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(renamed "Drug War Chronicle" effective issue #300, August 2003) Issue #214, 12/7/01
"Raising Awareness of the Consequences of Drug Prohibition" Phillip S. Smith, Editor
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1. Editorial: Sometimes People Learn, Sometimes They Don't David Borden, Executive Director, [email protected], 12/7/01 Sixty-eight years ago this week, on December 5, 1933, our nation corrected a historic mistake and repealed its disastrous experiment with Alcohol Prohibition. Sometimes people learn, sometimes they change course. Sometimes they don't. Earlier this week, the DEA held a conference on terrorism and drugs -- coincidentally the same day as our hemp food protests in front of DEA offices around the country -- somehow they were able to spare several security officers to monitor our taste-test table, even though they knew from the last time that we weren't dangerous. The conference was a minor news item, but if the news report gave an accurate characterization of what the DEA people were talking about -- which we don't know for sure, but it certainly sounds like them -- the thrust of what they discussed, and for which they will probably lobby, is for an effort to use the rearrangement of Afghanistan's governmental system as an opportunity to move against the nation's opium crop. They claim that doing so could raise the price of heroin in the US. DEA, at least, never learns. Eradicating Afghanistan's opium will only shift the production to other regions, such as Burma -- or Latin America, where most US heroin actually originates now. Crop eradication has never reduced the long-term supply of any drug. Why not? Because people are paying money for it, a lot of money. Someone will grow it, someone will process it, someone will sell it, people who want it will get it. Not all the time, perhaps, but most of the time. Ultimately, the price drops again, sometimes even more. To believe that reducing or even wiping out Afghanistan's opium crop will have any significant long-term effect on the heroin supply takes an extraordinarily degree of foolishness or ignorance of economics and history. And it is very clear that we need DEA's tens of billions for other things much more than a failed and futile drug war. Our nation is under attack by terrorists. Our economy is ailing. And all our other needs have not gone away in the meantime. It would have been perfectly reasonable, maybe even productive, for the DEA to spend a day talking about the targeted goal of disrupting drug trafficking organizations that have links to terrorist groups. After all, drugs aren't legal yet, therefore there is a black market which does supply some of terrorism's funding. But instead, they apparently focused on the unfocused, wasteful and impossible goal of taking on the opium industry as a whole. Maybe Strom Thurmond can help. The 99-year-old Senator is more than old enough to remember Alcohol Prohibition, its failure, and the reduction of violence and corruption that followed its repeal. In fact, Prohibition was repealed on Thurmond's 31st birthday. And Thurmond has shown an ability to learn: Back in 1964, when he switched from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party over the Democrats' support for civil rights, Thurmond was a segregationist. But now, he admits that he was wrong about that. He learned, he became a better person. Only someone who knew him well could say whether his initial opposition to desegregation was based on misguided conviction or on politics, or whether his conversion over the subsequent years reflected a personal enlightenment or was simply a shift to match the prevailing cultural and political winds. But whatever the reason was for Strom Thurmond deciding to join modern civilization, he did it. He did ultimately change his position. Which means he may be capable of changing his mind on other long-entrenched views. And he does remember Alcohol Prohibition. There probably is no one quite so old working at the DEA. And they have too much invested in their bureaucracies and the status quo, anyway, to do anything about this. But the same doesn't apply to a member of the Senate. Certainly not to a 99-year-old member of the Senate. Strom Thurmond would have nothing to lose by initiating a dialogue on drug prohibition. Of course, I'm not holding my breath; after all, he didn't change his mind about segregation until after most other people had already figured it out. But one can hope. After all, it's no more unlikely than it would be for some of the other responsible parties in the drug war.
