As 2006 comes to an end, we look back to find the most significant victories and advances for drug reform this year.
As 2006 comes to a close, we look back at the year's biggest drug reform defeats, disappointments, and downers.
A new study using federal government statistics and conservative estimates illustrates the extreme failure of prohibitionist policies.
TV and a prominent link help us take the message to wider audiences this week.
A Virginia drug-fighter gets caught selling drugs, so does a former NYPD cop, and yet another jail guard goes down. Also, an interesting update on Operation Lively Green.
New Jersey Gov. John Corzine (D) quickly signed the needle exchange passed by the state Assembly last week. Now, up to six Garden State cities may begin pilot programs.
More than 120 medical experts, public health departments, and drug user advocacy groups have signed on to a letter urging Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt to take aggressive action to stem a wave of fatal overdoses related to heroin cut with the synthetic opiate fentanyl.
Peruvian President Alan Garcia asks for the death penalty for terrorism after Shining Path guerillas attack police and anti-drug workers trying to wipe out illicit coca crops. The following day, he says coca is great in salads.
As Australia shivers through a fit of Reefer Madness, the government of Prime Minister John Howard says it wants to ban bongs.
Balko at Reason, Dems and Sentencing, Barr the Libertarian, Another Top Ten Set
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
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As Drug War Chronicle publishes its last issue of the year -- we will be on vacation next week -- it is time to look back at 2006. Both here at home and abroad, the year saw significant progress on various fronts, from marijuana law reform to harm reduction advances to the rollback of repressive drug laws in Europe and Latin America. Below -- in no particular order -- is our necessarily somewhat arbitrary list of the ten most significant victories and advances for the cause of drug law reform. (We also publish a top ten most significant defeats for drug law reform in 2006 below.)
Marijuana possession stays legal in Alaska. A 1975 Alaska Supreme Court case gave Alaskans the right to possess up to a quarter-pound of marijuana in the privacy of their homes, but in 1991, voters recriminalized possession. A series of court cases this decade reestablished the right to possess marijuana, provoking Gov. Frank Murkowski to spend two years in an ultimately successful battle to get the legislature to re-recriminalize it. But in July, an Alaska Superior Court threw out the new law's provision banning pot possession at home. The court did reduce the amount to one ounce, and the state Supreme Court has yet to weigh in, but given its past rulings, there is little reason to think it will reverse itself.
Local initiatives making marijuana the lowest law enforcement priority win across the board. In the November elections, lowest priority initiatives swept to victory in Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Santa Monica, California, as well as Missoula County, Montana, and Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Earlier this year, West Hollywood adopted a similar ordinance, and last month, San Francisco did the same thing. Look for more initiatives like these next year and in 2008.
Rhode Island becomes the 11th state to approve medical marijuana and the third to do so via the legislative process. In January, legislators overrode a veto by Gov. Donald Carcieri (R) to make the bill law. The bill had passed both houses in 2005, only to be vetoed by Carcieri. The state Senate voted to override in June of 2005, but the House did not act until January.
The Higher Education Act (HEA) drug provision is partially rolled back. In the face of rising opposition to the provision, which bars students with drug convictions -- no matter how trivial -- from receiving federal financial assistance for specified periods, its author, leading congressional drug warrior Rep. Mark Souder, staged a tactical retreat. To blunt the movement for full repeal, led by the Coalition for Higher Education Act Reform, Souder amended his own provision so that it now applies only to students who are enrolled and receiving federal financial aid at the time they commit their offenses. Passage of the amended drug provision in February marks one of the only major rollbacks of drug war legislation in years.
New Jersey passes a needle exchange bill. After a 13-year struggle and a rising toll from injection-related HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C infections, the New Jersey legislature last week passed legislation that would establish pilot needle exchange programs in up to six municipalities. Gov. Jon Corzine (D) signed it into law this week. With Delaware and Massachusetts also passing needle access bills this year, every state in the union now either has at least some needle exchange programs operating or allows injection drug users to obtain clean needles without a prescription.
The US Supreme Court upholds the right of American adherents of the Brazil-based church the Union of the Vegetable (UDV) to use a psychedelic tea (ayahuasca) containing a controlled substance in religious ceremonies. Using the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a unanimous court held that the government must show a "compelling government interest" in restricting religious freedom and use "the least restrictive means" of furthering that interest. The February ruling may pave the way for marijuana spiritualists to seek similar redress.
