1998 News
About Cannabis and Drug Policy
November 5-11

Thursday, November 5, 1998:
• The war on the war on drugs (A sour-grapes staff editorial in The Oregonian reacts to the victorious Oregon Medical Marijuana Act by making fun of sick people, misrepresenting the statute and the campaign statements of proponents, and calling on the legislature to eviscerate the new law.)
• Re - The war on the war on drugs (A letter sent to the editor of The Oregonian says supporters of Ballot Measure 67, the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, never argued that it includes "glaring flaws" which need a "legislative fix.")
• Oregon Passes Vote-By-Mail, Medical Marijuana, Adoption Measures (An Associated Press election summary notes the final tallies for Tuesday's state ballot measures. In Washington, DC, Associate Attorney General Raymond C. Fisher said today the Justice Department would review the medical marijuana initiatives passed in Oregon and elsewhere and discuss them with local law enforcement before making any response.)
• Oregon medical marijuana and recrim debate on "Town Hall" from 11/1/98 is online (Paul Stanford of the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act campaign says the recent televised debate broadcast by KATU-2, Portland's ABC affiliate, can be viewed for free in realtime from the crrh.org web site.)
• Cronkite and Investigative Reports videos streaming (Paul Stanford of the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act campaign says the 1995 Cronkite Report, "The Drug Dilemma - War or Peace?" with Walter Cronkite; as well as the 1995 Investigative Reports program, "The War on Drugs - RIP," with Bill Curtis, can now be viewed for free in realtime from the crrh.org web site.)
• Police killer's housemate convicted of drug, child neglect charges (According to The Associated Press, Jeffery Harlan Moore of Portland, the housemate of Steven Dons, who died in police custody earlier this year after a shootout occasioned by a warrantless break-in by the Marijuana Task Force, faces 10 years in prison.)
• Police killer's friend guilty on drug counts (The Oregonian version says Judge Bergman found Moore not guilty of child endangerment for allegedly having his children around guns and ammunition in the house, something many police undoubtedly do, but found him guilty on two counts of child neglect because there was marijuana growing in the house, though marijuana never killed anyone and the only thing that could make it dangerous is prohibition.)
• Slain officer Colleen Waibel honored by office in her name (The Oregonian says a police station in Parkrose, a suburb east of Portland, has been named after the Marijuana Task Force agent and DARE officer who was shot and killed during a warrantless break-in last January.)
• Police Must Return Seized Medical Marijuana (The Associated Press says the California Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ordered police to give back medicine they seized from a Mendocino County couple, Christopher Brown and Dorlissa Perrine. The office of California Attorney General Dan Lungren had argued that giving the couple's medicine back to them required police officers to act as drug pushers, ignoring the clause in the Controlled Substances Act that allows police to do just that.)
• Medical Marijuana Gains Momentum (The San Francisco Examiner says surprise victories for medical marijuana proposals in five states Tuesday mean California's Proposition 215 was no fluke - and the federal government will be under pressure to change its hard-line stance.)
• Medical Suffering Is The Issue (A staff editorial in The Los Angeles Times - which opposed Proposition 215 - says it's time for Congress and the Food and Drug Administration to consider allowing the use of marijuana for medical purposes, under the same careful restrictions that apply to prescribing other risky and often addictive substances. The federal government's continued classification of marijuana as a drug with no clinical value is both anachronistic and inhumane.)
• New Mendocino sheriff, DA downplay pot users (The Sacramento Bee says voters in Mendocino County, California - where marijuana is the largest cash crop and two generations of pot growers reside in the mountains - may have outdone themselves in 1998, electing a district attorney who spent nine months in federal prison as a tax protestor and a sheriff who downplays the value of marijuana arrests. "I don't have a felony record," emphasized district attorney-elect Norman Vroman Wednesday, noting that he could not practice law in California or be a candidate for political office under such circumstances. "It was a misdemeanor conviction." The sheriff-elect, Tony Craver, said, "I don't smoke marijuana and I don't advocate it and I'm not in favor of it," but decades of eradication efforts and other laws have not succeeded and are drawing time and resources from drug problems that Mendocino County residents find more threatening.)
• DARE America Forces Alterna To Remove Hemp Shampoo Ads (A company press release on Entertainment Wire says Alterna Applied Research Laboratories, the manufacturer of hemp hair care products, has been forced this week by the private corporation that administers the government's favorite illegal-drug-use prevention program to remove ads for legal hemp shampoo from more than 100 bus benches in Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.)
• His Own Little Drug War (The San Jose Mercury News says Tony Bennett, who left his heart in San Francisco and became the darling of the MTV generation in his 60s, has written in "The Good Life" that he used marijuana and cocaine in 1970s Hollywood until he "spiraled into a dangerous drug-filled low" as his personal life unraveled - which could just mean he drank a lot. Apparently he was able to quit using "drugs" without benefit of prison or coerced treatment, however.)
• Stillwater Man Gets 30 Years (The Tulsa World says Arthur Lee "Rabbit" Haley, a 60-year-old man who slept through much of his trial, was convicted Wednesday of selling $125 worth of crack cocaine and given a 30- year prison term by a jury in Payne County, Oklahoma.)
• Former 'Bad Boy' Of Wrestling Has Surprising Hold On Electorate (The San Jose Mercury News publishes a feature article about Minnesota's new governor-elect, Jesse Ventura of the Reform Party, the one-time "bad boy" of the pro wrestling circuit, action-flick actor, Navy SEAL, talk-radio shock jock - and drug policy reform advocate. However, the newspaper downplays Ventura's stance to the point of misrepresenting it, saying, "He even mused publicly about legalizing prostitution and drugs, although he says he is not suggesting he approves of the idea.")
• Two Northern Manhattan narcotics cops acquitted in beating of suspect (The Associated Press says New York Supreme Court Justice Ronald Zweibel, in a non-jury trial, acquitted the two prohibition agents Thursday of charges they brutally beat a Washington Heights man while breaking up a drug deal, fracturing several of his ribs and causing him to be hospitalized. Zweibel did not explain his verdict except to say that he found that the prosecution had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt. Drug charges against the victim were eventually dismissed, and he has filed a $450 million lawsuit against the city.)
• DC Won't Give Results Of Marijuana Referendum (The Baltimore Sun notes Congress, which controls the District of Columbia, squelched the release of election results regarding Initiative 59 because Rep. Bob Barr, a conservative Georgia Republican, did not like the medical marijuana measure.)
