1999 News
About Cannabis and Drug Policy
April 30-May 6

Friday, April 30, 1999:
• Oregon Hemp Bill Appears Dead (The Register-Guard, in Eugene, says the industrial-hemp bill sponsored by state representative Floyd Prozanski apparently has been killed. Prozanski said Thursday that seven of the nine members of the House Agriculture and Forestry Committee - including Chairman Larry Wells, R-Jefferson - had told him they were willing to send the bill out for a floor vote. But Republican House Speaker Lynn Snodgrass told Wells not to take up HB 2933 again.)
• Insurers still unfair with mentally ill, study says (The Oregonian says a study released today by the National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems and the Association of Behavioral Group Practices concludes that limits imposed by health insurers on mental health and drug-treatment coverage increased in 1998 despite a new federal law meant to restore balance between mental and physical health benefits. "We call it organ discrimination," said William Dalton, director of the Oregon branch of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. "There is still a lot of stigma and antiquated thinking about mental illness and chemical dependency." Employers have found little resistance to cutting benefits for mental disorders because of the stigma. The cuts have gone on so long now that "There is not a lot of room for employers to decrease benefits any more without cutting them completely," said Kathleen Hessler of the Hay Group.)
• Medical marijuana policy still fuzzy (The Seattle Times discusses the problems faced by medical marijuana patients in Washington state, despite the passage of Initiative 692 last November. Today, a group of patients who receive care at Harborview Medical Center's HIV/AIDS clinic plan to protest in front of the building. They say that their doctors have left them legally vulnerable by refusing to sign letters authorizing their marijuana use. The real doctors are willing, but the medical director of Harborview's HIV/AIDS clinic, Dr. Thomas Hooton, unilaterally forbid clinic physicians from writing letters.)
• Medical pot comes to Auburn (The Auburn Journal, in California, provides an update on the medical marijuana trial of Michael and Georgia Baldwin, noting Ryan Landers, a Sacramento AIDS patient and trial observer, obtained the permission of Superior Court Judge James D. Garbolino to smoke cannabis discreetly outside the courthouse.)
• Medical Marijuana Researcher to Speak at Forum (A press release from the Lindesmith Center publicizes a rare public address May 25 in San Francisco by Dr. Donald Abrams, the only U.S. researcher currently allowed to conduct a clinical trial on medical marijuana. Dr. Abrams' topic is "Medical Marijuana: Tribulations and Trials.")
• Standing up for equal rights and Pot Pride (Mikki Norris, a co-ordinator of the "Human Rights and the Drug War" exhibit and author of "Shattered Lives: Portraits from America's Drug War," shares an eloquent speech she will make tomorrow at San Francisco's Million Marijuana March. "Today, we demand equal rights. We don't want special rights, just the same rights that people who smoke tobacco or drink alcohol responsibly enjoy. Today we say, stop calling us losers, stupid, lazy, and unmotivated.")
• Shooter Used Often-Prescribed Drug (The Washington Post says Eric Harris had been taking Luvox, an antidepressant, before he went on a shooting rampage last week at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Judith Rapaport, chief of child psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland, said "There is no reason to think it would have any relationship to any unusual or violent behavior," ignoring a similar case in Springfield, Oregon, and failing to acknowledge that kids' brains are different than adults' and that such drugs have never been thoroughly tested on children. For some reason Rapaport failed to recommend that parents try switching their teens' antidepressant to cannabis, a much less toxic remedy whose worst possible side-effect, amotivational syndrome, would have saved a few lives in Colorado. Plus a cartoon from the April 28 Daily News, in Halifax, Nova Scotia.)
• U.S. Court Overturns Juror's Contempt Conviction (The Associated Press notes yesterday's news about the Colorado Court of Appeals reversing the conviction of a juror, Laura Kriho, for contempt of court. Kriho was indicted because, during jury selection, she failed to volunteer the information that she had pleaded guilty 11 years earlier to possessing LSD, and is a member of a group that supports the reform of marijuana laws.)
• Drug Wars, Part Two (The Austin Chronicle notes Texas is such a closed society that the Drug Policy Forum of Texas has resorted to offering $500 to any drug warrior willing to debate its representatives in public. Alan Robison, a retired professor of pharmacology and Forum founder, complains that the unwillingness to debate has become a way for drug warriors to squash public discourse.)
• New Jersey's Trooper Scandal (A staff editorial in the New York Times says it was outrageous when state troopers were found to be using racial profiling on the New Jersey Turnpike in an effort to intercept illegal drugs. Now it turns out that the State Police have enlisted hotel workers along the turnpike to spy on guests and report behavior as common as speaking Spanish. This civil liberties nightmare has all the earmarks of a program out of control. The office of New Jersey Attorney General Peter G. Verniero says it is reviewing all drug interdiction efforts. The fact that this program has been in place for nearly a decade without a review shows how much institutional reform is needed.)
