2. DRCNet Launching John W. Perry Scholarship
Fund for Students Losing Aid Because of Drug Convictions at NYC Event on March
26
The DRCNet (Drug Reform Coordination
Network) Foundation invites you to celebrate the launching of
THE JOHN W. PERRY FUND
Scholarships for Students
Denied Federal Financial Aid Because of Drug Convictions
Tuesday March 26, 2002, 6:00
to 8:00 PM, at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, 2 W. 64th St.
(at Central Park West), NYC
Ira Glasser, former Executive
Director of the ACLU will speak on "American Drug Laws, The New Jim Crow
Justice." He will be joined by Norman Siegel, Freedom Legal Defense
and Education Project, as well as representatives of DRCNet (Drug Reform
Coordination Network) Foundation, SSDP (Students for Sensible Drug Policy),
family and friends of John Perry and others.
Please RSVP to [email protected]
or (212) 362-1964. Light refreshments will be served. Admission
free, suggested minimum donation $25.
BACKGROUND
In 1998, Congress enacted
an amendment to the Higher Education Act that denies loans, grants, even
work-study jobs to tens of thousands of would-be students every year who
have drug convictions. All these young people, who have already been
punished once for their offenses, are being forced to spend more time working
to pay for school, reducing their course loads or dropping out entirely.
Since that time, a major student-led campaign to overturn the law has spread
to hundreds of campuses around the nation, aided by civil rights, education
and drug policy reform organizations, and a bill in Congress to repeal
the HEA drug provision, H.R. 786, has garnered 57 cosponsors. A resolution
opposing the drug provision has been adopted by 87 student governments
at the time of this writing (February 2002).
Now, the DRCNet (Drug Reform
Coordination Network) Foundation, in partnership with Students for Sensible
Drug Policy (SSDP) and other friends of civil liberties, has created the
John W. Perry Fund to help some of students affected by the law stay in
school. Though we will only be able to directly assist a fraction
of the more than 40,000 would-be students who've lost aid this school year
alone, we hope through this program to make a powerful statement that will
build opposition to the law among the public and in Congress, and to let
thousands of young people around the country know about the campaign to
repeal it and the movement against the drug war as a whole.
Please join us on March 26,
2002 in New York City to celebrate the launching of this scholarship program
and raise needed funds for the students who apply to it. Ira Glasser,
former executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union and president
of Drug Policy Alliance, will deliver the keynote address, joined by representatives
of DRCNet, SSDP, financial aid professionals and other concerned parties.
You can also help by making
a generous contribution to the DRCNet Foundation for the John W. Perry
Fund. Checks should be made payable to DRCNet Foundation, with "scholarship
fund" or "John W. Perry Fund" written in the memo or accompanying letter,
and sent to: DRCNet Foundation, P.O. Box 18402, Washington, DC 20036.
The DRCNet Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity, and your contribution
will be tax-deductible as provided by law. Please let us know if
we may include your name in the list of contributors accompanying future
publicity efforts.
ABOUT JOHN PERRY
John William Perry was a
New York City police officer and Libertarian Party and ACLU activist who
spoke out against the "war on drugs." He was also a lawyer, athlete,
actor, linguist and humanitarian. On the morning of September 11,
John Perry was at One Police Plaza in lower Manhattan filing retirement
papers when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. Without hesitation
he went to help, losing his life rescuing others. We decided to dedicate
this scholarship program, which addresses a drug war injustice, to his
memory. John Perry's academic achievements are an inspiring example
for students: He was fluent in several languages, graduated from
NYU Law School and prosecuted NYPD misconduct cases for the department.
His web site is http://www.johnwperry.com.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Ira Glasser served as Executive
Director of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1978 until his retirement
in 2001. His essays on civil liberties principles and issues have
appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Village Voice,
Harper’s, The New Republic, The Nation, and Christianity and Crisis, among
other publications. In 1991, he published a book, Visions of Liberty:
The Bill of Rights for All Americans, to commemorate the 200th anniversary
of the Bill of Rights. He is currently president of the Drug Policy
Alliance.
Please contact DRCNet at
[email protected] or (202)
362-0030 to request a scholarship application, to get involved in the HEA
Campaign or with other inquiries, or visit c and http://www.SSDP.org.
3. Alert:
Tell Congress to Repeal the HEA Drug Provision in Full
DRCNet, in partnership with
Students for Sensible Drug Policy, is leading a major national campaign
to repeal the Higher Education Act Drug Provision, a law that delays or
denies students with drug convictions their eligibility for federal financial
aid for college -- over 40,000 people this school year alone. But
the author of the Higher Education Act Drug Provision, Rep. Mark Souder
(R-IN), is trying hard to divert attention from the repeal effort by focusing
on one narrow change, limiting the law's impact to students who were enrolled
in school and receiving aid at the time of their offense.
Such a change would help
some small percentage of the people hurt by the drug provision and would
be welcome for that reason. But it is a 5% solution to a law that
is 100% flawed: Only full repeal addresses the serious education
and discrimination concerns raised by educational, civil rights, religious,
drug policy reform and other groups for the past three years. That's
why we need you to help us send a loud and clear message to Congress that
this law is fundamentally flawed and should be repealed in full.
Please visit http://www.raiseyourvoice.com
to tell Congress you want them to remove the drug war from education and
pass H.R. 786, a bill that would repeal the drug provision and which already
has 57 Congressional cosponsors. When you're done, please call your
US Representative on the phone to make an even stronger impact -- you can
call them via the Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121, or visit
http://www.house.gov to look up their
direct numbers.
