Drug War Chronicle #465 - December 15, 2006

Editorial: Could It Be More Clear?

This week and last Drug War Chronicle has reported on three prisoners cases that have risen to prominence in the clamor for relief for unjust sentencing. Last week there was Richard Paey, a wheelchair-bound pain patient who forged prescriptions in order to obtain pain medication for his personal use (doctors don't like to prescribe pain medicines in the US), but was convicted instead of trafficking that even the prosecutor doesn't think he actually was involved in, and sentenced to 25 years mandatory minimum in a Florida court. A Florida appeals court rejected Paey's appeal, but took the unusual step of expressing sympathy for him in its ruling and suggesting he seek clemency from the governor.

Also last week there was Weldon Angelos, serving 55 years in the federal system because he possessed (but did not use or brandish) a firearm while doing small-time marijuana dealing in Salt Lake City. The judge, a prominent conservative who used to clerk for Antonin Scalia, blasted the mandatory minimum sentence when he pronounced it. The US Supreme Court let the sentence stand by declining to hear the case, despite support shown for Angelos in a brief signed by 150 former Dept. of Justice officials including four former Attorneys General. The Salt Lake Tribune and The Washington Post have both called for the sentence to be commuted and for Congress to change the law that produced it. As the Tribune pointed out, "Angelos was operating in a world where everyone carries weapons because, as the song goes, you always carry cash. That the law that set the sentence or the prosecutors who invoked it should be offended at the presence of a weapon in that environment is childish."

This week we report on Tyrone Brown, a Dallas resident who as a 17-year old 16 years ago was sentenced to life in prison for testing positive for marijuana use while on probation for a $2 stickup. Advocates, as well as media outlets like the Dallas Morning News and 20/20, have brought his case to a level of attention that Texas' governor and parole board may well set him free very soon. Among his latest supporters is the judge -- now former, thanks to an election loss -- who sentenced him in the first place.

It is good to see the voices of support for these victims of the drug war. But the chorus still falls short of the volume, and the level of outrage, that the situation deserves. No system of "law" can be considered just, or even civilized, when such travesties can be possible even in theory. What kind of society allows a teenager to get life imprisonment for simple marijuana use? Who can even conceive of 55 years, for a small-time, nonviolent offense? What kind of officialdom would dare to put a wheelchair-bound patient away, for 25 years, who never hurt anyone, merely for seeking relief from his pain? Even most criminals probably have superior morality to that.

President Bush, and the governors of Florida and Texas, should take action now -- December, this month -- to help Paey and Angelos and Brown. The US Congress, and the state legislatures, should take action next month to repeal mandatory minimum sentencing and the sentencing guidelines, to help countless others still victimized by unjust and oppressive drug war sentences. Let just and rational treatment within criminal justice be a litmus test for basic decency -- no elected or appointed official who applies cruel and unusual punishment should be regarded as a true public servant. This could not be more clear.

In the meanwhile, use the following links to help some of the unfortunate:

Richard Paey
Tyrone Brown
Clarence Aaron

Please post a comment here if you have links to more!

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Feature: New Jersey Legislature Approves Needle Exchange Bill, Governor Will Sign

The New Jersey legislature last Friday passed a bill permitting the creation of needle exchange programs (NEPs) to block the spread of HIV/AIDS and other blood-borne illnesses in up to six Garden State municipalities. Now, health officials in cities including Atlantic City, Camden, Jersey City, Newark and Paterson are preparing to lay the bureaucratic groundwork for getting programs up and running. Atlantic City and and Camden have already passed ordinances allowing for such programs, while officials in the latter three cities are considering similar action.

In a statement released after the vote, Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine said he would sign the bill into law. "The science is clear: Needle exchange programs reduce sharing of contaminated needles, reduce transmission of HIV and hepatitis C and serve as gateways to treatment," Corzine said. "The bottom line is that this program will save lives. I applaud the legislature for getting it to my desk, and I look forward to signing the bill and seeing the program implemented rapidly."

New Jersey has the nation's fifth-largest number of HIV and AIDS cases. The state ranks first in women with the virus and third in infected children. It is also the only state in the nation with neither needle exchange nor non-prescription access to syringes. (A syringe access bill passed the Assembly, but was not acted on in the Senate this year. Advocates hope for a vote early next year.) In numerous studies, NEPs have been shown to decrease the rate of infection among injection drug users, a leading vector for the disease.