• Drug czar warns foreign cartels now high-tech (The Boston Herald says General Barry McCaffrey told an audience at Harvard University yesterday that "Dominicans, Mexicans, Nigerians and Russians, and criminals from Southeast Asia are the big drug pushers now and one-half of all people behind bars for drug crimes are foreign-born." He said the latest smuggling trick involves black cocaine, that is, cocaine with chemicals added that make it impossible for drug-sniffing dogs to detect.)
• Law Barring U.S. Aid To Drug Offenders Concerns Administrators And Activists (The Chronicle of Higher Education examines the new provision in the Higher Education Act that will strip students convicted of any drug-related offense of financial aid. Championed by U.S. Representative Mark E. Souder, the Indiana Republican, the law becomes effective July 1, 2000. Colleges, concerned about institutional liability, are arguing - and the Education Department appears to agree - that it should be up to the federal government, not campuses, to ascertain students' criminal status. Meanwhile, a national campaign has begun to try to galvanize student opposition to the measure.)
• Study: Cheaper Heroin Encourages Addicts (The Orange County Register says a report by Dr. Peter Bach at the University of Chicago, paid for by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and published in the May issue of the American Journal of Public Health, found that the price of heroin in the United States dropped by half from the late 1980s through the mid-1990s, and that the decline in price was apparently the sole factor that caused an incease in use by "addicts." The fact that only about 10 percent of heroin users are thought to be dependent isn't mentioned, but Dr. Back's study reinforces the views of drug warriors because it suggests that addicts as well as casual users are sensitive to price fluctuations, justifying a drug policy that attempts to drive up prices. Unfortunately, the newspaper fails to point out that the decline in heroin prices was inevitably caused by such policies in the first place.)
• Weeding Out Canadian Criminals (An op-ed in the Toronto Star by Dave Haans applauds the recent decision by the board of directors of the Canadian Association of Police Chiefs to press the federal government to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. The CAPC didn't always feel this way. When the feds were looking at introducing the present Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the CAPC was one of the few groups opposed to softening marijuana laws. The bill eventually passed with only minor modifications, so marijuana offenders are still given a criminal record, rather than a ticket or fine. What changed was that marijuana offenders could be processed through the courts more efficiently, actually exacerbating the previous situation by allowing police to bring even more possession cases.)
• The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 89 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original online drug policy newsmagazine features - Arizona supreme court study: Proposition 200 has saved the state millions; Renting while non-white; Canada: Heroin prescription experiment debated in Parliament; Canadian police chiefs call for decriminalization of marijuana possession; Swiss panel calls for decriminalization of cannabis possession, sales; Heroin in Australia, Part 2: A conversation with Michael Moore, ACT Health Minister; Government's drug test ruled inadequate, Todd McCormick remains free pending trial; Media alert: May issue of Harper's magazine cover story: "Good drugs, bad drugs"; Patti Smith to play NYC's Bowery Ballroom to benefit the Drug Policy Foundation; Forfeiture reform conference in DC, justice reform protest in NYC and nationwide; and an editorial by Adam J. Smith: Arizonans ignore rhetoric, reap benefits)
• DrugSense Weekly, No. 96 (The original summary of drug policy news from DrugSense opens with the weekly Feature Article - Update on Steve and Michelle Kubby, by Steve Kubby. The Weekly News in Review features several articles about Cannabis, Hemp and Medicinal Marijuana, including - Libertarians launch Prop. 215 web site inspired by Kubby arrests; Another victory for medical marijuana; Bad marijuana bill; Hemp: Now we're wearing it, eating it, even building with it; Drug-war supporters turned freedom fighters; and, $10 million claim filed in pot arrest. Articles about Drug War Policy and Law Enforcement & Prisons include - California police forced to return marijuana; Arizona shows the way on drugs; Reno at large; Study backs treatment, not prison, for addicts; Drug treatment said to reduce crime; Parents key in drug war, study says; and, U.S. antidrug campaign's impact to be closely tracked by surveys. International News includes - Police chiefs want possession of all narcotics decriminalized; Cops can't keep up with B.C. drug trade; and, Police like pot-penalty plan. The weekly Hot Off The 'Net notes Family Watch has announced an online bookstore. The Fact of the Week documents that the Institute of Medicine Report discounts the risk that medical use of marijuana will lead to increased non-medical use. The Quote of the Week cites Thomas Jefferson.)
  Bytes: 147,000 Last updated: 5/15/99
  