Students, visit http://www.raiseyourvoice.com/students.html
to find out how to get involved with the campaign on your campus.
87 student governments so far have endorsed our resolution calling for
repeal of the drug provision. If you're already at work on this,
please write us at [email protected]
and let us know what's happening. Also, visit http://www.raiseyourvoice.com/download.html
for an online copy of our activist packet. (Leave your e-mail address
if you want to be notified of updates on the HEA campaign. Also,
we will be updating the download packet within the next week.)
Please forward this alert
to your friends or use the tell-a-friend form that will come up on your
screen after you send your letter. And please consider making a donation
-- large or small -- to keep this effort moving forward at full speed.
Though our funding situation for 2002 is very promising, we've had a shortfall
of the non-tax-deductible lobbying funds that are needed for the HEA campaign
itself. Visit http://www.drcnet.org/donate/
to help, or mail your check or money order to: DRCNet, P.O. Box 18402,
Washington, DC 20036. (Contact us for instructions if you wish to
make a donation of stock.)
Again, visit http://www.raiseyourvoice.com
to write to Congress and get involved in the campaign! Here are some
reasons the HEA drug provision is wrong:
-
The vast majority of Americans
convicted of drug offenses are convicted of nonviolent, low-level possession.
-
The HEA drug provision represents
a penalty levied only on the poor and the working class; wealthier students
will not have the doors of college closed to them for want of financial
aid.
-
Judges already have the power
to rescind financial aid eligibility as individual cases warrant.
The HEA drug provision removes that discretion.
-
The HEA drug provision has a
disparate impact on different races. African Americans, for example,
who comprise 13% of the population and 13% of all drug users, account for
more than 55% of those convicted of drug possession charges.
-
No other class of offense carries
automatic loss of financial aid eligibility.
-
Access to a college education
is the surest route to the mainstream economy and a crime-free life.
4. DOJ Study
Takes Ominous Look at Drug and Drug Policy Web Sites
The US Department of Justice
is hard at work creating a strategy to defeat what it calls an Internet-based
threat to American youth. In so doing, however, the department has
monitored web sites of organizations devoted to drug policy advocacy and
harm reduction policies, angering drug reformers and outraging civil libertarians.
In a study quietly released
in December and first brought to light in Wired online, the Justice Department's
National Drug Information Center (NDIC) provided an overview of the "threat
that certain Internet web sites pose to adolescents and young adults in
the United States." The study, "Drugs and the Internet: An Overview
of the Threat to America's Youth," purported to focus on web sites that
provide information designed to facilitate the production, use or sale
of illicit non-prescription drugs, with particular emphasis on club drugs
such as ecstasy. NDIC's sample of 52 web sites, however, included
"32 sites [that were] probably associated with drug legalization groups."
Which drug reform groups
made the NDIC list of threats remains unknown at press time, although the
Media Awareness Project (http://www.mapinc.org),
the online archive of drug policy news stories provided by Drugsense, was
cited in one of the report's footnotes. NDIC spokesmen have not responded
to a DRCNet request for that list. And according to Wired, the Justice
Department rebuffed its three-week effort to elicit any comment.
Drug reform and harm reduction
groups may have made the list because of overbroad criteria in NDIC's sample
parameters. Among the sorts of information it included in its search
of the web was such general information as descriptions of drugs, as well
as studies and tests of drugs. Similarly, NDIC looked for web sites
that offered information on physical and psychological effects of different
drugs, their risks, and how to reduce them. It also looked for sites
that "glamorized" drug use.
Despite the report's avowed
emphasis on criminal drug activity on the Internet, of the 52 sites listed
only "10 sites were probably associated with businesses" and only "6 sites
contained information on MDMA, GHB, or LSD sales." Interestingly
for a study of club drug information on the web, 13 of the 52 sites contained
no information on club drug use, sales, or production.
Recognizing that surveilling
individual Internet users is problematic for both technical and legal reasons
-- it would require a subpoena or a search warrant -- NDIC noted that "individuals
and groups that operate websites on their own registered domains often
can be identified."
And it has certain types
of "information purveyors" in mind for further attention. The individuals
and groups who threaten American youth by providing them with drug information
on the Internet include "drug offenders, drug culture advocates, advocates
of an expanded freedom of expression, anarchist individuals and groups,"
and for good measure, "pornographers and pedophiles" who might use drug-related
websites to prey on innocents.
But the report, following
an endless line of drug war rhetoric, paints persons or groups who advocate
more enlightened drug policies as "drug culture advocates." Such
persons or groups "are chiefly interested in expanding the size of the
community to both legitimize their activity and increase pressure on lawmakers
to change or abolish drug control laws," said NDIC.
"We are not advocating for
a drug culture by teaching harm reduction," said Donald Grove of the Harm
Reduction Coalition (http://www.harmreduction.org),
a nonprofit group seeking to reduce the negative consequences of drug use.
"No, what we are promoting is common sense and life-saving measures," he
told DRCNet. "We are less a threat to the youth of America than these
people who would deny access to such information. Do we really think
our children should die because they made a mistake or didn't listen to
us?" he asked.
"Suddenly the law wants to
define what we are allowed to think and say. That's a really dangerous
situation," said Grove. "And anyway, what is wrong about talking
about drug legalization? If it is legitimate to pass laws against
drugs, it is equally legitimate to repeal them."
"This is an attempt at intimidation,
an attempt to chill First Amendment rights," said Richard Glen Boire of
the Center for Cognitive Liberties and Ethics (http://www.alchemind.org/CCLE/),
an organization devoted to defending the mental freedom of individuals,
including the right to alter their consciousness. "It encroaches
upon cherished First Amendment rights in an area that is currently of great
public importance and public debate," he told DRCNet. "This is an
unsurprising, but very, very disturbing expansion of the war on drugs.