2. Walters Confirmed as Drug Czar, Coalition Challenged But Couldn't Block Crusty Nominee On an unrecorded voice vote Wednesday night, the Senate voted to approve the long-delayed nomination of John Walters to head the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). Walters, an old-school drug warrior and acolyte of former drug czar William Bennett, survived a stiff challenge from a broad-based national coalition that viewed his positions on key policy issues as Neanderthal. The coalition, which included the ACLU, NAACP, and a range of public health and civil rights groups, issued a scathing critique of his drug policy positions in September. Civil rights groups called Walters "unfit for a position that requires sensitivity to racial fairness," while the National Education Association and other groups deplored that "Mr. Walters has advocated for policies that would result in the locking up of more African American youth." In published writings, Walters had derided government-funded drug treatment as an example of liberal do-goodism and called the notion that the drug war was filling the nation's prisons with drug users "a myth." Walters backed away from some of his earlier hard-line positions during Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on his nomination. Under fire from committee chair Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and drugs and crime subcommittee chair Senator Joe Biden (D-DE), Walters told the committee he would push for higher levels of drug treatment funding and would support a congressional review of mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses. Even so, senators Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) joined Biden and Leahy in voting against sending his nomination to the Senate floor. Response to the confirmation among drug policy reformers was mixed. The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation looked for the silver lining, while other reformers expressed greater skepticism. "Although Walters' record remains far outside the mainstream on civil rights, public health and drug policy, he does seem to have moved considerably from some of his hard-line views, at least in his rhetoric," said Lindesmith-DPF director Ethan Nadelmann in a press release responding to the vote. "There's a new consensus in Washington. After this confirmation process, even John Walters realizes that it's time for America to change our failing drug strategy to one that emphasizes public health and ends racial disparities in our criminal justice system." Lindesmith-DPF's associate director for national affairs, Bill Piper, told DRCNet that despite being unable to block the nomination, "we had three big accomplishments. First, we boxed Walters into supporting more money for drug treatment and a review of mandatory minimums," said Piper. "We also got five powerful senators to vote against him in the Judiciary Committee, including committee chair Leahy and subcommittee chair Biden. These are important folks. Third, and perhaps most important, we have put together a really good coalition and were able to show Congress that it can't take drug reform for granted anymore in Washington," said Piper. "If not for us, he would have sailed through," Piper added. "Now he's on notice. He'll still be bad, but better than he would have been." Sanho Tree, director of the Drug Policy Project at the Institute for Policy Studies (http://www.ips-dc.org) is not so sure. "I think he had a confirmation conversion," said Tree, referring to the well-known Washington phenomenon where controversial nominees suddenly alter long-held positions in order to win confirmation votes. "His entire track record runs counter to those concessions he made," Tree scoffed. "I'll believe it when I see it."
3. Bolivia Coca Crisis Explodes, Government Forces Reportedly Assassinate Union Leader In the last three weeks, the simmering social crisis centered on the Bolivian government's policy of eradicating all coca production in the Chapare region of the country has once again reached the boiling point. Deaths and other human rights abuses by Bolivian security forces have mounted in recent weeks as they confront angry coca-growing peasants determined to protect their crops and their economic well-being. The crisis reached a new level on Thursday, when Bolivian security forces assassinated a leader of the Six Federations of Coca Growers and the wounding of another, as approximately 150 coca growers in Chimore began to set up a highway blockade. According to the Andean Information Network, members of the Manchego Army Regiment from Santa Cruz and members of the National Police gave the protesters five minutes to disperse, then immediately opened up with tear gas on the fleeing crowd. Citing eyewitness accounts and an autopsy report, AIN reported that Casimiro Huanca Colque, 55, a leader of the Chimore Federation, was detained by security forces inside the nearby Chimore Special Colonizer's Federation office by the highway. Colque is reported to have been shot twice at close range inside the office and to have bled to death. Another union officer, Fructuoso Herbas Rivas, 36, was detained behind the building and forced to the ground. While prone, an army officer approached and shot him in the right leg at close range. He is hospitalized in Cochabamba, AIN reported. Another union officer, Fructuoso Herbas Rivas, 36, was detained behind the building and forced to the ground. While prone, an army officer approached and shot him in the right leg at close range. He is hospitalized in Cochabamba, AIN reported. An unknown number of other peaceful demonstrators were detained. AIN reported that witnesses told human rights investigators security forces appeared to be targeting specific individuals for arrest. AIN noted that the killing occurred at the same time President Quiroga was being lauded at the White House for his anti-drug efforts. The US government, in the person of Ambassador Manuel Rocha, has played a key role in provoking renewed conflict with its rigid demands that Bolivia continue forward with the eradication program in the face of intense opposition. And the US news media has not had a word to say about it. Two sources of information, however, are breaking the media blackout on a regular basis. The Cochabamba-based Andean Information Network (http://www.scbbs-bo.com/ain/) has provided regular bulletins on the confrontations from the beginning, and Al Giordano's Narco News (http://www.narconews.com) is temporarily relocating to Bolivia to report on the situation live. According to AIN, escalating confrontations between security forces and coca growers, after the deaths of three coca-growers shot by security forces on November 15, led to negotiations between the government and the Six Federations of coca growers. As a result of those talks, the coca growers agreed to suspend their highway blockades, and the government agreed to suspend coca eradication in the Chapare. That didn't sit too well with the US Embassy, AIN reported. The US government frequently holds up Bolivia as its Latin American "success story," for the violent coca eradication campaign begun under dictator-turned-elected president Hugo Banzer and now carried on by his successor, Jorge Quiroga. (Quiroga is in Washington this week, meeting with President Bush, DEA head Asa Hutchinson and IMF/World Bank officials, among others.) When coca growers asked for a short extension of the eradication suspension, the government, under pressure from the US, refused. Now, the coca growers are again taking to the barricades as some 4,000 troops patrol the Chapare. As AIN put it, "Both parties, as well as members of the facilitators groups, cited strong US pressure to resume eradication as the cause for the breakdown in dialogue." According to the latest reports from the newspaper La Opinion (translated and posted on the NarcoNews.com web site), the Six Federations were to begin renewed highway blockades as of Tuesday. Growers' leader Luis Cutipa told the newspaper that peasants were forming self-defense committees and that blockades were already under way. "In some sectors, surprise blockades began on Saturday night," he said. Coca growers rejected a government offer to pay them $73 each in compensation for eradicated coca, Cutipa said, "because we don't want to be employees of the US Embassy," adding that there was no money in the Bolivian treasury to make the payments. Cutipa told the newspaper the growers would end the blockades only when the government suspends eradication. In the meantime, he warned, "coca growers and other sectors involved are studying how a Coca Growers' Army will be formed." The blockades are set. The troops are in place. US drug policy is once again bringing Bolivia to the brink of rebellion. When will the US media notice?
