Wednesday, April 7, 1999:
Taking Civil Liberties (A letter to the editor of Willamette Week, in Portland, says Multnomah County Sheriff Dan Noelle is overstepping the boundaries of his position by using his official title and resources to amend Oregon's medical-marijuana law.)
A Modest Proposal (A like-minded letter to the editor of Willamette Week proposes an addendum to the legislation that would largely nullify the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act. Rep. Mannix and Sheriff Noelle would be the people who make the random searches of ill citizens who are certified to grow and smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes. If they propose such invasive and offensive laws, they should carry them out themselves - if the Oregon Legislature proves to have the same kind of forward thinking as the good sheriff and his political pal.)
Need For Addiction Services Exceeds County Aid (The Oregonian says Jim Peterson, Multnomah County's addictions services manager, told the county Board of Commissioners in Portland Tuesday that the $10.8 million budgeted for about 8,200 drug treatment slots in this fiscal year was inadequate by about 25 percent. Sometimes, he said, the treatment programs end up competing with the county's Corrections Department for money.)
Plan seeks tobacco money in lump sum (The Oregonian says state Treasurer Jim Hill plans to propose today that Oregon swap its rights to part of $2.4 billion in tobacco settlement payments over 25 years for a lump sum that could be used right now to solve the Legislature's school finance stalemate.)
The Smoking Gun (Willamette Week, in Portland, says last week's record $80.3 million judgment against Philip Morris is mostly attributable to the jury being exposed to confidential tobacco industry documents, which revealed that executives knew about the addictive and carcinogenic properties of cigarettes but engaged in a decades-long effort to suppress such information.)
Tobacco judgment a sad victory (A letter to the editor of the Oregonian from Wendy Bjornson of the Tobacco-Free Coalition of Oregon says a Portland jury's recent $80.3 million judgment against Philip Morris was sad because Jesse "Williams' death was among more than 6,000 in Oregon caused by tobacco every year." Bjornson's logic is clearly prohibitionist, suggesting all sorts of problems will magically disappear just by targeting tobacco companies.)
Freedom of Choice (A letter to the editor of Willamette Week from a 56-year-old woman with severe attention deficit hyperactivity disorder follows up on a recent article on Ritalin, noting it is a drug that can give some patients more choices by freeing them from the impulse to respond to every new stimulus.)
One Size Doesn't Fit All (Another letter to the editor of Willamette Week says its recent article about proposed legislation that would lock up some people with mental illnesses and force them to take dangerous drugs omitted the perspective of patients who have experienced civil commitment.)
Careful What You Wish For (A similar letter to the editor of Willamette Week says that making civil commitment and forced treatment easier won't affect just a tiny group of weirdos. Psychiatrists claim that most people are crazy. A 1993 study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health claims that over a lifetime, more than half the population is mentally ill, yet only 4 percent who "need" it receive treatment. Think about that before advocating that people should be forced to take psychiatric drugs, which cause serious brain damage and turn people into bloated and numbed-out near-zombies. The rights the attorney general wants to take away may be your own.)
Student Drug Use, Violence Rising, Survey Finds (The Seattle Times says the seventh annual Kids Count Data book survey of Washington students suggests the use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs that are illegal to Washington schoolchildren is on the rise, with "regular" use starting in sixth grade and escalating to more than one in four 12th-graders reporting they went to school drunk in the past year. More than one in three adolescents also showed signs of clinical depression.)
Dr. Donald Abrams to Speak on "Medical Marijuana: Tribulations and Trials" (A list subscriber says the Lindesmith Center will sponsor a talk May 25 at the San Francisco Medical Society by the UCSF professor who is carrying out the first research with marijuana allowed by the federal government in this decade.)