The public health victory came 13 years after the notion was first proposed in New Jersey and nearly five years after the Drug Policy Alliance made it a key legislative priority in the state. "This is one of the happiest days of my life, the culmination of 4 ½ years of incredibly hard work," said Roseanne Scotti, who, as head of DPA's New Jersey office, has become the most prominent public advocate of needle exchange in the Garden State. "Now we are at the beginning of really being able to prevent injection-related HIV and Hep C infections."

Victory last week didn't come without a fight, complete with accusations of racism and genocide by some of its most vocal opponents. Sen. Ronald Rice (D-Essex) led the opposition, and during final debate on the bill he called it "an experiment" on minorities and compared it to the federal government's Tuskegee experiment in the 1930s, where hundreds of black men were intentionally infected with syphilis without being told or treated. "The end result is the same -- death for a class of minorities and women," Rice said.

But Sen. Nia Gill (D-Essex), a sponsor of the bill, accused Rice of using stale arguments and standing in the way of cities that want to enact NEPs. "If Newark doesn't want it, Newark doesn't have to have it," Gill said. "We've crafted the bill so it's permissive -- it would let Camden try to save the lives of its people. Why not let them have a chance to save lives?"

Also opposing the bill was Sen. Diane Allen (R-Burlington), who said she couldn't vote for it after speaking to the parents of a child who died of a drug overdose. "We're using taxpayer dollars to send people deeper into the abyss," she said.

In the end, public health arguments prevailed, with the Senate approving the bill 23-16, and, moments later, the Assembly approving it 49-27. Supporters had been unsure of the bill's prospects in the Senate before the vote.

"The action we are taking today will save lives," said Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts (D-Camden) after the votes were counted.

"I'm very pleased," said Atlantic City health officer Ron Cash. "This is an opportunity for the city to use the tools we need to fight HIV/AIDS here."

Atlantic City is ready to go and waiting for the state, Cash told Drug War Chronicle. "The state health department has to produce an application form, and then we will submit a proposal. We could have a program running as early as March, but more likely it will be the middle of next year."

The victory was the result of hard work and a favorable political conjuncture, said Scotti. "This was partly the cumulative result of all the years of work, but we're also in a very good place politically," she said. "We have a governor, a Senate president, and an Assembly speaker who are all behind it, and that's critical. But part of arriving at this point was doing all the work to bring them along."

Scotti's work is not done, she said. "We'll be working on implementation and helping the cities get their programs going. Atlantic City and Camden already have ordinances in place, Newark Mayor Booker has spoken publicly about the need for NEPs, the Paterson health department is very interested, and so is Jersey City."

If the latter three cities join Atlantic City and Camden, that will make five, leaving room for only one more municipality under the new law. If there is interest from more cities, advocates could go back to the legislature, said Scotti. "The more the merrier," she said. "If we get more interest, we will push the legislature to amend the law."

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Feature: Clamor Grows for Freedom for Texas Marijuana Prisoner Tyrone Brown

In 1990, Tyrone Brown, then 17 years old, took part in a $2 Dallas stickup in which no one was hurt. He got caught, pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery, and received a sentence of 10 years probation. A few weeks later, he was in court again -- because a drug test detected the presence of marijuana in his urine. For still unexplained reasons, his sentencing judge, Keith Dean, threw the book at him. The 17-year-old was resentenced to life in prison, where he remains to this day.

But now, thanks to drug reform activists, a Dallas newspaper, a nationally televised investigative journalism program, and outraged citizens across the land, Brown may finally get a second chance. An effort to win a commutation of his sentence from Gov. Rick Perry (R) and the Texas parole board is well underway.

Despite his efforts to seek redress and freedom, Brown sat unnoticed in the burgeoning Texas prison system for year after year. In desperation, in 2004 Brown sent a letter detailing his plight to The November Coalition, a national drug reform organization that concentrates on drug war prisoners. A few months later -- after verifying Brown's information -- the Coalition added Brown to the list of drug prisoners on its The Wall web pages, and a few months after that, they got a call from Dallas Morning News reporter Brooks Egerton.

