Thursday, December 31, 1998:
The NORML Foundation Weekly Press Release (New Zealand Health Committee Advocates Relaxing Marijuana Laws, Finds Moderate Use Harmless; Marijuana May Offer Protection Against Tumors, Research Shows; Maine Will Decide Medical Marijuana Question In '99; New California A.G. Says Legalizing Medical Marijuana Will Be A Priority)
Lockyer Submits Budget Proposal (According to an Associated Press article in the San Jose Mercury News, California Attorney General-elect Bill Lockyer says he wants to make Proposition 215 work. "That means cooperating with local communities if they have different approaches. So San Francisco would be different than Kern County," he said.)
Woody's Weakness; Woody's Strength (According to the San Jose Mercury News, actor and hemp activist Woody Harrelson admitted to being a cannabis consumer to the Los Angeles Times Magazine but revealed that he didn't know the difference between addiction and dependency.)
Foster Care Drug Policy Is Focus of Reform Plan (The Los Angeles Times says its May investigation into the overprescribing of psychiatric medications to foster children in California is causing judges, psychiatrists and government officials to develop an unprecedented plan to prevent such abuses.)
'Mob' Attack On Cops Yields Riot Charges (The Arizona Daily Star says four police officers found themselves surrounded by an "angry mob" Tuesday afternoon when interrogating a man they suspected of smoking marijuana near a southside park.)
Drug-Testing Policy Would Be Far-ranging (The Tulsa World says education officials are pushing for Drumright to be the first school in the Tulsa area with a random drug-testing policy for students involved in all extracurricular activities. If the proposal is approved at a February school board meeting, it would affect more than 80 percent of students in grades 6 through 12, including those in organizations such as the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Science Club. Northeastern Oklahoma schools in Commerce, Colcord and Kansas already test student athletes. "To me, that's not sending out the right message," said Drumright Superintendent Roxie Terry. "I want this to say we care about everybody. We don't want to leave anyone out.")
High On Hemp (A fashion article in the Boston Globe says the Hempest, a boutique on Newbury Street in Boston, has thrived for the last three years selling clothing, accessories, and beauty products made of hemp. What's the store's cachet? Like a lot of things in fashion, it has a nuance of naughtiness. Some frequent the shop as a political statement. Others appreciate that hemp doesn't have pesticides in it. And a few favor hemp because - it's fashionable.)
Murder Rates Drop In US Cities (The Associated Press says murder took a holiday in most major American cities in 1998. The theories AP gives for the decline include the waning crack cocaine trade - but it doesn't explain why the decline in murders would come more than a decade after the peak in cocaine's popularity.)
Crime Down, Reasons Up (A staff editorial in the Chicago Tribune says the decline in murder and other crime is undeniably good news. It would be even better news if the nation managed to cut through the pet theories and self-serving explanations and actually learned something from its success. The theory that the crack market has settled into a less-lethal, business-as-usual mode does not satisfy law-and-order professionals, nor does it explain why all kinds of crime, violent and non-violent, from rape to car theft, are trending down.)
A Holiday Gathering Behind Jail's Walls (The Baltimore Sun covers a Christmas party for 150 inmates at the Women's Detention Center in downtown Baltimore. Darlene Green, who is awaiting trial on a drug conspiracy charge, won't let her two sons and two daughters visit during the rest of the year because they are barred from making contact, separated by a metal screen. But on this day, "I can touch my children," Green said. LaMont W. Flanagan, commissioner of the city detention center, said "Children miss their mothers, which further contributes to juvenile delinquency.")
Drug-Study Subjects Given Hallucinogen Without Warning (According to an Associated Press article in the Seattle Times, the Boston Globe said today that researchers with the National Institute of Mental Health at Bethesda, Maryland, who were trying to find ways to treat schizophrenia gave more than 100 healthy people ketamine, or "Special K" - supposedly a powerful hallucinogen and "date-rape" drug - without fully informing them that the drug could potentially produce psychotic episodes.)
Drug Study Ethics Questioned (A different Associated Press version)
Drug Studies Are Questioned (The original Boston Globe version)
Report: Drug Tested Without Disclosure (The UPI version)
War On Drugs, War On Women (The Winter 1998 issue of On The Issues magazine examines several ways in which the war on some drug users has been particularly harmful to women. Since 1986, the number of women in prison has increased by 400 percent For black women the increase is 800 percent. In the drug war, women's concerns have historically been ignored, dismissed, or exploited. Women often incur long sentences because they refuse, or are unable, to give prosecutors evidence about their husband's or boyfriend's crimes and connections. Indeed, a 1997 review of over 60,000 federal drug cases by the Minneapolis Star Tribune showed that men were more likely to sell out their women to get a shorter sentence than vice versa. The average first-time, non-violent drug-sales offender sentenced in the federal system receives a 10 year jail term, more than twice as long as sentences given the average rapist, and just 18 percent shorter than the typical manslaughter sentence.)
Marihuana Decriminalization Supported By NAC Grads (A translation of an article in Le Monde, in France, says a group of graduating students at the National Administration College - which produces the country's ruling elite - reached the same conclusion, that the laws governing cannabis use should be changed.)
Weekly Action Report on Drug Policies, Year 4, No. 44 (A summary of European and international drug policy news, from CORA in Italy)
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