It's as if they want to go after not just mind-altering substances, but
the very words themselves," he said. The government seems to think
that even discussing drug policy with any point of view other than theirs
is somehow unpatriotic or encouraging illegal drug activity. That's
a chilling prospect."
"We are outraged that they
are tugging at the edges of our constitutional rights," said Clovis Thorn,
special projects coordinator for Drug Policy Alliance (http://www.drugpolicy.org).
"This is of concern. We believe that the web sites they are probably
looking at, such as reform movement web sites, have information that reflects
government data and the latest scientific research better than the Department
of Justice or the DEA," he told DRCNet. "Other web sites are typically
part of the emerging party health movement, rave-oriented websites that
provide practical harm reduction information. This kind of information
saves lives."
Drugsense's Mark Greer was
less intimidated than amused by the NDIC report. "I think the drug
reform movement can take this as something of a compliment," he told DRCNet.
"We're kicking their butt all over the web. This is a panic reaction,"
he said. He encouraged Justice and the DEA to try to move to shut
down such web sites. "Please," he said. "They will only box
themselves into a corner if they try to do that."
Both Thorn and Grove told
DRCNet that any efforts to move against web sites would only provoke a
strong reaction. "The movement will come together behind the First
Amendment to stop any government overreaching," said Thorn. "They
will have to be challenged," said Grove, who warned that the feds will
probably attempt to move against a particularly odious site. "It
may be something we would like to repudiate, but will be forced to defend.
We should be prepared for that," he said.
For Boire, it is not a direct
First Amendment threat that he finds most disturbing. "If they monitor
these web sites, they will see that for the drug reform and harm reduction
organizations there is nothing there to prosecute," said Boire. "But
this is a means of increasing the intimidation level -- we're watching
you. That can scare a lot of people. In academia and other
circles where we hope people will join the debate, there is great fear
of someone peering over your shoulder, even if you are not engaged in illegal
acts," he said. "This is a chilling and coercive move. The
government ought to be looking at crimes where victims report them, not
spending money monitoring groups that have views different from the government's."
DRCNet contacted NDIC this
week and asked the following questions:
-
What are the web sites monitored
by the NDIC for this study? If you will not make that list available,
on what grounds do you withhold that information?
-
Is DRCNet one of the sites monitored
by the NDIC?
-
If your study is examining websites
that provide information on drug use, sales or production, why are 32 of
those web sites associated with groups that advocate changes in drug policy?
-
Why are you monitoring constitutionally
protected free speech?
-
Does NDIC make any distinction
between "advocacy of drug culture" and advocacy of policy changes in the
drug laws?
DRCNet has yet to receive any
response to these queries, except for a denial from spokesman Chuck Miller
that monitoring of web sites is ongoing. "We're not monitoring, this
was just a one-time search looking at the Internet as a potential venue
for the sale of illicit drugs," he told DRCNet.
But it will provide part
of the basis of a new strategy to win the drug war on the Internet, and
it is already pointing to suspicious characters who merit closer scrutiny.
If NDIC refuses to respond
to DRCNet requests that it release the names of websites it monitored,
the Week Online will file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request in
an attempt to obtain that information. But don't hold your breath.
Attorney General John Ashcroft has instructed all government agencies that
the Justice Department will bend over backwards to help ensure that FOIA
requests are denied.
Visit http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,50550,00.html
to read the Wired story.
5. Britain
Continues Brisk March to Drug Reform
Britain's move away from
US-style drug policies took on added momentum this week, with three developments
heralding change for the better. First, cannabis decriminalization
is now only a signature away from becoming reality, as Home Secretary David
Blunkett's drug policy advisers have officially recommended that he downgrade
the weed from a Class B to a Class C drug, the least serious drug classification.
Second, the Labour government
Home Office has released a new strategy for club drugs, particularly ecstasy
(MDMA), that recognizes that ecstasy use is pandemic and calls for a harm
reduction -- not a law enforcement -- response to ecstasy users.
And the Liberal Democratic
Party, Britain's third political force behind Labour and the Tories, meeting
over the weekend in Manchester for its annual convention, endorsed the
most radical drug reforms ever embraced by a mainstream political party.
While it has been six months
since Home Secretary Blunkett first announced he was prepared to downgrade
cannabis, effectively decriminalizing the drug, it appears that D-Day is
now only a matter of weeks away. Blunkett's Advisory Committee on
the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) recommended this week that Blunkett take his
own advice and reschedule cannabis.
According to an unnamed Blunkett
spokesman, he will do just that. "He [the Home Secretary] has a mind
to do it [reclassify cannabis]," the anonymous informant told the Independent
(London) on Sunday. "He will make a final decision when all the information
is in front of him," he added.
But while the ACMD recommended
the downgrading and, as the Independent noted, "it would be unusual" for
Blunkett to ignore the recommendation, chances are that he will not act
until next month at the earliest, when four more studies on cannabis enforcement
will be completed. All are expected to bolster the case for decrim.
One, by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, will reveal that British police
spend about $75 million per year enforcing cannabis prohibition, the Independent
reported. And both the Metropolitan Police and the Police Foundation
are working on reports on the success or failure of the Lambeth experiment,
where police quit arresting cannabis users beginning last July. Originally
set for six months, the experiment was extended after senior officers declared
it successful. The two reports are expected to follow the conclusions
of senior police officials. Finally, the Home Affairs Select Committee
in Parliament, which is studying a broad range of drug policy issues, will
present its report to the government next month.
