1998 News
About Cannabis and Drug Policy
December 17-23

Thursday, December 17, 1998:
• The NORML Foundation Weekly Press Release (Increasing Marijuana Reform Legislation Anticipated In 1999 State Legislatures)
• Medical Marijuana Act: Don't Act Yet (Stat, the newsletter of the Oregon Medical Assocation, says that despite the passage of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, Oregon physicians should not "take action" until "all the issues" are resolved - like maybe a thousand years from now - even though the new law requires only that a physician express the opinion on a patient's chart that marijuana may help the patient's condition.)
• Re: Medical Marijuana Act: Don't Act Yet (Dr. Rick Bayer, a chief petitioner for the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, comments on the advisory from Paul Frisch, the Oregon Medical Association's director of medical legal affairs. When the federal threat no longer looms large, the OMA will mellow. By spring, things will work out if reformers keep up their educational efforts.)
• Trooper thankful to escape close call (The Oregonian interviews an Oregon state trooper who is trying to recover from a devastating wreck caused by a drunken driver. The drunk got 60 days for maiming a state trooper - a lot less time than most convicted marijuana growers.)
• Advocates seek assurance of adequate pain treatment (The Oregonian says the Portland-based Compassion in Dying Federation is leading other advocacy groups in pushing the federal government to assure that patients entering hospitals clearly understand their right to request adequate pain treatment.)
• Acquittal shows difficulty of prosecuting gang murder suspects (The Associated Press says it took a jury just 30 minutes Wednesday to find a Portland man not guilty of murder in a 1995 gang shooting after two key witnesses refused to cooperate with prosecutors during the trial.)
• Please Send Dave Herrick a Card or Letter in Jail (A list subscriber notes this is the second Christmas behind bars for the California medical marijuana martyr and former San Bernardino County deputy sheriff.)
• Ex-Tucson cop indicted on charges stemming from corruption probe (The Arizona Daily Star says Jose Ernesto "Ernie" Medina was indicted yesterday on charges stemming from a federal investigation into corruption in the Tucson police department.)
• Court upholds cash forfeiture of $9 million (The Houston Chronicle says the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday upheld the forfeiture of more than $9 million in cash deposited in a Houston bank by Mario Ruiz Massieu, a former Mexican official who was in charge of investigating drug cartels.)
• Police Find $1 Million During Traffic Stop (The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, in Missouri, says two police made the largest seizure of suspected drug money in St. Louis County's history after stopping a man on Interstate 44 for two moving traffic violations and because one of his headlights wasn't working.)
• Suburban Drug Force Disbanding (The Chicago Tribune says the Cook County Metropolitan Enforcement Group, an alliance of state, county and local police that for years was some suburban cities' only weapon against small-time drug dealers, will disband at the end of the month after 21 years. Reasons for the group's slow death over the last two years include the proliferation of law-enforcement task forces at the county, state and federal levels - some of whose duties overlap those of MEG. As these task forces have formed, some of the local departments that assigned officers to MEG pulled them out and redeployed them to the other groups. The reason is economics: By having officers take part in task forces that seize more assets, local departments typically get more money.)
• County Drug Unit Loses Officers, May Shut Down (The version in The Daily Herald, in Arlington Heights, Illinois)
• Policeman Accused Of Running Drug Ring (The Orange County Register version of yesterday's news about Joseph Miedzianowski, the veteran Chicago police officer who was charged Wednesday with running a drug ring that allegedly distributed millions of dollars worth of cocaine and heroin between Chicago and Miami.)
• Cop Charged In Drug Ring (The Chicago Tribune version)
• $750,000 Awarded In False Arrest Case (The Miami Herald notes the war on some drug users just got more expensive locally Wednesday as a federal jury in Broward awarded the judgment to a man in Hollywood, Florida, after a judge ruled his civil rights were violated by two police officers in a 1996 drug arrest. In a rare decision, U.S. District Judge Wilkie Ferguson Jr. held Sgt. Jeff Marano and former Officer Tony Fernandez responsible for violating Dwight Edman's rights before the jury could even deliberate the matter. The judge based his verdict Tuesday on Marano's admission that police had no probable cause to arrest Edman.)
• Human Body Makes Own Version of Chemicals Found in Marijuana (A scientifically illiterate but nonetheless interesting article from Knight Ridder News Service in The Salt Lake Tribune grapples with the belated realization that our brains and bodies are flooded with a natural form of cannabis. Called cannabinoids, after the euphoria-inducing plant Cannabis sativa, this family of compounds blocks pain, erases memories and triggers hunger. Newer studies show they also may regulate the immune system, enhance reproduction and protect the brain from stroke and trauma damage.)