• What's Congress Smoking? (Washington Post columnist Steve Twomey protests Congress's decision to prevent the results of Initiative 59, the medical marijuana ballot measure, from being certified by the Washington, DC, Board of Elections and Ethics. The fact that Congress has the power to disenfranchise District of Columbia voters doesn't make it right, any more than it was right to make women and blacks powerless, which the Constitution also did, until modern wisdom set in. How do these out-of-towners make peace with their consciences when they do this sort of stuff? They rail about Cuba, Iraq, China and all the other dictatorially smothered establishments, and then turn around and vote with Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. to deny half a million Americans in the capital the simple privilege of deciding for themselves whether to ease a local drug law for humane reasons.)
• Medicinal Marijuana Use Undecided In DC (An article in The Collegiate Times, in Virginia, by three members of NORML at VPI & SU, describes the fight for medical marijuana in Washington, DC, the chapter's lobbying for the measure in the capital, and provides some background about the NORML chapter at Virginia Tech.)
• DrugSense Weekly, Issue No. 72 (A DrugSense special edition summarizes Tuesday's election victories for the reform cause - Nine for nine - we win everywhere! Kevin Zeese writes, "Perhaps the best examples of how politicians are out of step with the public come from the votes in Oregon and Arizona. In Oregon last year, two-thirds of the legislature voted to recriminalize marijuana possession. This week, two-thirds of the voters rejected that and kept marijuana decriminalization, a policy that has existed since 1973, in place.")
• The Ballot Battle - Initiatives Bypass Traditional Lawmaking (A Washington Post roundup on the fate of ballot measures around the nation says it appears that six of every 10 measures passed, the first time a majority of initiatives were approved. Ethan Nadelman, director of the Lindesmith Center, a drug policy reform group in New York, pointed to nine measures around the country that either enabled the medical use of marijuana or rejected efforts to recriminalize marijuana possession, as happened in Oregon. "Yesterday's clean sweep of victories for medical marijuana and drug policy reform herald a new era in the electoral politics of the drug war," said Nadelman. "These results represent a wake-up call to politicians, both those accustomed to engaging in drug war demagoguery and those who have so far been fearful of proposing pragmatic alternatives.")
• Election Day Was Not A Bad Day For Tolerance (Syndicated Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman says Tuesday's election shows the real preference among voters is for a third party - one that is willing to live and let live. According to Bill Clinton's pollster, Mark Penn, the percentage of people who agree with the statement "The best government is the government that governs least" has risen from 32 percent to 56 percent in the last 25 years. The clearest evidence of the "leave us alone" trend came from the states that voted on marijuana policy.)
• US Tempers Reaction After 5 States OK Medicinal Pot (The Chicago Tribune says that in response to medical marijuana initiatives passed by voters in five states Tuesday, federal authorities seemed to be backing off the fire-and-brimstone rhetoric they used to attack similar measures two years ago. "I think the doctors have been scared by the science," said Jim McDonough, strategy director for the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey. But his dishonesty was evidenced by the continued refusal of the Clinton Administration to withdraw its threat to prosecute doctors who recommend cannabis - McCaffrey v. Conant is still being litigated.)
• Voting Acts - Fighting The Disenfranchisement Of America's Future Generations (An op-ed in The Chicago Tribune comments on the recent report by the Sentencing Project and Human Rights Watch about the devastating effects of felony disenfranchisement laws. In many ways, the recent report actually understates the impact of such laws because of juvenile-justice trends. In 41 states that make it easier to transfer children to adult courts, for example, the practical effect will be to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of adults for acts they committed as children.)
• Drug Enforcement Administration Proposes Reclassifying Unimed's Synthetic THC Compound, Marinol, Two Days after Marijuana Referendums Pass (A company press release on Business Wire says the DEA today issued a "Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" recommending a reclassification of Marinol from Schedule II to Schedule III, admitting it has a "very low potential for abuse" and no illicit market. In addition to currently accepted uses for the synthetic cannabinoid, Marinol now is being tested on people diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.)
• Drug Lords Target Nuevo Laredo Cops (According to The San Antonio Express-News, the mayor of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, said Thursday that the border city is under attack and state police are being deployed to combat a wave of drug-related violence that includes the execution of two police officers and the disappearance of two others.)
• Jailed Cali Drug Trafficker Killed (The Associated Press says Helmer "Pacho" Herrera, the No. 3 man in the Cali cartel, was killed Thursday in a Colombian prison yard, two years after he surrendered and began fingering ex-associates.)
• Why We Must Have Drug Tests At Work (An op-ed in The Times, in Britain, falsely asserts that urine testing employees for illegal drugs achieves its stated objectives, though the writer backhandedly admits that drug abuse is increasing in tandem with the phenomenon. The author claims that within two years it will be almost impossible for illegal-drug users to get a job with larger companies in Britain. The British drugs czar and government ministers have started encouraging drug testing by employers. They are following a quiet revolution, largely unreported because firms have been scared of bad publicity.)
  Bytes: 149,000 Last updated: 11/19/98
  

  Friday, November 6, 1998:

• Much Ado About Nothing (Eugene Weekly says a four-year investigation into a suspected marijuana-growing operation near Coburg, Oregon, led to a 1995 raid on a rural residence by dozens of black-clad, rifle-toting officers who kicked in doors and splintered door frames while a helicopter hovered overhead. Prohibition agents traumatized Byron Stone and his wife, Wanda, leaving Byron 70 percent disabled, but they found only a half-ounce of marijuana allegedly belonging to someone else. Lane County Circuit Judge Jack Mattison dismissed Stone's lawsuit against police before a jury could hear it, saying the "law doesn't always give a remedy" when government action injures innocent citizens.)
• Second Message of I-692 - Change Marijuana Listing (A staff editorial in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer notes voters Tuesday approved medical marijuana initiatives by margins ranging from 55 percent to 60 percent in Washington, Alaska, Oregon and Nevada. The greater public interest would be served by listing marijuana as a Schedule II substance, along with morphine, opium and cocaine, as a Drug Enforcement Agency hearing judge recommended 10 years ago.)
• Doctors, Patients Curious About Medical Marijuana Law (The Seattle Times says the phone is ringing off the hook at the Green Cross, the Puget Sound medical marijuana dispensary, as patients try to learn more about Washington state's new law. Joanna McKee, the director of the Green Cross, refers callers to their primary care physicians, but even Dr. Rob Killian, who sponsored Initiative 692, concedes that most physicians won't know when to recommend its use.)
