The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue #28, 2/6/98

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1. Attention College and Grad Students: DRCNet invites you to plug in to DRC U-NET

Troy Dayton, American University DRC U-NET Coordinator

Plug in, stand up, speak out!

In almost every successful reform movement of the last fifty years, both here and abroad, college students have been a major impetus for change. Whether in ending US involvement in the Vietnam War, standing up for democracy at Tiananmen Square in China, or protesting the military dictatorship in Burma, students have provided the noise that put the ideas of reform organizations into action.

Our situation makes us uniquely qualified to make a huge impact on U.S. drug policy. We generally don't work nine to five, we constantly interact with thousands of other open minded students, and we have immediate access to professors who see how self-destructive our current attitudes and policies are and are often willing to help us try to change them. Also, it wasn't so long ago that we were in high school, so we know first hand that all the money poured into the drug war, and all of the lives the war has cost, have not affected the availability of drugs to teenagers. Therefore, we more than anyone else, can retort the drug warriors claims that their war is protecting kids.

The drug war will not end until campuses erupt. No matter how many full-time people work on this issue, major changes won't crystallize until students get active. Also, we have two things in 1998 that no other movement has ever had: a massive college population, and free access to the Internet!

That is why DRCNet is starting DRC U-NET, a discussion group for campus activists. Here is our chance to share ideas and spread the word.

Do you ever wonder how to deal with people who don't take your ideas seriously? Are you looking for ways to increase awareness and activism on your campus? Do you have a campus reform group that you would like to make more effective? Do you have a project that students from around the country can help you with? Are you interested in legislation that directly affects campus drug policy? Do you have experience that others might benefit from? Do you want to start a drug policy reform group, but are afraid or don't know how?

Do you want to meet other drug policy activists from all across the country? Around the world?

These are the kinds of things that can happen when you plug into DRC U-NET. Let's say that you or your organization has an activist project where you need letters and/or phone calls made. How many do you think will call or write from your school? 20, maybe 30? What if over a thousand college students received your message about calling and writing? Do you think that would help? DRCNet has nearly 200 college campuses represented among our subscribers, including some of the most successful activists in the country. Wouldn't you like to have the benefit of their experience? With these kind of numbers as a start, we have an immediate opportunity to activate a large portion of America's college students against this pointless war. We will use this connection to significantly increase both our size and effectiveness in generating mass involvement. Information that gets shared on DRC U-NET will also give The Week Online better information about what is happening on college campuses. That means that news from your campus will get out to thousands of reform-minded people.

This is a war on young people and it's time for young people to put some action behind the ideas of doctors, lawyers, and full time lobbyists. Let's let the drug warriors know that this never-ending war is putting our peers in jail cells and coffins and that we won't stand for it any longer. 1997 was a huge year for drug policy reform, both at home and around the world. Let's keep that momentum going by getting college campuses active. As the millennium approaches, our generation, the first to have grown up on the Internet, will use the power of technology and the strength of our ideas to change the world in very significant ways. SIGN UP to DRC U-NET TODAY!

TO JOIN the DRC U-NET discussion list, e-mail us at [email protected] with the words "SUBSCRIBE U-NET" in the subject of your message. (Activation of the mailing list has been delayed a couple of days for technical reasons, but we will subscribe you and send you instructions as soon as it goes on.)

NOTICE: DRC U-NET is a national conversation among students (and interested faculty) about changing harmful policies. It is not a forum to discuss growing tips, promote drug use, or facilitate illegal transactions. If anyone decides to post messages that are inappropriate to a policy/activism forum, they may be removed from the list.

2. ALERT!!! Update -- Johnnie Mae Brown

Last week we told you about Ms. Johnnie Mae Brown, who was recently arrested at Kennedy Airport and incarcerated in the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women for fleeing court-mandated drug treatment, in 1972! If you missed last week's Week Online, you can find this horrifying story at http://www.drcnet.org/rapid/1998/1-30.html#respond.

While many of you called or wrote, we need a much larger response in order to free Ms. Brown and allow her to get back to her home, her children, her job at the New York City Human Resources Administration, and her volunteer service working with recovering addicts. As we mentioned last week, Ms. Brown is the very model of the successful former addict, reintegrated as a productive member of society. Now the State of New Jersey is destroying everything for which she has worked so hard. WE MUST NOT LET THIS HAPPEN! We also have new information on how best to make your voice heard in support of Ms. Brown.