• Natural Form Of Marijuana In Humans A Medical Mystery (A lengthier version in The Chicago Tribune)
• Just Say 'Wait a Minute' (The New York Review of Books discusses "The Fix," by Michael Massing, and "Drug Crazy - How We Got Into This Mess and How We Can Get Out," by Mike Gray. Malcolm Gladwell writes, "Drugs" really aren't that much fun - at least not in the way that straitlaced adolescents and anxious parents think that they are. This is a critical point, but so often overlooked that it is worth examining in more detail.)
• Marijuana Can Affect Fertility, Damaging Sperm, U.S. Study Says (A Reuters article in The Toronto Star uncritically passes along Tuesday's news about the latest drug-warrior junk science from the United States suggesting cannabis may have medical utility as a birth-control adjunct - plus commentary from list subscribers, including a letter to The Toronto Star faulting the newspaper for publishing propaganda from US ideologues.)
• MPP's view of the Monitoring the Future survey data (A press release from the Marijuana Policy Project, in Washington, DC, critiques the federally funded survey to be released tomorrow, and says the MPP's newly released online report, "Marijuana Prohibition Has Not Curtailed Marijuana Use by Adolescents," examines the government's data and concludes that criminal penalties have had no effect on adolescent marijuana use rates. "When teen marijuana use is down, the drug warriors say, 'Our policies are working, so let's stay the course.' When use is up, they say, 'We blame the legalizers! We must stay the course.' They can't have it both ways. It's time for the drug warriors to take full responsibility and admit that prohibition is a useless, wasteful, cruel strategy.")
• Stripped in search, teens sue police (The Toronto Sun says two Toronto high school students are alleging they were strip-searched, assaulted, threatened and falsely imprisoned while being investigated for possessing marijuana.)
• Woman Drops Pants In Airport After Customs' Smuggling Claim (According to The Edmonton Sun, workers at Pearson Airport in Toronto say a Toronto woman, 20, who arrived on a flight from Jamaica was accused by a Customs officer of smuggling drugs in her body cavities. The irate woman suddenly removed her pants and underwear in front of about 30 stunned people and bent down in front of the officer to show she had no drugs, workers said.)
• Huge Pot Bust York's Largest (The Toronto Sun says prohibition agents raided two homes in Markham yesterday and shut down what police estimate was the largest-ever pot-growing operation in York Region, with 6,000 plants.)
• Today in the history of the drug war (A list subscriber notes in 1973, the Canadian deputy minister of health confirmed that Health Department officials had been ordered to make no comment on the the LeDain Report.)
• New Zealand Select Committee Report Recommends Law Review (A press release from New Zealand NORML says New Zealand's parliamentary inquiry into the mental health effects of cannabis has resulted in a recommendation that "the Government review the appropriateness of existing policy on cannabis and its use and reconsider the legal status of cannabis.")
• Alcohol And Drug Problems Rife In Jails (The Advertiser, in Australia, says a national study conducted by the Australian Medical Association has found that up to 83 per cent of the nation's prisoners continue to suffer from alcohol and other drug problems while in jail, and as many as one in four inmates continues to use heroin when in jail, while half of all prisoners suffer from hepatitis C and hepatitis B.)
• Parole Officers Back Heroin Trial (An op-ed in The Daily Telegraph, in Australia, by Greg Oates, the president of the Probation and Parole Officers' Association of New South Wales, says "We are filling our jails in NSW faster than they can be built. There is no hope of stemming the flow of illicit drugs into the country. People are not safe on the streets and parents mourn their children, dead or imprisoned. It is a disaster. We believe all political parties have a moral obligation to stop politicking on this subject and to introduce an on-going inquiry into how to combat the use of illicit drugs with emphasis on early intervention, treatment and harm minimisation. We support a heroin trial.")
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  Friday, December 18, 1998:

• Implementation of Measure 67 (Stormy Ray, a multiple sclerosis patient and chief petitioner for the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act of 1998, provides some potentially helpful advice to other Oregon patients about how to comply with the voter-approved law.)
• Task Force: New office needed to improve pain management (The Associated Press says a state task force has recommended that Oregon should set up a new office to improve pain management and ease doctors' fears about treating pain with narcotics. The recommendations will be given to Governor John Kitzhaber and the legislature next month in hopes that lawmakers will act on them.)
• Raid yields guns, ammunition, drug paraphernalia (An Oregonian account of North Portland residents being awakened at 5:30 a.m. Thursday by a police raid characteristically fails to say what the "paraphernalia" consisted of or whether the weapons were illegal, or on what evidence Portland police charged Leroy Sylvester Long with conspiracy to commit first-degree distribution of a controlled substance, or how one person could engage in a conspiracy and/or why nobody else was apparently charged.)
• County considers taking cars of drunken drivers (The Oregonian says the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners unanimously endorsed a resolution Thursday to consider forfeiting vehicles operated by drivers who have suspended or revoked licenses as a result of driving under the influence of alcohol or "drugs." The resolution, introduced by Commissioner Lisa Naito, allows Sheriff Dan Noelle to appoint a committee to consider the ramifications and potentially recommend a county ordinance.)