The Vancouver safe injection site, Insite wins a new, if limited, lease on life. The pilot project site, the only one of its kind in North America, was up for renewal after its initial three-year run, and the Conservative government of Prime Minister Steven Harper was ideologically opposed to continuing it, but thanks to a well-orchestrated campaign to show community and global support, the Harper government granted a one-year extension of the program. Some observers have suggested the limited extension should make the "worst of" list instead of the "best of," but keeping the site long enough to survive the demise of the Conservative government (probably this year) has to rank as a victory. So does the publication of research results demonstrating that the site saves lives, reduces overdoses and illness, and gets people into treatment without leading to increased crime or drug use.
The election of Evo Morales brings coca peace to Bolivia. When coca-growers union leader Morales was elected president in the fall of 2004, the country's coca farmers finally had a friend in high office. While previous years had seen tension and violence between cocaleros and the government's repressive apparatus, Morales has worked with the growers to seek voluntary limits on production and, with financial assistance from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, begun a program of research on the uses of coca and the construction of factories to turn it into tea or flour. All is not quiet -- there have been deadly clashes with growers in Las Yungas in recent months -- but the situation is greatly improved from previous years.
Brazil stops imprisoning drug users. Under a new drug law signed by President Luis Inacio "Lula" Da Silva in August, drug users and possessors will not be arrested and jailed, but cited and offered rehabilitation and community service. While the new "treatment not jail" law keeps drug users under the therapeutic thumb of the state, it also keeps them out of prison.
Italy reverses tough marijuana laws. Before its defeat this spring, the government of then Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi toughened up Italy's previously relatively sensible drug laws, making people possessing more than five grams of marijuana subject to punishment as drug dealers. The new, left-leaning government of Premier Romano Prodi took and last month raised the limit for marijuana possession without penalty from five grams to an ounce. The Prodi government has also approved the use of marijuana derivatives for pain relief.
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As Drug War Chronicle publishes its last issue of the year -- we will be on vacation next week -- it is time to look back at 2006. In a companion piece, we looked at the highlights for drug reform this year; here, we look at the lowlights, from failures at the polls to bad court rulings to negative trends. Below -- in no particular order -- is our necessarily somewhat arbitrary list of the ten most significant defeats and disappointments for the cause of drug law reform. (We also publish a "best of 2006" list in this issue, above.)
The drug war continues unabated on the streets of America. Despite two decades of drug reform efforts, the war on drugs continues to make America a country that eats its young. In May, we reported that the US prisoner count topped 2.1 million -- a new high -- and included more than 500,000 drug war prisoners. In September, the FBI released its annual Uniform Crime Report, showing nearly 800,000 marijuana arrests and 1.8 million drug arrests in 2005 -- another new high. And just two weeks ago, we reported that more than seven million people are in jail or prison or on probation or parole -- yet another new high.
Methamphetamine hysteria continues unabated and becomes an excuse for old-school, repressive drug laws and bad, newfangled ones, too. The drug war always needs a demon drug du jour to scare the public, and this year, like the past few years, meth is it. Never mind that the stuff has been around for decades and that there is less to the "meth epidemic" than meets the eye. The "dangers of meth" have been cited as a reason for everything from targeting South Asian convenience store clerks to restricting access to cold medications containing pseudoephedrine to harsh new penalties for meth offenses to more than 20 states defining meth use or production as child abuse. Michigan even went so far as to pass legislation banning meth recipes on the Internet, while Arizona voters felt impelled to roll back a decade-old sentencing reform. Under that reform, first- and second-time drug possession offenders couldn't be sentenced to jail or prison, but now Arizona has created an exception for meth offenders. The drug warriors like to say meth is the new crack, and in the way meth is used as an excuse for "tough" approaches to drug policy, that is certainly true.
The US Supreme Court upholds unannounced police searches. In a June decision, the court upheld a Michigan drug raid where police called out their presence at the door, but then immediately rushed in before the homeowner could respond. Previously, the courts had allowed such surprise entries only in the case of "no-knock" warrants, but this ruling, which goes against hundreds of years of common law and precedent, effectively eviscerates that distinction. "No-knock" raids are dangerous, as we reported that same month, and as Atlanta senior citizen Kathryn Johnston would tell you if she could. But she can't -- Johnston was killed in a "no-knock" raid last month.