If that weren't enough pressure
on Blunkett, the Liberal Democrats have provided more. Britain's
third political force, the Liberals control 52 seats in the 659-member
House of Commons. In a dramatic series of votes that went beyond
the moderate reforms hoped for by the party leadership, the Lib Dems called
for an end to arrests of cannabis users. Not stopping there, the
party also voted for an amendment to the leadership proposal. The
amendment calls for an effort to amend the UN Conventions on drugs so that
cannabis may be completely legalized in Britain.
Party members also voted
to end imprisonment for the possession of any illicit drug, called for
ecstasy to be downgraded from Class A to Class B, and endorsed the expansion
of existing heroin maintenance programs. "We are not naïve about
the dangers of drugs in our society," said party shadow Home Secretary
Simon Hughes as he presented the party's position paper in Manchester.
"Our liberal philosophical tradition does mean that we believe that government
should only seek use coercion against the individual to prevent harm to
others or society as a whole. This paper is consistent with that
philosophy," he told gathered party members. "But this is not a paper
which is philosophically motivated. This is not a debate motivated
by some simplistic libertarian notion that anything goes. It is motivated
by the real and pressing need for a more effective policy to reduce the
widespread harm and destruction caused by drugs."
Despite concerns expressed
by some party members and political observers that the Liberals' radical
move on drug policy could damage its ability to siphon voters from the
socially conservative Tory base, Hughes called the platform "responsible,
realistic and progressive." Labour Party spokesmen disagreed, saying
that the Liberals "had lost touch with the real world" on drug policy.
"Abolishing jail sentences for drugs like cocaine and heroin would lead
to more drug use and more drug-related crime," a Labour spokesman told
BBC News. "Ecstasy is a dangerous drug that kills and downgrading
it from Class A to Class B would be foolhardy and irresponsible," he added.
But in a sign that consistency
is the hobgoblin of small minds, at the same time Labour spokesmen were
denouncing the Liberals' position on ecstasy, the Labour Home Office was
promulgating new guidelines on the popular club drug that called for police
to ignore its personal use by clubbers and demanded that club owners undertake
harm reduction measures to protect their drug-using patrons.
The Labour government was
merely recognizing reality, it said. "We have to recognize that some
clubbers will continue to ignore the risks and carry on taking dangerous
drugs," said junior Home Affairs Minister Bob Ainsworth. "If we cannot
stop them from taking drugs, then we must be prepared to take steps to
reduce the harm they may cause themselves. We are not asking club
owners to condone the use of drugs on their premises," he added.
"What we are asking them to do is accept that we're not going to be successful
in the entirety in keeping drugs out of the club scene."
In a new guide to dealing
with club drugs called Safer Clubbing, the government bluntly recognized
the prevalence of drug use in Britain, the guide states, "[c]ontrolled
drug use has become a large part of youth culture and is, for many young
people, an integral part of a night out." The guide prescribes a
set of common-sense harm reduction measures for club owners to undertake,
including the provision of free cold water, adequate air-conditioning and
"chill out" rooms. The Home Office could have been blindsided by
the results of a survey undertaken as part of its study of the extent of
the problem. After questioning more than 2,000 club goers in the
Manchester region, the Home Office found that 87% had smoked cannabis in
the last three months, 77% had used amphetamines, 67% had taken ecstasy,
52% had used LSD and 45% had used cocaine.
Not one of the 2,057 clubbers
questioned reported zero drug use in the last three months.
The relevant portions of
the conference agenda may be viewed at: http://www.libdems.org.uk/index.cfm/page.agenda/section.conference/body.203/
6. Drug War Drives
Federal Criminal Court Cases, No Let-Up Last Year
While there are increasing
signs that the various states are rethinking the drug war approach to drug
policy, the federal drug war juggernaut continues rolling. According
to a report released this week by the Administrative Office of the US Courts,
the administrative arm of the federal judiciary, drug defendants are by
far the largest single category of persons facing criminal trials in the
federal courts. Of the 82,000 defendants whose federal criminal cases
commenced in the fiscal year ending last September 30, more than 31,000,
or 38%, were drug offenders.
The report, "Judicial Business
of the United States Courts 2001" (http://www.uscourts.gov/judbus2001/contents.html),
notes that new federal criminal cases in the last fiscal year remaining
almost unchanged from the year before -- a decline of 37 cases -- but that
drug case filings had increased by 5% over the previous year. A review
of selected categories of federal criminal defendants in the last fiscal
year included the following:
Gambling: 14
Burglary: 76
Civil rights violations:
127
Bribery: 160
Kidnapping: 189
Auto theft: 306
Homicide: 419
National defense violations:
490
Sex offenses: 1,010
Embezzlement: 1,284
Robbery: 1,613
Forgery: 1,818
Larceny and theft: 3,867
Weapons and firearms: 6,223
Fraud: 10,532
Immigration violations:
12,086
Drug offenses: 31,493
Clearly, federal drug law enforcement
dominates national-level law enforcement. Drug offenders constituted
two and one-half times the number of defendants in the next largest category,
immigration offenses, and five times the number of defendants charged with
federal firearms violations. And the number of drug defendants absolutely
dwarfed the number of people accused of crimes traditionally considered
to be the bailiwick of federal law enforcement: kidnapping, bank
robbery, forgery (counterfeiting) and embezzlement. The number of
drug defendants is more than ten times the number of white collar crime
defendants (3,102 for forgery and embezzlement combined).