• Medical Pot Not A Problem (A letter to the editor of The Columbian, in Vancouver, Washington, responds to an op-ed against medical marijuana by Sandra Bennett, the notorious local drug warrior.)
• Illegal Plant Grown For Medicine, Man Claims (An Associated Press article in The Houston Chronicle notes Musa Ahmed Gelan of Prunedale, California, pleaded not guilty in U.S. District Court in San Jose to charges related to growing more than 1,000 khat plants. Gelan's lawyer said the native of Yemen used khat to help control his diabetes. Prohibition agents said Gelan's garden was the first such outdoor "plantation" discovered in the United States.)
• Not Guilty Plea In Exotic Drug Case (A lengthier San Jose Mercury News version)
• Texas reporter was murdered in Mexico, authorities say (The Dallas Morning News says an autopsy shows Philip True, the Mexico City correspondent for the San Antonio Express News, was strangled and may have been sexually assaulted before his death. The newspaper says American law enforcement sources "privately" suspect drug smugglers.)
• US Journalist In Mexico Sexually Assaulted, Slain (The Chicago Tribune version in The Orange County Register says True was indeed sexually brutalized, but that he may also have stumbled upon an illegal logging operation.)
• American Journalist Is Killed In Mexico (The original Chicago Tribune version - slightly different)
• Express-News news release relating to Philip True (The San Antonio Express-News says news reports that the newspaper's slain Mexico City correspondent was investigating drug trafficking or cultivation are false. There is no evidence to suggest he was the victim of foul play by drug traffickers or cultivators. Also contrary to published reports, True's wallet and other effects were missing, suggesting robbery may have been a motive.)
• Texas Lawyer Battles Highway Department, Anti-drug Police (A Dallas Morning News article in The San Jose Mercury News says Pat Barber of Colorado City, Texas, erected a big billboard on his ranch at the edge of town next to Interstate 20 saying, "Just Say NO to Searches! 915-728-5505." Law enforcement officials were not amused and the Texas Department of Transportation said the billboard violated the Highway Beautification Act and threatened to fine Barber $1,000 a day if he didn't remove it. "Nobody wants to see us turn into a Third World police state," says Barber. "Police may want it, but people don't want it.")
• Drake nurse allegedly stole patient's morphine (The Cincinnati Enquirer says the woman had a history of substance abuse when a temp agency placed her at the Drake Center, raising questions about the effectiveness of an Ohio law requiring background checks for health care workers. "We arrest a health professional every six days," said Sgt. John J. Burke, commander of Cincinnati's pharmaceutical diversion squad. About 70 percent of the health workers the squad arrests are nurses. The rest are pharmacists, doctors and other health care workers.)
• Taylor Turns Himself In On Drug Rap (UPI says former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, a virtual lock to be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame next month, faces crack cocaine charges in Teaneck, New Jersey.)
• Dealer's house is officer's - Drug conduit's forfeited Hilltown Twp. home is sold to Philadelphia policeman (The Morning Call, in Allentown, Pennsylvania, gives a quick history of Bucks County District Attorney Alan M. Rubenstein's campaign since 1986 to forfeit people's homes for illegal-drug-related offenses. It's still not clear though how Ralph Mirarchi is able to afford a $315,000 house on a policeman's salary.)
• Joe Hart - Key West Buyers Club (A list subscriber says the case against one of the founders of a medical marijuana club in Key West, Florida, was thrown out today by a judge who ruled that the "no-knock" raid on his apartment was illegal.)
• Judge Hears Medical Marijuana Case (The Associated Press says U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts will hear oral arguments today by lawyers for the District of Columbia and the American Civil Liberties Union, who want to overturn the move by Congress to censor the results of medical-marijuana Initiative 59 in November's election.)
• Anti Climax (A list subscriber notes U.S. District Court Judge Roberts didn't issue a decision today regarding Initiative 59, but provides the URL for "almost all" the written arguments presented by the various parties.)
• Study finds smoking marijuana and cocaine can cause cancer (CNN apparently failed to ask for an objective interpretation of the science while conveying the latest US government anti-marijuana propaganda released Tuesday in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Supposedly the study was the first of its kind, and found that smokers of marijuana and crack cocaine show the same kinds of precancerous conditions caused by smoking tobacco. Unfortunately, neither CNN nor the phony scientists explained why the government has never able to point to a single person who has contracted lung cancer by smoking cannabis.)
• Teenage use of stimulants levels off in 1998 (An Associated Press article in The Seattle Times says the annual Monitoring the Future survey of teen drug use conducted by the University of Michigan was released today. According to the summary, it paints an optimistic picture of American teenagers, with a few exceptions. Use of marijuana, by far the most popular "drug," dropped among 10th-graders. But there was an increase in the number of 8th-graders who had tried crack or cocaine.)