4. Hemp Taste-Test Demonstrations Target DEA Offices Across the Country, Protests Held in 76 Cities The hemp foods industry and hemp and drug reform activists staged coordinated hemp food taste tests at Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) offices nationwide on Tuesday to protest the agency's recently revised administrative rules effectively banning the sale and consumption of any ingestible hemp products. Under the new rules, hemp bars, hemp pretzels, hemp ice cream and similar products will become illegal controlled substances effective February 6. Hundreds of mild-mannered activists from Washington, DC, to West Palm Beach, Oakland to Orlando, Seattle to Syracuse, as well as at least 70 other cities, politely offered free hemp food samples to DEA employees on their lunch breaks and curious passersby, garnering considerable media coverage for the cause in the process. While in most cities, demonstrators confronted only the usual reflexive petty harassment the agency doles out to unwanted visitors -- unlawful demands that no photos of agency buildings be taken, refusal to grant access to public spaces -- in Syracuse, NY, local police arrested and charged three demonstrators for violating state marijuana possession laws, according to Syracuse University SSDP member and arrestee Patrik Head. They were in possession of hemp bars, according to one of those arrested. (In St. Louis, at least one police officer had a different impression of the pretzels. Visit http://rescomp.wustl.edu/~wussdp/pics/DSCF0020.JPG to see Washington University Students for Sensible Drug Policy members offering a sample to one of the city's finest.) At DEA national headquarters in Arlington, VA, just across the Potomac River from downtown Washington, hemp industry representatives including David Bronner of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps and VoteHemp.com president Eric Steenstra joined activists from the Marijuana Policy Project, Common Sense for Drug Policy, SSDP, DRCNet and Green and Libertarian Party members to encourage DEA agents to take a taste. Met with barricades and uniformed Federal Protective Services officers on their arrival, demonstrators were initially forced completely off the property and even the bordering sidewalk, onto the street. Fortunately, an Arlington city police officer with traffic safety concerns prevailed upon the feds to allow demonstrators onto the sidewalk. Most DEA employees averted their eyes and scurried past the proffered health treats, but not all. "Almost nobody from the DEA would speak to me," said Alexis Baden-Meyer of the Mintwood Media Collective, which was hired by VoteHemp to coordinate the quickly-organized effort. "Some claimed to know nothing about the hemp foods ban, others claimed to know everything about it and wouldn't comment. One older employee refused, but told me 'I'm going to wait until I'm 80 years old to try it, and then I'll probably regret not having done it years earlier,'" Baden-Mayer related. "With this rule, you won't be able to find it in a health food store," she replied. According to reports gradually coming in from across the country, the reaction at DEA offices (and a few federal buildings and other facilities) was similar: petty harassment and DEA employees too scared, too incurious, or too sure of themselves to take the taste test. In some cities, such as Houston and Las Vegas, the media failed to show, but taste tests in numerous other cities made the local newspapers and TV news. "These were very successful demonstrations," said Baden-Meyer. "The point was to make the DEA know that we were there, and we did that. They took it very seriously. They know now that people care about hemp food issues, and now they have to worry about what other issues are going to cause them public relations problems," she said. "That we got this off the ground in a little over a week also shows that national actions like this can be used for other small issue-focused actions in the future. This also helps build a grassroots constituency that can be mobilized for regional or national convergences," she noted. "We're extremely pleased," said VoteHemp's Steenstra. "With the media coverage we've generated, we've reached hundreds of thousands of people with our message that hemp foods are safe and nutritious, and the DEA rules are simply ridiculous," he told DRCNet. Mintwood Media head Adam Eidinger told DRCNet local TV news coverage had reached nearly a million people, according to reports gathered so far. "It will be more by the time we get it all tallied," he said. "We got coverage in lots of smaller media markets, and some big ones too," Eidinger added. "We had three local stations cover us in Philadelphia, two in Los Angeles, one in the Bay Area. Tallahassee stations went wild, airing repeated stories about the local event," he said. (Washington DC's local ABC affiliate aired footage that included this author among others.) While hemp industry representatives pronounced themselves satisfied with the demonstrations, they are not relying solely on public opinion to win their struggle to be able to sell hemp-based food products. "We have already filed a motion for a stay of the new DEA rules," Steenstra told DRCNet. "We hope for a ruling before Christmas, and if we do get a stay that will be a very positive indication of the direction this case is going," he said. "We are also working with several Canadian companies who are preparing to file claims that the new rules violate the NAFTA agreements. The Canadian government has already sent a letter to the DEA notifying the agency that it failed to follow NAFTA rules in notifying Canadian officials about this and its effects on their hemp industry," Steenstra added. "We are taking the legal battle to all fronts." Still, said Steenstra, if the ruling remains in effect after February 6, the industry will be faced with an unknown future. "We don't know what kind of enforcement the DEA will undertake," he said. "The ideal outcome is that they drop those rules, but second best would be if they sat down with us and negotiated rulemaking with reasonable standards that we can accept." Visit http://www.votehemp.com for extensive information on the DEA/hemp controversy.