  Saturday, May 1, 1999:

• Medical marijuana card will cost $150 per year (The Oregonian says patients who comply with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act's registry card system - which officially begins operating today - will have to pay their own way when it comes to state administrative funding. The Oregon Health Division approved the fee this week, hoping 500 patients will come up with $75,000 annually toward the $105,000 estimated cost of administering the 1998 law. The newspaper doesn't explain why one group of sick people is required to fund its own bureaucracy, but not other patients receiving similar state administrative support. However, Dr. Rick Bayer, a chief petitioner for Measure 67, says the fee is fair - and suggests the health advantages of vaporizers over smoking mean the legislature may want to revisit the issue of how many plants patients should be allowed to grow.)
• Investors Profit By Prisoners (A letter to the editor of the Oregonian observes that the people known as inmates, convicts, criminals, parolees, ex-offenders and so on have become valuable commodities - like slaves.)
• Show to Focus On Reported Fakery of 'World's Wildest Police Videos' (The Fresno Bee says television cop show host John Bunnell, the former sheriff of Multnomah County, Oregon, will be accused Monday of "duping" viewers by "Inside Edition." Although "World's Wildest Police Videos," on the Fox network, is supposedly based on raw footage of crimes in progress, Bunnell's episodes are described as elaborate exercises staged for the cameras, sometimes loosely based on fact and sometimes outright inventions. Bunnell says his 2-year-old program is entertainment, not a news broadcast.)
• Patients Protest for Medical Marijuana Rights (The Seattle Times publicizes today's Million Marijuana March rally at Volunteer Park, as well as a protest yesterday at Harborview Medical Center by patients whose doctors had refused to sign letters authorizing their use of marijuana. Francis Podrebarac, a retired psychiatrist, signed authorization letters for at least a half-dozen patients at the protest, saying he's not afraid of retaliation. But Thomas Hooton, the medical director of the clinic who makes his living off patients while refusing to serve them, said he had advised its doctors to "hold off" signing authorizations until a policy was created, as if a law passed by state voters last November weren't a policy. Doctors in the Veterans Administration hospital system have also been "advised" not to recommend marijuana use.)
• Letter from Dave Herrick (A list subscriber forwards some correspondence from Soledad Prison, where the medical-marijuana patient/activist has been incarcerated since being denied a Proposition 215 defense in court. An appeal hearing is scheduled before a 4th District Court of Appeal panel on June 21.)
• Contempt Ruling Reversed (The Denver Post notes Thursday's news about the Colorado Court of Appeals reversing a contempt conviction against Laura Kriho. The Gilpin County woman was accused of jury misconduct in a drug trial because, during jury selection, she failed to volunteer the information that she had once been arrested on a drug charge or that she might be inclined to engage in jury nullification.)
• Texas Reformers Test Federal Gag Order On Drug-Policy Debates (The May issue of High Times discusses the battle plan of the drug warriors, which involves avoiding any and all public debate with drug-policy reformers. The Drug Policy Forum of Texas is confronting the drug warriors' strategy of exploiting the mainstream media's timidity by offering $500 to anyone who can defend drug prohibition in a public forum. The DPFT's well-publicized offer has been standing for over three months now, and there is talk of upping the bounty to $10,000.)
• Pot Not Dangerous (A letter to the editor of the Daily Gazette, in New York, rebuts a claim in a recent editorial that the March 17 Institute of Medicine report confirms marijuana is dangerous. Nowhere in the IOM report is marijuana described as "dangerous." The report does state that marijuana smoke contains harmful substances, similar to those found in tobacco smoke. The most serious health risk of heavy marijuana smoking is probably bronchitis. Lung cancer is a possibility - but the IOM report noted that there is no evidence to confirm that theory.)
• Amber Waves Of Hemp? Why Not? (Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Lauren Rooney endorses the campaign by would-be hemp growers in Lancaster County to reform the law and save declining tobacco farms.)
• Snitch Turns Tables on DEA (The Miami Herald says Norjay Ellard, a daring pilot, drug smuggler, and undercover informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration, was sentenced to five years in prison Friday in Fort Lauderdale for violating federal probation. Ellard was arrested in September after South Florida drug agents watched him fly 187 pounds of marijuana into Fort Lauderdale. Ellard told a Customs agent he was working for Sam Trotman and Aldo Rocco of the DEA - who denied it. But Ellard produced a secretly taped phone conversation in which Rocco urged him to flout a federal judge's order and consummate a 26,000-pound cocaine deal with Mexican traffickers, in violation of U.S. policy. So charges were dismissed, but the feds got their man with a Catch-22 - by maintaining that the smuggling flights and informant work they hired Ellard for violated his probation.)
• Cannabis use and cognitive decline (An abstract of a report in the May issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology by scientists from Johns Hopkins University medical school finds "There were no significant differences in cognitive decline between heavy users, light users, and nonusers of cannabis. There were also no male-female differences in cognitive decline in relation to cannabis use. The authors conclude that over long time periods, in persons under age 65 years, cognitive decline occurs in all age groups. This decline is closely associated with aging and educational level but does not appear to be associated with cannabis use.")
• America's Altered States (An essay in the May issue of Harper's magazine by Joshua Wolf Shenk, a psychiatric patient who has tried countless medicines, and still uses marijuana medically on occasion, deconstructs the primitive beliefs about drugs that prevail in the United States. The drug wars and the booming pharmaceutical industry are interrelated. The hostility and veneration, the punishment and profits, these come from the same beliefs and the same mistakes. Our faith in pharmaceuticals is based on a model of consciousness that science is slowly displacing. "Throughout history," writes chemist and religious scholar Daniel Perrine in The Chemistry of Mind-Altering Drugs, "the power that many psychoactive drugs have exerted over the behavior of human beings has been variously ascribed to gods or demons." In a sense, that continues. "We ascribe magical powers to substances," says Perrine, "as if the joy is inside the bottle. Our culture has no sacred realm, so we've assigned a sacred power to these drugs.")
• Dr. Grinspoon seeks contributors (A bulletin from the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies notes the Harvard medical school professor who specializes in cannabis issues has taken out an ad in the back of Harper's magazine seeking people who will share their positive experiences with marijuana. Includes contact information.)
• High Anxiety (The May issue of Reason magazine features senior editor Jacob Sullum reviewing "Drug Crazy," by Mike Gray, and "Marijuana Myths: Marijuana Facts," by Lynn Zimmer, Ph.D. and Dr. John P. Morgan.)
• The Heroin Prescribing Debate: Integrating Science And Politics (Science reviews the experience of Britain and Switzerland with heroin-maintenance programs and concludes they will not replace oral methadone as the treatment of first choice for stabilization. Its "short-acting nature" and expense preclude its widespread introduction. More clinical trials are needed, but the prescribing of heroin is about medicalization, not legalization, and so does not violate the 1961 United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.)
• RCMP Supports Call to Relax Pot Laws (According to the Calgary Herald, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced Friday that they "fully supported" the new policy of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police calling on the federal government to give police the option of ticketing people caught with 30 grams or less of marijuana, sparing them a criminal record.)
• Reefer Madness (New Scientist, in Britain, describes a social psychology experiment carried out by Elena Kouri of Harvard Medical School and reported in the latest issue of Psychopharmacology. The results supposedly showed 17 heavy users of marijuana who suddenly went cold turkey had aggressive impulses as powerful as those felt by people taking anabolic steroids - which is to say, not all that powerful. Moreover, the increased aggression completely subsided after 28 days of abstinence, and the results may reflect psychological dependence rather than physiological addiction. The magazine fails to note the methodological pitfalls in such studies, whether the study was peer-reviewed, and who funded it.)
  Bytes: 166,000 Last updated: 5/31/99
  

  Sunday, May 2, 1999:

• The Generation Gap, 1999-Style (An op-ed in the Oregonian criticizes the Baby Boom generation for its inattentiveness and fearfulness. As a so-called Gen-X'er, the writer has become alienated about the damage Baby Boomers are doing to society. Its fears have led to an increase in the size and intensity of our police forces, military operations and the development and expansion of the prison industrial complex. We have begun to see "punishment politics" - mandatory minimum sentences, debtors prisons for deadbeat dads, excessive use of the death penalty and so forth - guiding our political, legal and social policies. Boomer fear will be the true Boomer legacy.)
• Pushing Hemp - Industry Struggles With U.S. Rules That Link It With Pot (The Daily Courier, in Grants Pass, looks at the industrial hemp bill in the Oregon Legislature sponsored by Rep. Floyd Prozanski of Eugene. HB 2933 stipulates a $2,500 fine for growing hemp without a license. Rep. Larry Wells, R-Jefferson, chairman of the Agricultural and Forestry Committee, claims a hemp field "could serve as a fortress for a marijuana field inside.")
• The Economics Of Smuggling (A staff editorial in the Orange County Register reflects on the front-page story in Friday's Register that said "Four months after California levied the second-highest cigarette tax in the country, the smuggling of untaxed cigarettes from Mexico has exploded." The activists who devised the Proposition 10 tobacco tax, and the voters who supported it, should have spent more time thinking about economics.)
• Past Juror Granted Retrial (The Boulder Daily Camera says Laura Kriho, a former Gilpin County juror who caused a mistrial in a 1996 drug case and later was charged with contempt of court when her views on jury nullification became known, won her appeal to the Colorado Court of Appeals, which ruled Thursday that Judge Henry Nieto wrongly considered jury-room transcripts in finding Kriho guilty of the contempt charge in 1997. A decision on whether Gilpin County District Attorney Dave Thomas will retry the Kriho case is unlikely until the state has exhausted its appeals.)
• Hair Analysis Company Draws Big-Name Clients And Vocal Critics (The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in Missouri, notes the scientific community still thinks hair testing is junk science, and it's still forbidden in the federal workforce and in federally regulated industries, but Psychemedics Corp., headquartered in Boston, took in almost $18 million last year from more than 1,600 corporate clients, including such big names as General Motors, Toyota, Michelin and Anheuser-Busch.)
• Drug Testing: Why Your Boss Wants A Piece Of Your Hair (A second article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about hair testing says hundreds of studies have been undertaken on the new technology. Some scientists are convinced of its accuracy. Others aren't sure. Most of the research has been done by scientists who operate companies that seek hair-testing contracts or by scientists whose work is financed by hair-testing labs. Some scientists fear that blacks are more likely to be caught by such tests than whites because dark, coarse hair might absorb more drugs than does light, fine hair. Tom Mieczkowski of the University of Southern Florida cautions that "urinalysis is not 100 percent accurate, either." It's hard for aggrieved workers to file lawsuits, however. According to Lewis Maltby of the ACLU, "There's absolutely no law that says an employer has to use reliable testing, except in the federal testing program. You can use a Ouija board, and it's perfectly legal.")
• Hemp Backed By Ex-CIA Chief (The Washington Post says James Woolsey, the former CIA director who is now a Washington corporate lawyer, recently got his first lobbying client, the North American Industrial Hemp Council. Woolsey must convince Congress and key administration officials that reasonable precautions could build a booming domestic hemp industry.)
• To Win The War On Drugs (Washington Post syndicated columnist David S. Broder praises coerced treatment programs for drug offenders in Arizona and Maryland.)
• Pastrana, Rebel Chief Announce Talks (According to the Associated Press, Colombian President Andres Pastrana and FARC leader Manuel Marulanda announced Sunday that the Pastrana administration would begin substantive peace talks Thursday with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. Without explicitly saying so, Pastrana was, in effect, announcing that he would continue excluding overnment forces from a region the size of Switzerland as a concession to the FARC. Pastrana's peace efforts have put him at odds with the U.S. Congress, who say it has hampered drug crop eradication efforts and given the FARC the opportunity to increase its profits from the local cocaine trade.)
• ACM-Bulletin of 2 May 1999 (An English-language bulletin from the Association for Cannabis as Medicine, in Cologne, Germany, features news about the debate in the Canadian House of Commons on medical marijuana; and the drug commission in Switzerland that recommended legalizing cannabis.)
  Bytes: 61,600 Last updated: 5/18/99
  

  Monday, May 3, 1999:

