free America; and Dr. Ann Mohrbacher, a cancer specialist at the University of Southern California.)
• Institute of Medicine Issues Report Strongly Supporting Medical Use of Marijuana (Cable News Network medical correspondent Eileen O'Connor comments on the impact of the Institute of Medicine report, noting patient advocates are angered, saying "the calls for more research are basically just calls for more stalling. And they are pointing to the research that the IOM has done, saying that it itself admits that for some patients there is no alternative.")
• Statement by General Twaddle (A list subscriber forwards the official statement made by General Barry McCaffrey, the White House drug czar, about the report he commissioned on medical marijuana, to be released today by the Institute of Medicine.)
• Medical Marijuana Smoking To Remain Illegal (Reuters notes the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, said Wednesday in response to the IOM report that marijuana would remain on the government's list of illegal drugs despite a report saying smoking it could be beneficial to certain patients.)
• Senators Pledge 1,000 More Agents For Border Patrol (The Orange County Register says several Senate Republicans pledged Tuesday to overrule the Clinton administration and add 1,000 new Border Patrol agents next year.)
• Alcohol and driving (The ADCA News of the Day, from the Alcohol and Other Drugs Council of Australia, says a survey released yesterday by Curtin University's National Centre for Research into the Prevention of Drug Abuse suggested cannabis use by drivers is a relatively minor safety hazard compared to alcohol use.)
• Health - Support for medicinal use of cannabis (The BBC summarizes the report on medical marijuana released today by the U.S. Institute of Medicine.)
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  Thursday, March 18, 1999:

• Study backs medical pot use (The Oregonian describes the report released yesterday by the Institute of Medicine on the efficacy of medical marijuana.)
• National marijuana report doesn't pacify Oregon lawmaker (According to the Associated Press, state representative Kevin Mannix, the chairman of the House Judiciary-Criminal Committee and sponsor of a bill that would eviscerate the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, said that despite the Institute of Medicine report released Wednesday, "The negative aspects of making marijuana available strongly outweigh the positives." Only 60 people have sought to register with the state as patients so far, but Mannix insists Measure 67 is loosely crafted and full of loopholes.)
• Confirmed child abuse cases hits record high (The Associated Press says a report released Wednesday by the State Office for Services to Children and Families claims the number of child abuse cases rose 4 percent last year to hit a record high that state officials blame mostly on "drug" use by parents. Unfortunately, AP doesn't explain how the state of Oregon has merely changed the definition of what constitutes child abuse, and is devoting all the resources it can to identifying parents who use cannabis and stealing their children from them, regardless of how well such children are actually cared for. And unfortunately, AP doesn't explain the numbers involved, including the unsustainable cost of the state's ethnic cleansing campaign.)
• Senate OKs change in marijuana law (The News Tribune, in Tacoma, says a bill that would let the Washington state Health Department write rules to "flesh out" the state's new medical marijuana law squeaked by the state Senate on Wednesday 33-12. Because the bill would change a voter-approved initiative, it required the approval of two-thirds of the senators. It now heads to the House.)
• Scientists Back Use Of Marijuana For Medical Therapy (The Seattle Post-Intelligencer summarizes the Institute of Medicine report released yesterday.)
• Pot Farm: Group Serves Ill And Offers Support (The San Jose Mercury News does a feature article on the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, or WAMM, a non-profit collective of patients at a tiny medical marijuana farm in northern Santa Cruz County. While cooperating with law enforcement authorities, members help the plants thrive, even as they themselves wither and die. Patients contend the companionship, hard work and soft ocean air are as valuable as the marijuana. Valerie Corral, who with her husband, Michael, founded and helps run the group, says "Our model could work throughout the state. It could work throughout the nation.")
• Lockyer Working To Carry Out State's Law (The Sacramento Bee joins the ranks of California media who continue to maintain that Attorney General Bill Lockyer is trying to implement Proposition 215, even while letting cases proceed against dozens if not hundreds of patients, and prison terms to continue for dozens of patients such as Marvin Chavez.)