5. South Dakota Farmers Union Unanimously Endorses Industrial Hemp Initiative The South Dakota Farmers Union is now supporting the months-old petition drive to legalize industrial hemp production in that heavily agricultural state. The group, which represents 8,000 South Dakota farmers, voted unanimously to endorse the effort organized by SoDak NORML (http://www.sodaknorml.org), the state affiliate of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "The farmers already supported hemp," said Bob Newland, head of SoDak NORML, "All they needed was somebody to go and ask them," he told DRCNet. "I addressed their resolution committee and outlined the issues: the market for hemp, the import restrictions and the intransigence of the DEA. What was really remarkable is that there was not a single voice of dissent," he added. By endorsing the petition, the Farmers Union is encouraging its members to add their signatures, state Rep. Frank Kloucek told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader. "But we're not forcing them to do anything," he said. "I don't see any problem with industrial hemp. We're already importing it from all over the world. The twine we buy comes from Brazil." The Farmers Union endorsement should be a boost to the petition drive, which began in May. Petition circulators have so far gathered about 4,800 signatures, but they need to gather 16,000 by next May to meet state requirements and have a safety margin for possible invalid signatures. "Before this, there were only a handful of visible whackos like me," Newland told DRCNet, "and the powers that be didn't have to give us any serious attention. Now, we have the endorsement of an 8,000 member farmers' grouping. Not only does that provide clout, but the Farmers Union will have members active in circulating the petition." The measure would allow the planting, harvesting, possession and sale of industrial hemp in South Dakota, provided it contains no more than 1% THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in cannabis. More than 20 other states are pursuing similar measures, despite strong opposition from federal and state law enforcement officials. Despite being only about one-quarter of the way to the signature-gathering goal, Newland is optimistic. "We will have no problem achieving the numbers we need," he vowed. "Petitions usually don't attract much attention until you get close to the deadline. This will really snowball in the next few months," he said. Newland knows something about successful petition drives. He was a driving force behind the South Dakota Common Sense Justice Amendment, which would amend the state constitution to allow criminal defendants "to argue the merits, validity, and applicability of the law, including the sentencing laws," during their trials. This incendiary measure, which would allow defendants to seek to convince juries not to convict because a law is unjust, will be on the South Dakota ballot in November.