• Washington State Medical Marijuana FAQ (A list subscriber posts some answers to frequently asked questions about patients' rights and responsibilities under Initiative 692.)
• New drug education program appeals to older kids (The Seattle Times says that at a time when the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, or DARE, is coming under fire for questionable effectiveness, the Scope LifeRide program in Kirkland, Washington, is gaining nationwide attention. Created by the Kirkland Police Department and a Chicago motivational speaker, the program is aimed at high school students rather than the middle-school students targeted by DARE. Whether it's any more effective doesn't seem to matter.)
• Police Capt. Mickelsen Admits Drug Use, Resigns (The Moscow-Pullman Daily News says Moscow, Idaho, Police Captain Dale Mickelsen resigned today after admitting to using marijuana. No criminal action will be taken.)
• Despite Voter Support, Pot Clubs Take Heat - Federal government insists it will keep closing them down (The San Francisco Chronicle surveys the few medical marijuana clubs remaining in California, noting the popular support for medical marijuana evidenced by Tuesday's election in other states has not slowed the federal government's war against the dispensaries.)
• The Chavez Case (A staff editorial in The Orange County Register provides an update on the trial of Marvin Chavez, the medical marijuana patient and founder of the Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support Group. On Wednesday afternoon, Judge Borris dealt with whether he would allow the defense attorneys to claim a Prop. 215 defense. A decision will be made after he hears from a witness, the person on whose behalf Mr. Chavez claims he was acting as caregiver.)
• Drug Agent Faces New Charges (An Associated Press article in The Orange County Register says Richard Wayne Parker of San Juan Capistrano, a California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement agent set to go on trial this month for allegedly supplying cocaine to two street dealers, was indicted Thursday on additional charges of stealing 650 pounds of cocaine from an evidence locker.)
• Jailed Drug Agent Faces New Allegation (The Los Angeles Times version)
• Tip Of The Iceberg (A sarcastic letter to the editor of The Las Vegas Review-Journal says the recent vote on legalizing marijuana use for medical purposes sets an alarming precedent. And is only the tip of the iceberg. What will happen if it becomes generally known that commercial use of the hemp plant can adversely affect chemical companies, cotton farmers and other industries such as the lumber and paper producers of this country?)
• Pot Initiative Leaves Legal Waters Muddy (The Arizona Daily Star says it's unclear how some law-enforcement officials in Arizona plan to deal with the drug policy reforms enacted for a second time Tuesday by voters. Other local officials, such as Deputy Pima County Attorney Bill Dickinson, in charge of the narcotics unit, said his office plans to let off medical marijuana patients with recommendations from their physicians, but will refer the prescribing doctors to the US Attorney's Office to determine whether they should face sanctions under federal law.)
• Dozens Gather To Demand Justice In Oregon Killing (The Houston Chronicle says activists and relatives of those slain previously by Houston police gathered outside the Harris County Criminal Courthouse Thursday, charging that the shooting of Pedro Oregon Navarro was "murder" and calling for the resignation of District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr. and the prosecution of the six prohibition agents who broke into Navarro's home without a warrant and killed him.)
• Houston Police Shooting Demands Public Scrutiny (The San Antonio Express-News says the killing of an innocent man, Pedro Oregon Navarro, by prohibition agents in Houston, Texas, who broke into his apartment without a warrant, compels public scrutiny outside of Houston. The Harris County district attorney's refusal to convene a new grand jury suggests that in Houston, and, by extension, Texas, the US Constitution applies only to certain people. The disturbing perception casts a pall on the city, and until the matter is satisfactorily resolved, the pall also hangs over the state.)
• Won't Run From Uniformed (A letter to the editor of The Houston Chronicle about the Pedro Oregon Navarro controversy says to give police lots of bullets and let them "show no restraint." In return, the author will teach her children not to run from uniformed officers or to pull guns on them.)
• Jailer Faces Drug Charge (The Sun-Herald, in Mississippi, says Gregory Scott Bryant, a Harrison County sheriff's deputy, was fired after being arrested last month on a charge of misdemeanor possession of marijuana.)
• Woonsocket officer fired over allegations (According to The Associated Press, The Call, in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, said Friday that Paul J. Girard, a police officer who handled drug cases and was one of the state's first trainers of drug-sniffing dogs, has been fired for allegedly consorting with crack cocaine users and removing narcotics from the force's evidence locker.)
• Movie Promotion is Perfectly Legal (A list subscriber forwards an excerpt from a press release issued by Frederick Brewing, the Maryland producer of Hempen Ale. The press release announces a promotional campaign for the hemp-flavored beer by the Baltimore-based agency, the Campbell Group, including a tie-in to the release of the movie, "Very Bad Things," starring Cameron Diaz and Christian Slater, opening Nov. 25. The promotional campaign will also play up the illicit connotations of hemp with print, radio and point-of-purchase materials, while mocking absurd laws on the books across the country such as an Illinois statute that prohibits giving lighted tobacco products to domesticated animals, and California's law against setting a mousetrap without a hunting license. Print ads use the work of "outsider" artists to underscore the campaign's counter-culture message.)
• 'An Abuse Of Authority' (The Las Vegas Review-Journal covers oral arguments in the appeal to the US Supreme Court by Patrick Knowles, an Iowa motorist sentenced to 90 days in jail when police discovered a pipe and a small amount of marijuana after a routine traffic violation led to a search of his vehicle. Tuesday in Washington, DC, even the "law-and-order" members of the court seemed surprised and skeptical when informed about the broad discretion Iowa now grants its police to search drivers pulled over for routine traffic stops.)
• Sniffer Dogs Not Always Right (The London Free Press, in Ontario, says Canada Customs admits its trained dogs sometimes bark up the wrong tree when sniffing out suspected smugglers and luggage. In five per cent of cases, customs officials have a hard time making sense of why the dogs smelled something funny.)
• The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 66 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original summary of drug policy news and calls for action, including - Sweep!; District of Columbia - silencing the voice of the voters; Arizona - restoring the will of the voters; Colorado - ballot status uncertain, voters certain; Oregon perspective; Report finds injection-related AIDS ravaging African American and Latino communities - police presence a factor in disease's disproportionate impact Supreme Court hears car search case; DRCNet launching stopthedrugwar.org web site; DRCNet launches new "activism" online discussion group; High school honor student expelled for sipping sangria at internship party; an excellent editorial on American's ivory-tower mass media, Message sent, by Adam J. Smith; and, A message from DRCNet to you.)