"We posted his story on The Wall in March 2005, and I heard from Brooks Egerton that fall," said November's Chuck Armsbury. "He couldn't believe this business about getting a life sentence for smoking a joint on probation."

Last April, Egerton published a story, "Scales of Justice Can Swing Wildly," contrasting Judge Dean's treatment of Brown -- a poor, black teenager -- and John Alexander Wood -- a wealthy, well-connected white man. While Brown got 10-year suspended sentence for the robbery, Wood got a 10-year suspended sentence for murdering a prostitute. When Brown tested positive for pot, Judge Dean sent him to prison for life. When Wood repeatedly tested positive for cocaine and got arrested for cocaine possession, Judge Dean didn't jail him for life. Instead, he let Wood stay a free man and even exempted him from having to take drug tests or meet a probation officer.

In that article, Judge Dean refused to discuss the two cases, saying he might have to rule on them again. But he told the Morning News that he generally tried to evaluate "the potential danger to the community" and "what, in the long run, is going to be in the best interest of the community and the person themselves."

According to courthouse observers cited by Egerton, Judge Dean typically let defendants like Brown off with a warning for a positive marijuana test and gave them a couple days in jail for a second violation. "Life in prison for smoking a joint -- that's harsh in any case," said former probation officer Don Ford.

Egerton's April story not only outraged readers in Texas, it caught the eye of ABC News' 20-20, which aired a program on Brown's case in early November and ran an update on Thanksgiving Day. With the airing of the 20-20 pieces, the outrage went national.

"After the 20-20 piece aired, a wonderful group of citizens coalesced around justice for Tyrone," said November Coalition executive director Nora Callahan. "People began discussing this on the 20-20 message boards, then they found our web site. We worked with those people to form the group Good Luck, Mr. Brown -- those were Judge Dean's parting words to him -- and now we are working to get his sentence commuted," she told Drug War Chronicle.

College students and housewives came together to work to free Brown, and so did lawyers. One of them was Florida attorney Charley Douglas. "I saw the ABC 20-20 special and I was stunned by the utter injustice of what occurred in that Texas courtroom," he told the Chronicle. "I knew something had to be done to bring justice to a man who has been denied justice for so many years.

Douglas was careful to stay on point. "This is about unequal justice, not a campaign against the drug laws," he said. "We have a lot of people interested in drug reform, but we are trying to stay focused on the goal of getting Tyrone out. How does a rich white guy get a slap on the wrist and poor black guy get life in prison for smoking marijuana? It's a tragedy of the American justice system and we are bound and determined to right that wrong."

Given what has happened since the firestorm broke, that may just happen. The campaign has managed to procure letters from Dallas District Attorney Bill Hill, Sheriff Louie Valdez, and -- just this week -- Judge Dean himself asking for a commutation of sentence. (Judge Dean is now out of office; he was defeated in the November elections.)

Those letters didn't happen by themselves, said Douglas. "Over Thanksgiving, I spoke with Dallas NAACP head Bob Lydia, and he said we needed to get DA Hill on board, so we launched a letter-writing campaign asking him to do whatever he could to support Mr. Brown's release, and on November 30, he sent a letter to Gov. Perry asking for the commutation process to begin. We're very, very excited about that."

Lydia reported Monday after meeting with Judge Dean that Dean had promised to seek an end to Brown's imprisonment, but according to the Dallas Morning News, neither Lydia nor the Texas parole board had received anything from him as of Tuesday afternoon.

Once the parole board gets a commutation request it will consider Brown's case. The board's top lawyer, Laura McElroy, told the Morning News it is not easy to win a commutation without presenting new facts not available to the court or jury at trial, but that she would do what she could. "If the law can be stretched, we'll stretch it," she said, adding that Brown's sentence was the worst example of judicial overreaction to a probation violation she had ever seen. "It's legal, but nobody likes this. Nobody thinks this is fair," she said. "Everybody's really concerned and paying attention to it."

In the meantime, Tyrone Brown sits in prison. He is not technically a drug war prisoner, but he joins several hundred thousand others who are. In Brown's case the war on drugs was not the cause, but the means for injustice. In those cases of people imprisoned for years or decades on drug charges, the drug war is both cause and means.