6. Drug War Peace Remains Elusive, Say Panelists at San Francisco Forum special to DRCNet by Steve Beitler "We are like mountain climbers on a perilous ascent. Often we stumble; sometimes it seems we may dash ourselves on the rocks below. But there is hope, for dimly we have seen a vision..." - meditation from Sabbath evening serviceThe setting was warm, the panel was top-drawer and the topic of the forum -- Finding Peace in the War on Drugs -- was intriguing. But the 75 people who attended at San Francisco's Congregation Sherith Israel on November 30 learned how far short we are of the justice and compassion that are needed to achieve genuine peace in the drug war. The timing of the panel inhibited optimism on the prospects for peace. California reformers and patients are reeling from the federal government's offensive against medical cannabis, and the shooting war in Afghanistan was looking more and more like the opening chapter of this century's version of the Cold War. Joshua Bamberger, medical director of housing and urban health for the San Francisco Department of Health, moderated the panel and began with a story about a female sex worker who had arrived at his office without an appointment. She had just swallowed 41 bags of heroin after seeing a policeman heading in her direction. When Bamberger said she had to get to a hospital immediately, she told him she couldn't. She was a two-strike felon, and in California, two strikes plus 41 bags of heroin equals life in prison. Bamberger decried the "impossible choice" the woman faced and wondered how we can follow the Jewish commandment of tikkun olam, to heal the world, when so many people face "choices" that are devoid of justice and compassion. Marsha Rosenbaum followed Bamberger and put the plight of the sex worker in a social and historical setting. Rosenbaum, who heads the San Francisco office of The Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation, painted a dispiriting picture of drug war failure, the dimensions of which were familiar to reformers in the audience but were probably news to many of the congregants. Since 1981, said Rosenbaum, we've spent around $250 billion to fight the war on drugs. The return on that investment has been an exponential increase in the availability, affordability and potency of all sorts of drugs. We're sending a half million people to prison every year on drug convictions and have three times that many children with parents in prison, she said. Rosenbaum skewered what passes for mainstream drug education. "We'll say anything to get kids to 'just say no,'" she said. "We talk, but they don't listen," Rosenbaum added, in large part because what they hear isn't useful information but propaganda. She showed a couple of examples, from her extensive t-shirt collection, of how "young people have rendered 'just say no' and similar messages a joke." One shirt said, "I said no to drugs but they just wouldn't listen." Rosenbaum argued that we should "weave drug education into biology, chemistry, psychology and physiology courses," adding that "San Francisco should have counselors on-site in the schools to provide real drug information and counseling -- the way some schools do for sex education." Lonny Shavelson, a Berkeley-based photojournalist and physician, painted a gritty picture of the drug scene on San Francisco's streets, where he met the people described in his recent book Hooked: Five Addicts Challenge Our Misguided Drug Rehab System. "People are treated like ping-pong balls, bouncing back and forth between substance-abuse treatment, mental health programs and more," Shavelson said. "There's no coordination of these programs to meet the needs of addicts for help with housing, child care and job skills in addition to their mental-health and drug problems." He told the story of Mike, who got into a car accident while simultaneously driving and shooting heroin on the eight lane Highway 101. Mike eventually made it to Walden House, where he made good strides in his substance-abuse treatment but got no help for his post-traumatic stress disorder, which had been brought on by his (and his sister's) being raped on a nearly daily basis while in foster care. Mike resumed using heroin two days after graduating from Walden House. "San Francisco has a treatment-on-demand program, but it doesn't work because it's way too narrow," Shavelson said. "About 180 homeless people die every year in this city, and more than half of them are drug-related." That might not have been the setup that San Francisco supervisor Gavin Newsom preferred, but if so, he didn't let it bother him. "We're the number one tourist destination in the world, and we're the most drug-addicted city in America," Newsom said. "We're number one in methamphetamine, number two in LSD (no one questioned his inclusion of LSD with addictive drugs), and number three or four in heroin. We spend more money in the emergency room of San Francisco General Hospital on soft-tissue infections related to heroin than we do on anything else." Newsom was long on the practiced sound-bites but a bit shorter on fresh ideas for solutions. "Methadone works, and we clearly need a lot more methadone programs because we're in the midst of an epidemic, with 15-17,000 IV drug users in the city." He said San Francisco was about to roll out a new program "that will revolutionize healthcare for addicts." Bamberger, the panel moderator whose story of the sex worker who swallowed 41 bags of heroin opened the evening, had a happy ending to that story. He saw the woman about six months later at a clinic, and she "was doing fine." That was a small glimmer of hope for the audience to carry into the dark night of injustice that currently makes peace in the drug war an elusive goal.
7. Who's the Medieval Barbarian? Taliban Marijuana Policy vs. US Marijuana Policy There are not too many nice things that can be said about the Taliban, the fundamentalist rulers of Afghanistan for the last five years. Their human rights record is atrocious, their choice of friends has proven disastrous, their treatment of women was right out of the 7th Century, they banned music and the destroyed priceless historical monuments out of spite. DRCNet has condemned the Taliban in this newsletter repeatedly since they first showed up in the drug war radarscope during the UN Drug Summit back in 1998. But when it comes to marijuana policy, the Taliban could learn a lesson or two in medieval fundamentalism from the US government and many US states. According to a review of the Taliban penal code by New York Times reporter Amy Waldman, Article 6 of the penal code specifies the following penalty for pot-growing: "A person who cultivates marijuana will be jailed until his family members get rid of the plant." Such punishment may sound draconian to enlightened societies, but it is positively benign compared with the United States. Under federal law, growing one plant can net you 15 to 21 months in prison and a fine of up to $1,000,000. For more than one hundred plants, you're looking at a five-year mandatory minimum sentence and up to 40 years maximum. While the states' treatment of marijuana growers varies, almost all of them require jail or prison sentences. A few examples: In Wisconsin, growing fewer than 10 plants can result in a three-year prison sentence. In West Virginia, any cultivation can result in up to 15 years in prison; in Washington state, five years. A marijuana grower would have faced fewer sanctions in Kandahar than in Kansas City (5 to 15 years for any amount), less trouble in Mazar-e-Sharif than Memphis (1 to 5 years for growing more than a half ounce), and fewer headaches in Tora Bora than Tulsa (2 years to life for any amount). Criminal sanctions are one thing. Marijuana growers in the US can also anticipate no-knock raids by masked, heavily armed men, the seizure of all their money and property, thousands of dollars in legal expenses, and a lengthy regimen of drug testing. Oh, yeah, and they won't be able to get student loans, either. The Taliban may be brutal, thuggish, backward-looking, fundamentalist fanatics, but when it comes to marijuana policy, they've got nothing on the US.
