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(renamed "Drug War Chronicle" effective issue #300, August 2003) Issue #140, 6/9/00
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition" Phillip S. Smith, Editor
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DRCNet is pleased to welcome Phillip Smith, the new principal editor and writer of The Week Online. Phil holds a BA in Political Science, (University of South Dakota, 1979), an MA in Latin American Studies (University of Texas at Austin, 1989), and served as an editor at the magazine Covert Action Quarterly from 1993-1996. Phil has done freelance reporting on Central American and Mexico since the 1980s, and has had articles published in In These Times, the Guardian (now defunct), New Politics and many other publications. He is also a long time drug policy activist, having helped to found one of the first NORML chapters in the state of South Dakota. He has also been involved in drug reform efforts at the local in Austin, TX and Washington, DC. Phil can be reached at [email protected].
2. Drug War McCarthyism in Syracuse Efforts by two Syracuse, NY area concerned citizens to win appointments to the Syracuse-Onondaga Drug and Alcohol Abuse Commission have ignited a local firestorm. Dr. Eugene Tinelli, a former Navy commander, is a staff psychiatrist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center's Chemical Dependency Clinic in Syracuse. Nicholas Eyle, of Syracuse, is a freelance photographer with a longstanding interest in drug policy issues. The Onondaga County Legislature's Health Committee thought both men were qualified. The committee last month unanimously approved Tinelli and Eyle to serve on the commission. Then, just hours ahead of the full legislature's meeting to approve the appointments, Tinelli and Eyle came under harsh attack from Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney John Duncan, who persuaded legislative Chairman William Sanford that the men's views made them unfit to serve. Sanford then yanked the resolution that would have put the two on the commission. The reason? Tinelli and Eyle are prominent members of ReconsiDer, a New York drug policy reform organization chartered as an educational non-profit corporation. The 400-member citizens' group defines its mission as: "to effect substantial change in United States drug policy; to promote, support, and engage in open discussion of alternatives to the War on Drugs, to form numerous chapters that challenge citizens and local political leaders to rethink drug policies; and to help enact pragmatic legislation that reduces harm and preserves liberties" (http://www.reconsider.org). This was apparently too much for Duncan, Sanford and their allies. "It's a point of view that's antithetical to the commission's purpose of eradicating drug abuse in this community," Duncan told the Syracuse Herald-American. "If someone wants to promote legalization, there are other places for them to do it." County Legislator Thomas Smith (R-Clay) told the Herald-American that the duo's political views "absolutely" disqualified them from serving on the commission. "This is a community with traditional values," he said. "Part of a of a legislator's job is to appoint people who reflect those values." But Eyle, who serves as ReconsiDer's executive director, argues that the organization does have support in the community. "William Kinne, the guy who nominated us, is a Democrat with Conservative Party endorsements, a ReconsiDer member, and is always reelected," he told DRCNet, "and our advisory board includes plenty of local politicians." The problem, says Eyle, is that "you have a semi-fanatic federal attorney who is a real drug warrior. He knows damn well that to allow someone like me or Gene Tinelli onto the commission will create chaos. Someone will get up and say 47 studies show DARE doesn't work, and then people will be starting to think and then the game's over." Eyle is not optimistic about his and Tinelli's appointments. The Health Committee will meet again on June 13 to reconsider the appointments, but it has also accepted a half-dozen new names hurriedly submitted since Duncan and Sanford's maneuver last month. "We'll lose, that's a foregone conclusion," he said. "We'd like the committee to reaffirm our nominations, but Duncan and Sanford call the shots. They'll outvote us." Still, says Eyle, "this is a win-win situation for us. This is going to get a lot of people thinking. In terms of public opinion, nobody here can figure out the problem with having a couple of people with different opinions on the commission." After all, he notes, "the commission has no real power." As for how Duncan's attempt to blackball the duo is playing out, Eyle says, "He's looking bad for his efforts. This is a very heavy-handed, desperate, last-ditch attempt to preserve the commission intact for General McCaffrey." There seems to be broad local support for that statement. Legislator Kinne, who originally submitted Eyle's and Tinelli's nominations, told the Herald-American that "this absolutely stifles the democratic process. ... These people aren't criminals. ... In fact, from what I understand, Duncan and Tinelli share the same goals. They merely have different approaches." The move to impose orthodoxy has provoked a flood of letters to the editor and an outraged editorial in the Herald-American. The Syracuse paper opined that, "Tinelli and Eyle have been blocked from the drug abuse commission not because they repudiate its goal. They share that goal, but they are locked out because they do not march in lockstep with prevailing opinion on how to accomplish it... The reasons seem to have more to do with politics than policy -- promoting rigid unanimity of opinion and not honest inquiry." Eyle believes the response in upstate New York indicates that public opinion is moving faster and further than is commonly believed. "People in the movement are always saying you can't talk about legalization, you can only talk about needle exchange or medical marijuana, but we've never paid any attention to that," he said. "This is showing that the people are ahead of the politicians, and even ahead of the reform movement."