  Bytes: 116,000 Last updated: 11/15/98
  

  Saturday, November 7, 1998:

• Final Oregon returns on medical marijuana and recrim (A list subscriber says unofficial final tallies of votes cast in Oregon's election Tuesday show Measure 67 winning with 54 percent and Measure 57 losing by 66 percent - both numbers down a point from previously cited figures.)
• Community View - DARE Deserves A Chance (A letter to the editor of The Statesman Journal, in Salem, Oregon, laments the the Salem-Keizer School District's decision to cut the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program from half of its schools.)
• Officer gets pension for gambling disorder (The Philadelphia Inquirer says a former cop in San Jose, California, who is serving time in jail for burglary has been awarded early retirement and a $27,000-a-year pension because his addiction to gambling has left him officially disabled. The city's attorney said that disability retirement benefits could be offered for psychiatric reasons that involved an element of drug or alcohol abuse.)
• News from Inside (A list subscriber shares a letter from David Herrick, the former San Bernardino County sheriff's deputy and medical marijuana patient sentenced to four years in prison after being denied a Proposition 215 defense. Herrick says the recent news about California prison guards supposedly being ordered not to shoot prisoners in fights anymore doesn't seem to have trickled down to the rank and file yet.)
• Mendocino Sheriff, DA Favor Decriminalizing Pot (The San Francisco Chronicle notes the new district attorney and the new sheriff in Mendocino County, California favor decriminalizing the illegal weed. For the past three years, Mendocino has led all other counties in California in the number of marijuana plants seized under a state-run eradication program. Sheriff's deputies say that last year, the department destroyed about 170,000 plants valued at $68 million and so far this year has destroyed about 65,000 plants valued at $26 million.)
• Oregon's Home Invaded (A letter to the editor of The Houston Chronicle about the killing of Pedro Oregon Navarro by Houston prohibition agents who broke into the innocent man's home without a warrant says a citizen has the right to defend his home from invasion by any means necessary.)
• A Gruff, Grammarless Governor-Elect Jesse 'The Body' In No Rush To Rule (The San Francisco Chronicle says Minnesota's new Reform Party winner, Jesse Ventura, said the drug problem can only be solved by eliminating the demand for drugs because, Ventura said, his mother "told me the drug war today is no different from Prohibition. And I trust my mom." Would somebody please point out to Jesse's mom that Prohibition was not ended by eliminating the demand for alcohol?)
• Ex-cops sentenced for bribes (The Daily Southtown, in Chicago, says two former Ford Heights police officers, Odell Boxley and Kerwin Hall, were sentenced Friday to 11 years and three months in prison for accepting bribes from drug dealers whom they allowed to do business in the village. The two faced up to 15 years in prison, but the prosecutor requested the lesser terms because they informed on other corrupt officers.)
• Drug dealer comes to the rescue of 81 year old man (A MSNBC broadcast on WBAL says Jerome Golden of Glen Burnie, near Baltimore, Maryland, was freed after a dealer convinced a carjacker at gunpoint to release the man he had taken on a five-hour crack-buying spree.)
• District, ACLU Unite Behind Marijuana Vote (The Washington Post says the District of Columbia government and the American Civil Liberties Union asked a federal judge yesterday to overrule Congress and uphold the results of Tuesday's vote on Initiative 59, the medical marijuana ballot measure. A judge will hear arguments Monday.)
• Medical Marijuana Gets Five More Votes (A staff editorial in The Rockford Register Star, in Rockford, Illinois, says the Clinton administration cannot ignore the growing public support for patients who need medical marijuana. Voters made it clear Tuesday that a distinction can and must be made between recreational use of chemicals and the therapeutic use of this herb.)
• Gingrich to quit Congress (An article by The New York Times and the Tacoma, Washington, News Tribune, notes Newt Gingrich, the speaker of the House of Representatives, has announced he will resign at the end of his current term. No mention is made of Gingrich's role as one of the country's most vehement and ignorant drug warriors. The former pot smoker who once vowed to legislate the death penalty for anyone caught smuggling two ounces of cannabis into the United States was apparently not motivated by nine out of nine reform measures passing Tuesday.)
• Drug Reform - US Says Yes (An op-ed in The Canberra Times, in Australia, by Alex Wodak, president of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation, summarizes the results of the various drug policy referenda around the United States, and suggests the election results are further evidence that support for a rigid "tough on drugs" approach may soon be a political liability.)
• CIA Turned A Deliberate Blind Eye To Contras' Drug Smuggling (The Independent, in Britain, notes the Central Intelligence Agency's recent report admitting that it deliberately facilitated cocaine trafficking by its Nicaraguan Contra allies in the 1980s.)
• Cannabinoid Is Neuroprotective In Head Trauma (According to the British medical journal, The Lancet, the leading cause of death among young men in the western world has no approved treatment, but clinical results from Israel indicate that dexanabinol, a non-psychotropic synthetic cannabinoid, may be "the most promising neuroprotective agent seen to date", according to Lawrence Marshall, an authority on head trauma at the University of California in San Diego. Phase II clinical trials provide strong evidence that the analogue can reduce intracranial pressure and significantly improve outcome in severe head injury.)
• Yardies Linked To £10 Million Trade In Scotland's Heroin Capital (The Scotsman says a network of illegal-drug sellers with direct links to the notorious Yardie gangs of Jamaican criminals operating in the English Midlands, has moved into Fraserburgh, the new heroin capital of Scotland. The arrival of supplies of crack cocaine in the towns and villages along the Buchan coast is threatening to spawn an even more deadly drugs epidemic in the area.)
• Vetter Wants To Give Heroin To Sick Addicts (A translation of an article from Stuttgarter Nachrichten, in Germany, says another German politician, Erwin Vetter, the departing Minister for Social Affairs, has broken with his party's hard line on illegal drug users and come out in favor of a Swiss-style heroin distribution trial for the severely addicted.)