8. Catholic Church Calls on World Governments to Reject Drug Legalization, But Says Repression Cannot Be Sole Response In a new pastoral manual issued last week by the Vatican, the Catholic Church called on the governments of the world to resist the temptation to legalize the drug traffic. The manual, "Church, Drugs, and Drug Addiction," was produced by the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Health Care Ministry after Pope John Paul II called in 1997 for a study of "the distressing drug problem in the world." The manual, which is not yet available online, opens with the words of John Paul II, the cleric who has led the Church since 1978. "The Pope tells us of three specific actions for a pastoral care program which confronts the drug problem," Archbishop Javier Lozano Barragan told a Vatican press conference heralding the release of the manual, "prevention, treatment and repression." The text of the five-chapter manual refers in depth to prevention and treatment, but the Pope made his stance clear in his opening remarks. In them, the pontiff affirmed that "we must all fight against the production, creation, and distribution of drugs in the world, and it is the particular duty of governments to courageously confront this battle against 'death trafficking.'" According to Archbishop Barragan, the Vatican is opposed to the legalization of any drugs, even soft drugs such as cannabis, because it considers their use incompatible with Christian morality. (Until copies of the manual are available, it remains unknown if the Church now finds alcohol use incompatible with Christian morality.) But, said Barragan, the Church understands that repression alone will not end drug use, and it will urge governments and societies to change their cultures to combat the problem. Barragan accused the mass media, the movies and modern music of sending out messages that favored drug use and a generally permissive attitude. "Drugs serve to achieve an immediate pleasure in the effort to flee from internal unease so that users find no other type of solution," warned the prelate. He also reproached Western society for supporting a "deviation from liberty" that assumes people may do what they wish with their own bodies. A spokesman for the US Council of Bishops told DRCNet that while they had not yet seen the manual, it was not a departure from current Church policy in this country. "The bishops are against the use of illegal drugs," said spokesman Bill Ryan. "I don't think this will affect their stance." But just as the pontiff's conservative positions on other social issues have not won unanimous consent even within the hierarchy, John Paul II's restatement of Church doctrine on drugs clashes with the position taken by at least one prominent clergyman, Father Miguel Concha. In March, Concha, head of the Church's Dominican order in Mexico and president of the Mexican Academy of Human Rights, called for an examination of legalization at a Tijuana conference organized by an investigative journalists association (http://www.narconews.com/concha.html). Reading from a document crafted for the occasion, Concha affirmed that, "We who are Civil Society and its organizations, with the decided support of a mass media genuinely committed to democratic values... propose to consult, in the most open, professional and objective manner, what our societies think and decide about the deregulation and progressive decriminalization of the production, commerce and consumption of certain types of drugs."
9. Michigan Marijuana Petition Drive Falls Short Again as Organizers Vow Third Effort, Detroit Initiative Will Go to Voters The second attempt by grassroots Michigan activists to put a marijuana legalization initiative on the ballot failed to get enough petition signatures to put the measure on the ballot, organizers conceded this week. The proposed Personal Responsibility Amendment (http://www.prayes.com) would have legalized medical marijuana, recreational marijuana (up to three plants and three ounces) and industrial hemp. The PRA would also have directed that all asset forfeiture proceeds go to drug treatment and education, not law enforcement. The proposed constitutional amendment needed the signatures of 302,711 registered voters to get on the ballot, but an army of unpaid volunteer petitioners could gather only 265,000 names before time ran out on November 30. Another group of activists fared better in Detroit, handing in more than 8,000 signatures gathered in only eleven days for an initiative that would bar Detroit officials from spending public funds to arrest or prosecute medical marijuana users. Six thousand valid signatures are required to put the measure on the ballot, and Detroit election officials are now verifying the signatures already submitted. PRA organize Gregory Schmid, a Saginaw attorney, expressed pride in the effort and vowed to try again, this time aiming at the 2004 elections. "We got 88% of the signatures needed," he told DRCNet, "and we are confident we can go over the top next time. The third time's the charm," he said. The effort was plagued by a chronic lack of money. "We were an unfunded group of individual volunteers and got no big outside support," said Schmid. "It was a miracle we got as close as we did. Money can get you on the ballot, it can buy signature-gatherers, but given that we got a quarter million signatures this time without any money, there is no reason