HOW TO HELP: Johnnie Mae's fate lies in the hands of the New Jersey Parole Board. She will have a "special" hearing, which is not yet scheduled, during which a decision can be made to release her, or to refer her case to a regular parole board hearing. Should the parole board refuse to release her, there is the possibility of asking for a hearing in state court on compassionate grounds.

DRCNet is asking you to write to the parole board on Ms. Brown's behalf. However, it is important to keep in mind that the parole board hasn't done anything to victimize Johnnie Mae (yet). And, since her fate is in their hands, letters should be thoughtful and informative without being confrontational. The idea is that a parole board which has been educated and softened will be more likely to release her. A parole board which feels cornered and angry might keep her longer. The parole board should be encouraged to hold hearings for Johnnie Mae a.s.a.p. so that she can get back to work and home and friends.

N.J. Parole Board, P.O. Box 862, Trenton, NJ 08628

Johnnie Mae Brown, #98-29, c/o Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women, P.O. Box 404, Clinton, NJ 08809-4404.

Thanks for your attention and support.

3. The Week Online Seeks California Correspondent

Due to the high volume of drug policy (especially medical mj) news out of California, The Week Online is looking for one or two volunteers with the ability to cover the issue for us out there. You must be able to write concise accounts in journalistic format (we can help you to find sources of information) and be able to contact and get quotes from experts and players in the state (again, we can help you with contact info if needed). Perhaps you are involved in the ongoing efforts there and would like to get the story out to thousands of interested people nationally. (Believe it or not, the press outside of CA is not covering this at all.) Or perhaps you are an aspiring journalist who would like to get some great experience while building up a portfolio of published materials. Either way, send an email to [email protected] and please be prepared to provide a writing sample of some kind. Thanks!

4. 200 March in Protest of Installation of Surveillance Cameras in Washington Square Park

On February 1, 200 New York City residents, angered over Mayor Giuliani's installation of surveillance cameras in Washington Square, marched on the venerable park, centerpiece of New York's fabled Greenwich Village, to voice their concerns. Surveillance cameras are already in use in some public housing projects in the city, and Mayor Giuliani, citing a decrease in crime in areas where the cameras have been installed, says the city plans to expand the program.

"We are at a point where we now have many more requests for cameras than we have cameras, or than we're ready yet to do, because we want to make sure we're doing this in a careful way" Giuliani told the New York Times. Speakers at the rally, however, had serious concerns. Tonya D. McClary, director of research at the NAACP legal defense fund, said, "once you give them the O.K. to do this, they will take it and run with it. We've pretty much allowed them a green light to put these cameras in parks, public schools, in the subway system and in city buses. Soon, none of us will have a place where we can sit back and be ourselves." The protest was organized by the New York Civil Liberties Union.

5. Conversation with Norman Siegel

Norman Siegel, Executive Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and organizer of the Washington Square Park protest, spoke with The Week Online.

WOL: Mayor Giuliani is obviously a strong supporter of the use of video surveillance of public spaces as an appropriate means of fighting crime. You obviously don't agree.

NS: We (the NYCLU) oppose surveillance cameras in Washington Square Park because it raises the Orwellian spectre of Big Brother government spying and compiling video records of the free movements of citizens.

WOL: Have you gotten any response from the city to your opposition?

NS: As a result of the protest we've gotten verbal assurances from the city that these tapes will be erased after seven days, assuming that no criminal activity is revealed. We haven't seen that in writing. But some would say, and I don't disagree, that that's not enough -- that it's naive to think that the tapes won't at some point be used improperly.

WOL: The Giuliani administration has been very vocal about their intention to conduct a "zero-tolerance" war on drugs in their second term. The cameras in the park are a very visible part of that campaign. What are your thoughts on that?

NS: Well, the primary concern of the NYCLU in this case is certainly the cameras themselves, and all that they imply. But as you begin to examine the lengths to which the police must go to control even the smallest of marijuana transactions, which is the specific purpose of the cameras in Washington Square, you come to the point where you must begin to ask whether this is the way we ought to be spending our resources. The drug war, it seems, leads almost inevitably down this path.

WOL: Surveillance cameras were first used in New York in public housing projects. How did that come about?

NS: The cameras were first installed in the Grant Houses in Harlem in July of '97. There was a tenant meeting, of sorts, put together by the city. The problem was that that meeting wasn't publicized -- no notices were put under doors, none of the normal steps were taken to insure that people knew about it -- and only 75 people were in attendance out of about 4,000 residents. Somewhere between thirty and forty percent of those in attendance were opposed to the plan, and based upon that single meeting, with no other input, and no safeguards in place for how the videos would be used, the plan went into effect.