Marijuana legalization initiatives lose in Colorado and Nevada. After four years of effort, the Marijuana Policy Project still couldn't get over the top with its "tax and regulate" initiative in Nevada, although it increased its share of the vote from 39% to 44%. In Colorado, SAFER Colorado took its "marijuana is safer than alcohol" message statewide after successes at state universities and in Denver last year, but failed to convince voters, winning only 41% of the vote.
South Dakota becomes the first state where voters defeat an initiative to legalize medical marijuana. In every state where it had gone to the voters as a ballot measure, medical marijuana had emerged victorious. But voters in the socially conservative, lightly populated Upper Midwest state narrowly rejected it in November. The measure lost 48% to 52%.
California's medical marijuana movement is under sustained attack by the feds and recalcitrant state and local officials and law enforcement. This year, it seems like barely a week goes by without a new raid by the DEA or unreconstructed drug warriors in one county or another. San Diego has been particularly hard-hit, but we also reported on a spate of raids in October, and there have been more since. The feds have also started their first medical marijuana prosecution since the 2003 Ed Rosenthal fiasco, with Merced County medical marijuana patient and provider Dustin Costa going on trial last month.
Hundreds die from overdoses of heroin cut with fentanyl, but the official response is almost nonexistent -- except for increased law enforcement pressure. With injection drug users falling over dead from Boston to Baltimore, Philadelphia to Detroit and Chicago, an estimated 700 people have been killed by the deadly cocktail. We reported on it in June, but the wave of deaths continues to the present. Just last week, more than 120 medical experts, public health departments, and drug user advocates sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt urging him to take aggressive action. Ho-hum, who cares about dead junkies? Not the federal government, at least so far.
Plan Colombia continues to roll along, adding fuel to the flames of Colombia's civil war while achieving little in the realm of actually reducing the supply of cocaine. The US Congress continues to fund Plan Colombia to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year, even though despite six years of military assistance and widespread aerial eradication using herbicides, it now appears that production is higher than anyone ever thought. Perhaps a Democratic Congress will put an end to this fiasco next year, but Democrats certainly can count influential Plan Colombia supporters among their ranks -- incoming Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman and presidential hopeful Joe Biden (DE), to name just one.
Afghanistan is well on its way to becoming a true narco-state. The US war on terror and the US war on drugs are on a collision course in Afghanistan, which now, five years after the US invaded, produces more than 90% of the world's illicit opium. This year, Afghanistan's opium crop hit a new record high of 6,100 metric tons, and now, US drug czar John Walters is pressuring the Afghans to embrace eradication with herbicides. But each move the US and the Afghans make to suppress the opium trade just drives more Afghans into the waiting arms of the Taliban, which is also making enough money off the trade to finance its reborn insurgency. Meanwhile, the Afghan government is also full of people getting rich off opium. Everyone is ignoring the sensible proposals that have put on the table for dealing with the problem, which range from an economic development and anti-corruption approach put forward by the UN and World Bank as an alternative to eradication, and the Senlis Council proposal to license production and divert it to the legitimate medicinal market.
Australia is in the grips of Reefer Madness. While some Australian states enacted reforms to soften their marijuana laws in years past, the government of Prime Minister John Howard would like to roll back those reforms. The Australians seem particularly susceptible to hysterical pronouncements about the links between marijuana and mental illness, and they also hold the unfathomable notion that marijuana grown hydroponically is somehow more dangerous than marijuana grown in soil. Over the weekend, the national health secretary announced he wants to ban bongs. That's not so surprising coming from a man who in May announced that marijuana is more dangerous than heroin. Hopefully, saner heads will prevail Down Under, but it isn't happening just yet.
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A study released Monday finds that marijuana is now the nation's biggest cash crop, with the value of the annual harvest exceeding that of corn, soybeans or hay -- the country's top three legal cash crops. The study, conducted by public policy analyst and former National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws head Jon Gettman, used official government figures to arrive at an estimate that the annual pot crop is worth $35 billion.
indoor marijuana grow
According to the report,
Marijuana Production in the United States (2006), US domestic marijuana production has increased 10-fold in the past quarter-century. This despite ever more intensive eradication programs at the state and federal levels that have seen more than 100 million pot plants seized and destroyed since the early 1980s.