• Testimony begins in trial of a man accused of growing marijuana (The Sacramento Bee says testimony was set to begin today in the trial of Robert Michael Galambos, a Calaveras County man charged with growing 382 pot plants for himself and to supply a medical marijuana club in Oakland.)
• Kubbys Update (A news release from the web site promoting the campaign of Libertarian Steve Kubby for governor of California in 2002 says the medical marijuana patient/activist and his wife, Michele, were arraigned Friday in Auburn Superior Court on cultivation charges. A trial date will be set April 26.)
• Report: Marijuana Has Some Benefits (The Orange County Register summarizes the Institute of Medicine report assessing the efficacy of medical marijuana.)
• Marijuana As Medicine Still Debated Topic (A different Orange County Register version)
• Federal Study Says Pot Has Medical Value (A staff editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle summarizes Wednesday's Institute of Medicine report and says the federal government should put politics aside and sponsor serious scientific research into pot's potential. Meanwhile, California should find a way to distribute medical marijuana to patients whose doctors recommend it, the way Proposition 215 originally intended.)
• Federal Panel Urges Tests of Medical Pot (A different San Francisco Chronicle version)
• Report finds medical value in marijuana (The version in the Santa Rosa, California, Press Democrat)
• Report Says Marijuana May Be Medically Useful (The version in the Santa Maria Times, in Santa Maria, California)
• Marijuana Has Treatment Value, Study Finds (The Los Angeles Daily News version)
• Study Sees Limited Medicinal-Marijuana Role (The San Jose Mercury News version)
• The Medicinal Marijuana Debate: Pot Proponents Gain A Victory (A different San Jose Mercury News account focuses on the IOM report's implications for medical marijuana policies in California.)
• Marijuana Has Medicinal Value, Panel Says (The Associated Press version in the San Luis Obispo County Telegram-Tribune)
• Let Science Run Marijuana Debate (A staff editorial in the San Mateo County Times, in California, says this week's Institute of Medicine report on medical marijuana should send a message to the feds that it's time to start letting science - not politics - steer the debate. The federal government is finding itself defending a less and less defensible position. It's time for policy makers to get smart - and compassionate - and allow clinical studies to move forward.)
• Re: Let Science Run Marijuana Debate (A letter sent to the editor of the San Mateo County Times from a local physician says the newspaper's hope that the Institute of Medicine report would allow reason and evidence to control implementation of California's medical marijuana law is naïve. For one thing, General McCaffrey has already flatly stated even though a pure aerosolized cannabinoid is not available, "smoked marijuana" will remain illegal on the grounds that it is unhealthy - never mind that many of the patients who gain unique relief from it are already dying and most have no other effective alternative. "There is absolutely no evidence that the requisite amount of smoking has ever produced one cancer - in other words, the smoking objection is entirely theoretical.")
• Remove The Roadblocks To Medicinal Marijuana (San Jose Mercury News columnist Joanne Jacobs discusses the scientific aspects and political ramifications of the Institute of Medicine report on medical marijuana. Scientific data shows that the active ingredients in marijuana, known as cannabinoids, may relieve pain, control nausea and vomiting and stimulate appetite. And "The psychological effects of cannabinoids may contribute to their potential therapeutic value.")
• Clearance For Marijuana? (A staff editorial in the Orange County Register notes the Institute of Medicine already found marijuana to be medicine in 1982. The most significant policy implication of the IOM report released yesterday is that marijuana does not belong in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, which by law is reserved for substances with a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. The study should give the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, the firepower it needs to rule favorably on Jon Gettman's rescheduling petition - and soon.)
• Scientists Urge Study Of Medicinal Marijuana (The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in Missouri, summarizes the Institute of Medicine report released yesterday.)
• Medicinal Marijuana Bill Dead In 1999 Legislature (The St. Paul Pioneer Press says Minnesota, state senator Pat Piper, DFL-Austin, the chief Senate author of a medical marijuana bill, asked for an indefinite postponement of a committee vote Wednesday night, citing a lack of consensus, effectively ending any hope of passing the legislation this year.)