  Bytes: 75,500 Last updated: 11/23/98
  

  Sunday, November 8, 1998:

• Medical marijuana proponents move toward mainstream (The Associated Press suggests Dr. Rob Killian and supporters of Initiative 692 in Washington state won at the ballot box last week because they put away their tie-dye clothing and cut their long hair. Apparently something more is required in Nevada, where the state attorney general, Frankie Sue Del Papa, says she won't enforce her state's new constitutional amendment - if it's reaffirmed as required in 2000 - without federal approval.)
• A Look At The Political Leaders Behind Three Winning Ballot Measures (The Seattle Times suggests Dr. Rob Killian became the prime mover behind Initiative 692, Washington state's medical marijuana ballot measure, because of his cousin's death from AIDS. Previously he had aspired to become the first Mormon senator from Washington state.)
• Pot Case Delayed (The Press-Telegram, in Long Beach, California, notes a sick juror delayed the beginning of the trial scheduled for Friday of Marvin Chavez, the founder of the Orange County Patient-Doctor-Nurse Support Group.)
• California marijuana growers flourish (A sensational and factually challenged article in The Miami Herald says armed and dangerous marijuana growers in Northern California are flourishing and cannabis is the lifeblood of some towns. Marijuana is being cultivated not only in remote, camouflaged plots, but brazenly in cornfields, next to farms and along roads and highways. Pot cultivation has become so rampant in some counties that federal agents often ignore groves with less than a thousand plants.)
• Transcript - Jesse Ventura on "Meet the Press" (The Reform Party governor-elect of Minnesota tells NBC that he does not support decriminalization of marijuana at this time, though he does support industrial hemp and medical marijuana. "I believe you've got to fight the war from the demand side, not the supply side. I mean, for goodness sake, we have Stillwater State Penitentiary here and we can't keep drugs out of there, and these people are locked up 24 hours a day. You get people to be smart and intelligent. It's like a business. You don't create a product because of supply; you create it because there's a demand for it.")
• Marijuana Is One Of The Least Dangerous Drugs (A letter to the editor of The Boston Globe says it is especially cruel and indefensible to be incarcerating marijuana users when both the National Academy of Sciences and the World Health Organization have concluded that marijuana is one of the least dangerous drugs, legal or otherwise, and creates less of a public health danger than either alcohol or tobacco.)
• Be free, but be careful about what you say (A letter to the editor of The Centre Daily Times, in Pennsylvania, from a junior in high school, says retired Penn State Professor Julian Heicklen's pot-smoking protests violate the "undisputed sagacity" of prohibition by "countering the efforts of literally millions to keep children healthy and drug-free.")
• Medicinal Weed Makes A Stand In Tallahassee (The Tallahassee Democrat says about 1,500 people signed petitions at polling places Tuesday to put a statewide referendum on the ballot in 2000 legalizing the medical use of marijuana. Fort Lauderdale-based Floridians for Medical Rights needs 435,000 signatures by Aug. 1, 2000, to get the issue on the ballot. So far, statewide volunteers have collected more than 20,000 signatures.)
• Groundswell For Medical Marijuana (A staff editorial in The Chicago Tribune says the opponents of medical marijuana have yet to make a convincing case why cannabis should not be available to people who need it to relieve serious ailments. The medical potential of pot is undeniable by now.)
• Nearly No Research Done on Pot (The Associated Press notes that, despite ongoing controversy over marijuana's medical efficacy, almost no research is being done on the topic, despite an expert panel established by the Institutes of Health which found in August 1997 that existing research showed some patients could be helped by the herb, principally to relieve cancer patients' nausea after chemotherapy, to increase AIDS patients' appetites, and to help some patients control glaucoma.)
• Nixon Had It Right (An op-ed in The Washington Post by Michael Massing, author of "The Fix," says that of the District of Columbia's estimated 65,000 "substance abusers," barely 10 percent can be accommodated by local treatment programs today. It wasn't always like this. A little more than 25 years ago the District fought the drug war successfully with a comprehensive drug treatment system that was considered a model for the nation.)
• UK Lords call to legalise cannabis - Lords call for cannabis to be legalised as painkiller (The Observer, in Britain, says a 70-page report to be released this week by the Science and Technology Committee in the House of Lords urges a change in the law to allow cannabis derivatives to be used legally. Labour MP Paul Flynn, whose wife, Samantha, has endured a year of painful chemotherapy which he says could have been relieved if cannabis had been legally available, said yesterday, "This is a major breakthrough. I'm very pleased." However, "The report is defective in that it deliberately excluded evidence that legalising cannabis leads to a reduction in heroin use, because it takes away the need for users to go to the criminal market.")
• Drugs Tsar Tells Customs To Go Soft On Cannabis Smugglers (Scotland on Sunday says Keith Hellawell has ordered British customs officers to take a softer approach to cannabis smugglers and to concentrate their resources on interdicting heroin and cocaine.)
• Germany Weighing Pot Legalization (According to Reuters, Germany's new coalition government said it will study the case for legalizing possession of small quantities of soft drugs such as cannabis. The Greens, junior partners in the new coalition, have long been in favor of decriminalizing the use of soft drugs but the Social Democrats have so far resisted such a move.)
  Bytes: 66,300 Last updated: 11/21/98
  

  Monday, November 9, 1998:

• Drug War Deceptive (A letter to the editor of The Register Guard, in Eugene, Oregon, says it is the government and its emptyheaded mouthpieces who "deceive and scare," not proponents of medical marijuana and opponents of recriminalizing marijuana possession.)
• A Man Caught In A Kafkaesque Trap (Alan W. Bock, the senior editorial writer for The Orange County Register, recounts how, instead of obeying the mandate of Proposition 215 and working with Marvin Chavez, the founder of an Orange County medical marijuana dispensary who was trying to operate within the law, local officials arrested him.)
• Customs Conviction Muddies Drug Trial (The San Francisco Chronicle says attorneys for Thanong "Thai Tony" Siriprechapong, a former member of the Thai parliament accused of smuggling more than 45 tons of hashish into the United States, have asked that the case be dismissed because the charges are based on false grand jury testimony by a US Customs agent convicted of taking money from a key prosecution witness. The lawyers also said the US attorney's office in San Francisco improperly asked other federal prosecutors to delay bringing criminal charges against the agent in an attempt to protect the hashish case.)
• Nicotine called promising for relief of brain disorders (The Miami Herald says research presented Sunday at a Los Angeles conference featuring many of the 20,000 scientists worldwide who study the brain hinted that nicotine-based drugs may one day provide relief for Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia and anxiety disorders.)