3. Faint Glimmers of Hope in Texas Texas, the state best known in criminal justice and drug policy circles as the nation's leading executioner and one of its biggest prison builders, may be reaching the end of its rope when it comes to crime and punishment. The state's current "lock 'em up and throw away the key" approach to crime and drugs is now being challenged from some unlikely quarters. On the Mexican border, local district attorneys are refusing to prosecute small drug busts made by federal agents. In a longstanding arrangement, local DAs would prosecute cases deemed too insignificant for busy U.S. Attorneys. Recently, any federal border marijuana bust netting fewer than 50 pounds of marijuana has ended up in the laps of the local DAs. But as of July 1, four of the eight district attorneys along the border will no longer prosecute such cases. A fifth DA, in Laredo, opted out in 1997. The local prosecutors complain that the federal border crackdown is busting their budgets. "We wanted to do our share of fighting the war on drugs," Hidalgo County DA Rene Guerra told the Associated Press, "but now it's too much." "It surprises me that the federal government would think some of the poorest counties in the country would have the resources if they don't have the resources," added El Paso DA Jaime Esparza. Nate Blakeslee, Associate Editor and drug war correspondent for the Texas Observer, told DRCNet that such sentiments are common along the border. "I've talked to judges and county attorneys, and they're fed up," he said. Local prosecutors couldn't come up with exact figures, but Esparza told the Associated Press that his district, the busiest of the four, gets about 500 cases from the feds each year. With federal courts and prosecutors in south and west Texas already swamped -- the number of federal criminal cases there has nearly doubled since 1995 -- chances are that many of the smaller cases will simply be dropped. Meanwhile, some members of the notoriously reactionary Texas legislature are beginning to grumble about the price tag for the state's decade-long imprisonment jag. Despite having spent $1.7 billion to build 94,000 new prison beds during the 1990s, the Texas Department of Corrections is jammed. With a prison population that has increased from 39,000 in 1988 to 150,000 today, the state's 116 prisons and jails are at capacity. Much of that increase is attributable to the war on drugs. In a just released Human Rights Watch study of racial disparities in the drug war (available online at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2000/usa/), HRW associate counsel Jamie Fellner reports that as of 1996, the last year for which national data was available, 28.9 of new admissions to Texas prisons were drug offenders. 70% of those were African American. All told, 69% of Texas inmates were doing time for nonviolent crimes. But Texas officials didn't need Human Rights Watch to tell them that. In late May, even as prison officials and some lawmakers began to push for a new round of prison building, other legislators and the board of Pardons and Paroles began calling for a less harsh approach. Parole board Chairman Gerald Garrett told the Houston Chronicle that the board is looking for better ways to evaluate nonviolent offenders so that more actually make parole. At the same time, the board is under attack for sending parolees back to prison for minor parole and probation violations. State Senator John Whitmire (D-Houston), complaining about the practice, told the Chronicle, "We've got the toughest criminal justice policies in the nation. We've got the toughest penal code. We've got a huge penal system. What we are not doing is having a smart criminal justice system." The Democrats have no monopoly on such criticisms. State Rep. Pat Haggerty, an El Paso Republican who chairs the House Corrections Committee, told the Chronicle the parole board also needs to ease the criteria for achieving parole. Offering a frightening glimpse into Texas political reality, Haggerty explained, "If we had our druthers, everybody would be locked up forever and that would be that. But that's not feasible." There are other faint signals of change on the horizon. Alan Robison, Executive Director of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas, told DRCNet that there is an effort underway among Harris County (Houston) judges to turn one of their courts into a diversionary drug court. "The judges are asking for it because they're running out of money... it's partly sanity and rationality," said Robison, "but mainly money." Indeed, the calculus at work here is economic, not moral. As the Observer's Blakeslee points out, the talk of leniency in the parole system comes in the context of a new push for more prisons. "The legislature got tough five or six years ago," he noted, "and they are just now seeing the shockwave." But Blakeslee also reports rumblings from the open country of West Texas, where, he says, "There's a libertarian streak, the people object to the federalization of policing and to their tax dollars being spent on a failed policy." (The Texas Observer provides in-depth coverage of Texas politics and investigative reporting on issues of interest to DRCNet members. Go to http://www.texasobserver.org to take a look.) Despite these tiny fractures in the Texas imprisonment juggernaut, Blakeslee's optimism is decidedly guarded. The call for leniency and the border DA's refusal to prosecute are "the first two glimmers of hope that I've seen for a long time. Federally funded narcotics task forces are still up and running in all parts of the state."