• Panel Touts Marijuana - Without The Smoke (The Wisconsin State Journal version)
• Marijuana Is Boosted As Benefit To Patients (The Detroit Free Press version)
• Drug Czar's Study Supports Uses For Medical Marijuana (The Chicago Tribune summarizes the Institute of Medicine report on medical marijuana released yesterday.)
• Institute Advocates Medical Use Of Pot (The Akron Beacon-Journal, in Ohio, summarizes the Institute of Medicine report on medical marijuana released yesterday.)
• Research: Pot Helps Ill, Study Finds (The Dayton Daily News version)
• Study: Marijuana Can Be Medicinal (The Cincinnati Enquirer version)
• Medicinal Marijuana Uses Seen (The Boston Globe version)
• Scientific Report Backs Medical Marijuana (The Associated Press version in the Standard-Times, in New Bedford, Massachusetts)
• Study Backs Marijuana's Medical Use (The Hartford Courant version)
• Government Study Labels Marijuana A Useful Medicine (A characteristically misleading New York Times version of yesterday's news about the release of the long-awaited Institute of Medicine report asserts the IOM scientists found marijuana smoke to be "toxic," meaning it kills, something demonstrably false, rather than "risky," the latter term reflecting only on the current state of the science - which the government apparently will continue to suppress.)
• Panel Sees Value In Medical Marijuana (A different New York Times version)
• The Medical Dope - Independent Panel Says Marijuana Can Help Patients (The version in New York's Newsday)
• Federal judge lets lawsuit on medical marijuana go on (The Morning Call, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, says U.S. District Senior Judge Marvin Katz ruled on March 10 in Philadelphia that a class-action lawsuit challenging the federal government's refusal to legalize marijuana for medicine can move ahead. Katz concluded that the plaintiffs have a right to delve more deeply into the fairness of a federal program that gives marijuana to some ill people but not others. However, Katz dismissed other legal claims in the lawsuit, including those challenging the constitutionality of the federal Controlled Substances Act. The judge put the case in his June 21 trial pool, meaning it could go to trial then. Lawrence Hirsch of Philadelphia, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs, predicted the trial would last all summer.)
• Medical Study A Score For Marijuana (The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette version of yesterday's report from the Institute of Medicine)
• Medical Marijuana Is Endorsed By Researchers In A Federal Report (The Philadelphia Inquirer version)
• A Summary Of Findings On The Effects Of Medical Marijuana (A Philadelphia Inquirer sidebar summarizes key points in the Institute of Medicine report issued yesterday.)
• National Institute Urges Medical Marijuana Use (The Knight Ridder Newspapers version in the Centre Daily Times, in Pennsylvania)
• Study: Pot 'Moderately' Useful As Medicine (The Washington Post version in the Tampa Tribune says Barry McCaffrey, the White House drug czar who requested the report, said he endorsed it "thoroughly." McCaffrey said he wouldn't oppose limited studies of smoked marijuana until a less harmful way of inhaling the substance's active ingredients is found.)
• U.S. Panel Sees Potential For Medical Marijuana (The original Washington Post version)
• Report Concedes Pot Has Medical Benefits (The Washington Times version)
• Medical Role For Pot Is Seen (The Richmond Times-Dispatch version quotes Dr. Billy Martin of Virginia Commonwealth University, a government researcher who served as an adviser for the report, saying the additional clinical trials it recommends "are not a politically positive thing to do.")
• Medicinal Marijuana Gets Support (The News & Observer version, in North Carolina.)
• U.S. Experts Advocate Marijuana For Patients (The Miami Herald version)
• Medical Pot Gets Support (The Orlando Sentinel version notes U.S. Representative Bill McCollum, the Republican control freak from Longwood, Florida, who led the fight to get the House to condemn medical marijuana last fall, said he is "deeply concerned" the Institute of Medicine report might encourage people to smoke marijuana, failing to note that the IOM explicitly said there was no evidence that medical use of the drug would increase nonmedical use. The newspaper apparently didn't think to ask if McCollum had actually read the report. McCollum said he would rather let AIDS and cancer patients suffer and die than allow them to use herbal cannabis "because there is no way to control that.")