Judge keeps smoking verdict, cuts damages (According to the Oregonian, a judge in San Francisco refused Tuesday to grant a new trial or to overturn a local jury's verdict against Philip Morris, but lowered from $51.5 million to $26.5 million the amount the company must pay to a former three-pack-a-day smoker with inoperable lung cancer. When Patricia Henley won $51.5 million in February, it was the largest award ever in a tobacco liability lawsuit filed by an individual smoker. However, that verdict was surpassed last week by a Portland jury, which ordered Philip Morris to pay a record-setting $80.3 million in damages to the family of Jesse Williams, a school custodian and longtime Marlboro smoker. Philip Morris said it will take the case to the California Court of Appeal.)
Truth or DARE - The Dubious Drug-Education Program Takes New York (The Village Voice says over the next four years, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program will implement its full curriculum - kindergarten through 12th grade - in all of New York City's public schools. After first gaining a foothold in the city in 1996, DARE America now donates $1.5 million worth of supplies annually for 271 New York City elementary schools, while the NYPD covers $8.5 million a year in salaries and benefits for the city's DARE officers. Since 1983, DARE has become the world's dominant drug prevention program. The $230 million operation conducts courses in all 50 states and in 44 countries, from Sweden and England to Brazil and Costa Rica. Eighty percent of U.S. school districts have DARE. More than a dozen studies have concluded that DARE has no lasting impact. And one six-year study found increased drug use among suburban kids who graduated from DARE.)
As Inmate Population Grows, So Does A Focus On Children (The New York Times examines some of the unintended consequences for families of America's booming prison-industrial complex. There are 7 million children with a parent in jail or prison or recently released on probation or parole. Experts warn that the nation's emphasis on imprisonment may be helping to create the next generation of criminals.)
Farmers Show Interest In Hemp (The Intelligencer Journal, in Pennsylvania, says Lancaster County Farm Bureau president Jane Balmer believes that falling prices for corn, soybeans and tobacco mean the time is ripe for local farmers to consider planting alternative crops, including hemp. The farm bureau board voted Tuesday night to investigate the matter, so an organizational meeting to explore the viability of forming the Pennsylvania Hemp Growers and Processors Co-op will be held April 16 in New Holland. According to Shawn Patrick House, owner of Lancaster Hemp Co., a wholesale distribution business, Lancaster County in 1850 was growing 540 tons of hemp, the same amount that was imported to the United States in 1996.)
Number Of Drug Deaths In Florida Rises (The Tampa Tribune says deaths in Florida last year attributable to illegal drugs increased dramatically. There were 206 deaths caused by contaminated street heroin and the ignorance of users, up 51 percent from 1997. More than five times as many people - 1,128 - died from cocaine-related causes, up 65 percent since 1992, including last year's 8.6 percent jump. The state's new drug czar, James McDonough, formerly of the White House drug czar's office, said many of the victims were long-term addicts in their 30s and 40s who finally succumbed to years of drug abuse.)
FBI investigating death of DEA agent (The Associated Press says George Gehring, 34, who had been assigned to the Drug Enforcement Administration office in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, was found Wednesday morning with a bullet wound to the temple. Police recovered a pistol at the scene. The wire service doesn't say whether a copy of the March 17 Institute of Medicine report on medical marijuana was also found nearby.)
Smoke eater fined $2,500 for pot (The Edmonton Sun says Dean Troyer, a city firefighter, was sentenced yesterday in an Alberta court for growing 15 cannabis plants to combat depression and physical pain.)
Canadians high on medicinal pot: poll (According to the Edmonton Sun, a recent Decima poll showed 78 percent of Canadians support the use of marijuana as medicine. Only 18 percent of respondents opposed it. The strongest support, 83 percent, came from households with at least $60,000 annual incomes and individuals with a university education. The poll shows medical marijuana "is more popular than any of the political parties. They're lucky to get 40 percent support," said Amanda Stewart, director of the Cannabis Re-legalization Society of Alberta. Stewart estimated about 10 percent of the population in Edmonton already uses the herb to ease physical pain and-or mental anguish.)