4. Arizona Initiative Hits Bumpy Ground, But Effort Will Continue The latest in the series of groundbreaking Arizona drug reform initiatives has hit an unexpected rough patch. The original sponsoring organization, The People Have Spoken (TPHS), has pulled out of the effort, as has its most prominent funder, University of Phoenix founder John Sperling. But despite tactical reservations expressed by the original backers, another group has taken up the effort. Plants Are Medicine, led by Phoenix medical marijuana attorney Michael Walz, is now in custody of the more than 100,000 signatures collected by TPHS to meet a July 6 deadline for placing the initiative on the ballot. The group says it will carry the initiative drive on to the November elections. The tactical dispute arose after opponents, most prominently Maricopa County (Phoenix) Attorney Rick Romley, seized on legally ambiguous language in one section of the Drug Medicalization, Prevention and Control Act of 2000, the initiative's official title. The initiative is intended to implement a medical marijuana immunity from prosecution, establish a method of medical marijuana distribution, parole from prison nonviolent drug possession offenders, enact sentencing reforms, and substantially shift the booty from asset forfeitures from law enforcement agencies to drug treatment organizations. The problem language lies in Section 4, Paragraph E, dealing with protections for medical marijuana users. It states that, "The provisions of [Arizona revised statutes dealing with controlled substances] shall not apply to any qualified patient..." Opponents such as Romley jumped on the language, telling the Arizona Republic and anyone else who would listen that it would grant legal immunity to people who sell drugs to children or operate methamphetamine labs. That was ambiguity enough for Sam Vagenas, spokesman for TPHS. Vagenas told DRCNet that with the meaning of the language in dispute and vulnerable to attack, to carry on the initiative now would be "an unnecessary risk." "We would have preferred to not file the signatures this year and instead come back in 2002," he said. "We think that language has vulnerabilities that could create problems and credibility issues for the drug reform movement," he added. But, Vagenas explained, under Arizona law, anyone who signs an initiative petition has the legal right to demand that the petition be filed. Walz and his group did just that, said Vagenas. In order to settle the dispute, "We gave them the petitions and let them file and washed our hands of this initiative." According to Vagenas, meetings with representatives of the big funders resulted in agreement to pull further funding. Now, he says, "TPHS neither supports or opposes the initiative. We are not funding Plants Are Medicine. It's in the hands of the voters." Plants Are Medicine spokesman Walz generally concurs with Vagenas' account, but not his analysis of the situation. "Some medical marijuana patients literally can't wait another two years," he told DRCNet. Although when opponents seized on the language it was enough for TPHS to reconsider, Walz is not greatly concerned. "The opposition is using scare tactics," he argued. "I can't imagine an Arizona judge ruling that a medical marijuana patient has the right to set up a meth lab." For Walz, the fundamental question is simple: "Should sick and suffering people be able to use the best available medicine?" He brushes aside questions about whether the reform effort has been hurt, deciding instead to concentrate on passing the initiative. He is now preparing a press conference for July 6 to celebrate the turning in of the required signatures and to announce the creation of a new web site (http://www.plantsaremedicine.org) to support the fall effort. Although Vagenas is sitting this one out, he will be back, and he remains a believer in the power of the grassroots initiative. "The success of the initiatives represents a turning point in the war on drugs," he says, warming to his subject. "People like David Broder (a Washington Post columnist who has written a book critical of citizen initiatives) are arrogant to believe the voters are stupid. Our premise is voters know what they're doing." And, for Vagenas, the initiatives are crucial: "People can issue white papers and go to conferences until they're blue in the face. All that pales in comparison to winning these initiatives."