Between 1981 and 2006, US marijuana production increased ten-fold, from 1,000 metric tons (2.2 million pounds) to 10,000 metric tons (22 million pounds), according to government figures cited by Gettman. The massive expansion of pot production in the face of increased eradication efforts suggests that "marijuana has become a pervasive and ineradicable part of our national economy" that should be put under a system of legal regulation, Gettman wrote.
And it is everywhere. While California, Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii, and Washington are the top producing states, pot is the top cash crop in 12 states and among the top three in 30 states. "There is a lot of demand for marijuana in the US, and it's only natural that production would increase here," Gettman told Drug War Chronicle.
But the increase is also a function of government enforcement efforts, Gettman argued. "In response to the government spraying Mexican marijuana with paraquat in the 1970s, people began to grow in California and Hawaii. Then the government starting flying helicopters and airplanes around looking for marijuana from the sky, so cultivation spread out," he explained. "By 1982, it was in 32 states. Now, it's in all 50 states. Growers also moved to smaller plots and to maximize production with the use of fertilizers, better genetic stock, and the production of sinsemilla, and they moved inside. Everything the government has done to stop marijuana production has caused growers to respond, and now we are at a point where we have diffused cultivation and small-scale production all over the country," the analyst argued.
"This report tells us our marijuana policy is not working very well, and that's an understatement," Gettman summarized. "These are the government's numbers, not mine, and they show there is absolutely no evidence their program is successful in any way, shape, or form."
"The fact that marijuana is America's number one cash crop after more than three decades of governmental eradication efforts is the clearest illustration that our present marijuana laws are a complete failure," said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, which spearheaded the media outreach following the report's publication. "America's marijuana crop is worth more than our nation's annual production of corn and wheat combined. And our nation's laws guarantee that 100% of the proceeds from marijuana sales go to unregulated criminals rather than to legitimate businesses that pay taxes to support schools, police and roads."
While Gettman did not estimate possible tax revenues from the regulated sale of marijuana, he suggested they would be substantial. "Legal production would bring down the prices, but the fact that people are buying marijuana at black market prices demonstrates that people value marijuana and will pay for it," said Gettman. "Marijuana can be heavily taxed and still provide lower prices than now while providing revenues to the government," he argued.
In California, the state's Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) seized nearly 1.7 million plants this year, but based on seizure rates over the last three years, Gettman puts California's pot production at 21 million plants, worth about $13 billion and responsible for a whopping 38% of total US production.
The country should focus on regulating the lucrative trade instead of vainly trying to suppress it, Gettman concluded. "Like all profitable agricultural crops marijuana adds resources and value to the economy," he writes in the report. "The focus for public policy should be how to effectively control this market through regulation and taxation in order to achieve immediate and realistic goals, such as reducing teenage access."
Neither CAMP nor the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) returned Chronicle calls for comment on the study, but ONDCP's Tom Riley told the Los Angeles Times that while he wouldnât argue Gettman's numbers, he disagreed with his conclusions. "Coca is Colombia's largest cash crop and that hasn't worked out for them, and opium poppies are Afghanistan's largest crop, and that has worked out disastrously for them," Riley said. "I don't know why we would venture down that road."
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Thanks to the initiative of Netscape user mntnman444, Drug War Chronicle made the top slot on the Netscape home page, which now features news links nominated and voted on by members. Over 13,000 people read about marijuana prisoner Tyrone Brown and the effort to gain him clemency as a result. Click here to read the many comments made by Netscape users.
DRCNet executive director David Borden was taped today for Regional Network News, a cable station serving the tri-state (NY, NJ & CT) area, debating Newark, New Jersey minister Rev. Jethro James on the subject of needle exchange programs and New Jersey's new law. (We believe the spot ran this evening, but were not able to watch it to confirm -- let us know if you saw it.) We hope to get video of the segment online sometime next month.
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A Virginia drug-fighter gets caught selling drugs, so does a retired NYPD officer, and yet another jail guard goes down. Also this week, an interesting update on Operation Lively Green, the FBI sting that nailed dozens of military and Arizona law enforcement personnel for protecting the drug trade. Let's get to it:
In Portsmouth, Virginia, a Portsmouth police lieutenant was arrested Tuesday on cocaine distribution charges. Lt. Brian Keith Muhammed Abdul Ali, a 21-year veteran of the force who heads the department's drug-fighting unit, was arrested along with his nephew, a civilian. Both face charges of felony conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Ali was in jail with no bond set as of Wednesday.