When many people think of
federal law enforcement, they conjure up images of G-Men chasing down John
Dillinger or Bonnie and Clyde, but the reality is far different.
Bank robbers and kidnappers accounted for only 1,755 of the federal criminal
defendants last fiscal year. For every classic "gangster" the feds
dragged into court, almost 20 drug defendants were prosecuted.
The Administrative Office
also noted that in FY 2001, more than 90% of drug defendants either pled
guilty or were convicted. Of the more than 28,000 federal drug cases
ended in the last fiscal year, only 2,423 of them ended in acquittals.
Also, the report noted, some
44,000 thousand drug law violators were under federal supervision on September
30, the vast bulk of them in federal prisons. Drug law violators
make up more than 42% of the 104,000 persons under federal control.
7. Sentencing
Reform Passes in Washington State, Governor Will Sign Bill
The Washington state legislature
this week passed a bill reducing many drug sentences and ordering that
any savings from reduced incarceration be used to fund drug treatment,
including drug courts. Democratic Gov. Gary Locke, who supported
the bill, has 20 days to sign it into law.
The bill adjusts Washington's
sentencing grid for heroin and cocaine possession or small-scale sales
downward, so that sentences that now average 24 months will average 18
months. The bill also eliminates the double- and triple-scoring of
previous drug offenses in determining sentence lengths under sentencing
guidelines -- with the notable exception of the drug menace du jour, methamphetamine.
And the bill provides for a new drug sentencing grid to go into effect
for drug offenses committed after July 1, 2004. After that date,
nonviolent drug offenders will be sent to drug court in lieu of prison.
Finally, the bill sets up a dedicated account to fund treatment for drug
offenders and drug courts.
The bill passed with overwhelming
bipartisan support in both chambers. In the House, which okayed its
version last month, the bill passed 72-25. In the Senate, which voted
this week, the vote was 36-11. A pro forma vote by the House to reconcile
minor differences with the Senate version occurred Thursday night.
"The bill represents a new
state policy direction in dealing with the public health and public safety
issues represented by drug offenders," said the Washington Association
of Alcoholism and Addiction Plans in a release lauding the bill's passage.
"Rather than locking people up for having the disease of addition, we will
begin treating them in drug courts with community-based treatment."
"This is the right thing
to do," said Rep. Ruth Kagi (D-Lake Forest Park), the bill's primary sponsor.
"It gives low-level drug offenders a chance to take responsibility for
their addiction and become productive citizens."
Visit http://www.drcnet.org/wol/222.html#washingtonstatehouse
for a discussion of the impressive political coalition behind the bill.
A summary of the bill, HB 2338, is available online at: http://www.leg.wa.gov/pub/billinfo/2001-02/House/2325-2349/2338-s2_sbr_03132002.txt
8. Danish
Politicians Seek Cannabis Crackdown in Christiania
While contemporary anarchists
have for the past decade dreamt of establishing "temporary autonomous zones"
free of outside authority, the residents of the Copenhagen neighborhood
of Christiania have constructed a permanent autonomous zone that has flourished
for the past three decades on what was once a Danish barracks and army
base. The residents of Christiania have organized communally to provide
for basic services and have long campaigned to keep hard drugs and violence
out of the area, but Christiania is most well-known for its open hashish
and marijuana markets, particularly along the aptly-named Pusher Street.
But now, in the latest of a series of occasional attacks on the hippy haven
over the years, conservative Danish politicians are vowing to end the commune's
famously tolerant attitudes toward soft drugs -- and if they can't do that,
to end the commune itself.
The move highlights a contradiction
between Danish social reality and its cannabis laws. Denmark, along
with Britain, has the highest levels of cannabis consumption on the continent.
According to the latest survey by the European Monitoring Center for Drugs
and Drug Addiction, 34% of young adult Danes and 25% of all adult Danes
have smoked cannabis. And while cannabis possession is a crime under
Danish law, possession for personal use is rarely prosecuted. But
parts of Danish society have a problem with smokers having someplace to
obtain the weed.
"We can no longer tolerate
the illegal and open cannabis trade that has become a part of everyday
life out there," Conservative Party spokesman Helge Adam Moller told the
Copenhagen Post on March 8. "If Christiania is allowed to survive,
then it has to become as law-abiding as every other community in Denmark
-- and if it doesn't, we'll close it down," he threatened.
And the Danish government
is moving to do so. Last year, the center-left government led by
the Social Democrats passed legislation that gave police the authority
to close down what the Post called "hundreds of small 'hash clubs,'" and
while Christiania has so far escaped unscathed, the political landscape
has shifted. In elections last fall, the Social Democrat-led coalition
lost control to a center-right coalition led by the Liberal Party, in alliance
with the Conservatives. Now Moller and the Conservatives are calling
for a reworking of the political framework that governs relations between
the commune and the Danish state. Under Moller's plan, Christiana
would have three weeks to remove all drugs and drug dealers or the law
allowing the community to exist in peace from the authorities would be
annulled.
A spokesperson for Christiania,
a radically democratic "Free City" of about one thousand people on 60 acres
in Copenhagen, blasted the Conservatives. "Instead of trying to criminalize
the many thousands of customers who enjoy hash every day, why don't they
consider legalizing it instead," Britta Lillesoe told the Post. It
was a "knee-jerk reaction" from right-wing politicians, she said.
The conflict is not new.
Founded by squatters and hippies who crawled through a fence onto an abandoned
military base and set up shop in the early 1971, Christiania has alternately
been tolerated by authorities and targeted by them. While conflicts
have flared over taxation, the provision of services, and "slummification,"
much of the tension between the commune and the state has centered on drugs.
