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1. A Message to our Readers

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO OUR READERS! Dave, Adam, Karynn and Kris would like to wish all of our subscribers a happy and healthy holiday season. A special thanks to all of you who have supported our work this year, during what has been a very promising time for the reform movement. Your help makes our work possible, and in 1999, that work will be more effective and higher-profile than ever.

For those who have not gotten around to sending a check, or who are considering sending an additional contribution before the year ends, please note that DRCNet will send a free copy of Shattered Lives to persons who donate $35 or more, or a copy of the video, Sex, Drugs and Democracy to persons donating $75 or more. And while we won't be able to get them to you until after New Year's, we will send them to anyone on your list who could use a little education on the destructiveness of the Drug War (Shattered Lives) or on the benefits of a freer society (Sex, Drugs and Democracy).

In any case, in this time of giving and renewal, please consider sending what you can to support DRCNet, and by so doing, promote the cause of a Drug War Free millennium!

To donate, please visit our web form at https://www.drcnet.org/cgi-shl/drcreg.cgi and wire in your credit card donation on our secure form or print out a copy to mail in with your check or money order -- or just send them to DRCNet, 2000 P St., NW, Suite 615, Washington, DC 20036. Donations to the Drug Reform Coordination Network are not tax-deductible, and are the primary source of support for our legislative programs. If you wish to make a tax-deductible contribution, please make your check payable to the DRCNet Foundation. (If the URL above doesn't work, try http://www.drcnet.org/cgi-shl/drcreg.cgi instead -- in this case we recommend sending your check or credit card donation in by mail rather than online, as the transmission will not be encrypted.)

Thanks again, and Happy Holidays!

2. Livingston Out as Speaker, Drug Warrior Hastert Set to Take Gavel

In the wake of last week's resignation of House Speaker-elect Bob Livingston, the latest casualty of the circus maximus that has become our national political scene, J. Dennis Hastert of the 14th district of Illinois looks to have the speakership sewn up. Hastert has been portrayed in the media this week as a "conciliator and a technocrat" (New York Times editorial, 12/22/98), but a closer look, especially in the context of drug policy reform, reveals Hastert to be more of an ideologue.

Hastert was reelected to a sixth term in 1998, receiving 64% of the vote in the suburban/rural 14th district. Prior to his apparent ascension to the speaker's chair, he was Deputy Majority Whip under Tom DeLay. More relevant to drug reformers is Hastert's co-chairmanship of outgoing speaker Newt Gingrich's "Speaker's Task Force for a Drug Free America" (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/040.html#battle). Hastert was also a co-sponsor, with Georgia Rep. Bob Barr, of language in the 1999 District of Columbia Appropriations Bill forbidding the district from spending money to count or certify the results of this fall's medical marijuana initiative, I-59 (see below).

Hastert, who was recently given a 100% favorable rating by the Christian Coalition, was also one of the architects of "super-ban" legislation which would have prevented federal anti-AIDS monies to be distributed by states and localities to any entity that practices syringe exchange, whether or not the federal monies would go directly to such programs. This bill (S. 1959) would have permanently barred the Department of Health and Human Services from lifting the funding ban.

Not surprisingly then, Hastert has indicated that he stands in favor of spending more federal dollars on prison construction, increasing penalties for drug offenses, mandatory minimum sentences, and the death penalty for those convicted of drug smuggling.

Hastert has also served as Chairman of the Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs and Criminal Justice. It was Hastert's subcommittee that sponsored, in September of 1997, hearings titled "Needle Exchange, Legalization, and the failure of the Swiss Heroin Experiments." The hearing, curiously titled as it was held days before the results of the successful Swiss heroin maintenance trial were released, featured testimony from opponents of syringe exchange, included testimony from the sponsors of Switzerland's "Youth Against Drugs" initiative. That initiative would have outlawed syringe exchange and opiate maintenance in Switzerland, and sent that country back down the road of punitive prohibition. The initiative lost 71% to 29% (see http://www.drcnet.org/wol/013.html).

In a press release after the hearings, and just weeks before the referendum would be voted upon, Hastert badly underestimated the level of Swiss support for reform when he said of the opiate maintenance trials, "this is a national security issue, and I can only say that we applaud the Swiss people for understanding the nature of the threat and organizing to oppose the immoral act of giving away heroin and expanding the risk of even higher youth drug use. The Swiss have long resisted forces such as Germany in World War II and Cold War Communism, and they are again resisting a threat to both our cultures when they stand up to this insidious, international effort to legalize these poisons."