WOL: So, in your opinion, the decision-making process itself is inadequate.

NS: Absolutely. First, whether we're talking about public housing or public parks, why hasn't the public been more involved in decisions about a project with such disturbing constitutional implications? Under what circumstances can the government videotape its citizens? Where can this be done? Where can't it be done? What safeguards does the public have against abuse? The city hasn't been very forthcoming about these issues.

WOL: It sounds as if there are few established limits on the public use of video technology by the police.

NS: Not specifically, no. And the impact of that type of legal environment may already be upon us. We have received information from sources within the New York City Police Department that there are unmarked vans patrolling three different neighborhoods, Far Rockaway and Jamaica in Queens, and East New York, and that they are videotaping people they think are 'suspicious'. The New York Times recently asked police officials about this and the answer they got is that the officials 'could not confirm' that such activity was in fact taking place.

WOL: So what's your next step?

NS: The NYCLU plans to investigate this. If we can't get satisfactory answers from the city we'll go down and check out those neighborhoods ourselves. If, in fact, the police are secretly videotaping citizens, we would likely take legal action under the theory that if police can't keep pictures or fingerprints of citizens who have not been charged with a crime, they certainly can't keep video records of the free movement of the citizens of a free society. Ironically, the alleged rationale for videotaping the public is security, but I would argue that the implications of such intrusive government action makes all of us less secure in very fundamental ways.

For information on the New York Civil Liberties Union, visit http://www.aclu.org/community/newyork/ny.html or call (212) 344-3005.

6. Enormous Drug-Corruption Scandal Rocks Scotland Yard

A team of internal investigators has found that up to 250 high-ranking members of some of Scotland Yard's most elite squads have been working with major drug dealers and criminal organizations. Suspects include both active officers up to the rank of detective chief inspector, and retired officers up to the rank of commander, with most having between 10 and 25 years on the force, according to The Independent. That paper also cites Sir Paul Condon, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who said that the vast profits available in the narcotics trade meant that officers could collect bribes of fifty to eighty thousand pounds to "subvert a single job" or to "recycle drugs".

The offenses allegedly committed by the officers include the destruction of evidence, stealing drugs and re-selling them to other dealers, and protecting criminal operations by passing along information and derailing investigations.

7. Canadian Activists to Strike Another Blow in Fight for Medical Marijuana

Mark Brandl for DRCNet

A group of Ontario activists have recently decided to tackle the problem of patient access to medical marijuana through the creation of cannabis buyers clubs (CBC's) throughout the province, and they haven't kept it a secret. A letter sent January 30th to federal authorities explains the intentions of the group to open CBC's and asked for a legal exemption from the law. The letter gives authorities until February 12th to respond at which point the group plans to start distributing marijuana to patients with a prescription regardless of permission from the government.

The group, consisting mainly of young hemp entrepreneurs, met in January in Toronto to organize around two central goals in the struggle for legal access to marijuana. The first goal is to give sick patients who have a doctor's prescription marijuana so they don't have to deal in the black market. The second goal is to make the creation of the CBC's such a public display of civil disobedience that Canadian officials will be forced to confront the issue. "We would prefer to do this legally, but failing that, civil disobedience will be the path to take," stated long time marijuana reform activist and law professor Alan Young in a January 30th interview with the Ottawa Citizen.

There is reason to believe this effort can be successful. An Ontario court recently decided Terry Parker, who suffers from epilepsy, has a constitutional right to grow and administer marijuana. Although the ruling is viewed as a specific exemption for Parker only, these activists hope the decision can be applied to others in need of medical marijuana.

This most recent action follows several major initiatives in Canada to allow chronically ill and dying patients access to medical marijuana. In December a team of doctors and lawyers were turned down in an application filed with Health Canada to allow Jean Charles Pariseau, who suffers from AIDS, access to a legally sanctioned supply of marijuana to smoke for his nausea. A CBC in Vancouver, the Cannabis Compassion Club, is now up and running as well.

According to Chris Clay, proprietor of Hemp Nation, web site, the future is a bright one for medical marijuana in Canada. "Whether change comes from the government or the courts, it seems Canada's medical marijuana users will finally have a legal supply sometime in the new year. In the meantime, underground buyers clubs will fill the need and keep the pot flowering."