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Feature: Belgian Bud Brouhaha Unfolds as Antwerp's First Open Marijuana Garden Gets Busted Before Beginning

Belgian activists Tuesday planned to inaugurate the country's first publicly known marijuana garden, but Belgian police intervened, arresting four of them after a press conference to announce their plans but before they could actually transport their clones to the garden site. While the press conference was covered by the media and police were present, the cops waited until the media had left and the activists were on the way to the garden to swoop down.

The action was undertaken by Draw Up Your Plant, an Antwerp consumer group, working in conjunction with the broader European Cannabis Social Clubs movement, which seeks to regularize consumer marijuana production across the continent. The cannabis club movement is an outgrowth of the Freedom to Farm campaign targeting United Nations bans on the cultivation of cannabis, coca, and opium, sponsored by European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies (ENCOD).

ENCOD coordinator Joep Oomen was one of those arrested as the group headed for the garden after its public event. He and three other Draw Up Your Plant members were detained for four hours and now face legal proceedings. Oomen reports that police seized his cell phone and laptop computer, where vital ENCOD information is stored, thus crippling the organization until the devices are returned.

The establishment of a garden where individual consumers could collectively grow their allowable plants was an effort to push the envelope on Belgian drug policy. Under Belgian federal drug policy, the possession of up to three grams of marijuana and one female plant is not prosecuted as a criminal offense, but the law does not address collective gardens.

"Belgian drug policy is ambiguous," Oomen told Drug War Chronicle. "It says it is illegal to produce THC, which is considered as an illegal drug, but it also says that the possession of up to three grams or one female plant is considered the lowest priority in prosecution. The first is due to the fact that Belgium has signed the UN conventions, the second is a pragmatic solution to the debate on depenalization of cannabis use," Oomen explained. "Our action is a way to test the law, to denounce this ambiguity."

The day got off to a good start, with a large contingent of national and international media on hand as Draw Up Your Plant members, including Belgian parliamentarian Stijn Bex, produced a mother plant that had been publicly planted this summer in the Antwerp Botanical Garden and took six clones from it -- one for each group member. After the presentation, the group gave a letter to the Lord Mayor of Antwerp that provided the address of the garden and keys to the door. The event took place with the permission of local authorities, including the police.

"This is an excellent action to demonstrate the hypocrisy of the law," said Bex. "The authorities should install a decent regulation for the production and sale of cannabis."

But that's not what Belgian police had in mind. Once the media had departed and the group was heading for the garden, police stopped them and confiscated their clones and the mother plant, as well as Oomen's electronic devices. The four were interrogated for four hours on suspicion of being involved in drug production and their homes were searched.

Had the group been allowed to go to the garden, Belgian authorities would for the first time have faced a situation where the "drug dealers" were working with the police and providing detailed information about their activities. Instead, the police chose to go after them the old-fashioned way. Now they will get a court battle.

"Our lawyers say we have a strong case," said Oomen. "If we are found innocent, that will be a great advance. If we are found guilty, we will appeal."

In a draft ENCOD press release circulating Thursday, the group argued that European policies of tolerating marijuana use while keeping it technically illegal were not enough. "The legal status of the cultivation of cannabis for personal use remains one of the weak points of international drug prohibition," the group argued. "In practice, it is tolerated, but officially it remains an illegal practice. Prohibition of cannabis causes legal insecurity for cannabis consumers -- estimated between 10 and 30 million EU citizens -- as well as corruption and arbitrariness on behalf of legal authorities. By organizing an association of cannabis cultivators, who operate within the margin of tolerance created by pragmatic politicians in order to avoid making an end to end of cannabis prohibition, the Cannabis Social Clubs are offering a simple solution to create a transparent system of cannabis cultivation which allows control by health and legal authorities."

The governments of Europe have a problem with unregulated marijuana production. The Cannabis Social Club movement has a solution. The Belgian government had the opportunity to take a step forward Tuesday; instead, it took a step backward. Now it will be up to the courts.

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Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

It's a week heavy with crooked guards peddling dope to prisoners, but we also have missing drug evidence in Boston, a cop marketing meth in Mississippi, and a Border Patrol agent headed for prison. Let's get to it:

In Boston, all 10 Boston Police officers working in the department's central drug warehouse have been transferred because anticorruption investigators think someone is stealing evidence. The department has been aware of the missing dope, much of it Oxycontin, for several weeks, but only confirmed last week that it thinks the drugs have been stolen. It is seeking help from the State Police. The drug warehouse holds evidence from 190,000 cases, some going back 20 years. Police said it appeared many of the missing drugs were from cases that had been dismissed. The Boston Police said this week that "findings suggest that evidence tampering is not solely historical, but also current."