In 1979, with hard drug use spiraling out of control and the state threatening
to assert control, residents formed the Junk Blockade to evict all hard
drug sellers and users.
Since then, the Christiania
drug scene has largely centered on cannabis, but open sales of the drug
have led to repeated clashes with police throughout the 1990s. The
Danish government has repeatedly threatened to end the "Free City," and
now another offensive is underway. Parliament will be discussing
the future of Christiania next month, the Post reported.
But Christianites are well-schooled
in defending their prerogatives no matter what the government does.
A bit of history from the Free City's Moonfisher Coffeehouse provides some
Christiania flavor: "The Moonfisher like all the other bars in Christiania
had a really hard period in the end of the 80's beginning 90's, the government
pressured Christiania to get the bars and restaurants registrated and to
pay their taxes. We refused to agree having the good reason of not
being government supported in our institutions like for example kindergartens
or the garbage team. The battle raged back and forth for a little
while and in the end the Moonfisher lost all stock and inventory and was
forced to get registrated," the coffeehouse wrote on its web site.
"From 1990 to 1993 Moonfisher had a liquor licence, but still problems
with the police because of too much weed-smoking in the place. 1993
the government threatened to take our liquor licence if we didn't stop
all the smokers in the cafe, but how can we run a coffeeshop in Christiania
and not smoke, impossible. So we decided that they can take the licence
and put it somewhere where the sun don't shine, we'd rather smoke than
drink, and we have been a coffeeshop ever since."
(Visit http://www.christiania.org
for much more information on the "Free City" and its history, inhabitants,
politics, business and social life.)
9. Canadian
Doctors Call for Marijuana Decriminalization, Treating Addiction as Medical
Problem
The Canadian Medical Association
(CMA), the country's largest and most influential physicians' group, told
parliament on Monday that simple marijuana possession should be removed
from the criminal code and made only a ticketable offense. The doctors
urged, however, that such a move take place only within a broad strategy
aimed at reducing drug abuse and marijuana consumption in particular.
In a brief presented to the
House of Commons Special Committee on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs, which
is undertaking a review of Canadian drug policy, the doctors' association
said: "The CMA believes that resources currently devoted to combating
simple marijuana possession through the criminal law could be diverted
to public health strategies, particularly for youth."
The CMA took pains to make
clear that it did not condone marijuana use, given its "adverse effects"
on health. Moreover, it also noted that it "wishes to make clear
than any change in the criminal status of marijuana must be done so with
the recognition that marijuana is an addictive substance and addiction
is a disease." The doctors called for a "National Cannabis Cessation
Policy" to reduce marijuana use and urged close scrutiny of the relationship
between marijuana and traffic accidents.
Despite its disdain for the
herb, the CMA still argued that "the severity of punishment for the simple
possession and personal use of cannabis should be reduced with the removal
of criminal sanctions." In addition to citing the reallocation of
drug control resources such a move would allow, the CMA also cited the
deleterious effects of unnecessary criminal records on marijuana offenders.
The CMA also testified that
drug addiction is a condition better handled through the public health
system than the criminal justice system. "Addiction should be regarded
as a disease and therefore individuals suffering with drug dependency should
be diverted, whenever possible, from the criminal justice system to treatment
and rehabilitation," CMA president Dr. Henry Haddad told the committee.
The CMA called for a comprehensive
national drug strategy by the federal government in conjunction with provinces
and localities to combat drug abuse. That strategy should shift from
an emphasis on law enforcement to one of reducing drug use through prevention,
education and treatment, the CMA said.
"The vast majority of resources
dedicated to combating drugs are directed toward law enforcement activities,"
said Haddad. "Governments need to rebalance the distribution and
allocate a greater proportion of these resources to drug treatment, prevention
and harm reduction programs."
Haddad was joined at the
hearing by Dr. William Campbell, head of the Canadian Society of Addiction
Medicine (CSAM), who endorsed the CMA position and then went a step further.
The possession of small amounts of all drugs -- not just marijuana -- should
be decriminalized, said Campbell. "Addiction is a disease and we
support public policies that would offer treatment and rehabilitation in
place of criminal penalties for persons with psychoactive substance dependence
and whose offence is possession of a dependence-producing drug for their
own use."
Campbell was merely reiterating
the formal position of CSAM, which was ratified late last month.
"Drug possession for personal use must be decriminalized and distinguished
from the trafficking or illegal sale/distribution of drugs to others that
must carry appropriate criminal sanctions," the organization decided.
The Special Committee on
the Non-Medical Use of Drugs, which was chartered a year ago to review
and recommend changes to Canadian drug policy, has been holding hearings
in recent months and has heard from experts from across Canada and around
the world. The committee is expected to issue its report in August.
The CMA submission to Parliament
is available online at: http://www.cma.ca/staticContent/HTML/N0/l2/where_we_stand/political/cannabis.pdf
The complete CSAM National
Drug Policy Statement may be viewed online at: http://www.csam.org
10. US Drug Warriors
Lose Again at UN
DRCNet reported last week
that US drug war hardliners were pushing the candidacy of former Colombian
National Police head Rosso Jose Serrano to replace outgoing UN drug czar
Pino Arlacchi, who was ordered from his post by UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan last July. But by the time that story was posted last Friday,
Annan had already chosen a successor, and drug warrior Serrano didn't make
the cut (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/227.html#serrano).
Instead, Annan reached into the ranks of the Euro-bureaucracy, appointing
Antonio Mario Costa, Secretary General of the European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development, to replace the widely-criticized Arlacchi.