to believe we can't make that extra step next time around," he said. The petition drive took two big hits in September, Schmid said. "The Rainbow Farm tragedy hurt us in a couple of ways (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/202.html#rainbowfarm). Just as things were starting to go our way, we were getting favorable media attention, along came the killings at Rainbow Farm and the news media took it the wrong way, linking marijuana with dangerous violence," Schmid said. "But also, many of our people then spent their time doing vigils -- for which I cannot fault them -- and the petitioning declined." But even the Rainbow Farm killings, which generated reams of publicity in the area, were blown off the media map by the events of September 11. And so was the PRA. "I had an afternoon drive-time radio interview scheduled for that day," said Schmid. "It never happened. And we haven't had any media attention since. That hurt. But it wasn't just the media," said Schmid. "Everybody was in shock. After September 11, almost no one was doing anything except a few of our core people." Activists associated with the PRA and the nascent Michigan Marijuana Movement (http://mmmm420.homestead.com/mmmm420.html) voted at a weekend meeting to focus on three tasks in the coming months, according to both Schmid and minutes of the meeting obtained by DRCNet. "First, we voted to call it quits on the PRA for this year," said Schmid, "but we'll be back beginning with the Ann Arbor Hash Bash in 2003." The group will also lend support to an impending "treatment not jail" initiative being weighed by the Campaign for New Drug Policy, the well-funded, politically savvy organization that ran the pioneering and successful Prop 36 "treatment not jail" initiative in California last year. "They are leaning toward committing to an initiative in Michigan, which would be similar to the California initiative, except for some mandatory minimum sentence reform," said Schmid. "CNDP has own its own methodology, its own money," he said. "I don't know that they need a lot of help from us, but they have listened to us and taken our input seriously. It would be silly of us not to endorse them. There is a lot of bitching in the ranks about them, some snotty e-mails, but what does that get you?" PRA and associates will also support the Detroit medical marijuana initiative. Led by Detroit health insurance broker and political activist Tim Beck, the Detroit Medical Marijuana Initiative easily crossed a relatively low threshold for signatures -- 3% of the votes in the last mayoral election -- putting the issue on the city's agenda. "This is a well-financed effort, backed by some very high-quality individuals in the community," Beck told the Detroit Free Press in late November. "What this does, in essence, is make medical use of marijuana -- in consultation with a medical professional -- the lowest law enforcement priority of the Detroit Police Department. It doesn't make marijuana use legal. We can't do that because of Supreme Court rulings." The proposal to bar the use of public funds to prosecute medical marijuana users would require that their use be authorized by a physician or other authorized health care professional and would allow the possession of up to three mature plants or the equivalent in dried pot. According to Schmid, the measure already has the support of four of nine Detroit city council members and could be enacted by the council's legislative process. If not, provided enough signatures are valid, the proposal will go to the voters in municipal elections next August.
10. Zogby Poll: Majority of Americans Oppose US Marijuana Policies (courtesy NORML Foundation, http://www.norml.org) Washington, DC: Americans oppose federal efforts to close California medical marijuana providers, and reject the notion that recreational users of the drug should face arrest or criminal prosecution, according to a national poll of 1,024 likely voters by Zogby International and commissioned by the NORML Foundation. Two-thirds (67 percent) of respondents oppose the use of federal law enforcement agencies to close dispensaries that supply medical marijuana to patients in California and other states that have legalized marijuana for medical use. Of those, a full one-half (50 percent) say they "strongly oppose," 17 percent say they "somewhat oppose" and six percent are undecided. Only 27 percent of those polled say they support the government's actions, and fewer than one in five (15 percent) voiced strong support. In addition, 61 percent of respondents said that in light of the increased attention to the threat of terrorism since September 11, they oppose arresting and jailing nonviolent marijuana smokers. Of those, 39 percent "strongly oppose" arresting smokers, 22 percent "somewhat oppose" and six percent are undecided. Only 33 percent of those polled say they support arresting and jailing marijuana offenders, and fewer than one in five (18 percent) voiced strong support. The poll is the first to gauge the public's support for marijuana decriminalization since the September 11 tragedy. "From opinion-makers like The Washington Post's David Broder and The New York Times' Anthony Lewis to the general public, there is a consensus that America's 65-year war on marijuana smokers needs to take a back seat to the current, substantive war on terrorism," NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre said.