Hastert's strong ideological opposition to public health measures such as the availability of sterile syringes and legal access to marijuana for medicinal purposes stands in philosophical contrast to his long-time support for "patients' rights." In 1995, Hastert was the co-author of the Food and Dietary Supplement Act of 1995 (H.R.1951), an FDA reform measure allowing for the communication of "truthful, non-misleading" health information regarding natural supplements to consumers via packaging and advertising, and forbidding the FDA from classifying foods and dietary supplements as "drugs." Such efforts seek to open doors for citizens to become informed about and incorporate natural substances into their health care regimen.

J. Dennis Hastert, a relative unknown on the national political scene, thus steps into the void created first by the resignation of Newt Gingrich and then by the resignation of Bob Livingston. Hastert's other interests appear to include making the Internet "safe for children," as evidenced by his support of both the Communications Decency Act of 1995 (struck down as unconstitutional) and of a similar bill in 1997. In short, Hastert has shown that while he might not share the high profile of some of his better known "social conservatives," he is certainly no stranger to intruding, from his federal perch, into the private lives of citizens, both here and abroad, in an effort to make them conform to his own ideas of morality.

(To learn more about J. Dennis Hastert, including the identities of his major contributors, go to the web site of the Center for Responsive Politics at http://www.crp.org.)

3. Court Hears Case to Decide Fate of D.C. Medical Marijuana Initiative

Scott Ehlers, Drug Policy Foundation, http://www.dpf.org

When District of Columbia voters went to the polls on November 3 to vote on Initiative 59, the D.C. medical marijuana initiative, most of them assumed that their vote would be counted and the results of the election certified.

Unfortunately for District residents, Congress outlawed the expenditure of funds on the vote thanks to the efforts of Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA), the author of the anti-democratic amendment. Now the federal government has to expend more tax dollars in an attempt to defend its actions in federal court.

On December 18, the ACLU (representing Wayne Turner, the sponsor of Initiative 59) and the D.C. Board of Elections argued that the Barr Amendment violated the First Amendment and amounted to viewpoint discrimination by the federal government. According to Graham Boyd, the ACLU lawyer trying the case, the Supreme Court has established that such discrimination is "per se unconstitutional" and therefore the election results must be certified. The Clinton Justice Department defended the Barr Amendment, arguing that "Congress can legislate on anything in regard to the District." Government lawyers also argued that the initiative process was a power delegated to the District by Congress, and "what Congress gives, it can take away."

The Barr Amendment prohibits federal funds from being "used to conduct any ballot initiative which seeks to legalize or otherwise reduce penalties associated with the possession, use, or distribution of any schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802) or any tetrahydrocannabinols derivative." In the August 6 debate to support the amendment, Barr argued that the amendment was necessary because "history dictates to us that these drug legalization people do not give up... All this amendment does is it prevents funds, appropriated funds, from being used in any way to fund a ballot initiative. It strikes not only at the ballot itself, but at using any funds for the development of that ballot, for publicity surrounding that ballot, the whole range of things that these drug legalization people do, over and over and over again."

Barr's stated intention of trying to prohibit the views of "these drug legalization people" became an issue at least twice during the trial. The plaintiffs used the statement as proof that the purpose of the amendment was to discriminate against certain views, and U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts referred to the statement in his cross-examination of the Justice Department. The government eventually admitted that the Barr Amendment did contain a particular viewpoint, but it was constitutional because Congress was simply doing its job of adopting public policy.

Also supporting the amendment was Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), a frontrunner in the battle for Speaker of the House. Described in the press as a "moderate" and by Barr as "a leader in the war against mind-altering drug usage," Hastert said the amendment was necessary to insure the safety of the millions of constituents who visit the nation's capitol. On the House floor he said: "If we want a drug-free America, if we want a drug-free workplace, if we want drug-free prisons and drug-free schools and drug-free highways, we probably ought to have a drug-free capital, to say to prohibit the legalization of marijuana in the District of Columbia, where millions of our constituents come, year in and year out, day in and day out, week in and week out. They ought to be safe."

Surprisingly, the federal government defense lawyers argued that the Barr Amendment did not prohibit the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics from releasing the results of the initiative vote, and that the vote tally should be made public. They also argued, however, that the amendment did prohibit the certification of the election.