The decision to appoint a
manager rather than a drug fighter is no doubt related to the administrative
problems that plagued the UN Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention
(UNDCCP) under Arlacchi's tenure. Allegations of mismanagement, corruption
and low morale shook the agency last spring and summer, leading to internal
UN investigations that pointed a finger at Arlacchi. By July, as
the Dutch government pulled its funding for UNDCCP in protest of Arlacchi's
continued presence, Annan pulled the plug on him, ordering Arlacchi to
resign his post effective at the end of February.
While UN officials have been
tight-lipped about their reasoning in selecting Costa, his resume is that
of a bureaucrat, not a drug fighter. A trained economist with a PhD
from the University of California at Berkeley, Costa has been a visiting
professor at US and European universities, an economist at the UN Department
of International Economics and Social Affairs, and Director-General for
Economics and Finance for the Commission of the European Union.
A second factor that could
be relevant in Costa's selection is his nationality. Like his predecessor,
the anti-mafia crusader Arlacchi, Costa is Italian. Italy, along
with the US, is one of the largest contributors to UNDCCP, which last year
had a budget of $130 million.
While Costa's views on the
international drug trade are unknown -- a Google search of the Internet
for Costa returned four hits, all related to his career as an economist
-- it seems clear that Annan has made putting the UNDCCP's house in order
a higher priority than placing a high-profile drug fighter at its head.
How US drug warriors, who have so far been silent on Costa's selection,
will react to the loss remains to be seen. While loathing of the
UN is a powerful force on the congressional right, any impulse to punish
the organization by withholding funding for its drug agency will likely
be counterbalanced by the irresistible urge to "win" the war on drugs.
11. Government-Commissioned
Study of White House Anti-Drug Ad Campaign Says $1.5 Billion Program Fails
to Reduce Teen Use
(courtesy NORML Foundation,
http://www.norml.org)
The federal government's
$1.5 billion anti-drug ad campaign fails to influence teens to refrain
from using illegal drugs, particularly marijuana, according to an evaluation
by Westat Inc. and the Annenberg Public Policy Center for the US National
Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
According to the review,
teens exposed to the government's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign
are no more likely to refrain from trying drugs because of their exposure.
"There [is] no pattern of significant association between exposure and
target outcomes for youth," the report says. "Neither the overall
results nor the subgroup analyses show consistent evidence supportive of
a direct Campaign effect."
The report defined the primary
objective of the government's advertising campaign as "reduc[ing] the number
of young people who try marijuana." Since 1997, the campaign has
purchased enough advertising time to expose adolescents to an average of
2.7 ads per week, including a pair of controversial 2002 Super Bowl ads
costing some $3.4 million.
However, the Westat and Annenberg
review found "inadequate evidence to support a claim of change in marijuana
use thus far." In fact, the report states that the only significant
association attributable to the ad campaign was an increase in marijuana
use among 14- to 15-year-olds. The evaluation also found "some evidence"
of an increase in marijuana use among suburban 14- to 18-year-olds.
"In summary, thus far there
is relatively little evidence for direct effects of the Campaign on youth,"
authors concluded. "While there were scattered significant positive
results [among 12- to 13-years-olds,] they were balanced by scattered significant
negative results [among 14- to 18-year-olds.]"
The report is the third in
a series reviewing the government program. The Westat and Annenberg
report focused on Phase III of the ad campaign, a period that began in
September 1999 and is planned to run at least until the end of this spring.
12. Resources:
New York Magazine, UN on Afghani Opium, US on Colombian Coca
The March 4 issue of New
York Magazine included "The Defense Rests -- Permanently," an article about
the imbalance in the criminal justice system between prosecution and defense,
available at http://www.newyorkmag.com/page.cfm?page_id=5730
online.
The UN's pre-assessment of
opium poppy production in Afghanistan in 2002 has been released, and is
available online at http://www.undcp.org/pakistan/report_2002-02-28_1.pdf
(report) and http://www.undcp.org/press_release_2002-02-28_1.html
(news release). The prediction for opium in Afghanistan under the
new government: plenty of it, just like before.
The US Office of National
Drug Control Policy has released its annual estimate of Colombia coca cultivation
in 2001. ONDCP's findings: more than before, again. Visit http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/news/press02/030702.html
to read the ONDCP press release.
13. Alerts:
HEA, Bolivia, DEA Hemp Ban, SuperBowl Ad, Ecstasy Legislation, Mandatory
Minimums, Medical Marijuana, Virginia
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
http://www.raiseyourvoice.com
US Drug Policy Driving Bolivia
to Civil War
http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/boliviawar/
Oppose DEA's Illegal Hemp
Ban
http://www.votehemp.org
SuperBowl Ad Out of Bounds
http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?ItemId=12761
Oppose New Anti-Ecstasy Bill
http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/ecstasywar/
Repeal Mandatory Minimum
Drug Sentences
http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/justice/
Support Medical Marijuana
http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/medicalmarijuana/
Urgent Virginia Legislative
Alert
http://www.stopthedrugwar.org/virginia/
14. The Reformer's Calendar
(Please submit listings of events concerning drug policy and related topics to [email protected].)
March 16, 5:00-10:00pm, Hood River, OR, MAMA Benefit Dance, supporting Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse harm reduction drug education program. At Dee Fire Hall, in the pear and apple orchards outside town, featuring the Irish-flavored music of Rockwork, as well as food and beverages and a silent auction. For further information, contact Sandee at (541) 298-1031 or e-mail [email protected].