In Moss Point, Mississippi, a Moss Point Police officer was arrested December 7 on federal drug distribution charges. Officer Wendy Peyregne was on duty, in uniform, and holding six grams of methamphetamine when she was arrested in Pascagoula and charged with meth distribution. The arrest was the result of a joint investigation by the Moss Point Police Department, the FBI Safe Streets Task Force and the Narcotics Task Force of Jackson County, and came after at least two snitches bought speed off Peyregne. She faces up to 20 years in prison and a $2 million fine.

In Houston, a former US Border Patrol agent was sentenced December 7 to 14 years in prison for taking bribes to help drug and immigrant smugglers and selling immigration documents. David Duque, 36, pleaded guilty to bribery and document counts in September. Prosecutors showed that he had accepted $5,000 to let a vehicle carrying 11 pounds of cocaine to go through the Falfurrias, Texas, highway checkpoint in June. FBI agents said Duque had been doing it for years, as well as selling passports, birth certificates, and other identification documents.

In Onslow County, North Carolina, a New Hanover County jail guard was arrested December 7 when he was caught with two pounds of cocaine. Thurston Miles, 33, went down after a two-month investigation by the State Bureau of Investigation, the Onslow County Sheriff's Office and the New Hanover County Sheriff's Office. He now faces cocaine distribution charges, and was last reported sitting in jail under a $500,000 secured bond.

In Oklahoma City, an Oklahoma County jail guard has been arrested for smuggling marijuana and other contraband into the jail. County detention officer Eddie Daniels was busted with a quarter-ounce of pot and 3 ½ pounds of tobacco when he reported for work at the jail. Jail officials also turned up a half-pound of pot in the jail they said was linked to Daniels' arrest. Investigators said they believed Daniels had made $5,000 working with an inmate to bring contraband into the jail. The inmate also faces drug and contraband charges. No word yet on the formal charges Daniels faces.

In Linton, Indiana, a Wabash Valley Correctional Facility officer was arrested December 8 and charged with financing the delivery of methamphetamine. Dustine LeDune, 24, was being held without bond. LeDune was arrested after making a deal to sell an eightball (3.5 grams) of meth in a Wal-Mart parking lot, but Linton Police said they had been investigating him for several months. Correctional facility officials said LeDune has been suspended pending the outcome of his trial.

In Hutchinson, Kansas, a prison contract worker was sentenced to 15 months behind bars for selling meth to prisoners. Joseph Delancy, who worked for Aramark Services at the Hutchinson Correctional Facility had pleaded guilty to trafficking in contraband in a correctional facility, possession of methamphetamine with intent to sell and unlawfully arranging a drug sale by a commercial device. He could have received almost 5 years in prison, but Judge Tim Chambers was apparently moved by his contention that he fell into drug use after the death of his 4-year-old son.

In East Baton Rouge, Louisiana, an East Baton Rouge Parish Sheriff's Office deputy was arrested Sunday night for allegedly peddling drugs in the Parish Prison. Deputy Kendrick Jamond Lockett, 24, was arrested after an investigation by the sheriff's office, the Baton Rouge Police Department the Louisiana Office of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and a snitch. Lockett is charged with attempting to enter contraband into a penal facility, malfeasance in office, possession with intent to distribute marijuana, possession with intent to distribute Ecstasy, attempt to distribute marijuana and attempt to distribute Ecstasy. He was fired Monday morning as he sat in jail.

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Medical Marijuana: Eddy Lepp Wins a Battle

Eddy Lepp and his Medicinal Gardens and Multi-Denominational Ministry of Cannabis and Rastafari won a victory in federal district court in California Tuesday when a judge suppressed the evidence agents gathered in a 2004 raid where they seized 32,524 plants.

In the 2004 raid, DEA agents, local law enforcement, the California Highway Patrol, and an elite National Guard unit spent two days destroying the crop. The DEA at the time described it as the largest cultivation bust in history. It was destined, Lepp says, for medical marijuana patients in the state.