(Hemp Nation has a very informative web site online at http://www.hempnation.com.)

8. Mexican Unit Conducting Inquiry into Disappearances Found to be Infiltrated by Drug Traffickers

An investigation being conducted by the Mexican government into the disappearances of over 90 people, including some Americans, in and around Ciudad Juarez, was reportedly infiltrated and compromised by at least one police officer with ties to drug traffickers. Ciudad Juarez is a known crossroads for the multi-billion dollar drug trade which flows through Mexico. The discovery was made by the Mexican Attorney General's office during an investigation into the execution-style murder of the alleged corrupt officer, federal police commander Hector Mario Valera.

The investigative unit itself was formed in response to pressure from people whose loved ones were among the missing. The Association for Relatives of the Disappeared complained that the original investigations were chaotic or corrupt, according to the New York Times.

9. EDITORIAL: Surveillance, Corruption, and the War on Drugs

This week in New York, 200 people came to Washington Square Park to protest the installation of two surveillance cameras there, which are to be monitored on an ongoing basis by police. The cameras mark Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's latest attempt to impose his will and control over a drug market which has, for over 60 years, made a mockery of all attempts to enforce it out of existence. Giuliani's recent ascension into the ranks of "up and comer" on the national political scene makes it all but certain that such tactics, employed in the cause of New York City's much talked-about escalation in the War on Drugs, will go neither unnoticed nor unduplicated by mayors of cities around the country, quaint concerns over civil liberties notwithstanding.

In the midst of a war, especially a war fought primarily at home against an enemy which integrates itself as seamlessly into the day to day life of our cities as the drug trade, it is oftentimes difficult to remember, much less take seriously, the admonitions of our founding fathers against the ceding of excessive powers to the State. Rudy Giuliani, for instance, former prosecutor, cannot seem to grasp the unease with which people regard the expansion of such powers. "Freedom is authority" he once said, without a hint of irony, before going on to explain that society must be kept under control by government in order to make it safe for people to exercise their liberties. Perhaps Mr. Giuliani has not read Orwell. Or, more disturbingly, perhaps he has.

But despite the eerie silence which has marked our society's headlong rush toward the day when all public activity (and here we use the word "public" in the broadest possible sense) will be closely monitored and controlled by authorities whose mission it is to protect us from consensual drug transactions, the warning signs abound. In late January, 44 armed officers of the state of Ohio were arrested and charged with corruption. Their alleged acts included stealing and re-selling drugs, protecting criminal gangs and obstructing investigations. Around the same time, 250 high-ranking officers of Scotland Yard, one of the world's most respected and loyal forces, were alleged to have committed essentially the same offenses on a larger scale. The week before that, the Tory Party in England was accused of accepting a donation of more than a million dollars from a known drug trafficker. And in America, questions still abound regarding connections between Nicaraguan drug traffickers, the CIA, and the Bush administration. These are but a few in a long line of Prohibition-related corruption cases which date back to a time when the prohibited intoxicants came in bottles, rather than vials.

The Drug War, like all Prohibitions of popular goods, presents a singularly dangerous double-edged sword. On the one side, its enforcement demands an expansion and accumulation of powers in the hands of agents of the state, and of the state itself. These powers, eagerly sought and greedily expanded, are predicated on the enforcement of a set of laws which are said to represent the last line of defense between a civilized society and an imponderable abyss. On the other, the lucrative markets which are created by the policy are among the most corrupting influences ever encountered in the history of governance. And corruption itself, once ensconced in the culture of power, is not limited to its original terms. Rather it infects the very essence of leadership, blurring lines and undercutting principles, until there are no rules left which are unimpeachable in the quest to maintain authority and increase the wealth of the infected. It is an explosive and a worrisome mix. And most worrisome of all, perhaps, is that the siren song of the prohibitionist rhetoric is so seductive that even the free citizens of America are lured to devalue their liberties, along with the wisdom handed down to them by their storied founders.

Politicians, by their very nature, know well the allure of the sirens. "Trust us" they call, "and we will protect you." But sirens never change. And following their voices in search of soothing security brings us ever-closer to the jagged rocks of totalitarianism. Prohibition insures that the hands into which we are placing our liberties are ever more likely to get dirty. There are, in the world, a few people who are not corruptible at some price. But in determining the wisdom of handing over our freedoms to the state, we ought not assume its agents to be among them.

Adam J. Smith
Associate Director

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