• Legalize It, Group Says, For The Sick It Should Be Option, Local Patients Say (The Northwest Florida Daily News interviews local patients and advocates about the medical efficacy of marijuana.)
• Reno: Go Slow On Marijuana (A UPI account of the Institute of Medicine report on medical marijuana notes U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno admitted today that she hadn't read it yet, and said only that "testing can give information that gives a medically sound approach.")
• Politics & Policy (The Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, in Washington, D.C., summarizes the Institute of Medicine report on medical marijuana.)
• Medical Marijuana Supporters Elated (The Associated Press says the Institute of Medicine report hands advocates for medical marijuana patients an important weapon - science - in their battle with the federal government to legalize the herb for medical use. Apparently reason won't be enough, however. Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., who led the fight to get the U.S. House of Representatives to condemn medical marijuana last fall, condemned the IOM study, saying he is "deeply concerned" the report by itself might encourage people to smoke marijuana.)
• Drug Czar: More Money Needed (The Orange County Register says the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, wants Congress to pass legislation that would require insurance companies to include drug and alcohol treatment in health plans.)
• Excite Poll on Medical Marijuana (A list subscriber forwards details about yet another online poll showing support for medical marijuana, 82 percent to 8 percent, with 10 percent unsure.)
• Drug Policy Foundation Network News (The original monthly online summary of drug policy news from DPF, in Washington, D.C., examines - Barney Frank's drug policy reform bills; Anti-Know Your Customer bills; Rangel addresses crack cocaine sentencing disparity; Hatch seeks expansion of maintenance therapies; McCain attacks methadone; White House releases strategy; Mexico certified as fully cooperating in drug war; Gov. Ventura slams drug war; Other legislation to watch.)
• U.S. report backs easing of restrictions on pot (A Reuters article in the Toronto Star summarizes the Institute of Medicine report on medical marijuana.)
• Medical Marijuana Gets Nod (The version in Canada's National Post)
• Canna Pharm shut down in Ottawa (A list subscriber forwards a photo from Le Droit, a French language newspaper.)
• Feds Screwed Up On Pot (NOW magazine, in Canada, says federal health minister Allan Rock has made no move to improve the lot of medical marijuana patients. His announcement last week that the government intended to establish guidelines for clinical trials is considered by many a cynical manoeuvre to lend the appearance of sophistication and compassion to a stalling operation. Marie Andree Bertrand, a member of the government's famous Le Dain commission that recommended the decriminalization of pot in the early 1970s, says Rock's insistance on more studies before allowing medical use is to "laugh in the face of the Canadian public." The research, she says, was done and paid for 25 years ago. Among other evidence, the Le Dain commission cited a series of classified U.S. army studies from the 1950s showing a number of potentially valuable therapeutic effects from the use of synthetic cannabinoids for everything from fever and epilepsy to high blood pressure. Says the commission's Bertrand, "We spoke of all the symptoms that would be alleviated by cannabis," contradicting what she calls "lies" emanating from public health authorities.)
• Mexico Furious Over Report Linking Official To Drug Cash (An Associated Press article in the Chicago Tribune says the Mexican Embassy has formally asked the Clinton administration to respond to charges by a former U.S. Customs official, William Gately, published in the New York Times Tuesday, that his undercover investigation into Mexican drug trafficking was shut down after the name of Mexico's defense minister, Gen. Enrique Cervantes, surfaced in it.)
• Experts Tell the White House That Marijuana Makes Medicinal Sense (The Guardian, in Britain, briefly summarizes the U.S. Institute of Medicine report on medical marijuana.)
• US Urged By Panel To Give Medical Trial To Marijuana (The version in Ireland's Examiner)
• US Medical Report Backs Marijuana Use (The Scotsman version)
• Official US Report Backs Medical Use Of Marijuana (The Reuters version in Pakistan's Dawn)
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