In a Tuesday ruling, US District Court Judge Marilyn Patel threw out the fruits of that raid. According to a press release from Lepp supporters, the evidence was suppressed due to illegal service of warrants.

Lepp, who is a leading advocate of the sacramental use of marijuana, still faces decades in federal prison over a 2005 raid. Judge Patel has set a January 9 hearing at the Federal Court Building in San Francisco on whether to throw out the search warrant in that case as well. Lepp and his defenders will argue that it, too, was illegally obtained.

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Southwest Asia: US Drug Czar Announces Afghanistan Will Spray Opium Poppies

Office of National Drug Control Policy head John Walters announced Saturday at a Kabul press conference that Afghanistan's poppy crops will be sprayed with herbicides in an effort to put a crimp in the country's booming opium and heroin trade. But the Afghan government, which is not enthusiastic about spraying, has yet to confirm Walters' pronouncement.

This year, Afghan opium production increased 49% over last year, and the country produced 6,100 metric tons of opium, or 670 tons of heroin. That's 90% of the illicit opium supply, and more than the world's junkies can shoot, smoke, or snort in a year. This as the US spent $600 million on anti-drug efforts in Afghanistan this year.

Afghanistan will become a narco-state unless "giant steps" are taken to rein in production, Walters said. "We cannot fail in this mission. Proceeds from opium production feed the insurgency and burden Afghanistan's nascent political institutions with the scourge of corruption."

The problem for Walters and the US is that embarking on widespread eradication is also likely to feed the insurgency as farmers and traders turn to the Taliban for protection from the central government and the "infidels." The Taliban is already doing just that, and it is using opium profits to fund its resurgence. So far this year, 189 NATO and US troops and some 4,000 insurgents have been killed in fighting, by far the largest toll since the US overthrew the Taliban in late 2001.

On top of that, after decades of war, Afghans are very leery of chemicals being dropped from planes. President Karzai himself earlier rejected spraying, saying herbicides proved too great a risk and could contaminate water and kill crops growing beside the poppies.

But Walters said Karzai has agreed to spraying, which will use glyphosate, the herbicide in Roundup. "I think the president has said yes, and I think some of the ministers have repeated yes," Walters said without specifying when spraying would start. "The particulars of the application have not been decided yet, but yes, the goal is to carry out ground spraying."

The Associated Press reported that Gen. Khodaidad, Afghanistan's deputy minister for counter-narcotics, said the government hadn't yet made any decisions. But the AP also quoted an unnamed Afghan official who said the government was studying the issue.

"We are thinking about it, we are looking into it. We're just trying to see how the procedure will go," said the official.

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Bad Science: Congress Passes Measure Okaying Mycoherbicide Testing, But Limits It to US Labs

As part of last Friday's passage of the reauthorization bill for the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), Congress authorized the testing of mycoherbicides -- toxic, fungal plant killers -- for use against illicit drug crops in Latin America. But in what the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) called a "significant reform," the legislation was modified to restrict testing to laboratories in the United States.

The brainchild of drug warriors Reps. Mark Souder (R-IN) and Dan Burton (R-IN), the measure passed the House in July 2005. Thanks to the efforts of Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Joe Biden (D-DE), it was attached to the ONDCP bill and passed last week.

As DRCNet reported earlier this year, government agencies are not jumping on the mycoherbicide bandwagon. Agencies including the Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection, the Department of Agriculture, the State Department, the CIA and even the DEA, have rejected the idea as dangerous for health and the environment as well as likely to meet with resistant strains of poppy and coca against which it would be ineffective.

DPA began organizing against the measure this spring, and when it got fast-tracked this month, drug reform groups including DRCNet, DPA and others raised the alarm. "This a huge victory because it means the people and environment of Latin America will be protected," a DPA bulletin noted. "We have you to thank for this reform because so many of you called Congress asking for the provision to be changed."

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Methamphetamine: DEA to Create National Lab Site Registry

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced in a press release last week that it will post the locations of known clandestine meth labs or dump sites across the country. The free public service will help people be aware of possible meth-contaminated sites in their communities, the agency said.

While a handful of states have adopted meth registries, the move by the DEA marks the first national listing of former meth lab sites. The web site will contain addresses reported by state and local law enforcement where chemicals or other items related to meth production were found or dumped. The DEA warns that the list "may not be comprehensive."