• Teen Drug Use Steady In 1998 (The CNN/Associated Press version)
• Teen Use Of Pot, Booze, Cigarettes Down Slightly (The San Francisco Chronicle version)
• Highlights Of Teen Drug Use Survey (The Associated Press cites some selected statistics from the annual Monitoring the Future survey of teen drug use. Among high school seniors, 54 percent had used an "illegal drug" at least once. Apparently that didn't include alcohol or tobacco, though both are illegal for kids.)
• UN Official Seeks Reforms In US Prisons (Reuters says Radhika Coomaraswamy, a top United Nations official concerned with violence against women, on Friday called for stronger monitoring of women's prisons in the United States to control widespread sexual misconduct.)
• Wiseman Noble cancels all Hemp and Non-Wood Fibre projects (A company press release from Wiseman Noble, the research-based events and publications company in Vancouver, British Columbia, whose aim is to facilitate change through consensus, cites financial losses. Wiseman Noble produced seven events across Canada related to hemp and non-wood fibres since 1997, and published eight issues of Commercial Hemp magazine.)
• Illegal Drug Trade Is Tool Of Power Elite (An op-ed in The Victoria Times-Colonist, in British Columbia, by Jim Hackler, a professor of sociology at the University of Victoria and the author of "Crime and Canadian Public Policy," says it is difficult for Canada to have a sensible drug policy when its neighbor, the United States, the most powerful country in the world, supports the drug trade and then lies about it. Clearly, enough powerful people are benefiting from the current drug policy that it will be hard to develop intelligent alternatives.)
• Torture Scandal Stirs Dominicans (The Associated Press says a videotape of a drug suspect being beaten in the presence of the Dominican Republic's top anti-drug official, General Humeau Hidalgo, is drawing public outrage.)
• Cannabis Ifs And Butts (The New Zealand Herald says that after eight months of deliberation, the New Zealand parliament's health select committee released its report on the mental health effects of cannabis yesterday. "Based on the evidence we have heard in the course of this inquiry," the committee concluded, "the negative mental health impact of cannabis appears to have been overstated . . . . Cannabis should be viewed as a lesser threat to cognitive functioning than alcohol." The committee said the evidence also suggested that cannabis did not cause behavioural difficulties, rather that cannabis was frequently used by youths who misbehaved. Neither was it a cause of suicide.)
• Cannabis Laws Should Be Reviewed (The version in The Press, in New Zealand.)
• Britain Is Drugs Capital Of Europe (Britain's Independent says the 1998 Annual Report on the State of the Drugs Problem in the European Union, carried out by the European Commission, shows that the war against drugs is being lost, and that proportionately more people in the United Kingdom use cannabis, ecstasy, amphetamines and solvents than in any other country in Europe.)
• Gambians Arrested For Drug Crimes (A translation of an article from Dagens Nyheter, in Sweden, says the illegal heroin and khat trade in Stockholm is growing at an immense rate - despite the most repressive anti-drug laws in Europe - with police alleging that 400 of the county's 900 Gambians are involved.)
• The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue No. 71 (The Drug Reform Coordination Network's original summary of drug policy news and calls to action, including - Diana McCague sentenced for syringe exchange - including McCague's statement to the court and links to prior coverage of the Chai Project; Action opportunity: protest on steps of New Jersey Statehouse; Bills seeking to decriminalize marijuana, legalize medical marijuana and legalize hemp cultivation to be introduced in New Hampshire legislature in 1999; Patient who was denied liver transplant for using medical marijuana dies; Media spotlight: drug smuggling by U.S. Marines a growing problem; and an editorial by Adam J. Smith, Unrighteous indignation.)
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  Saturday, December 19, 1998:

• Legal defense fund for Lina and Gina Savage in detention since 11-20-98 (A Bay Area list subscriber forwards what could be the most disturbing news of the year. Despite Proposition 215, authorities in Contra Costa County, California, have decided that no medical marijuana patient will be allowed to raise children. Please help stand up for the rights of Gina, age 1, and Lina, age 4, taken from their biological parent to a foster home!)
• Sacramento Police: Arrest, Kill & Destroy (A list subscriber forwards a witness's account of yesterday's court hearing in the case of Sacramento-area medical marijuana defendant Robert Ames. Two years after passage of Proposition 215, the Sacramento Police Department admitted in open court, in the county's first medical-marijuana cultivation case, that the department's policy is to automatically arrest all medical cannabis patients, kill all immature medical cannabis, and destroy all medical cannabis gardens, regardless of any paperwork documenting a cultivator's medical status. Ames was ordered to stand trial next year on two felony charges - cultivation, and posesssion with intent to distribute.)
• Pair Gets Chance To Defend Pot Use (The Press Democrat, in Santa Rosa, California, says that even though Lori Converse, of Guerneville, had two letters from doctors authorizing her marijuana use, she was arrested for growing marijuana and taken to jail, along with her caregiver, William McConnell. For some reason left unexplained by the newspaper, District Attorney Mike Mullins has decided to violate the letter and spirit of Proposition 215 by disregarding the letters from Converse's physicians and making her try to prove her claims of medical use to a physician review board. It's also not clear why Converse's attorney applauded the prosecutor's extralegal demand.)