11. Alerts: HEA Drug Provision, Sembler Nomination, DEA Hemp Ban, Ecstasy Bill, Mandatory Minimums, Medical Marijuana Click on the links below for information on these issues and web forms to help you contact Congress: Repeal the Higher Education Act Drug Provision (Please submit listings of events concerning drug policy and related topics to [email protected].) December 10, 6:30pm, Harlem, NY, Educational Forum to Repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Sponsored by The Seven Neighborhood Action Partnership (JusticeWorks Community) and The Women of El Barrio, at Settlement Health, 212 East 106th Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues (take the 6 train to 103rd stop). For further information, contact Jessica Dias at (212) 534-3535 or [email protected]. December 10-11, 9:30am-4:30pm, Harlem, New York, NY, "Comprehensive Overview of Harm Reduction." Free workshop by the Harm Reduction Training Institute, at Pathways to Housing, 55 W. 125th St., 10th floor. Pre-registration required, contact Emily Winkelstein at (212) 683-2334 x18 or [email protected]. December 10-12, Cochabamba, Bolivia, "International Conference on Viable Alternative Development in the Andean Region, Including Colombia, Peru and Bolivia." At the Centro Palestra, 578 N. Antezana, between Calle Salamanca and Calle Pacciere, near Plazuela Constitución, $20 registration, includes conference participation, two lunches and refreshments on 10/10-11. The 12th will feature an optional visit to the Chapare region, additional $30 fee, must have documented yellow fever vaccination. For information or to register, contact Georgean Potter at [email protected]. December 12, 9:00am-5:30pm, London, England, "London Ibogaine Conference," raising awareness of ibogaine as an addiction treatment. At the London Voluntary Sector Resource Centre, 356 Holloway Rd., London N7. Visit http://www.ibogaine.co.uk/2001.htm for information or contact Nick Sandberg at 020 7278 4656 or [email protected]. December 13, 7:30 & 9:30pm, San Francisco, preview of Resin, a movie about the war on drugs, by Vladamir Gyorski. At the Victoria Theater, visit http://www.resin-themovie.com for further information or to reserve tickets. December 13-14, 9:00am, Madison, WI, "Bridging the Gap-Harm Reduction Conference. Sponsored by the Narcotics Work Group of Dane County, at the UW-Memorial Union, 800 Langdon Street, registration $50. For further information, contact Wendy Schneider at (608) 258-9103 ext. 17. December 14 & 15, 8:00pm, Philadelphia, PA, "Corner Wars," play by Tim Dowlin, hosted by the Kensington Welfare Rights Union. At the Tomlinson Theatre, 13th & Norris, Temple University Main Campus. Visit http://www.kwru.org or call (215) 203-1945 for tickets or for further information. December 16, 10:30am, Cambridge, MA, "New Perspectives on our Drug War," forum with the Ethical Society of Boston, featuring Jon Holmes discussing the crisis of US drug policy. At the Longy School of Music, 1 Follen St., call (617) 739-9050 for further information. January 25-27, 2002, New York, NY, "Maternal-State Conflicts: Claims of Fetal Rights & the Well-Being of Women & Families." Conference sponsored by National Advocates for Pregnant Women and the Mt. Sinai Hospital-Based Clinical Education Initiative. For further information, call (212) 475-4218, visit http://www.advocatesforpregnantwomen.org or e-mail [email protected]. February 28-March 1, 2002, New York, NY, "Problem Solving Courts: From Adversarial Litigation to Innovative Jurisprudence." Panelists include former Attorney General Janet Reno, Rev. Al Sharpton and Mary Barr, Exec. Dir. Conextions. At Fordham University Law School, take the A, B, C, D, 1, and 9 subway trains to 59th Street/Columbus Circle and walk one block west. For further information, call (656) 345-5352 or e-mail [email protected]. March 3-7, 2002, Ljubljana, Slovenia, 13th International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm and 2nd International Harm Reduction Congress on Women and Drugs. Sponsored by the International Harm Reduction Association, visit http://www.ihrc2002.net or e-mail [email protected] for further information. April 8-13, 2002, Gainesville, FL, "Drug Education Week," series of presentations on different topics in the drug war, including daily keynote, followed by Saturday free concert. Hosted by University of Florida Students for Sensible Drug Policy, visit http://grove.ufl.edu/~ssdp/ or e-mail [email protected] for further information. April 18-20, 2002, San Francisco, CA, 2002 NORML Conference. At the Crowne Plaza Hotel at Union Square, registration $150, call (202) 483-5500 for further information. Online registration will be available at http://www.norml.org in the near future. May 3-4, 2002, Portland, OR, Second National Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics, focus on Analgesia and Other Indications. Sponsored by Patients Out of Time and Legacy Emmanuel Hospital, for further information visit http://www.medicalcannabis.com or call (804) 263-4484. December 1-4, 2002, Seattle, WA, Fourth National Harm Reduction Conference. Featuring keynote speaker Dr. Joycelyn Elders, former US Surgeon General, at the Sheraton Seattle. For further information, visit http://www.harmreduction.org or call (212) 213-6376. 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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