• Pension? No Problem (A staff editorial in The San Jose Mercury News says Johnny Venzon Jr., in jail awaiting trial on charges that he stole from people while on duty as a San Jose cop, does not deserve a disability pension because of his gambling addiction. He refused treatment - and it was breaking the law and not his gambling that got him fired.)
• Examples Of Sentencing In Fatal Drunk-driving Crashes (The Tulsa World cites a number of instances in which drunken drivers in Oklahoma have killed people without being sentenced to jail or prison - and finds some disparity in sentencing, too.)
• Blind Obedience Perilous (A letter to the editor of The Houston Chronicle objects to a previous letter writer's seeming endorsement of Houston prohibition agents who broke into the home of Pedro Oregon Navarro without a warrant and killed him.)
• Five States' Marijuana Approval Illustrates Gullibility of Voters (A staff editorial in The Omaha World-Herald says voters in five states who elected Tuesday to let marijuana be "prescribed" as a "painkiller" were pawns of a movement to decriminalize the use of marijuana.)
• Mandatory Sentencing A Big-Time Bust (The Boston Globe says some original research by the newspaper has turned up figures showing that more than 84 percent of those serving mandatory minimum sentences on drug charges in Massachusetts are first-time offenders in the state. For the most part, these are drug users who are at the bottom of the supply chain. They are also overwhelmingly Hispanic and black. The big-time dealers avoid mandatory minimums because they have information to trade with prosecutors, or money that is forfeited upon their arrest - which makes law enforcement look upon them more kindly. The federal system - which operates under its own mandatory mimimum sentence law - is similarly filled with small-time offenders.)
• Pot Politics (A staff editorial in The Times Union, in New York, says the Clinton Administration should reconsider its opposition to medical marijuana. Voters in more states are allowing it, and scientific evidence is on the popular side.)
• Undercover troopers arrest 21 for marijuana at Bills-Jets game (The Associated Press says narcs targeting illegal drug users at Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, arrested 21 people on minor marijuana charges during Sunday's football game between the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets.)
• Judge Won't Release Vote Results (According to The Associated Press, US District Judge Richard Roberts refused on Monday to order the District of Columbia Board of Elections and Ethics to immediately release the results of a Nov. 3 vote to legalize marijuana for medical purposes in the nation's capital, saying the federal government should be given more time to decide whether it wants to act as a party in the case and argue against the release of the vote results.)
• Oranges with THC in 'em (A list subscriber posts the URL for a South to the Future article, from The Bay Area Guardian, about a Florida biochemist who claims to have designed a citrus tree that produces THC. Plus the article itself - including the weekly's weak disclaimer.)
• Re - Oranges that get you high (A letter sent to the editor of The San Francisco Bay Area Guardian suggests the weekly might have made its hoax a little more transparent, explaining why THC can't be synthesized in oranges. Few of the enzymes involved in cannabinoid biosynthesis have been identified, and cannabinoids are not proteins.)
• Research into pain gives hope for chronic sufferers (The Associated Press covers the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, in Los Angeles, with an update on what scientists know about chronic pain and what researchers are currently working on. Low-dose anti-depressants have been found effective among some sufferers of chronic pain syndromes. But there's also great interest in harnessing the body's own natural painkillers.)
• Olympic gold medalist Hall cited for marijuana use (CNN and Sports Illustrated say the world's fastest swimmer in 1996, Gary Hall Jr., and two other US swimmers, were cited by the sport's world governing body Monday for drug offenses. Hall was handed a three-month suspension by the doping panel of the international federation for testing positive for marijuana.)
• Germany may legalize cannabis (According to The Kitchener-Waterloo Record, in Ontario, the new German government has said it will study the case for making the possession of small quantities of soft drugs such as cannabis legal.)
• Four "No"s from the Catholic People's Party (An excerpt from an article in Neue Zuricher Zeitung, in Zurich, Switzerland, says the CDU has recommended that voters reject all four "Droleg" issues on the Nov. 29 ballot regarding the decriminalization - for Swiss citizens - of drugs that currently are illegal.)
• And What If The State Should Take Charge of the Market in Prohibited Drugs? (Several articles and writers in Le Temps, in Switzerland, examine the pros and cons to "Droleg," the Nov. 29 Swiss referendum on depenalizing illegal drugs.)
  Bytes: 95,500 Last updated: 12/26/98
  

  Tuesday, November 10, 1998:

• Medicinal pot's win in 5 states stuns backers (An Oregonian article whose headline shows the newspaper's tendency to engage in projection quotes Dave Fratello saying Americans for Medical Rights plans to back campaigns in Colorado, Florida and Maine in 2000. Phil Lemman, executive director of the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, predicts that the Legislature will amend the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act. But Oregon's legislative leaders said they first will monitor the law, which won in 16 of the state's 36 counties.)
• Truck drivers now supervising inmate deliveries in cost-cutting plan (The Associated Press says the Oregon Department of Corrections, in order to save money, now allows inmates who help deliver laundry to hospitals, schools and nursing homes to be supervised by truck drivers instead of corrections officers.)
• The Chavez Trial (The Orange County Register covers the trial of Marvin Chavez, the medical marijuana patient and founder of the Orange County Patient Doctor Nurse Support Group, on trafficking charges. Judge Thomas J. Borris allowed jurors to hear references to Prop. 215, the medical marijuana initiative voters passed in 1996, but will not make a final ruling as to what laws the jury will be allowed to consider as relevant to the charges until the end of the case.)
• Pot Club's Owner Cites Prop 215 (A second article in The Orange County Register on the same trial says Superior Court Judge Thomas Borris has already tentatively ruled that Chavez is legally a caregiver under Prop. 215, but only for two of the 10 sale or transportation charges he faces.)
• Letter to Gray Davis (A letter to the Governor-elect of California from California NORML asks the Democratic victor to support efforts to fulfill the mandate of Proposition 215 to assure "safe and affordable" access to medical marijuana for all patients in need; to consider measures to reduce the number of marijuana prisoners, which increased 1,200 percent during 16 years of Republican misrule with no change in marijuana use rates; and to support decriminalizing cultivation of small amounts of cannabis for personal use, as recommended by the state Research Advisory Panel in 1990.)
• Justices Let Two Sue Irvine Police (The Orange County Register says the US Supreme Court reinstated the lawsuit by two Orange County men against police in Irvine, California, on the grounds that officers illegally obtained their blood samples after arresting them on suspicion of drunken driving. Attorney Jeffrey Wertheimer, who represents the city of Irvine, said the court's decision would not change police DUI policies.)