In New York City, a retired NYPD officer was one of nine men arrested on charges they peddled drugs at a city-owned Manhattan marina. The arrests last week at the Dyckman Street Marina were the culmination of a six-month investigation in which undercover officers purchased heroin, crack, ecstasy, and marijuana on at least 48 occasions. Jeremy O'Rourke, 42, who quit the department in the late 1980s, is accused of brokering deals between large-scale dealers and the buyers who turned out to be narcs. He faces multiple counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance and conspiracy. His bail is set at $500,000.
In Albany, New York, two Montgomery County Jail guards have been arrested for selling marijuana to inmates. Luis Morales Jr., 26, was arrested last week, while Alvin Hoyt Jr., 20, was arrested earlier this year. Hoyt's arrest during the summer for promoting contraband led to an investigation that has now also netted Morales. Morales was arraigned December 13 on federal charges of marijuana possession with intent to distribute, but the charges against Hoyt were reduced and the judge has sealed his case. I wonder which one cut a deal to testify?
In Tucson, the Arizona Daily Star dug into the Operation Lively Green corruption scandal and found that a dozen US military recruiters were allowed to stay on the job, sometimes for years, after the FBI knew they were involved in drug-running. Operation Lively Green was the two-year FBI sting that has so far netted guilty pleas or verdicts from 60 members of the military and Arizona law enforcement agencies who took bribes from undercover agents to traffic cocaine. The ten recruiters who so far have pleaded guilty netted $180,000 between them.
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New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine Tuesday signed into law the Bloodborne Disease Harm Reduction Act, which will allow up to six municipalities to establish needle exchange programs in an effort to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C. The measure passed both houses of the legislature last week, 13 years after attempts to pass such legislation got underway.
Gov. Jon Corzine
Now, newspaper reporters will no longer have to use the boilerplate "New Jersey is the only state with neither needle exchange programs or access to needles without a prescription" when writing about AIDS in the Garden State. In addition to the needle exchange bill, the legislature this session also moved on a non-prescription needle sales bill, which passed the Assembly, but didn't get to a vote in the Senate. Proponents expect it to be on the agenda when the legislature gets back to work next year.
Corzine had previously supported the needle exchange bill and his signature was not in doubt. Under the new law, cities interested in starting needle exchange programs must pass an ordinance, and participants must be given referrals for HIV counseling and testing, drug treatment programs, and health and social services. Two cities, Atlantic City and Camden, have already passed such ordinances, and several others have expressed interest.
"Quite simply, this bill will save lives," said Governor Corzine in a statement announcing his signing of the bill. "The science is clear: Needle exchange programs have been proven effective in reducing the spread of HIV and hepatitis C and serve as gateways to treatment."
"Today ends New Jersey's dubious reign as our nation's only hold-out on progressive and common-sense policies that will save lives," said Speaker Joseph J. Roberts, Jr. (D-Camden). "Now we can begin to reverse our state's near-epidemic rates of HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C. The needle exchange programs and enhanced access to addiction treatment we authorize today are a glimmer of hope to many who may otherwise have known only death and despair."
"Today we have taken responsibility to help prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in this state by making access to clean needles part of our comprehensive strategy to combat this public health epidemic," said Senator Nia Gill, (D-Essex), a Senate sponsor of this legislation.
New Jersey has the highest rate of cumulative HIV/AIDS cases among women, the third highest rate of pediatric HIV/AIDS cases, the fifth highest rate of adult HIV/AIDS cases and a rate of injection-related HIV infection that is nearly twice the national average.
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More than 120 medical experts, public health departments, and drug user health advocates have called on the federal government to take more aggressive steps to deal with a wave of overdose deaths caused by heroin cut with fentanyl, an opioid pain medication 50 to 80 times stronger than heroin. The call came in an open letter to US Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt drawn up by the Harm Reduction Coalition, a national health and human rights advocacy group working to reduce drug-related harm.
fentanyl
The ongoing epidemic --
Drug War Chronicle reported on it in June -- has killed more than 750 injection drug users this year from Chicago to the East Coast. Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia all have around 200 fatalities.
The actual number of deaths may be far higher because many jurisdictions near these large cities may lack the resources and expertise to monitor overdose trends. "This wave of overdose deaths poses an acute public health emergency and immediate threat to the lives of opiate users, while highlighting persistent weaknesses in health officials' response to the increasing epidemic of both legal and illegal opiate overdose," said Dr. Sharon Stancliff, medical director for the Harm Reduction Coalition.