• New Somoma board may get pot case (The San Francisco Examiner version says several physicians from outside Sonoma County had acknowledged Lori Ellen Converse's medicinal marijuana use but never recommended it, as required by Proposition 215.)
• Confiscated Drugs Stolen From Under Nose Of Customs (According to an Associated Press article in The San Jose Mercury News, The Union Tribune in San Diego said Saturday that U.S. Customs agents are under investigation for delivering 7 tons of confiscated drugs to an incinerator and then allegedly leaving the drugs unattended and susceptible to theft - a procedure they may have followed on as many as five other occasions.)
• Injured Girl Awarded Millions In Bus Wreck (The Anchorage Daily News says a Superior Court jury in Anchorage, Alaska, this week hit Laidlaw Transit Inc. with a $3.5 million verdict in a lawsuit over a school bus accident in which the driver tested positive for marijuana. A drug test on the driver taken some five hours after the accident indicated she had used marijuana, but not how recently, and an attorney for Laidlaw told jurors the company was sure that marijuana use did not cause the accident. The driver showed no signs of impairment and was not feeling impaired when she hit a patch of black ice that morning. The 12-year-old plaintiff's injuries were minor and she quickly recovered, and has since participated in track and field sports events and is a regular runner.)
• War On Drugs Is Self-Serving Politcal Policy (A letter to the editor of The Anchorage Daily News cites several little-known aspects of the dubious war on some drugs.)
• Judge Hears Pleas, Says Little on Pot Vote (The Washington Post says U.S. District Judge Richard W. Roberts asked plenty of questions yesterday but gave no signals about how he might rule in the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of backers of Initiative 59, the District of Columbia measure that would permit seriously ill people to use marijuana for medical reasons.)
• Judge keeps D.C. marijuana vote under wraps (The Baltimore Sun version)
• Needle Exchange Returns to D.C. (The Washington Post says a private firm now carries out the program, funded previously by the District of Columbia. In October, Congress forced the city to stop trying to prevent intravenous drug users from spreading AIDS.)
• Teen Drug Use Down Slightly, Study Says (A Knight Ridder news service article in The Orange County Register summarizes the latest results from the annual Monitoring the Future survey, conducted by the University of Michigan for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Used to track teen-age drug use since 1975, the survey conducted by Professor Lloyd Johnston this year found that 10th-graders' use of marijuana dropped from 34.8 percent to 31.1 percent. Thirty-five percent of 10th-graders said they had used some kind of drug, including tobacco, in the past school year, down from 38.5 percent the year earlier. However, Professor Johnston and the federal government apparently do not consider alcohol to be a drug, or illegal for kids - about seven in 10 sophomores said they had consumed alcohol, and one-third of seniors reported being drunk in the past month. Overall "drug" use among eighth-graders dropped from 23.6 percent to 21 percent. But marijuana use held steady at 9.7 percent for that grade and remained at 22.8 percent among 12th-graders. Some 22.4 percent of high school seniors smoked cigarettes daily in the latest survey, compared with 1992's all-time low of 17.2 percent. Black teenagers continue to have the lowest smoking rates, with just less than 15 percent of black seniors saying they smoked in the past month.)
• Teens' drug use dips slightly but remains high, survey finds (The Miami Herald version notes, according to the survey, 41.4 percent of high school seniors reported using "drugs" in the last year, down from 42.4 percent.)
• Study Finds Decline In Teen Substance Use (The Washington Post version)
• Teen Drug Use Stabilizes But Overall Rate Still High, Study Finds (The Sacramento Bee version)
• Report: Drug Use Stabilizing Among Teens (A slightly different version in The Omaha World-Herald)
• Drug Use Among Teen-Agers Leveling Out, Report Says (The Los Angeles Daily News version)
• Drug Use Slows As Teens Heed Dangers (A lengthier version in The Peoria Journal Star)
• Teen Drug Use Has Stabilized, Even Dipped, Study Says (The Arizona Republic version)
• Dip In Teen Drug Use Called Inadequate (The Philadelphia Inquirer version)
• Drug Use Slows As Teens See, Hear More About Dangers (The version in The Commercial Appeal, in Tennessee)
• 1998 Monitoring The Future Study: Tide Of Youth Drug Use Turns (A press release from the office of the White House drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey, says this year's survey of teen drug use demonstrates that "our balanced approach - focusing on preventing children from turning to drugs, treating drug addicts, and breaking trafficking organizations - works.")