5. Political Earthquake Alert: California Drug Reform Initiative Passes First Big Hurdle California voters will break ranks with the war on drugs if they approve a state initiative that has now qualified for the November ballot. The California Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act of 2000 has garnered more than 713,000 signatures, almost 300,000 more than needed. The initiative mandates probation rather than jail for people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, and it would substitute community-based, state-funded treatment programs for jail time. Such programs would include vocational training, family counseling, literacy training and other job skills as well as maintenance therapy. "Treatment is tougher on crime than prison because it addresses the underlying problem," Campaign for New Drug Policies (CNDP) spokesman Dave Fratello told the Orange County Register. "The war on drugs has failed to do anything. Drugs are plentiful, our prisons are full of users and dealers, but nothing has changed. We feel it's time for a new direction." The Campaign for New Drug Policies is the Santa Monica, California-based group that led the ballot drive. The group includes several veterans of the 1996 Proposition 215 medical marijuana campaign. That initiative succeeded with California voters, but has since been nearly nullified by the federal government's unrelenting opposition. There are, however, significant differences between the 1996 effort and this year's initiative. "This is not at all like 215," said CNDP' s Whitney Taylor when asked about the possibility that the current initiative would be emasculated if it conflicts with federal law. "We've drafted this measure much more tightly, keeping current case law in mind the whole time. There's no conflict with federal law at all." Taylor also pointed out that a significant number of state legislators have come out in favor of this year's initiative, including Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) and state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica). "We have major players on board already, which means the legislature is much less likely to try and overturn the initiative," Taylor pointed out. "It also means that, if the program works as it should, we shouldn't have to worry about future funding." The initiative received a potentially significant boost last week with an endorsement from Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell, who is running for the U.S. Senate against Democrat incumbent Dianne Feinstein. "I think treatment for a first offender is far more likely to be helpful than incarceration," Campbell told the San Jose Mercury News. "It's less costly and far more beneficial." Drug warriors wasted no time in attacking the ballot initiative. On June 2, drug czar Barry McCaffrey said, "We're on the verge of having a poison pill inserted into the revolution. I hope California, with its trend-setting ideas, will not let drug courts be dismantled from within." McCaffrey argued that the big stick of possible jail time was needed to force drug users to stop. "If you think you can deal with changing drug addicts without holding them accountable for their behavior, you don't understand the nature of this brain disease," he said. "You have to have a reward and a punishment for people whose chaotic lives are completely out of control." CNDP's Dave Fratello sharply challenged McCaffrey's criticisms. "Instead of dismantling the drug courts, the initiative builds on and expands a statewide system," Fratello told DRCNet. "We are baffled" by McCaffrey's remarks, he added. Fratello concedes that there are differences, but points out that while the initiative has no provisions for short-term "shock" incarceration for probation violators, it does allow for imprisonment for people who don't follow the treatment program. Also, noted Fratello, unlike the drug courts, which demand that defendants sign away all rights to contest rulings, under the initiative, "Every defendant will have the right to counsel and all standard constitutional rights." CNDP has issued detailed responses to such criticisms, available on the CNDP web-site at http://www.drugreform.org/pr060100.tpl. Despite a message as mangled as his syntax, McCaffrey's alarm was a hit with his audience, the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, who were meeting in San Francisco. Drug courts, which number more than 600 in the United States, including 101 in California, currently allow nonviolent offenders to avoid jail if they pass regular drug tests and check-ins with judges. McCaffrey's attack is only the opening salvo in what promises to be a forceful effort to sink the initiative. Law enforcement groups have denounced the measure as a first step toward drug legalization, and California voters are almost surely facing five months of well-worn scare tactics. The bigger unknown is to what degree the initiative will become an issue in the Campbell-Feinstein race or even the fall presidential campaign. The stakes are considerable. "If the measure passes, its impact will be revolutionary," Franklin Zimring, a law professor at the University of California-Berkeley, told the Sacramento Bee. "This is not a sort of incremental step. As a policy experiment, if you consider medical marijuana to be a 1 on the Richter scale, this is a 10." So what can Californians do to detonate that sort of positive earthquake? "We think people should act locally and speak up," said Taylor. "Contact your local officials -- your mayor, the chief of police, members of the board of supervisors. Write letters to the editor. Let your elected officials know that you support the initiative." (Note: Although the mandatory treatment provisions of the California and other initiatives are certainly an improvement over prison sentences, and may make the measures more politically feasible, DRCNet opposes coerced drug treatment in principal and does not support it as anything more than a necessary compromise in some cases. We will explore this issue, and the larger issue of the drug courts, in future editions of The Week Online.)
6. UC San Diego Pulls Plug on Controversial Server: BURN! Group's Hosting of Colombian Rebel Group Site Blamed The BURN! Server at the University of California at San Diego was shut down by university officials on May 31, in the wake of a letter-writing campaign by self-identified Colombian citizens opposed to the FARC (Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces). BURN! had recently hosted an English-language site that translated communiques from the FARC, a peasant-based insurgency that has been at war with the Colombian government for nearly four decades. At a time when the Clinton administration is struggling to push its $1.6 Colombian counterinsurgency/drug war package through the Congress, the action by UC San Diego officials has effectively censored one side of the story. BURN! was one of the few English-language outlets making FARC materials available for public scrutiny. The FARC is internationally recognized as a "belligerent force," and is the primary negotiating partner in peace talks with the Colombian government. One need not be a supporter of FARC to recognize the importance of open access to information to Colombia's peace process, an endeavor at which Congressional drug warriors have been too quick to scoff. (See http://www.drcnet.org/wol/114.html#peaceincolombia for some background on Colombia's mass movement for peace.) The server, operated by students organized into the BURN! Collective, had been in place since 1993, and has been the host for, among other things, a wide variety of web sites and discussion lists related to various insurgencies, including the Mexican Zapatistas, the Tupac Amaru guerrillas in Peru and the East Timor liberation effort. As of June 9th, the server remains down. Visitors to http://burn.ucsd.edu are met with the following message: "To the community of users of the 'Burn' server: The server is down until further notice. The data are still intact and there will be a forwarding address posted when and if the address is changed." In typical Internet style, however, the BURN! Collective has not gone quietly into the night, but has set up shop on another UCSD server. BURN!'s archives can now be read at http://groundwork.ucsd.edu/pipermail/burn-censored/, they can be reached by e-mail at [email protected], and has a list running at [email protected]. For extensive, continuing coverage of the BURN! shutdown, see journalist Al Giordano's Narconews web site at http://www.narconews.com/censored0600.html.