The letter makes five recommendations, calling on Secretary Leavitt to ensure that:
- The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) create surveillance systems to monitor overdose trends and threats.
- The National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) provide emergency funds for research projects to answer urgent questions that will allow jurisdictions to immediately and effectively address the overdose epidemic.
- The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) rapidly replicate existing overdose prevention programs, and fully fund them.
- The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) inform CDC of levels of purity and presence of fentanyl and other hazardous contaminants in local drug supplies so CDC can notify the public.
- The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) prepare an emergency report of the current overdose epidemic for Congress. This report should make emergency recommendations for prevention measures including: Supporting community-based responses to overdose, including the use of naloxone, a legal medication that reverses opioid overdoses, by users and their loved ones; improving police and emergency medical services responses to overdoses; and enhancing the availability of substance abuse treatment.
"A client told us she watched her friend die in front of her and there was nothing she could do," said Corey Davis, legal services coordinator at Prevention Point Philadelphia. "If she had naloxone and was trained to use it, she could have saved her friend's life. We've lost a lot of our people due to fentanyl. This has to stop."
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Peruvian President Alan Garcia had coca on his mind this week. In response to an attack Saturday by presumed Shining Path guerrillas working with drug traffickers that killed five police officers and two government coca control workers, Garcia called for the imposition of the death penalty. Just a day later, perhaps to indicate he is not anti-coca, he told a foreign press news gathering that coca would be wonderful consumed in salads.
coca seedlings
Peru is the world's second largest coca producer, after Colombia, and indigenous Peruvians have been growing the leafy bush for thousands of years for its sacramental, nutritional and mild stimulative properties. The plant is grown legally in some parts of the country under arrangement with ENACO, the National Coca Company, which holds a monopoly on legal sales and purchases.
But Peru is also the world's second largest producer of cocaine, which is derived from coca either grown legally and diverted from ENACO or grown illegally. For years, the country has embraced a policy of eradication of illicit crops, which has pleased Washington but left Peru's coca growers angry and frustrated. President Garcia in October pledged during a Washington meeting with President Bush to continue the policy of eradication.
Some coca growing areas have been under a state of emergency for the past two months, and the Garcia government announced this week that it would be continued for another two months after the killings, which took place in Ayacucho province. The attack, described as a carefully-planned ambush, took place during a police crackdown on unsanctioned coca growing in the region. More than 20 police have been killed in similar attacks in the past year.
Two days after the attack, Garcia told lawmakers they should allow the death penalty for such crimes. Currently, the death penalty in Peru is allowed only in cases of treason during war-time. Congress should "give the necessary tools to the judges and to the executive branch to definitely eliminate these leftover [Shining Path rebels]." They should be dealt with using "the most energetic and harshest sanction that the law... permits," Garcia said.
But the next day, Garcia defended the coca leaf and his drug policy to foreign reporters. Coca leaf is great in salads, Garcia said. "I insist that it can be consumed directly and elegantly in salad. It has good nutritional value." Garcia added that one of the country's best-known chefs, Gaston Acurio, had recently served several coca-based dishes at the Government Palace. "He offered us some tamales and pies made with coca flour. He offered us a coca liqueur cocktail," Garcia said. "Could eating coca leaf be harmful? No, absolutely not."
Such talk aligns Garcia with Bolivian President Evo Morales and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Those two leaders are touting the industrial uses of coca and collaborating on a production plant in Bolivia.
Garcia told reporters that Peru's anti-drug policy is based "fundamentally" on controlling the sale of precursor chemicals used for cocaine production, but that Peruvian police must also do a better job of combating the cocaine traffic. As much as 90% of Peruvian coca goes to the cocaine trade, not the coca industry.
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Australia's Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Christopher Pyne, said over the weekend that the government of Prime Minister John Howard wants to ban bongs. The water pipes widely used for smoking marijuana are sold all across Australia, and not just in "head shops," but also at tobacconists and even gas stations.
bong with pot leaf emblem
The comment came as the country staggers through a fit of Reefer Madness related to fears that marijuana causes mental health problems. Those fears were heightened last week by the release of a
Mental Health Council of Australia report linking pot smoking to increased risk of mental illness and the worsening of existing mental problems. While the report itself was careful to note that such problems occurred in only a tiny number of users, Australian press coverage has not been so careful.