Wayne Turner of ACTUP-DC (http://www.actupdc.org) told the Associated Press that the federal government's reasoning is "basically turning an election into a public opinion poll. This is about the right of the people of the District of Columbia to have their votes counted and to have them count."

No date has been set for Judge Roberts' decision, but lawyers are hoping for a ruling within the next two weeks, according to the Washington Post. Stay posted to the Week Online for news on the ruling.

4. Monitoring The Future Survey Released

War against Iraq and impeachment proceedings against President Clinton meant that the latest teen drug use statistics released last week fell beneath the national radar screen. But U.S. Drug Czar General Barry McCaffrey and Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala were on hand December 18 to announce the results from this year's Monitoring the Future Survey, which tabulates the answers from a cross section of 50,000 8th, 10th, and 12th graders each spring in an effort to determine trends in adolescent drug use. The 1998 study from the University of Michigan shows that use of some drugs, including marijuana, tobacco, alcohol, amphetamines, and inhalants has fallen slightly since for the second year in a row. The most significant decline was seen with lifetime marijuana use by 10th graders, which fell 2.7 percent to 39.6 percent in 1997. Lifetime marijuana use by high school seniors fell only 0.5 percent to 49.1 percent. The use of some other drugs like cocaine and heroin has leveled off.

Shalala, McCaffrey, and the study's director, Lloyd Johnston, agreed that the improvements were a modest but hopeful sign that teen drug use, which had increased slowly but steadily in the early 90's, was beginning a general downward trend. All three say the decline in drug use is linked to an increase in the perceived harmfulness of drugs by teens, for which they credit increased efforts by the government to, in the words of Secretary Shalala, "convince our young people that drug use is illegal, dangerous and wrong." General McCaffrey agreed, saying the current drug war strategy of prevention, treatment, and enforcement is working. Currently, about two thirds of the 17 billion dollar Federal drug war budget is spent on enforcement.

But other experts say long-term trends in drug use tell a different story. Lynn Zimmer, Professor of Sociology at Queens College and co-author of the book "Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts: A Review of the Scientific Evidence," told the Week Online, "If we look at the results from this study since it began in 1975, we see a general pattern of rising and falling rates of the use of different drugs over time. It's not clear that anti-drug campaigns have any direct effect on these patterns; in fact, it's obvious that teen drug use trends rise and fall independently of the government and the media."

Sandee Burbank, director of Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse (MAMA), agrees. "Anybody who has been watching these trends knows that drug use comes and goes naturally according to the popularity of a given drug among a given age group," she said. Burbank was critical of the "just say no" approach to drug education favored by the government, because it doesn't give teens the information they need to stay safe if they, or their friends, do experiment with drugs. "What we have to focus more on is getting good educational materials out there to help people make informed decisions about all drugs, legal, illegal, and over the counter. And we have to teach people about the extremely punitive laws that target young people, laws that would take their drivers licenses away if they're caught with any amount of illegal drugs, laws that would deny them scholastic advantages or student loans if they have been caught with an illegal substance."

One of the most consistent figures in the Monitoring the Future Survey has been the perceived availability of drugs by high school seniors. Since 1975, from 80 to 90 percent of 12th graders have ranked marijuana as "easy to get" or "very easy to get." Burbank says these numbers show that years of increased budgets for enforcement, which resulted in more than 640,000 arrests on marijuana-related charges alone in 1997, have failed to keep drugs away from schools and kids. She said, "Putting parents in jail, and all the other draconian methods in place, do not seem to have reduced the availability of these drugs."

Figures from the 1998 Monitoring the Future Survey are available on the web at http://www.isr.umich.edu/src/mtf/.

Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse is on the web at http://www.mamas.org.

For information on ordering Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts, visit http://www.marijuanafacts.org.

Read Adam J. Smith's editorial, "Spin, You Win," on the subject of drug use statistics, from the August 1998 Week Online at http://www.drcnet.org/wol/056.html#editorial.

5. Appalachia: Under the Gun

Paul Lewin, Common Sense For Drug Policy, http://www.csdp.org

In May of this year, the Federal Government designated 65 counties of Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia in the Appalachian Mountain Range, a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA). This means that the DEA, ATF, FBI, IRS, National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Attorney's Office will coordinate with each other, and the local sheriffs, police departments, and DAs to stomp out all forms of drug production, trafficking and use. The designation also comes with a $6 million federal grant as "seed money" to set up the new agency with staff, computer equipment, offices and the typical array of vehicles.