• Petitioners gathering signatures for medical marijuana initiative (The Daily Emerald, at the University of Oregon, in Eugene, over-emphasizes the "medical" aspect of the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, a comprehensive marijuana-law reform initiative. The petition drive began April 19, after the ballot title was approved by the secretary of state's office April 2. The initiative needs 66,748 signatures to get on the November 2000 ballot.)
• Legislators Considering Measures To Block Local Authority (The Associated Press says Oregonians could find it tougher to "think globally, act locally" if the Legislature passes proposals limiting voters' and elected officials' rights to govern their own communities with local initiatives such as Corvallis' banning smoking in restaurants. Phil Fell, a lobbyist for the League of Oregon Cities, says he's never seen so many bills meant to shift power away from local governments.)
• Wyden seeks federal role in managing severe pain (The Oregonian says Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., plans to propose legislation today that aims to help seriously ill patients manage their pain and deter them from considering physician-assisted suicide. A secondary purpose of the bill is to blunt congressional opposition to Oregon's voter-approved Death With Dignity Act, which last year became a target of conservative Republicans.)
• Advocates of better treatment of pain seek legislative cure (The Oregonian says Oregon legislators are slowly waking up to the need for better pain treatment. A half-dozen related bills are advancing in the Legislature, though none is expected to be approved. As in Washington, D.C., eagerness to eliminate pain as a motivator for physician-assisted suicide is creating momentum, along with a growing realization of the plight of people living with chronic pain.)
• Here's My Marijuana Card, Officer (A glib and condescending Time magazine article notes Mel Brown, the police chief of Arcata, California, has taken to issuing laminated identification cards for "partakers of the infamous Humboldt bud" who are protected under Proposition 215. As one might expect, however, America's leading consensus-manufacturing magazine dismisses Brown's attempt to implement California's medical-marijuana law as just more inanity from the hippies who supposedly control Humboldt County. All of the magazine's bias is revealed in its contention that "You don't need much of an excuse" to get a physician's recommendation in Arcata.)
• Please fax the governor about medical marijuana (A news release from the Cannabis Freedom Fund asks California residents to take part in a campaign to persuade Governor Gray Davis to show humanitarian treatment to imprisoned medical marijuana patients and caregivers who were denied a Proposition 215 legal defense - in particular, Marvin Chavez and Dave Herrick.)
• The Big City - Severity of Drug Laws Troubles a Jury Foreman (New York Times columnist John Tierney recounts his recent stint on a jury in a trial involving an alleged $20 sale of angel dust, or PCP. A third of the jury was tempted to engage in nullification because of the minimum potential two- to four-year prison sentence, but thanks to a weak case, and a unanimous acquittal, the temptation was obviated.)
• Spitzer Targets Dealers' Landlords (The Daily Gazette says New York state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and city officials in Albany are scheduled to announce a joint initiative today intended to make all "drug dealers" homeless by imposing fees and jail time on landlords who ignore "drug" dealings in their buildings. The initiative would also provide for immediate eviction of "known" drug dealers - as distinct from people who would be able to defend their constitutional right to due process.)
• McCaffrey's Response to Dr. Podrebarac (A list subscriber forwards a letter from the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, responding to a letter, appended, from Seattle physician Francis A. Podrebarac. Dr. Podrebarac urges the ONDCP chief to reschedule marijuana, as implicitly suggested by the March 17 IOM report and other authorities, but McCaffrey falls back on the "little future for smoked marijuana" position, adding that "Continued strict regulation of cannabis is essential. It is absolutely essential that we have strict regulation of this drug. We need to be sure that as we examine cannabinoid-based drugs for possible medical benefit that we do not contribute to increased abuse of this psychoactive substance.")
• What about Hatch's and Biden's challenge? (The Conservative News Service Bulletin Board notes the public debate over drug policy that Joe Biden and Orrin Hatch promised a year ago for the U.S. Senate Justice Committee has yet to materialize. Are they not men of their word? Are they chicken?)
• Important: Medical marijuana petition now online! (A list subscriber invites U.S. residents to go to http://www.215Now.com to have their opinion forwarded to "federal government officials who have direct influence over marijuana's legal status.")
• 'They' May Be Listening (Robyn E. Blumner, a columnist for the St. Petersburg Times, writes in the Oakland Tribune about Echelon, the U.S. National Security Agency's global communications surveillance system that allows government agents to intercept international phone calls, e-mails and faxes without a warrant or court order. In addition to spying on criminal and espionage activities, Echelon also has been known to eavesdrop on Princess Diana, Amnesty International, and help at least one American business engage in entrepreneurial espionage. So far Echelon has been operating under the radar screen of the American public. Because Echelon is steeped in secrecy, the NSA refuses even to acknowledge its existence. But if the NSA isn't willing to be accountable to the media, it should be accountable to Congress.)
• High Court To Decide On Stop-And-Search (An Associated Press article from the Chicago Tribune says the U.S. Supreme Court today agreed to decide whether police generally may stop and question someone who runs away after seeing them. The court said it would review an Illinois ruling. State prosecutors say such stops are justified in high-crime neighborhoods.)
• Can Cops Stop Someone Who Runs Off? (A different Associated Press version)
• Supreme Court Looks At Chicago 'Pat-Down' Case (The UPI version)
• Number of Foreign Women Drug Couriers Rises in 1998 (According to Kyodo News, Kansai International Airport customs officials said Monday that the number of foreign women caught while trying to smuggle drugs into Japan for suspected trafficking rings rose substantially last year.)
• KLA funding tied to heroin profits (The Washington Times breaks the American media's silence about heroin trafficking funding the Kosovo Liberation Army.)
  Bytes: 81,700 Last updated: 5/31/99
  

  Tuesday, May 4, 1999:

• When Patients Want To Use Marijuana For Medical Purposes - How Physicians Should Respond (Dr. Rick Bayer, a chief petitioner for the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, forwards the Oregon Medical Association's new official legal guidelines for physicians on how best to help a patient whose condition might be improved by cannabis. The new guidelines have not been posted at the OMA website, and so far have been distributed only to about 300 OMA delegates and officers out of the more than 7,000 doctors in Oregon and 5000 OMA members. But this is a big change for the OMA from their "just say no to OMMA" message in December. There were no negative comments from any doctor about this change in OMA policy.)
• The pot issue: separating smoke from science (An op-ed in the Oregonian by the principal investigators for the Institute of Medicine's March 17 report on medical marijuana, Dr. John A. Benson of Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland and Stanley J. Watson Jr. of the Mental Health Research Institute at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, shows why the IOM's political document is destined - perhaps designed - to lead nowhere. The researchers continue to promote pie-in-the-sky pharmaceutical derivitives nobody is going to pay to develop while ignoring the essential question that prompted the report: How many patients with serious, life-threatening diseases should be persecuted and locked up at taxpayer expense right now, today, for using marijuana when it's recommended by their physicians?)
• Some die with their rights on (An editorial in the Oregon by Robert Landauer says that just saying no to drugs might someday get you locked up in Oregon, if a task force on civil commitment of the mentally ill manages to present a bill to the Oregon legislature this session. Strenuously opposing forced treatment are persons who call themselves psychiatric survivors. They particularly fear anything that might lead to forced use of mood-altering drugs. Some dwell on disagreeable side effects of certain medications. Others say that forced drugging reflects a conspiracy of the pharmaceutical industry, organized psychiatry and mental-health institutions to gain clients, profits and power. Passions run high. There is no chance for task-force agreement except for the need for more resources. That's a strong signal that a bill should not go to this Legislature. The problems and remedies need public airing.)
• Hawaii: "Second" State to Pass Hemp Legislation (A list subscriber says HB 32, an industrial hemp bill before the Hawaii legislature, passed today in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Senate vote was 13 to 11 and all House members, except three, voted affirmatively. Governor Cayetano has been supportive and will sign the legislation in June. North Dakota Governor Ed Schafer signed the first industrial hemp bill, HB 1428, into law on April 17. A statement from the DEA is also taken to mean the agency may be intending to once again allow industrial hemp to be grown in the United States.)
• Drug Czar' Stand On Marijuana Belied By Facts (A letter to the editor of the New London Day, by Mike Gogulski of the Connecticut Cannabis Policy Forum, takes issue with statements about the Insitute of Medicine report made locally by General Barry McCaffrey. Citing some excellent statistics and URL references, Gogulski says it's time for the General Assembly to follow the recommendations of the Connecticut Law Revision Commission's 1997 report on drug policy, and decriminalize possession of less than one ounce of marijuana by adults over 21.)
• Old Drugs, New Uses (Style Weekly, in Virginia, says three professors at the Medical College of Virginia hope to market marijuana and nicotine derivatives as new medicinal treatments for cigarette addiction, severe pain, and slowing the progress of Alzheimer's disease. Louis S. Harris, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Virginia Commonwealth University's MCV, fellow researchers Billy Martin, also a pharmacology professor, and Richard Glennon, a professor of medicinal chemistry, have formed CogniRx Inc. in the hope of capitalizing on research advances and discoveries they made during their years at MCV. "The science that we're learning from marijuana can be very valuable in developing drugs that will be useful in treating a variety of conditions," says Harris.)
• Rep. Hyde to Introduce Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Bill (A press release from the Drug Policy Foundation, in Washington, D.C., says Henry Hyde, John Conyers, Bob Barr and Barney Frank will co-sponsor a bill in Congress today that would reform civil asset forfeiture laws.)
• Shot In The Arm For Drug Debate (The Australian says a half dozen volunteers trialled the so-called Tolerance Room, or T-Room, during a "practice run" last Thursday in the Wayside Chapel in Sydney's Kings Cross. The T-Room aims to be a safe place for long-term injecting drug addicts to shoot up, using clean equipment, under the eye of a trained nurse. The idea is that while the users will get high, at least they won't die. Everyone connected with the trial, including the chapel's Reverend Ray Richmond, could be arrested for aiding and abetting the administration of a prohibited substance. "But if we are closed down, if our energies and our suggestions are not taken up, the experiment will be continued in one form or another. We are very determined to get evidence-based policies relative to drug use," said the Reverend.)
  Bytes: 53,100 Last updated: 5/18/99
  

  Wednesday, May 5, 1999:

• Urgent! HJM 10 Update (A Portland NORML activist forwards a request that advocates for medical marijuana patients contact Oregon state legislators now and urge them to support the resolution asking Congress to reschedule marijuana. Includes legislators' contact information.)
• Crime in Oregon dips in 1998 from previous year (The Oregonian says new statistics from an unspecified source, possibly the Oregon Uniform Crime Reporting Program, indicate violent crimes such as homicide dropped 3.2 percent last year, while property crimes showed an 8.6 percent decline and overall crime dropped 6.3 percent. However, from 1989 to 1998, crime rose 13 percent while the population increased 17.1 percent. Apparently no statistics were collected on illegal-drug offenses.)
• Spokane, officers sued over home-search mix-up (The Spokesman-Review, in Spokane, Washington, says local resident Robert Critchlow has filed a $2.25 million lawsuit stemming from a fruitless police search for marijuana in Critchlow's home in 1997. Police said they could smell marijuana, and that's why they were knocking at his door at 4:17 a.m., the suit said. It claims Critchlow's civil rights were violated, alleging 18 causes of action, including trespass, false arrest, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of mental distress.)
• A Prop. 215 Violation (A letter to the editor of the Ventura County Star, in California, clarifies several inaccurancies in recent articles about the cultivation bust of medical-marijuana patient/activist Andrea Nagy, whose Agoura Hills home was raided April 19 by the L.A. County Sheriff's Department.)
• Justice Department Report Contradicts Common Perception (The San Jose Mercury News notes a U.S. Justice Department report of methamphetamine use in Western cities suggests the connection between the drug and violent crime has been overstated by police and mass media. A study of 7,355 people arrested in Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose, Portland and Phoenix for a variety of offenses in 1996 and 1997 found that meth users were "significantly less likely" than other drug arrestees to be charged with a violent offense. The largest segment - about 40 percent of adult users - were charged with drug or alcohol violations. By contrast, 25 percent were booked for property offenses and only 16 percent were arrested for violent behavior. Non-meth arrestees, on the other hand, were "significantly more likely to be arrested for a violent offense.")
• Study Says Methamphhetamine Use High In West (The Associated Press version in the Orange County Register emphasizes the drug warriors' spin.)
• Popularity Of Methamphetamines Surges, Report Says (A different Associated Press version in the Seattle Times)
• Special Prosecutor Urged For Police Abuse (The Los Angeles Times says the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will wrap up a long-running investigation into misconduct and bias among Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies and Los Angeles Police Department officers by recommending that a special prosecutor be created to replace the county district attorney in pursuing allegations of abuse against law enforcement officers.)
• Hawaii to apply for permits (A list subscriber forwards a message from Hawaii state representative Cynthia Thielen confirming yesterday's news that the legislature has passed HB 32, an industrial hemp bill. Thielen also confirms that Governor Cayetano is expected to sign the legislation in June, and that the DEA is considering an end to the ban on hemp production.)
• ASU's Fletcher arrested on drug charge (The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette says Arkansas State University basketball player Chico Fletcher, a two-time Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year and honorable-mention NCAA All-American, was arrested Sunday morning on a charge of possessing an eighth of an ounce of marijuana. Fletcher was arrested at a "safety checkpoint" where a drug-sniffing dog stood by as each and every vehicle was stopped for inspection.)
• State Authorities' Wiretapping Up (According to the Associated Press, the U.S. government said Wednesday that the number of wiretaps authorized by state courts rose 24 percent last year, to 763, while the number of federally authorized wiretaps held steady at 566. Seventy-two percent of all wiretaps were aimed at catching illegal-drug offenders, while 12 percent were aimed at racketeering and 7 percent at gambling.)
• U.S. Says Losing Panama Base Hurt Its Anti-Drug Efforts (An Associated Press article in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle says drug war sorties from Howard Air Force Base in the Canal Zone ended May 1, as part of the United States' scheduled withdrawal from Panama on Dec. 31. Clinton administration officials told a Government Reform subcommittee overseeing drug policy yesterday that missions were down 50 percent from the 2,000-a-year flown two years ago. Ana Maria Salazar, the Pentagon's deputy assistant secretary for drug enforcement policy, said operations should be up to 85 percent next year as a result of new interim agreements for use of airfields in Ecuador and the Dutch islands of Aruba and Curacao. And the government was looking for a third location that would boost surveillance to 110 percent of the 1997 level by 2001.)
• Society Is Committing Genocide Against Intravenous Drug Users (According to the Victoria Times-Colonist, in British Columbia, that's what Dr. Martin Schechter, an epidemiologist and national director of the Canadian HIV trials, told the eighth annual Canadian conference on HIV/AIDS research Tuesday in Victoria. "The government has the means to stop it and they are not doing anything about it," said Dr. Schechter. "If someone from Mars landed here, they'd say this is social murder.")
• Convicted drug trafficker Howard Marks deported from Hong Kong (According to the Hassela Nordic Network, celebrated former marijuana smuggler Howard Marks has been denied entry to China and was put on a flight back to London. Marks had been was scheduled to give three appearances at Carnegie's bar in Wan Chai starting Tuesday night, speaking about his experiences and playing music.)
• KLA Linked To Enormous Heroin Trade (The San Francisco Chronicle belatedly helps break the American mass media's silence about how the United States' allies in its latest military conflict are - surprise! - funding their war effort by trafficking supposedly controlled substances throughout Europe.)
  Bytes: 69,900 Last updated: 5/18/99
  

  Thursday, May 6, 1999:

• NORML Weekly Press Release (Michigan first state to force welfare applicants to pass drug tests; Mounties back Canadian marijuana decriminalization effort; Medical marijuana patients open with their doctors, survey shows; Congress spends $349,000 building, opening DEA museum)
• A public-safety fix - about time (A staff editorial in the Oregonian says it's taken too long to build the monument to the newspaper's bias.)
• Pretty pictures, ugly habit (A letter to the editor of the Oregonian says the so-called anti-smoking posters that will soon fill the empty spots on billboards where cigarette advertising used to be will sell just as many cigarettes. Although the little missy says her handsome date's smoke is "carcinogenic," she's still very interested in him and he's still quite fetching.)
• A Gauge Of Distress With Public Schools (An op-ed in the San Francisco Chronicle by drug warrior Joseph A Califano Jr. of CASA says parents are sending a powerful message they want out of schools that cannot protect their children's safety, let alone teach them. Schools like those in Washington, D.C., where the financial control board concluded that the longer students stay in school, the "less likely they are to succeed educationally.")
• Colorado School Shooting Jumpstarts Federal Efforts For School Drug Testing (Drug Detection Report: The Newsletter on Drug Testing in the Workplace, says several bills have been introduced in Congress in reaction to the shooting tragedy April 20 at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Although the only drug involved in the incident was a pharmaceutical antidepressant, national leaders, illustrating their characteristic ignorance and demogoguery, are blaming carnage in schools on drug abuse, which they want addressed through drug-testing programs.)
• Dead, Dead, Dead (The Houston Chronicle recounts events leading up to the shooting death of Pedro Oregon by six Houston prohibition agents who broke into his apartment without a search warrant, particularly in view of other such killings in the past that were also perceived as racist by many in the community.)
• Legal Marijuana Debate Continues (A letter to the editor of the Jordan Independent by Paul M. Bischke of the Drug Policy Reform Group of Minnesota rebuts misinformation about cannabis imparted last March by Aaron P. Fredrickson of the Minnesota Family Council at a legislative hearing on a proposed medical-marijuana bill.)
• Medical Marijuana Issue To Go To the Voters in Maine (The Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report says the Maine house of representatives defeated a bill Monday to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes, setting the stage for a statewide referendum on the issue in November. State Rep. Thomas Kane, the co-chair of the committee that considered the bill, said, "People essentially felt that it ought to be a referendum issue and we should let the people speak on it.")
• Legalize It! (The Fairfield County Weekly praises the activist efforts of the Connecticut Cannabis Policy Forum and says CCPF will stoke the fires once again this Saturday, May 8, when it presents "Marijuana Prohibition: Why It Must End" at Yale University.)
• General Doubts: Sparking Up The Medical-Marijuana Debate With Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey (The Boston Phoenix says there's a thick cloud of smoke trailing the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy these days. The Institute of Medicine report released March 17 and authorized by McCaffrey himself was widely seen as embarrassing to the drug czar. D'oh. After piling on the rhetoric, General McCaffrey now finds himself spinning and backpedaling at the same time. Critics believe McCaffrey's hesitancy to embrace marijuana's potential medical benefits undermines his credibility with the public, which is increasingly supportive of medical marijuana. In other words, America's most significant drug discussion is already progressing - with or without the assistance of the country's highest-ranking drug official.)
• Brewery workers protest hair sampling for evidence of drug use (An Associated Press article from New Jersey Online says a Teamsters local representing 900 workers at the Anheuser-Busch brewery in Newark has filed a lawsuit challenging the company's right to take hair samples while the sides are embroiled in a contract dispute. The Teamsters' lawsuit disputes the accuracy and the constitutionality of the hair analysis.)
• Growers Take Pot Plants Indoors (The St. Petersburg Times says the state of Florida on Tuesday released its annual marijuana eradication report, which suggests prohibition agents' efforts, drought and wildfires caused production to plummet last year. However, the same factors have driven marijuana cultivators indoors, where they now produce a more potent product - increasingly in urban areas.)
• Police Can't Stop Passengers In Traffic Stops, Court Rules (The Palm Beach Post says Florida's 4th District Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday that police officers cannot summarily stop passengers from walking away after a car has been pulled over in a traffic stop. The ruling was made in the case of Jeff Wilson, 21, of Royal Palm Beach, who was arrested on charges of possessing cocaine, marijuana and drug paraphernalia in July 1997. Michael Neimand of the state attorney general's office said prosecutors would ask for a rehearing or appeal the decision to the Florida Supreme Court.)
• McCaffrey Urges Anti-Drug Prayers (The Associated Press says the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey - a man who has helped a lot of other people meet their Maker - announced at Thursday's annual observance of the National Day of Prayer that the White House had been reaching out to religious groups of all denominations to get them involved in the war on some plants and some drug users. Plus commentary from list subscribers, including "Bible Truth & Drug War Lies," by R Givens.)
• The Straight Dope: Drug Agency's New Museum Is a Monument to Self-Destruction (The Washington Post says the new Drug Enforcement Administration Museum and Visitors Center opening Monday displays hash pipes, hookahs, bongs, American-flag rolling papers and several bags of marijuana. Plus a diorama titled "An American Head Shop, Circa 1970s." It's a museum about dope. It was probably inevitable that somebody would create a museum devoted to two of America's multi-billion-dollar obsessions - getting wasted and trying to stop people from getting wasted.)
• Cannabis therapeutics: Medicine vs. Dependence (A list subscriber notes the March 17 Institute of Medicine report on medical marijuana says psychiatric patients "are particularly vulnerable to developing marijuana dependence and marijuana use would be generally contraindicated in those individuals" - without any reason.)
• Is pot going legal? Cops call for decriminalization (Eye magazine, in Toronto, takes a look at a recent proposal by the Canadian Chiefs of Police to decriminalize marijuana possession. Professor Alan Young, an attorney who routinely defends low-level marijuana miscreants, denies that Toronto police are ignoring minor marijuana offences, but says such a policy would be bad news. "De facto decriminalization is not an effective way to deal with the issue," says Young. "It's a smoke screen to block serious law reform.")
• Mike the ganja slayer (A staff editorial in Eye says it's not often the Toronto magazine finds itself more pro-cop than Premier Mike Harris. The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police is in favor of "decriminalizing" marijuana possession, but Harris is opposed. He smugly announces he "preferred booze" as a young man. We hope this doesn't send the wrong message to kids, because alcohol costs our health care system a lot more than cannabis does. According to the Addiction Research Foundation, alcohol costs health care nearly half-a-billion bucks a year. Tobacco's price tag is double that. And marijuana? It drains a mere $8 million from provincial health care each year. Harris feels obliged to oppose decrim because he's riding into an election on a law-and-order platform. Evidently being smart on crime doesn't enter the equation.)
• Anti-Drug Official Fired (The Orange County Register says Ruben Olarte, the head of Colombia's war on drugs, was fired Wednesday after unspecified mass media alleged he was corrupt and that he made personal use of property forfeited by cocaine kingpins.)
• Statement Of DPPs On Drug Law Enforcement (A statement issued prior to Premier Bob Carr's New South Wales Drug Summit, scheduled May 17-21, by the Directors of Public Prosecutions in New South Wales, South Australia, and the Australian Capital Territory, makes a number of reform proposals. In particular, the prosecutors say "Consideration should also be given to a regime that would have cannabis treated in a similar way to tobacco.")
• Drug Blindness (A staff editorial in the Cairns Post, in Australia, says that despite their claims to the contrary, it is short-sighted politicians and religious tub-thumpers like the Rev Fred Nile who are turning the law into a joke, not the organisers of Sydney's illegal heroin shooting gallery. When the law is so completely at odds with reality and has proved impossible to enforce successfully, it is time to change it - not to keep trying to ram it down people's throats. The laws against illegal drug use have proved useless in nation after nation. Rather than talking to the FBI, Prime Minister John Howard should look at the latest, fully-researched reports on heroin-maintenance trials in Switzerland.)
  Bytes: 145,000 Last updated: 5/31/99
  

Next week's news index
Previous week's news index
Portland NORML news archive directory
Complete 1999 Daily News index (long)

to the Portland NORML news archive directory

This URL: http://www.pdxnorml.org/ii/news99_index_0430.html