7. Human Rights Watch Releases Major Study of Race and Imprisonment in the Drug War A new study released yesterday by the widely known human rights watchdog group Human Rights Watch promises to generate great interest among the mass media and other interested parties. "Punishment and Prejudice: Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs" charges that the war on drugs has been waged overwhelmingly against black Americans, and includes the first state-by-state analysis of the role of race and drugs in prison admissions. All of the 37 states Human Rights Watch studied send black drug offenders to prison at far higher rates than whites. "These racial disparities are a national scandal," said Ken Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. "Black and white drug offenders get radically different treatment in the American justice system. This is not only profoundly unfair to blacks, it also corrodes the American ideal of equal justice for all." The ten states with the greatest racial disparities are: Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maine, Iowa, Maryland, Ohio, New Jersey, North Carolina, and West Virginia. In these states, black men are sent to prison on drug charges at 27 to 57 times the rate of white men. "Most drug offenders are white. Five times as many whites use drugs as blacks," said Jamie Fellner, Human Rights Watch associate counsel and author of the report. "But blacks comprise the great majority of drug offenders sent to prison. The solution to this racial inequity is not to incarcerate more whites, but to reduce the use of prison for low-level drug offenders and to increase the availability of substance abuse treatment." Among the report's key findings:
8. Opposition to Meth Bill Mounting (from the Drug Policy Foundation's Network News, June 2000, http://www/dpf.org) House bill H.R. 2987, designed to crack down on the production and distribution of methamphetamines, faces growing opposition over some of its key provisions. A number of national organizations have criticized the bill for its sweeping attacks on civil liberties, including the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Even the American Booksellers Association has warned that the legislation could have a chilling effect on free speech. The bill, known as the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act, makes it a federal crime to teach or demonstrate the manufacture of a controlled substance, or to distribute by any means information pertaining to the manufacture or use of a controlled substance. Designed to outlaw online recipes for making methamphetamines, the bill's provisions are so vague that almost any drug-related speech could be subject to federal prosecution. Even harm-reduction advocates who distribute information on how to grow medical marijuana, or how to use heroin more safely, could potentially face up to ten years in federal prison. The bill would also make it a federal crime to directly or indirectly advertise drug paraphernalia. Linking one's web site to a web site that sells drug paraphernalia, or e-mailing a friend the phone number or web address of a store that sells drug paraphernalia could get a person three years in federal prison. Even mentioning in this article that http://www.bongs.com has information about purchasing marijuana water pipes would be a potential federal crime under this legislation. Additionally, the bill would allow federal law enforcement officers to search people's homes while they're not there and copy their computer files without notifying them for months, possibly years, that the police were in their homes. H.R. 2987 would also apply the same stiff mandatory minimums that apply to methamphetamines to amphetamines, as well as appropriating millions of dollars for counter-narcotics operations around the country. Similar legislation has already passed the Senate, and the House Judiciary Committee will likely consider the legislation in June. There is some movement in the House to take out some of the most horrendous provisions of this legislation. Representative Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) is considering offering an amendment to the bill that would remove the portions affecting drug-related speech or at least provide that speech normally protected by the First Amendment be exempted. Representative Bob Barr (R-GA) is considering offering an amendment to the bill that would remove the provisions allowing law enforcement officers to search homes and computers without informing the owners. Provisions similar to those in H.R. 2987 are also in the Senate's version of the bankruptcy bill which was passed in February. The House passed a version which did not contain them. The next step in the legislative process is a conference committee where House and Senate negotiators try to reconcile differences in each bill and produce a final version. Due to an unrelated partisan dispute, conference members have not yet been appointed.