Canadians Favour The Use Of Medical Marijuana (The National Post version)
Fugitive Former Governor Of Mexican State Charged With Drug Trafficking (An Associated Press article in the Seattle Times says the indictment of Mario Villanueva yesterday, the day after the expiration of his term as governor of the state of Quintana Roo, came nine days after he dropped out of sight. Prosecutors denied they delayed the criminal case to avoid charging and impeaching a sitting governor, something that has never been done in Mexico. Villanueva said in a letter published yesterday by Mexican newspapers that the case was politically motivated.)
Bytes: 106,000 Last updated: 5/13/99
Thursday, April 8, 1999:
NORML Weekly Press Release (Marijuana like chemical could hold key to treating movement disorders; Illinois bill criminalizes marijuana information on the Internet; California county submits medical marijuana research proposal to federal government; Nearly eight out of 10 Canadians favor medical marijuana)
Tobacco fast cash gets cool reception (According to the Oregonian, the Oregon House of Representatives' majority whip, Mark Simmons, R-Elgin, and other lawmakers said Wednesday that a plan to convert part of Oregon's annual tobacco settlement payments into $400 million in immediate cash could be a wise move, but not as a solution to the state's budget impasse. State Treasurer Jim Hill has proposed selling $400 million in bonds, which would be repaid with $900 million in tobacco revenues during the next 20 years. Oddly, the newspaper doesn't ask why politicians are worrying about the "risk of future settlement payments drying up.")
Meth labs potential chemical nightmares (The Oregonian continues to present just one side of a recent story about a house that was allowed to burn down in Portland after a methamphetamine lab was supposedly found in the basement. An otherwise quotidian bit of fear-mongering about the toxic chemicals and risks posed by such labs typically fails to note they are the inevitable result of the law of supply and demand. The newspaper also typically fails to explain such labs within the context of the history of amphetamine prohibition.)
Lawmakers Asked To Soften Nevada's Marijuana Possession Law (The Sacramento Bee says Assemblywoman Chris Guinchigliani urged Nevada lawmakers Wednesday to vote for her bill, AB 577, which would reduce the penalty for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana from a felony to a misdemeanor. First-time offenders could be fined $500 but would face no jail time. Currently the offense is punishable by up to four years in prison and a $5,000 fine.)
The Fourth Amendment Suffers At Court's Hands (A staff editorial in the Greensboro News and Record, in North Carolina, says bit by bit, the U.S. Supreme Court has been dismantling the constitutional protection against unreasonable searches. The justices' ruling this week that a police officer who stops a car may rummage through a passenger's personal belongings without a search warrant is nonsense. The Supreme Court has been all too willing to put the convenience of law enforcement ahead of the rights of citizens. Where will it end? Random pat-downs on street corners?)
High court hears man's case to grow marijuana for medicine (According to an Associated Press article in the Naples Daily News, the attorney for 61-year-old George Sowell, who says smoking marijuana is the only way to ease his glaucoma and nausea, asked the Florida Supreme Court Wednesday to let his client grow the illegal herb in his yard. Sowell received a kidney transplant 17 years ago after glaucoma drugs caused his to fail. Sowell's trial judge refused to allow a "medical necessity" defense, but the 1st District Court of Appeal overturned Sowell's conviction and probation sentence on the grounds that the argument should have been allowed. The state attorney general's office appealed to the state Supreme Court, which likely won't make a final ruling for several months.)
State Justices Hear Debate On Use Of Pot For Illnesses (The Miami Herald version)
Zoned Out (The Daily Planet, in Tampa, Florida, says Hillsborough County law enforcement agencies have delineated 47 areas of the county off limits to the 2,200 county residents on probation for drug offenses, mostly possession.)
Drug Survey of Children Finds Middle School a Pivotal Time (The New York Times notes a new nationwide survey by PRIDE, the Parents' Resource Institute for Drug Education, based in Atlanta, is the first to include elementary-school children among the respondents. The survey found, not surprisingly, that more youngsters use "drugs" in middle school than primary school, but both PRIDE, the New York Times and General Barry McCaffrey frame the survey results to benefit their pro-drug-war, anti-marijuana agenda.)
Bytes: 58,000 Last updated: 5/18/99