"In a cruel twist of fate, people who have never used or manufactured meth have become some of its hardest hit victims after unknowingly buying property contaminated by chemicals and waste generated from a meth lab," said DEA Administrator Karen Tandy. "This registry gives home owners a new tool to help them ensure that their dream house is not a hidden nightmare."

[Ed: It's not a "cruel twist of fate," it's a cruel but predictable consequence of drug prohibition."]

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Addiction Treatment: Congress Allows Certified Physicians to Take On More Buprenorphine Patients

On December 8, Congress moved for the second time to increase the number of patients to whom a doctor can prescribe buprenorphine, an opiate agonist used to treat heroin dependence. Under an amendment to the Controlled Substances Act, certified physicians will be able to prescribe for up to 100 patients.

When Congress passed the Drug Addiction Treatment Act of 2000 allowing for the first time medical office-based opiate addiction treatment, it limited the number of patients who could be treated in any one practice to 30. Last year, Congress changed the cap to 30 patients per physician. To qualify for the new, 100-patient prescribing limit, doctors must have been certified to prescribe buprenorphine for at least one year.

"Of the estimated six million people in the United States who are dependent on opioids, many of them have been forced to wait for the medical treatment they so desperately need simply because of a mandated 30-patient 'cap' on how many people a doctor may treat," said Edwin A. Salsitz, MD, of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. "Enactment of the legislation will begin to address this inequity."

Salsitz was quoted in a press release from Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals, the company that manufactures Suboxone and Subutex, the formulations of buprenorphine approved for opiate dependency treatment by the Food and Drug Administration.

"This is the best-kept secret in opioid addiction and it shouldn't be," said Timothy Lepak, president of the Connecticut-based National Alliance of Advocates for Buprenorphine Treatment. "I'm puzzled that there's any limit whatsoever."

The amendment passed as part of the bill reauthorizing the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the drug czar's office.

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East Asia: Reefer Madness Snares Taiwan Celebrities

Seven Taiwanese entertainers have been questioned by police about whether they smoked marijuana, and while they all initially denied using the weed, at least two came forth this week to tearfully admit they had indeed puffed. They face two months in drug treatment if their urine tests come back positive.

Tuo Chung-kang and Chu Chung-heng, the hosts of a popular TV program, made the ritual confession and self-flagellation at a Sunday press conference where they apologized to the public for earlier trying to hide their misdeeds. "I was abroad and so I thought I could relax and have some fun," Tuo said, adding that he had only smoked when he was in Thailand and the Philippines earlier this year. "I was too naive and I feel bad about it."

Chu, an actor and variety show host, told a separate news conference that he had lied because he was afraid of the ramifications . "I feared that I might lose all that I've strived for if I confessed," Chu tearfully told reporters. Chu said he decided to tell the truth "so that I could face my daughter and family... and not live under the shadow for the rest of my life."

At least five other singers and TV personalities have been questioned by police in a case that began when they discovered marijuana growing in the yard of a wealthy residence owned by Cheng Po-geng. Police accused Cheng of selling marijuana to the entertainers through a night club owner, Chen Chiu-mu, whom police said sold marijuana "to over 10 entertainers."

Although marijuana is an illegal drug in Taiwan, the National Bureau of Controlled Drugs reported last week that some 60,000 Taiwanese smoke pot. Bureau Director-General Chien Chun-sheng is concerned. He said abusing marijuana causes distorted perceptions, difficulties in thinking, and makes the user "a lazybones."

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Weekly: This Week in History

December 17, 1914: Congress passes the Harrison Narcotics Act, initiating federal prohibition of cocaine and opiates.

December 17, 1986: Guillermo Cano Isaza, editor-in-chief of El Espectador (Colombia), is assassinated while driving home from work. Cano frequently wrote in favor of stiffer penalties for drug traffickers. His murder leads to a national outrage comparable to the assassination of Lara Bonilla, and a subsequent government crackdown on traffickers.

December 15, 1989: Medellin cartel leader Jose Gonzalo Rodriguez Gacha is killed by Colombian police in a raid on his Tolu ranch.

December 20, 1989: The US invades Panama with 24,000 soldiers in Operation Just Cause in order to overthrow dictator Manuel Noriega for drug trafficking, money laundering, and selling information to Cuba.