9. DRCNet Potentially Threatened by Meth Bill As currently written, Section 5 (1) of the bill would "prohibit and set penalties for teaching or demonstrating the manufacture of a controlled substance, or distributing information pertaining to such manufacture or use, with intent that it be used for or to further activity that constitutes a Federal Crime, or knowing that the recipient intends to use it for or to further such activity." This language is so broad that DRCNet did not have to go far back in our archives to find articles that would have subjected us to up to ten years in prison! The most recent example, from last week, is "Ecstasy Panic Looms: 1985 All Over Again?" In that article (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/139.html#panic), we quoted psychedelics researcher Rick Doblin on how to avoid "overheating" injury or death while using Ecstasy: "In the short term, the greatest danger (and the cause of most Ecstasy-related deaths) is 'overheating,' caused by the drug's effects on the body's ability to regulate body temperature. According to Rick Doblin of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (http://www.maps.org), overheating deaths represent a tiny minority of Ecstasy users, and the best available numbers back him up. The national medical emergency room survey, DAWN, reports a total of 27 deaths from 1994 through 1998. And, Doblin notes, simple harm reduction measures (drink lots of fluids, move to cool or air conditioned areas) can virtually eliminate that threat." What DRCNet and Doblin have done in the above paragraph -- telling people who might use Ecstasy how to avoid possible harm or death -- would certainly appear to violate the language of the bill, i.e. "...distributing information pertaining to... use..., with intent that it be used for or to further activity that constitutes a Federal crime." Clearly, Doblin was not speaking in the abstract; he was providing practical information for users of Ecstasy, a controlled substance. Thus, he would be in violation of the law if this bill passed, and DRCNet would be for having disseminated his statement. At the least, a federal prosecutor could easily make that argument. A judge or jury might not agree, but not before Doblin and DRCNet would have spent thousands of dollars to avoid prison for writing about drugs. That doesn't even address
the fact that, in this particular case, as well as, for example, instructions
for using clean needles, this legislation appears to value suppressing
speech over saving lives. Please speak out against this unconstitutional
bill!
10. Anti-Ecstasy Bill Filed in Senate A new federal bill would increase prison terms for ecstasy-related offenses and restrict freedom of speech in much the same ways as the afore-mentioned methamphetamine bill. According to the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, S. 2612, the "Ecstasy Anti-Proliferation Act of 2000," sponsored by Sen. Bill Graham (D-FL), with cosponsors Charles Grassley (R-IA), Craig Thomas (WY) and Joseph Biden (D-DE), would do the following:
The Center for Cognitize Liberty and Ethics can be found on the web at http://www.alchemind.org.
11. Canadian Court Upholds Marijuana Law, Dissenting Justice Finds Jail Sentences Violate Canadian Charter of Rights (courtesy NORML Foundation, http://www.norml.org) Vancouver, British Columbia: In a major legal challenge to Canada's marijuana laws, a British Columbia Court of Appeals panel ruled 2-1 last Friday that simple possession of marijuana does not pose a serious or substantial risk, but said legalization should come from Parliament, not the courts. In the majority decision, Justice Tom Braidwood wrote that "I agree that the evidence shows that the risk posed by marijuana is not large... I do not feel it is the role of the court to strike down the prohibition on the non-medical use of marijuana possession at this time. In the end, I have decided that such matters are best left to Parliament." The two appellants, David Malmo-Levine and Randy Caine, were both convicted on marijuana charges. Malmo-Levine was arrested on Dec. 4, 1996 when police found 316 grams of marijuana at his harm reduction club in East Vancouver. Caine was arrested when he was caught smoking a joint with a friend in a parking lot by Royal Canadian Mounted Police on June 13, 1993. Justice Jo-Anne Prowse, in her dissenting opinion, found the provisions of the Narcotic Control Act infringed on the appellants' rights to life, liberty, or security under Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Acknowledging that marijuana may have negative health consequences for the smoker, but does not harm others, the appellants raised a "harm principle" issue which states society can only punish people for activities that harm others. "In my view, the evidence does not establish that simple possession of marijuana presents a reasoned risk of serious, substantial or significant harm to either the individual or society or others," Prowse wrote. "We may all go to the Supreme Court of Canada to seek leave to appeal at the same time," said NORML Legal Committee member John Conroy, Q.C., who represents Malmo-Levine and Caine. "The issue for the Supreme Court of Canada is which camp is right. It's a good judgment because they clearly all say that the possession and use of marijuana doesn't create a serious or substantial risk of harm."