• Marijuana Vote Secret Pending Dec. 18 Hearing (The Washington Post says US District Judge Richard W. Roberts refused yesterday to order the immediate release of results from last week's vote on a medical marijuana initiative in the District of Columbia in order to take a comprehensive look at the legal issues.)
• Drug Courts Reduce Crime And Save Money, Study Says (An Associated Press article in The Seattle Times says the Physician Leadership on National Drug Policy, a bipartisan group of health experts, released findings today from a study on so-called drug courts purporting to show that programs allowing nonviolent offenders to undergo treatment rather than serve time - programs that coerce nonviolent "drug abusers" into rehabilitation instead of prison - help them "kick the habit" while saving taxpayers' money.)
• Good News? / Drug Courts (One list subscriber is reticent about criticizing drug courts. Another says they are a desperate measure to save prohibition, and a self-evident pointer to the fact that drug "crimes" are not crimes at all.)
• US nabs cocaine-laden Colombian air force plane (According to Reuters, Colombian President Andres Pastrana accepted the resignation of Air Force chief Gen. Manuel Sandoval late Tuesday after a Colombian air force plane was seized at a Florida airport with more than 1,600 pounds of cocaine.)
• Colombia Air Force Chief Resigns Over Drug Flap (A different Reuters version)
• Customs Agents Find Cocaine On Colombian Air Force Plane (The CNN version)
• The Politics Of Prescribed Prohibition (An excellent op-ed in The Canberra Times, in Australia, notes the scientific and scholarly evidence we have about drugs and drug use are routinely overlooked in favour of policies based on ideas that are the intellectual and academic equivalent of a belief in witchcraft. The overwhelming bulk of scientific and scholarly evidence suggests that prohibition has greatly exacerbated the problems associated with drugs, drug use and drug users. Even so there are still those who try to argue that reliance on prohibition has prevented an explosion in availability and usage, and that any change in policy would send out the wrong message. There is no evidence to support this. Indeed, what evidence there is suggests the exact opposite.)
  Bytes: 62,800 Last updated: 12/23/98
  

  Wednesday, November 11, 1998:

• Meth lab cleverly hidden in blackberry thicket near county fairgrounds (The Associated Press characterizes as "clever" a man in Central Point, Oregon, who allegedly built and operated a methamphetamine lab within the confines of the Jackson County Expo Park, the site of the Jackson County Fair.)
• Defense Attorneys Contend That The Cannabis Co-Op Leader Was Entrapped (An Orange County Register update on the trial of Marvin Chavez says Superior Court Judge Thomas Borris changed his mind Tuesday and ruled that the founder of the Orange County Cannabis Co-Op may not invoke Proposition 215 to defend himself against pot-sale charges. Defense lawyers at Chavez's trial plowed on in the wake of the decision by mounting an entrapment defense.)
• The Chavez Trial Defining 'Caregivers' (A staff editorial in The Orange County Register provides more details about the trial of Marvin Chavez, particularly the unresolved issue of who qualifies as a "caregiver" under Proposition 215.)
• Santa Clara County Approves Pot Clubs With Strict Limits (The San Francisco Chronicle says the Board of Supervisors of Santa Clara County, California, voted 4 to 0 yesterday to extend the county's medical marijuana ordinance indefinitely, after adding more regulations to it. Although no medical marijuana dispensaries now exist in Santa Clara County, officials will allow them in unincorporated areas if they meet strict regulations, and pay more than $6,000 in fees.)
• County Makes Pot Law Tougher (The San Jose Mercury News version)
• Medical Marijuana Initiatives Passed (Three letters to the editor of The Los Angeles Times lead with AIDS patient Peter McWilliams' tearful thanks to the newspaper for endorsing the reclassification of cannabis to Schedule II.)
• Ex-Sheriff Jailed In Drug Case (The Tulsa World says Burlen Glenn, the former sheriff of Latimer County, Oklahoma, remained in Haskell County Jail Tuesday in lieu of $500,000 bail after his arrest last week on charges of arranging to buy one pound of methamphetamine for $10,000 from an undercover prohibition agent.)
• Nothing Keeps A Driver And His License Apart For Long (The Tulsa World says the newspaper's review of thousands of DUI cases shows that Oklahoma drunk drivers by law have a right to drive, no matter what the body count, no matter how destructive, and no matter how many times they are caught.)
• Beyond Rehabilitation? (The Tulsa World says a review by the newspaper of more than 10 years of DUI cases from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Cleveland counties suggests that court-ordered substance-abuse treatment is the exception, not the rule. Out of more than 50,000 drinking and driving cases in those three counties since 1988, court records indicated that fewer than 1,500 offenders were ordered into treatment programs, even though two out of five drunk drivers supposedly have "chronic drinking problems.")
• Slain Man's Family Wants Police Shooting Re-Examined (According to The Tulsa World, a police officer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, says he was only trying to protect himself when he fatally shot an armed Edwin Levall Vines outside a "drug house" last week. However, the dead man's family, backed by the Tulsa chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, wants an investigation by the city's Citizens Review Board because some witnesses said Vines was not armed and had his hands in the air when he was shot.)
• Sheriff Seeks Outside Probe (According to The Tulsa World, in Oklahoma, Delaware County Sheriff Jim Earp said Tuesday that he had asked a state agency to take over an investigation looking into whether Undersheriff Bill Stout tampered with drug evidence. Stout was suspended last week after three deputies said Stout brought more methamphetamine to a court hearing than what was actually seized.)
• Redford slaying probe blasted (The San Antonio Express News says a congressional report to be made public today is critical of a Justice Department investigation into the death of Esequiel Hernandez Jr., the 18-year-old goatherder in Redford, Texas, who was shot last year by camouflaged US Marines on a drug-interdiction mission along the US-Mexico border. "They simply did not do their job," said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, of the Justice Department's investigation. "A number of actions were taken to prevent justice from being carried out.")
• Lawyer to depict drug as a weapon (The San Antonio Express-News says prosecutors plan to make a unique legal argument against a man in New Braunfels, Texas, charged with giving cocaine to his 14-year-old daughter. He faces up to 99 years in prison.)