March 19, San Francisco, CA, "Meeting Challenges in the 21st Century: New Perspective and Practical Tools," 1st West Coast African Americans in Harm Reduction Conference. Sponsored by the Harm Reduction Coalition with the American Foundation for AIDS Research, admission free. At Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, contact Amu Ptah at Amu Ptah at 212-213-6376 ext. 32 or e-mail [email protected] for further information.
March 22, 8:00am-5:00pm, Tallahassee, FL, Educational Display on the Shafer Report and the Jenks & Musikka Decisions. In the rotunda of the Capitol, sponsored by Floridians for Medical Rights, Florida NORML and the Florida Cannabis Action Network. Contact [email protected] for information.
March 24-27, Rimini, Italy, "Club Health 2002: The Second International Conference on Night-Life, Substance Use and Related Health Issues." Visit http://www.clubhealth.org.uk for info.
March 26, Albany, NY, "Drop The Rock Day," march and demonstration against the Rockefeller Drug Laws. Visit http://www.droptherock.org for information.
March 26, 6:00-8:00pm, New York, NY, "American Drug Laws, The New Jim Crow Justice," kick-off and fundraiser for the John W. Perry Fund, providing scholarships to students losing financial aid because of drug convictions. Sponsored by the DRCNet Foundation, featuring former ACLU director Ira Glasser, with representatives of DRCNet, SSDP, friends of John Perry and others, at the New York Society for Ethical Culture, 64th and Central Park West. RSVP to [email protected] or (212) 362-1964, and visit http://www.drcnet.org for further information.
April 2, Grand Junction, CO, Protest for Liberty and Against Victimless Crimes. At City Hall, Mesa County Justice Center, visit http://students.mesastate.edu/~jahawk/ for information.
April 6, noon-3:00pm, Tucson, AZ, "Prisoners Are People Day," presentations by community leaders, live music, food, children's activities, access to community service providers, prisoner art show and more. Sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, at Himmel Park, 1000 N. Tucson Boulevard, for further information call (520) 623-9141.
April 6, 1:00pm, Asheville, NC, memorial service for AIDS and harm reduction activist Marty Prairie. At the Cathedral of All Souls, Biltmore Village, e-mail [email protected] for information.
April 7-16, upstate New York, New York Interfaith Prison Pilgrimage, mile per day or more walk to major prisons "to vigil, pray, and seek a new, more humane response" to incarceration and the prison system. For further information, visit http://users.bestweb.net/~cureny/walk.htm or contact the Western New York Peace Center at (716) 894-2013, the Judicial Process Commission at (716) 325, 7727, or e-mail [email protected] or [email protected].
April 8, 9:00am-noon, Philadelphia, PA, "Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs." Judges forum sponsored by the National Lawyers Guild, at Temple University School of Law, Kiva Auditorium (Ritter Hall Annex), $35.00 with CLE credit, $10.00 without, contact Roseanne Scotti at (215) 746-7370 or [email protected] for information or to register.
April 8, 6:00pm, Philadelphia, PA, "Table Talk: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs," dinner, speech and discussion with Judge James P. Gray of the Superior Court of Orange County, California. At the White Dog Cafe, 3420 Sansom St., $30/person includes three course dinner with tax and gratuity, senior and student discounts available. Call (215) 386-9224 or visit http://www.whitedog.com/04082002.html for further information.
April 8-13, 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 13, 1:00-10:00pm, Tallahassee, FL, "Tallahassee Hemp Culture Fest." Bands and speakers to be announced, contact Florida State University NORML at [email protected] for information.
April 18-20, 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.
April 19-20, Sweetwater, TN, "Freedom Fest," sponsored by NORML UTK. Visit http://www.webnow.com/goldenboy/ to order tickets, or contact Rachel at [email protected] for further information.
April 19-21, Seattle, WA, Amnesty International USA 2002 Annual General Meeting. At the Renaissance Madison Hotel, visit http://www.aiusa.org for further information. (Dues-paying Amnesty members will have the opportunity to vote on a groundbreaking anti-drug war resolution.)
April 20, Eau Claire, WI, noon, Hemp Festival with UWEC SSDP. Music, information, speakers, raffle and more, at the Eau Claire Rod and Gun Park, visit http://www.uwec.edu/Student/CHILI/ for further information.
April 20, noon, Jacksonville, FL, Jacksonville Hemp Festival. Contact Scott at (904) 732-4785 for further information.
April 20, noon, Kingston, RI, Fourth Annual "Day for HOPE," sponsored by the University of Rhode Island's Hemp Organization for Prohibition Elimination. On the URI Quad, e-mail Thomas Angell at [email protected] for further information.
April 20, 3:00-8:00pm, Atlanta, GA, "Atlanta 420," regional gathering of marijuana activists and reformers with entertainment, speakers and organizations. Presented by CAMP, in Piedmont Park, in downtown Atlanta, e-mail [email protected], visit http://www.worldcamp.org or call (404) 522-2267 for information.
April 20, 2002. Moscow Hemp Festival in Moscow, Idaho. E-mail [email protected] for more information.
April 24-27, Albuquerque, NM, "Public Health for All is Justice Served," Twelfth North American Syringe Exchange Convention. For information, e-mail [email protected], visit http://www.nasen.org or call (253) 272-4857.
April 27-28, Middletown, CT, "Northeast Summit for New Drug Policies." Regional gathering of anti-prohibition thinkers and activists, hosted by Wesleyan University Students for Sensible Drug Policy and cosponsored by Efficacy, for interested parties of all ages. Recommended donation $5-$15 sliding scale, contact Booth Haley at (860) 685-4350 or [email protected] for further information.