If past experiences are any guide to what the residents of Appalachia can expect, the alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies will set up road blocks on rural roads to perform search and seizure sweeps, armed men in camouflage with automatic weapons will patrol by helicopter, and a small army of undercover narcotics agents will set up local men and women for arrest.

Poverty and Little Economic Opportunity Cited As Justification

The federal government's labeling of 65 counties in 3 states as a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area would seem to imply that violent gangs and Colombian drug cartels were terrorizing millions of residents of Appalachia, necessitating a massive federal response. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

In the official 'Appalachia HIDTA FY 98 - Threat Abstract,' the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) states that Appalachia warrants a federal crackdown because "in this tri-state area financial development is limited, poverty is rampant, and jobs are few. Marijuana has become a substantial component of the local economy, surpassing even tobacco as the largest cash crop. This has contributed to a high level of community acceptance of marijuana production, distribution, and consumption. Many honest local merchants do not recognize signs of illegal drug enterprises and in effect help launder drug proceeds. In such an environment eradication and interdiction efforts are difficult, as is obtaining intelligence, indictments, or an unbiased jury." In other words, people are poor, locals aren't that concerned about residents who are doing this, and people aren't informing on their friends and neighbors to the extent that the government desires.

The economic stress felt by the residents of Appalachia is not adequately described in the ONDCP's "Threat Assessment." In reviewing the latest census data, one quickly notices that these folks aren't just poor, this is one of the most economically deprived regions of America. West Virginia ranks dead-last (50th) for median household income and unemployment (48.6% of the civilian population was unemployed in 1996 - of course, prisoners aren't counted). Kentucky and Tennessee are also in the bottom 10% of the nation for median household income, and they rank 8th and 11th, respectively, in the nation for the highest number of infant deaths per 1,000 live births. In fact the only categories where these three states lead the nation is in their percentage of public aid recipients, their percentage of population living below the poverty line, and in teen pregnancy. Of course, the 65 counties designated as HIDTA, have fared even worse.

The New War on the Poor

In the 1960s, federal officials toured Appalachia and witnessed its tragic poverty. The attention brought to it shocked America, which overall was enjoying an era of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity. Together, the federal government and the people of America vowed to fight a War on Poverty so that all Americans would have an equal opportunity in life. In that era, roads were built, schools provided, and utilities like clean water and electricity reached deep into Appalachia to bring relief. In the 1990s, we live in another era of unprecedented economic prosperity, yet this new War on Poverty has taken an ominous turn, courtesy of the War on Drugs.

Rather than respond to the economic disparity which still plagues most of the region with investment and development, the federal government intends to respond by arresting fathers and mothers (creating a generation of Drug War orphans), seizing family homes, cars and businesses. Rather than small business loans or investment in infrastructure, federal dollars will be spent on guns, prisons and payoffs to informants.

Citizen Observation Groups Can Work

Forewarned is forearmed, or so the saying goes. Gathering together the forces of the U.S. Government to pounce on Appalachia will take time -- perhaps up to an entire year. A lot can happen in one year, and if the citizens of the HIDTA counties exercise their civil right to influence their local government, the states involved can reject federal plans.

In Northern California, residents have turned out to oppose aggressive marijuana eradication, because of the negative community impact it has.

Forming "Citizen's Observation Groups," locals have documented government helicopters violating federal laws on flying altitude, environmental regulations, and endangered species protection, plus they have kept track of illegal search and seizure operations, and how many children have been terrified by the men with face paint and automatic guns. More importantly, by documenting what the government was doing, they have been able to raise awareness within their own communities and present a united front to their local government, which eventually led to some county supervisors voting to reject funding for the program.

(For more information on citizens' efforts to halt federal eradication programs in Northern California, go to http://www.civilliberties.org. Paul Lewin can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].

6. EDITORIAL: Impeach This

Adam J. Smith, DRCNet Associate Director

As the nation holds it collective breath in anticipation of the next wave of absurdity from Washington, the questions are being asked, over and over again, by pundits, reporters and anyone else with an interest in sex, er, politics: "what does all of this mean for the future of our country? To the office of the Presidency? To our system of government?"