December 16, 1991: The US Supreme Court allows a US Court of Appeals ruling to stand which found that the government's interest in screening out possible drug users outweighed the applicant's constitutional right to privacy. Prior to this decision, only federal employees in occupations related to public safety (e.g. truck and bus drivers) could be tested without cause. The ruling opens the door to across-the-board drug testing for millions of businesses and was a boon to the drug testing industry.

December 18, 2002: 108 members of the European Parliament endorse a letter calling on the United Nations and its member states to establish a "system for the legal control and regulation of the production, sale and consumption of substances which are currently illegal.

December 19, 2003: Albert A. Gore III, 21, is arrested for marijuana possession after being stopped for driving a vehicle without its headlights on.

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Announcement: DRCNet Content Syndication Feeds Now Available for YOUR Web Site!

Are you a fan of DRCNet, and do you have a web site you'd like to use to spread the word more forcefully than a single link to our site can achieve? We are pleased to announce that DRCNet content syndication feeds are now available. Whether your readers' interest is in-depth reporting as in Drug War Chronicle, the ongoing commentary in our blogs, or info on specific drug war subtopics, we are now able to provide customizable code for you to paste into appropriate spots on your blog or web site to run automatically updating links to DRCNet educational content.

For example, if you're a big fan of Drug War Chronicle and you think your readers would benefit from it, you can have the latest issue's headlines, or a portion of them, automatically show up and refresh when each new issue comes out.

If your site is devoted to marijuana policy, you can run our topical archive, featuring links to every item we post to our site about marijuana -- Chronicle articles, blog posts, event listings, outside news links, more. The same for harm reduction, asset forfeiture, drug trade violence, needle exchange programs, Canada, ballot initiatives, roughly a hundred different topics we are now tracking on an ongoing basis. (Visit the Chronicle main page, right-hand column, to see the complete current list.)

If you're especially into our new Speakeasy blog section, new content coming out every day dealing with all the issues, you can run links to those posts or to subsections of the Speakeasy.

Click here to view a sample of what is available -- please note that the length, the look and other details of how it will appear on your site can be customized to match your needs and preferences.

Please also note that we will be happy to make additional permutations of our content available to you upon request (though we cannot promise immediate fulfillment of such requests as the timing will in many cases depend on the availability of our web site designer). Visit our Site Map page to see what is currently available -- any RSS feed made available there is also available as a javascript feed for your web site (along with the Chronicle feed which is not showing up yet but which you can find on the feeds page linked above). Feel free to try out our automatic feed generator, online here.

Contact us for assistance or to let us know what you are running and where. And thank you in advance for your support.

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Announcement: DRCNet RSS Feeds Now Available

RSS feeds are the wave of the future -- and DRCNet now offers them! The latest Drug War Chronicle issue is now available using RSS at http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/feed online.

We have many other RSS feeds available as well, following about a hundred different drug policy subtopics that we began tracking since the relaunch of our web site this summer -- indexing not only Drug War Chronicle articles but also Speakeasy blog posts, event listings, outside news links and more -- and for our daily blog postings and the different subtracks of them. Visit our Site Map page to peruse the full set.

Thank you for tuning in to DRCNet and drug policy reform!

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Announcement: New Format for the Reformer's Calendar

With the launch of our new web site, The Reformer's Calendar no longer appears as part of the Drug War Chronicle newsletter but is instead maintained as a section of our new web site:

• Visit http://stopthedrugwar.org each day and you'll see a listing of upcoming events in the page's righthand column with the number of days remaining until the next several events coming up and a link to more.

• Check our new online calendar section at to view all of them by month, week or a range of different views.
• We request and invite you to submit your event listings directly on our web site. Note that our new system allows you to post not only a short description as we currently do, but also the entire text of your announcement.

The Reformer's Calendar publishes events large and small of interest to drug policy reformers around the world. Whether it's a major international conference, a demonstration bringing together people from around the region or a forum at the local college, we want to know so we can let others know, too.

But we need your help to keep the calendar current, so please make sure to contact us and don't assume that we already know about the event or that we'll hear about it from someone else, because that doesn't always happen.

We look forward to apprising you of more new features of our new web site as they become available.

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