June 9, 6:30pm, San Francisco, CA, The Terence Hallinan Award for Outstanding Leadership, Integrity and Courage, ceremony honoring the first recipient, San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan, sponsored by the medical marijuana community. In the Venetian Room at the Fairmont Hotel, atop Nob Hill, 950 Mason St., food and drink will be provided. June 9, 9:00pm EST, author and medical marijuana activist Peter McWilliams appears on ABC's 20-20 during John Stossel segment toward end of program. June 10, Sacramento, CA, Families Against Mandatory Minimums Regional Workshop, Hawthorn Suites, 321 Bercut Dr. Call (202) 822-6700 for information or to register. Call (919) 441-1444 for hotel reservations. June 10, 8:00pm, Colville, WA, "Benefit to End the Drug War," supporting the November Coalition and Seattle Hempfest. At Cafe al Mundo, 100 S. Main St., featuring reggae bands Planetary Refugees (Colville) and Civilized Animal (Spokane). June 10, 8:00am-10:00pm, Eugene, OR, CIA-Drugs Symposium, featuring researchers Peter Dale Scott, Rodney Stich, Michael Ruppert, Daniel Hopsicker and others. At the Wheeler Pavilion, Lane County Fairgrounds. Call (541) 935-6276 or visit http://www.ctrl.org/ciadrugssymposium/ for further information. June 15, 10:00am, Sacramento, CA, Bail Hearing for drug war prisoner Michael Montalvo, at U.S. Magistrate Gregory Hollows courtroom, 550 I Street. Organizers request professional dress. Contact Nora Callahan at (509) 684-1550 or e-mail [email protected] for further information. June 15, 5:00-7:00pm, San Francisco, CA, "Racism in the Drug War," forum sponsored by The Lindesmith Center-West. At the San Francisco Medical Society, 1409 Sutter St (at Franklin), call (415) 921-4987 or e-mail [email protected] for reservations. June 17, 6:30-9:30pm, Cambridge, MA, "Imprisoned Art," opening reception/benefit for prison reform activists, at the Zeitgeist Gallery, 312 Broadway (near Central Square), featuring Lawyer Johnson, wrongfully convicted, in Massachusetts prisons and on death row for 10 years, showing slides of his art work, including depictions of prison life. Sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, Cambridge Center for Adult Education, Out of the Blue and Zeitgeist Galleries, art on display 6/7 - 7/5, call (617) 876-2182 for further information. June 17, 8:30am-5:30pm, Washington, DC, "No Lost Causes: An Action Meeting on HIV and Hepatitis in Prison," at the National Prison Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, 1875 Connecticut Ave., NW. Contact Jackie Walker at (202) 234-4830, fax (202) 234-4890 or e-mail [email protected]. June 21, 6:30pm, Oakland, CA, "The War on Drugs: Who is Winning? Who is Losing?" Forum with Alexander Cockburn, columnist with The Nation, coauthor of Whiteout, Jeffrey St. Clair, coauthor of Whiteout and Peter Dale Scott, coauthor of Cocaine Politics." Sponsored by the Independent Policy Forum, at 100 Swan Way (off Hegenberger Rd. near Oakland Airport). RSVP to (510) 632-1366, seating limited, $25 includes admission and a copy of either Whiteout or Cocaine Politics, $10 admission only. June 24-25, Sweetwater, TN, Fundraiser for the Tennessee Cannabis Action Network. For information, call (662) 578-0518 or visit http://www.webnow.com/nfnmusic/. June 25, San Francisco, CA, 7:30 PM, Musicians for Medical Marijuana Benefit Concert, Great American Music Hall. Tickets are $25. For more information please call 510-869-5391. Proceeds will help medical marijuana clubs. June 26, Houston, TX, New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson addresses the Drug Policy Forum of Texas, Marriot Medical Center, Noon-1:30 PM. $35 per plate for DPTF members, $50 for non-members. Call (713) 784-3196 (or 1-888-511-DPFT outside Houston) or fax (713) 784-0283 for reservations. June 29-July 3, Anaheim, CA, Libertarian Party National Convention, at the Anaheim Marriott Hotel. For information or to register, call the Balcom Group at (202) 234-3880, e-mail [email protected] or visit http://www.lp.org. July 4, Washington, DC, Fourth of July Hemp Coalition presents the Fourth of July rally, march and concert, noon-8:45pm, Lafayette Square (across from White House). E-mail to [email protected] or [email protected]. July 10-16, Nashville, TN, "33rd Race Relations Institute" at Fisk University, one-week seminar devoted to discussing how racism affects the life cycle. For further information, call Theeda Murphy, Information Specialist, (615) 329-8812, e-mail [email protected] or visit http://www.fiskrri.org. July 15, Prison Reform Unity
Project vigils outside every prison in America, demonstration times are
1:00 Pacific Time, 2:00 Mountain Time, 3:00 Central Time and 4:00 Eastern
Time. Contact [email protected] or visit http://www.prup.net.