As we commoners sit, aghast, and watch the tawdry and partisan proceedings, knowing full well that there is more to come, these have become serious and highly relevant queries. Here we have an institution, the American Presidency, which represents the pinnacle of power in the known universe, disgraced first by the President himself, and now being dragged through the muck by the corrupt denizens of the second most powerful institution in the world, the United States Congress. Our elected representatives to that body could not, of course, take the President to task for his most destructive acts: the auctioning off of the power of the United States Government to the highest bidder in the campaign fundraising game, as on that count they are as guilty as he. And so we are down to sex, and lying about sex, which, it is becoming apparent, many of our legislators do as well. Though not under oath, save perhaps to their spouses.

But when we consider the taxpayer-financed spectacle that these power-hungry cretins are making of our nation, we must be careful to remember that the future of the country is a wholly different matter than the future of either the Democratic or the Republican party. Look carefully, if you will, at our Constitution. Nowhere, you will note, does that proud document specify anything about a two-party monopoly on power. And although both parties have done their best to institutionalize the status quo through difficult ballot-access requirements and acts of political perversion performed on large corporate donors, there is nothing in either our laws or our traditions that assures the existence or either party. If anything, we are all watching the best argument against it.

And the parties, in addition to providing ample rationale for their demise, are also unwittingly providing the means. One by one over the past year, in an effort to make their constituencies more relevant in the choosing of a standard-bearer, the majority of states have opted to move their primaries to dates earlier on the political calendar. Now, with all of the fighting to the front of the line accomplished, both parties will have chosen their next presidential candidate in March of 2000, almost eight full months before the actual election.

This stroke of genius will have two significant ramifications. First, and most obviously, by shortening the primary season, the parties have made it nearly impossible for any but the most well-financed front-runner to win the nomination. That insures that the candidates will be insiders in the extreme, people with well-oiled connections, party support, and established political organizations behind them. Which leads us to the second point: in a political cycle wherein both the donkeys and the elephants have made asses of themselves, how excited, exactly, will the American people be about the prospect of a choice between two men (yes, they will be men... this is still Washington, D.C.) who personify the sordid mess that appears before us now on C-Span and the evening news?

Given this, and an interminable eight month campaign, couldn't we assume that Americans, including those who are stuck covering the campaign in the media, will have both the time and the inclination to look for an interesting alternative? And isn't it conceivable that the right individual could come to the fore (General Colin Powell springs immediately to mind), with a message that would capture the large runoff Republican vote, some of the moderate Democratic vote, and inspire large numbers of people who would not have otherwise voted? Given that potential base, the message would likely be economically conservative -- with an eye toward creating real opportunity for people and reigning in corporate power by disentangling money from government; as well as socially libertarian - reasserting the liberty of the individual to make personal choices without being controlled or persecuted by the state. Sort of Libertarian Light.

In this scenario, the American people could, for the first time in living memory, elect a leader from outside of the stagnant cesspool of the major parties. At the least, given a strong effort to recruit statewide candidates behind a well-known national ticket, we could see a significant number of governorships and Congressional seats stripped from both parties.

In 1992, Ross Perot, wealthy and steadily showing himself to be insane, proved that at least 18% of the American people would vote for a cucumber if they knew who the candidate was, and he offered an alternative to the two major parties. And in 1998, Jesse "The Governor" Ventura rode the reform party's ballot access in Minnesota to win the state's highest office on a policy platform very much like the one described above. Many of the people who voted for Ventura had previously given up on the system, or had never voted before. Many others cast their ballot in sheer defiance of the establishment candidates who had publicly ridiculed the idea of "wasting votes" on one who was not a member of their political club.

What Ventura's victory showed is that there is at least a plurality, if not a majority of potential voters who yearn for something more real than professional politicians, addicted to power and disdainful of sovereignty of the individual. There are Americans, lots and lots of Americans who, dared to do it, will think, and even vote outside the proverbial box. The behavior in recent months of our elected leaders shows that they do not take this threat seriously. But given the traps they have set for themselves, they might very well find that the folly is theirs.

There is, you see, the potential for a good result to come of this madness. The Republicans and the Democrats have become so alike in their corruption, in their arrogance, in their disdain for their constituents as to have become joined as one at the heart. And in the blindness born of their power-lust, they are unable to see that in gouging at the jugular of the co-sanguine other, they are bleeding themselves to death. It must be remembered, when contemplating the current mess, that the fortunes of the United States are wholly separable from the fortunes of the current political establishment. That separation, in fact, might be vital to the survival of the nation.

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