• Colombia Seizes 30 Percent More Cocaine, Heroin In 1998 (According to Cable News Network, today's release of an annual crime report by the Colombian National Police shows Colombian prohibition agents seized a record 59 tons of cocaine and 770 pounds of heroin this year, worth about $1 billion wholesale in the United States. However, the area of land covered with illegal drug crops has increased over the past two years. The DEA estimates Colombia supplies 80 percent of the world's cocaine and about 60 percent of the high-grade heroin bought in the United States. The DEA also estimates Colombian cocaine sells for about $17,500 per kilogram in the United States, and heroin for $85,000 to $195,000 per kilogram.)
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  Sunday, December 20, 1998:

• Anderson Faces Prison for Drugs (According to The Associated Press, an interview with Greg Anderson of the Houston Hawks, in Sunday's Houston Chronicle, says the professional basketball player blames himself for being entrapped by the FBI into participating in a cocaine deal, leading to his imminent prison sentence. Anderson, a 10-year veteran of the NBA who was a first-round draft pick by the San Antonio Spurs in 1987, faces up to 40 years.)
• Drug Tests Proposed For Gaston Athletes (The Charlotte Observer, in North Carolina, says the Gaston County School Board will consider a countywide drug-testing program Monday night under which high school athletes could lose their right to play if they test positive for the kind of drugs that make them high - but they won't be tested for substances that make muscles grow big and strong.)
• Drug Screening Tests Makers Improve Product Tamper-Resistance (The Akron Beacon-Journal, in Ohio, says there is a thriving industry in "drug testing aids" - products designed to beat urine tests. The hundreds of available products and companies that sell them are involved in an elaborate and ever escalating cat and mouse game, with the "cheaters" constantly raising the bar and the drug-testing companies constantly jumping higher, in tandem with the prices of their tests.)
• Breaking Addiction's Hold (A Cox news service article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says the answer to America's drug problem may be ibogaine, which comes from an obscure plant that grows wild in African rain forests. With a single capsule - or perhaps several over a period of weeks - heroin addicts, alcoholics, cocaine users, even smokers might erase or at least interrupt their cravings. Efforts to understand the plant have foundered on a tangle of lawsuits and conflicting scientific results.)
• Gang leader gunned down in Vancouver (A Canadian Press article in The Edmonton Journal says Bindy Johal, 27, was gunned down early Sunday at a crowded night club by a gunman who blended into the crowd and escaped undetected. Johal, a self-admitted drug dealer, was one of the men tried for the 1994 murders of brothers Ron and Jimmy Dosanjh. He and five others were acquitted.)
• Caught In The Unforgiving Grip Of Thai Justice (A book review in The Miami Herald about "4,000 Days: My Life and Survival in a Bangkok Prison," by Warren Fellows, calls it an "unrelievedly horrible tale." The author, a native of Australia, was sentenced in 1978 to life in prison for smuggling heroin. After a dreadful interrogation, torture and preliminary confinement in unspeakable conditions, he was shipped off to Bang Kwang, the most feared prison in the world. Fellows writes, "While doing my business in Bangkok, I had been aware of the possibility that, if caught, I might be sent to Big Tiger. But somehow it had seemed a distant chance - I did not belong in Bang Kwang. It was a place for the lowest, most hopeless forms of humanity. Nobody thinks of themselves in that way. Not even criminals." Without self-pity, he makes a compelling case that his punishment was wildly out of proportion to his crime.)
• Shan Rebels Blame Myanmar Military For Opium Boom (According to Reuters, Colonel Yod Suk of the Shan State Army says frequent attacks by the Myanmar military against the SSA and its followers as they fought for their own homeland and autonomy has caused local production of opium and heroin to expand. Local residents need permanent plots of land to grow rice and other crops, so they have turned to growing poppy because it takes a short time to harvest and they can shift the location of plots easier.)
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  Monday, December 21, 1998:

• Million Marijuana March (A list subscriber seeks volunteers to help organize a rally in Los Angeles scheduled for May 1, 1999.)
• Lake Worth School Districts Turning To Drug Testing (The Fort Worth Star-Telegram says the Lake Worth School District in northwest Tarrant County this year joined the small but growing number of school systems across the nation that are drug-testing students who participate in extracurricular activities. School officials strongly believe that the programs help, but finding statistics to confirm their beliefs is problematic.)
• U.S. Prosecutors Say Bright Columbia Graduate Had Led Secret Life For Years (With uncharacteristic irony, The New York Times says Zolton Williams isn't likely to pay back his $60,000 in student loans for some time. He sits in a Brooklyn jail awaiting a federal sentence of up to 12 years for smuggling "tens of thousands" of dollars' worth of cocaine from Jamaica to the United States while he was a student at one of the nation's leading law schools.)
• His Bail Seized, Coke Defendant Is Still In Jail (The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel says Gerardo Hernandez's friends and family scraped together $100,000 to bail him out of the Milwaukee County Jail. But before the checks could be credited to Hernandez's bail account, a Wisconsin prohibition agent familiar with the case overheard the transaction as he passed by, intervened and scooped up the checks under the theory that the money was derived from drug dealing. Under current forfeiture laws, his theory counts for more than factual statements from 25 people who put up the $100,000, and Hernandez remains in jail.)