September 9-13, St. Louis, MO, "2000 National Conference on Correctional Health Care," sponsored by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, at the Cervantes Convention Center. For information,contact NCCHC, (773) 880-1460 or visit http://www.ncchc.org. September 13-15, Durham, NC, "North American Conference on Fathers Behind Bars and on the Streets," sponsored by the Family & Corrections Network and the National Practitioners Network for Fathers and Families, at the Regal University Hotel. For information, contact NPNFF, (202) 737-6680 or visit http://www.npnff.org. September 16, Denver, CO, Families Against Mandatory Minimums Regional Workshop, location to be determined. Call (202) 822-6700 for information or to register. October 11-14, Hamburg, Germany, "Encouraging Health Promotion for Drug Users Within the Criminal Justice System," at the University of Hamburg. For further information and brochure, contact: The Conference Secretariat, c/o Hit Conference, +44 (0) 151 227 4423, fax +44 (0) 151 236 4829, [email protected]. October 21-25, Miami, FL, "Third National Harm Reduction Conference," sponsored by the Harm Reduction Coalition, at the Wyndham Hotel Miami Biscayne Bay. For information, call (212) 213-6376 ext. 31 or e-mail [email protected]. November 11, Charlotte, NC, Families Against Mandatory Minimums Regional Workshop, location to be determined. Call (202) 822-6700 for information or to register. January 13, St. Petersburg, FL, Families Against Mandatory Minimums Regional Workshop, location to be determined. Call (202) 822-6700 for information or to register.
13. Job Openings, Temporary and Permanent Prevention Point Philadelphia is seeking to hire an Executive Director and a Site Service Coordinator. Full descriptions of the jobs are available from Robert T. O'Brien, (215) 787-0113 or [email protected]. Citizens for Responsible Marijuana Law Enforcement, in the city of Columbia, Missouri, is offering temporary positions as paid signature gatherers for a municipal ballot initiative. The initiative would require city police to refer marijuana cases to municipal court, as opposed to state court, where the penalties are much greater. People are needed from now through the end of July. Partial travel and living expense subsidies for those coming from out of town may be available. Contact Keith Schaeffer at (573) 875-1575 or e-mail [email protected].
14. EDITORIAL: Oaths and Allegiances David Borden, Executive Director, [email protected] To "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies" and to "bear true faith and allegiance to the same" -- this, the Senators of our great nation do solemnly swear upon taking office. Yet at least three bills with bipartisan support in the Senate right now would strike at the core of that most basic of Constitutionally protected freedoms, freedom of speech. The methamphetamine bill, the ecstasy bill, and equivalent provisions of the bankruptcy bill, would impose up to 10 years in federal prison on persons convicted of providing "information pertaining to... the manufacture, acquisition, or use of a controlled substance, with the intent that the teaching, demonstration, or information be used for, or in furtherance of, an activity that constitutes a crime." It is language that can easily be concealed behind law and order rhetoric: "We want to make it a crime to help people manufacture and traffic in dangerous, illegal drugs." Yet the reality is that the bill goes much further than that. Anyone who discusses the medical value of marijuana, anyone whose web site links to needle exchange schedules or safer injecting techniques, or who helps ecstasy users stay alive by providing information on risk-reduction techniques they can use while taking ecstasy -- any of these compassionate and sensible measures could subject law-abiding Americans to the threat of their lives being ruined by the government. Yes, law abiding, for the Constitution is the law of the land, above all other laws. It is those who promote and sponsor unconstitutional laws who have disregarded rule of law in a more insidious, ultimately more destructive way than any common criminal. The members of Congress supporting this legislation may have spoken the words that make up their oath, but their words were empty, for they have shown greater allegiance to the failed and failing war on drugs than the Constitution of the United States. Perhaps these laws won't stand the test of the courts. But does the right to speak freely truly hold in this country, when those exercising it must brave arrests and court hearings and all the attendant monetary and life costs, with no guarantee of success and the risk of lengthy incarceration if one fails? Let us demand of our leaders their allegiance in more than words, but in actions. If you like what you see here and want to get these bulletins by e-mail, please fill out our quick signup form at https://stopthedrugwar.org/WOLSignup.shtml. PERMISSION to reprint or redistribute any or all of the contents of Drug War Chronicle is hereby granted. We ask that any use of these materials include proper credit and, where appropriate, a link to one or more of our web sites. If your publication customarily pays for publication, DRCNet requests checks payable to the organization. If your publication does not pay for materials, you are free to use the materials gratis. In all cases, we request notification for our records, including physical copies where material has appeared in print. Contact: StoptheDrugWar.org: the Drug Reform Coordination Network, P.O. Box 18402, Washington, DC 20036, (202) 293-8340 (voice), (202) 293-8344 (fax), e-mail [email protected]. Thank you. Articles of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of the DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
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