• Pot - Medicine Or Malevolence? (The Evansville Courier, in Indiana, is seeking letters to the editor about the advisability of medical marijuana initiatives for Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois. The deadline for submissions is Tuesday.)
• Is drug testing students a good idea? (Cityview, in Iowa, recounts the brief history of random urine tests for high school students - a fad begun in Vernonia, Oregon - noting that no school in Iowa currently requires such tests. Randy Aultman, the Vernonia high school principal who instituted the nation's first such program, was in Des Moines Thursday during a nationwide tour advocating student drug testing, and a local audience's response suggests the state will soon require urinalysis of its athletes.)
• Cocaine Is Found On Military Plane (The Washington Times version of yesterday's news about the seizure in Florida of 1,639 pounds of cocaine aboard a Colombian air force plane)
• Protesters Demand Marijuana Vote Tally (The Washington Post says about 50 people protested yesterday outside the DC Board of Elections and Ethics offices, demanding the release of results from last week's vote on legalizing marijuana for medical purposes.)
• Seven Deadly Sins - the student stoner dilemma (An op-ed in Salon magazine by a senior at Virginia Commonwealth University protests the provision in the Higher Education Act of 1998 which prohibits non-violent drug offenders - particularly pot smokers - from receiving federal loans or other financial aid.)
• TV Has Become Drug Companies Medium (The Associated Press says that just a year after the federal government relaxed restrictions on prescription drug advertising to consumers, the industry spent $306 million on television advertisements during the first half of 1998, or $5 million more than it spent in all of 1997. Television now accounts for 48 percent of drug company's direct-to-consumer advertising, compared to 44 percent for magazines and 8 percent for newspapers. Advertising is said to be causing demand for drugs to soar - while spending nationwide on health care grew by 4.8 percent in 1997, the lowest rate since 1960, spending on pharmaceuticals increased 14.1 percent on top of a 13.2 percent the year before, the federal goverment reported Tuesday.)
• Alternative medicine moves into mainstream (The Miami Herald says Tuesday's special edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association focusing on alternative medicine includes a new study by David Eisenberg of Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, which says four out of 10 Americans used alternative medicine last year to treat mainly chronic conditions, spending an estimated $27 billion out of pocket. There were more visits in 1997 to alternative medicine practitioners than to primary care physicians, and more money was spent on alternative medicine than on patients' expenses for hospitalizations.)
• Police say hashish bust biggest ever in BC (According to the Associated Press, Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Tuesday that the seizure last week of 12 metric tons of hash on a fishboat, and another 2.8 metric tons on a mother ship, in Fanny Bay, northwest of Victoria, British Columbia, was the biggest interdiction of its type in provincial history.)
• Mexican Authorities Link Massacre Of 19 To Drug Gang (According to an Associated Press article in The Orange County Register, the Mexican attorney general's office said Tuesday that the massacre of 19 people near the northern city of Ensenada Sept. 17 has been linked to the Arellano Felix brothers, who run Mexico's most violent drug gang.)
• Mexican Authorities Link Massacre To Violent Drug Gang (A different Associated Press version)
• Tijuana Massacre Traced To Drug Deal Gone Bad Between Rival Gangs (The Houston Chronicle version.)
• Mexico Nabs Three Ensenada Drug Massacre Suspects (The Reuters version)
• New Laws For Police To Search Cars (According to The Daily Telegraph, in Australia, last week's drive-by shooting at the police station in Lakemba has prompted the state government to announce it would introduce legislation into State Parliament this week allowing police the power to erect road blocks, pull over drivers, search their vehicles and demand IDs.)
• Drug Boffins Put A Sock In It (The Australian says heavies from the New South Wales Health Department and the office of its minister have issued a decree censoring workers in the drug field, particularly those in the sensitive area of illicit drugs. With an election in the offing, the government is keen to keep the focus on law and order and away from anything that might portray it as soft on drugs.)
• IOC Drug Policy Overhaul Predicted (According to The Chicago Tribune, Dr. Ken Fitch, a member of the International Olympic Committee's medical commission, said in Sydney, Australia, that a "radical" overhaul of the IOC's drug policy would take place at a meeting next month, including the removal of some narcotics from the banned list.)
• Lords Back Cannabis Use For Patients Suffering Pain (The Guardian, in Britain, discusses the report published today by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology saying doctors should be legally allowed to prescribe cannabis to multiple sclerosis sufferers and other patients who find it helps relieve pain.)
• Peers Support Cannabis Use (The Independent version)
• Legalise Cannabis For Sick, Say Peers (The Telegraph version)
• Lords Call To Make Cannabis Legal For Pain Relief (The Times version)
• Out On A Limb Over Beneficial Joints (Guardian columnist Sarah Boseley says the report on medical marijuana published this morning by the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology "admits" there is no scientific evidence that cannabis relieves the pain of multiple sclerosis sufferers and others. But the committee believed the evidence from patients themselves, and felt it was wrong that those in pain should have to break the law and that their doctors should be under pressure to connive with them. The committee said that its recommendation was not scientific, but compassionate.)
• Cannabis Therapy (A letter to the editor of The Independent, in Britain, from a multiple sclerosis patient who uses marijuana as medicine, implores the government to heed today's report from the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology.)
• Let GPs Prescribe The Weed (A staff editorial in The Guardian, in Britain, rejects the British Medical Association's criticism of today's report from the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, which recommends that General Practitioners be allowed to prescribe herbal cannabis for medical use. "The Lords should be congratulated for listening to patients rather than researchers. Knowing why it works would be helpful but making it illegal until we know why is wrong.")
• Select Committee on Science and Technology Report (The text of the report on medical marijuana commissioned by the House of Lords says the Government should allow doctors to prescribe cannabis for medical use. "Far from being a step towards general legalisation, our recommendation would make the ban on recreational use easier to enforce.")
• Concern Over Drug Testing At Work (Two letters to the editor of The Times, in Britain, rebut an enthusiastic recent op-ed endorsing urine testing of workers for illegal drugs.)
• Judge gives 30 days on drug charge (The Bangor Daily News says a judge in Ireland rejected a prosecutor's call for extended jail time and sentenced John Thompson of Frankfort, the town's road commissioner, to 30 days in jail for unlawful trafficking in scheduled drugs. Waldo County Superior Court Justice William S. Brodrick indicated that the Food and Drug Administration had determined that marijuana was less addictive than caffeine.)
  Bytes: 303,000 Last updated: 12/3/98
  

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