• 2 ex-officers convicted in drug case (The Associated Press says a jury in Monroe, Louisiana, on Friday convicted Warren Jones and Roderic Oliver, two former police officers in Tallulah, Louisiana, of federal charges in connection with a conspiracy to sell protection to illegal drug dealers.)
• U.S. Aid Said Used In Air Raid On Colombia Village (According to Reuters, Human Rights Watch, based in Washington, D.C., charged Monday that Colombia's military used warplanes and rockets bought with U.S. anti-drug aid during a recent raid on a village in rebel-held territory that killed up to 27 civilians, including five children. Under guidelines imposed by Congress, the United States is barred from providing military aid to Colombia for use in counterinsurgency operations.)
• Bolivia Eradicates Coca Leaf Fields (The Associated Press says the president of Bolivia, Hugo Banzer, announced Monday that the country had eradicated a record 28,660 acres of coca, or nearly a quarter of the crop. The government had to kill only 13 farmers in the process.)
• Most People Say No To Cannabis Law Change (The New Zealand Herald says that, despite the recommendation of a Parliamentary select committee, a New Zealand Herald-DigiPoll survey of 663 people showed 61.8 per cent did not want people to be able to legally grow or buy the drug for their own use. Chris Fowlie of the National Organisation for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, noting the poll also asked about respondents' personal use, said that might have affected the result. Other polls that had asked whether the use of cannabis should be decriminalised showed clear support. Interestingly, in terms of the "slippery slope" theory, only 3.3 per cent said they had never used cannabis but would if it were legal.)
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  Tuesday, December 22, 1998:

• NORML Foundation Weekly News Release (Will Foster To Spend Another Christmas Behind Bars, Medical Marijuana Patient Remains Incarcerated Despite Parole Board's Plea For Early Release)
• Fight Brews Over State's Inmate Work Program (The Oregonian notes Oregon Governor John "Prisons" Kitzhaber wants to cut the state's 1999-2001 prison-inmate forced-labor budget from $14.4 million to $9 million, saying it has become too expensive - apparently it threatens to limit the number of pot growers and other illegal drug offenders the state can lock up. "What is the price for full compliance, and are we willing to pay it?" Kitzhaber said, referring not to the war on some drug users but to Ballot Measure 17, the 1994 ballot initiative that obliges inmates to work a 40-hour week.)
• Seattle's war on drugs has priorities mixed up (Seattle Times columnist Michelle Malkin says instead of arresting drug dealers in public parks and streets, city attorney Mark Sidran and the Seattle Police Department have focused their energies on taking away private property from people like the McCoys, owners of Oscar's II, using a 1988 drug-nuisance abatement law. Of approximately 100 total cases brought by Sidran since 1990, roughly two-thirds were secret because of open-records rules or "administrative" reasons. Most of the 28 drug-abatement cases Malkin was able to review were filed against people who were never charged, accused, suspected of, or arrested for any criminal activity. Only one was filed against a white person. Twenty-three were filed against blacks, and four were filed against Asians or Hispanics.)
• Lt. Gov. settles ethics charges for $7,000 (The Associated Press says Washington state Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, a longtime drug-war hawk, will pay $7,000 to settle state ethics charges arising from his allocation of state funds to oppose a 1997 initiative to legalize the medical use of marijuana and other controlled substances.)
• Alan Carter McLemore (A list subscriber says the former Texas lawyer, disbarred and incarcerated for growing his own medical marijuana, is being transferred to a halfway house, and might be paroled in June.)
• 7 Officers Cleared In Shooting (The Houston Chronicle says a Fort Bend County grand jury refused to indict seven Houston police officers Monday for the death of Derek Jason Kaeseman, an unarmed man shot 14 times while trying to flee police. The chase started when two officers saw what appeared to be a drug deal between two men. A passenger bailed out before the chase, but the medical examiner's report said the passenger was a male prostitute.)
• Subtle As A Frying Pan (Syndicated columnist Jacob Sullum, in The Pioneer Press, in St. Paul, Minnesota, says public discussion of the drug issue is rife with messages that subvert themselves.)
• Details of cop's alleged drug deals revealed (The Chicago Sun Times says an FBI agent testified in federal court Monday that Chicago police officer Joseph Miedzianowski, a 22-year veteran of the force, sold up to 330 pounds of crack cocaine to one drug dealer during an 18-month period.)
• Ex-Park District Cop Acquitted In Shakedown (The Chicago Tribune says a federal jury on Monday exonerated Andre Williams, formerly with the Maywood Park District Police Department, of charges he shared in a $2,000 payoff from a purported drug dealer in 1996. The acquittal came despite audio tape and videotape of the payoff, the cooperation of Williams' partner, and the fact that the purported drug dealer was an undercover agent.)