In remarks reported by the Sydney Herald-Sun, Pyne said that allowing bongs to remain legal signaled that the government approved of their use and that the display of such items in shops reduced public concern about the impact of drug use. "I'm certainly concerned about the proliferation of apparatus for the use of illicit substances," Mr. Pyne said.
In addition to playing to rising hysteria over the marijuana-mental illness connection, Pyne is following the lead of the National Cannabis Strategy Group, which last May called for "closer and more appropriate regulation of drug paraphernalia."
A national bong ban may prove impractical, however. The state government in Victoria banned "cocaine kits" earlier this year, but found that too many ethnic groups used bongs to smoke tobacco and other legal substances to allow it to impose a blanket ban.
It would also be unpopular, at least among shoppers consulted by the Sun-Herald at one Sydney store that sells bongs and pipes. "No, I don't like smoking through plastic bottles," one shopper said.
"It's not going to stop anyone from smoking anyway," another said. "They will find a more unhealthy way to smoke it."
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Star blogger Radley Balko, lately of the Cato Institute, is now writing for Reason, where he is doing a weekly "Drug Propaganda Thursday."
Democrats Could End Discriminatory Prison Sentencing Rules, Jackie Jones for Black America Web, reprinted on Alternet.
Bob Barr, former arch-drug warrior in Congress, has joined the Libertarian Party and is working with them as a spokesman! We already had heard Barr's views on the drug issue had mellowed with political retirement, and of course he has been working on privacy issues with the ACLU. Has he actually jettisoned the drug war ideology completely now? We're not sure yet.
Another top ten drug law story collection, from Alex Coolman's Drug Law Blog.
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December 24, 1912: Merck patents MDMA. Its psychoactive effects remain unknown for more than 60 years, but the drug eventually becomes popularized under the slang term "ecstasy."
December 28, 1992: ABC Television airs a major special on the drug war in Bolivia which, according to the Bush Administration, is our "best hope" for winning the drug war in South America. ABC concludes decisively that there is no hope and that the war on drug production has already been lost.
December 25, 1994: The Buffalo News reports, "Troubled with three long-term sentences he felt forced to make in recent weeks, U.S. District Judge, John T. Curtin says he will stop hearing drug cases in the coming year rather than continue to be part of a system of punishment that 'just isn't working.'" Curtin says he would rather see the federal government spend more money on education, counseling, and drug prevention programs, rather than towards putting people in prison. "You don't even have to think of it in moral terms. In financial terms, it just isn't working," Curtin said.
December 23, 1995: A British Medical Journal editorial entitled "The War on Drugs" states, "The British government's drug strategy for the next three years states baldly 'There will be no legalisation of any currently controlled drugs.' But some legalisation would help."
December 26, 1997: The San Francisco Chronicle reports that San Francisco Supervisor Gavin Newsom said it is time to treat heroin abuse less as a crime and more like a medical problem. He added that efforts to halt drugs at the border or to "Just Say No" have failed.
December 24, 1998: The Times (UK) reports that the Prince of Wales expressed an interest in the effectiveness of cannabis in relieving the pain of diseases such as multiple sclerosis. During his annual visit to the Sue Ryder Home in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, he asked MS patient Karen Drake: "Have you tried taking cannabis? I have heard it's the best thing for it." Drake, 36, said afterwards: "I was surprised but I think I would like at least to try it. Anything that can help relieve the pain can only be for the good."
December 24, 2001: The North Carolina Lexington Dispatch reports the dismissal of 65 criminal cases investigated by three county narcotics officers charged in a federal indictment with conspiracy to distribute drugs. According to a federal affidavit issued in the case, law enforcement officers abused their authority in one or more ways, including writing fake search warrants, planting evidence and fabricating charges, keeping drugs and money seized during arrests, attempting to extort more money from the people arrested, and intimidating suspects and potential witnesses.
December 22, 2003: The Annenberg School for Communication (ASC) at the University of Pennsylvania releases a report on the Office of National Drug Control Policy's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. ASC was contracted by ONDCP to analyze the campaign as a whole and their work on marijuana specifically. ASC found there is little evidence that the tens of millions being spent every year are having any discernible impact on use of or attitudes toward marijuana among the nation's youth.
December 25, 2003: The Philippine Star reports that the campaign to rid the island of drugs by 2010 has resulted in cramming jails and paralyzing the justice system.
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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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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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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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