• The Mandatory-Sentencing Mistake (Washington Post columnist William Raspberry says he was unmoved by the argument of Vincent Schiraldi, director of the Justice Policy Institute, who discovered that during the last 10 years, New York State has increased spending on prisons by very close to the amount by which it has decreased spending on higher education. What persuaded Raspberry that the drug laws constitute poorly thought-out policy, misguided toughness and bad law was Schiraldi's story about Tom Eddy, a classmate of Schiraldi's at the State University of New York in Binghamton who was arrested in 1979 and served 13 years of a 15-to-life sentence for selling two ounces of cocaine.)
• NJ Supreme Court Prohibits "Electronic Roadblocks," Curbs Police Power, Upholds Privacy (The ACLU News says a landmark New Jersey Supreme Court ruling earlier this month prohibits police from indiscriminately searching for personal information about innocent motorists by entering their license-plate numbers into mobile data terminals in police cars. "This is the first time that a court has recognized that a government official's search of a government database might violate statutory or constitutional privacy protections," said Eric Neisser of Rutgers Law School.)
• Millions At Stake; Drug Tax Refunds Igniting Debates (The Wilmington Morning Star, in North Carolina, says the state has collected $40 million since 1990 from people accused of dealing illegal drugs. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the state's "drug tax" was unconstitutional, but the state attorney general's office has so far prevented any of the victims from getting any money back.)
• Board OKs Plan To Test Athletes For Drugs (The Charlotte Observer, in North Carolina, says the Gaston County School Board gave the first round of approval Monday night to testing high school athletes for drugs, alcohol and, possibly, steroids. Board member Kemp Michael said, "The ultimate purpose of this is to use athletics as a way to keep them in the fold." The cost will be $135 per student, or $4,000 to randomly test 10 percent of the county's high school athletes and cheerleaders.)
• Judge Rules Scott Chief Planted Fake Drugs To Justify Cash Found (The Advocate, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, says Scott Police Chief Jerry Carpenter planted fake cocaine in a car to justify seizing $55,000 found during an interstate traffic stop.)
• Biology Of Behavior - The Possible Link Between Genes, Attention Deficit (Newsday discusses some of the research presented to a panel of scientists convened by the federal government earlier this month to discuss the state of medical research about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD.)
• Biker slain in restaurant (The Montreal Gazette says Lawrence Bellas, 38, a Hell's Angels associate, was shot and killed yesterday by a hit man in a busy east-end restaurant, where two innocent diners were also wounded. Police said there was little doubt Bellas was another victim in the continuing war between the Hell's Angels and the Rock Machine for control of the illicit-drug trade.)
• Colombia Police Make Record 66-Pound Heroin Bust (Reuters says that with Tuesday's haul, Colombian authorities have seized 836 pounds of heroin this year, a 75 percent increase from 1997. Colombia began to produce and export heroin from about 1991, and officials now estimate Colombia has some 12,000 acres of illegal opium poppy plantations.)
  Bytes: 98,800 Last updated: 1/6/99
  

  Wednesday, December 23, 1998:

• Wounded laborer seeks city settlement (The Oregonian says Ron Barton of Portland is suing the city and three Portland police officers for nearly $3.5 million, contending police illegally entered his apartment while he was asleep and shot him, crippling his left arm. Barton also alleges in the lawsuit that he was falsely prosecuted because the two officers involved in the shooting conspired with Officer Wayne Svilar, who investigated the incident.)
• Federal charges against Marin Alliance dropped (A list subscriber forwards news from attorneys for the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana.)
• Baltimore Police in Spotlight - Almost everyone agrees that drugs represent the city's biggest hurdle (The Associated Press says the apparent inability of Baltimore, Maryland, to bring its homicide count down below 300 per year, even as other types of violent crime have declined, has thrust a national spotlight on the city's dark side. Baltimore, the nation's 14th-largest city with 650,000 residents, has about 46 homicides per 100,000 people - more than four times the rate such larger cities as New York.)
• Ouch! (A list subscriber forwards a urine-testing joke.)
• RJR Subsidiary Pleads Guilty To Smuggling (The New York Times says a unit of RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. pleaded guilty on Tuesday and agreed to pay $15 million in penalties to settle federal criminal charges stemming from a scheme to smuggle cigarettes into Canada through an Indian reservation in upstate New York. Authorities said the guilty plea, filed in Federal District Court in Binghamton, N.Y., marked the first time that a tobacco company has been convicted of complicity in the shadowy and growing world of international cigarette smuggling.)
• U.S., Mexico Admit Drug War Is Failing (According to a New York Times News Service article in The Chicago Tribune, officials from both the United States and Mexico say an ambitious U.S. effort to help train and equip Mexico's armed forces to pursue drug smugglers is a shambles, as are relations with an ally that Washington has worked intensely to court.)
• U.S. Plan to Help Mexican Military Fight Drugs Is Faltering (A lengthier version)
  Bytes: 34,500 Last updated: 3/4/99
  

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