Efforts to ban salvia divinorum are spreading across the country. So far, it's illegal in five states and various towns and cities, and seven more states have bills pending this year. The DEA is looking at it, too.
A plethora of bills affecting medical marijuana patients or the state medical marijuana program are active in the Oregon legislature this year -- in part because of a strong activist base, in part because of legislative foes.
An important new book debunks literally years of statistical legerdemain by the nation's central drug policy office -- and is DRCNet's latest premium for our members.
More cops arrested, a dispatcher, too, and yet another prison guard goes to prison.
When Denver residents voted to legalize the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana in 2005, city officials vowed to ignore the will of the voters. Now, they are adding insult to injury.
A bill that would make Rhode Island's medical marijuana permanent is headed for House and Senate floor votes. Unless it passes, the program will end June 30.
The Minnesota medical marijuana bill continues to move through the legislature.
California's medical marijuana community is split over whether taxation will help to normalize the coops as accepted business or expose them to greater risk by creating a paper trail available to the feds.
Sometimes being a dictatorship has its advantages, at least if you work for the police. China has created a data bank of drug users with more than three-quarters of a million names.
Anti-globalization activist and French presidential candidate José Bové is calling for the legalization of marijuana.
Events and quotes of note from this week's drug policy events of years past.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) is hiring for two positions -- Office/Project Manager and Media Director.
Support the cause by featuring automatically-updating Drug War Chronicle and other DRCNet content links on your web site!
A new way for you to receive DRCNet articles -- Drug War Chronicle and more -- is now available.
Visit our new web site each day to see a running countdown to the events coming up the soonest, and more.
Middlebury, Vermont, this week declared a public health emergency to prevent a local business from selling it. It's already illegal in five states -- Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Delaware -- and a number of towns and cities across the country, and now politicians in at least seven other states have filed bills to make it illegal there. For the DEA, it is a "drug of concern."
salvia leaves (photo courtesy Erowid)
It is
salvia divinorum, a member of the mint family from Mexico, where it has been used by Masatec curanderos (medicine men) for centuries. Within the past decade, awareness of its powerful hallucinogenic properties has begun to seep into the popular consciousness. Now, it is widely available at head shops and via the Internet, where it can be purchased in a smokeable form that produces almost instantaneous intoxication and a freight train of a trip lasting a handful of minutes.
As law enforcement and politicians stumble across it and the phenomenon of its recreational use, they are reacting in the classic fashion with moves to outlaw it. In Delaware, grieving parents of a teenager who committed suicide after using salvia managed to push a bill through the legislature. In Ohio, police who stumbled across it while investigating counterfeit goods raised the alarm, even though they had never had any problem with it. The cops responded predictably. "It's something we feel should be outlawed," Lorain County Drug Task Force Capt. Dennis Cavanaugh told the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
But researchers say the while salvia's effects on consciousness may be disquieting, the plant has not been shown to be toxic to humans, that its effects are so potent is unlikely to be used repeatedly, and its active property, salvinorin A, could assist in the development of medicines for mood disorders. While action at the state level would unlikely affect research, a move by the DEA to put it on the controlled substances list could.
Salvia is a popular item at the Urban Shaman Ethnobotanicals in downtown Vancouver, and media attention only spurs sales, according to proprietor Chris Bennett. "We're selling about 50 grams of the 10x every couple of weeks," he told Drug War Chronicle. "It's mainly young people -- although we don't sell to anyone under 18 -- but it's not limited to them. Whenever I get quoted in the media about salvia, I get a slew of new middle-aged customers who want to try it."
Once or twice is usually enough, said Bennett. "It's very powerful -- you can forget you even smoked it -- very intense, and the onset is very rapid," he explained. "There is also a lot of variation from person to person. Four people can be sitting in a room taking it, and one would be laughing, one would be afraid the world was ending, one would feel like he was two-dimensional, and one would say that everything seems to be made out of Legos. I hear a lot of people say that one."
Like many other purveyors of salvia, Urban Shaman provides an information sheet with each purchase. "We tell people they should have a sitter. If you're on salvia and end up on the balcony, you might think you can get downstairs by jumping," said Bennett. "You want to have someone there with you; it's irresponsible to use it by yourself," he said. "We also recommend a quiet environment. The experience can be influenced by background noise, which can be distorted or misinterpreted. Setting is important."
There are hazards to messing with hallucinogens, one expert was quick to point out. "It's an hallucinogen and while its hallucinogenic actions are different from those induced by LSD and other hallucinogens, it has the liabilities that hallucinogens do," said Bryan Roth, a professor of pharmacology at University of North Carolina's School of Medicine, the man who isolated salvinorin A. "When people take it, they are disoriented. If you don't know where you are and you're driving a car, that would be a bad experience."
Still, said Roth, while it may make you freak out, it isn't going to kill you. "There is no evidence of any overt toxicity, there are no reports in the medical literature that anyone has died from it. The caveat is that there have been no formal studies done on humans, but the animal data suggests that it doesn't kill animals given massive doses, and that's usually -- but not always -- predictive for human pharmacology."
"I'm unaware of any studies suggesting that salvia is toxic," said Thomas Prisinzano, assistant professor of medicinal and natural products chemistry at the University of Iowa. "Unlike other hallucinogens, it acts by stimulating opioid receptors, and basically produces an hallucinogenic experience that peaks in less than 15 minutes. It produces a subpopulation that finds it very unpleasant and never wants to do it again."
Nor, because of its intense effects, are you likely to get strung out on it. "There doesn't appear to be much potential for dependence or addiction, although no one has investigated this in any detail," Roth said. "The typical person I talked to didn't like the experience; it is too intense for someone looking for a mini-LSD-like experience. It's very rapid in onset and very intense, so it's not normally considered a party drug."
Even Bennett, whose clientele could be expected to contain some serious psychedelic adventurers, confirmed that it is not a drug that most people come back to again and again. "Even those who are interested in it don't use it very often, maybe once a week to explore head space, but those salvianauts are few and far between," he reported. "Most people try it once or twice and have no desire to try it again. It is the ones who use it with a purpose or for a spiritual quest or vision that seem to find it most useful," he said.
"There is a subpopulation using it for spiritual rather than recreational purposes," agreed Roth. "That seems to be the cohort that is using it more than once or twice."
While the DEA did not return Chronicle calls for comment on the current status of salvia, it has moved slowly. It has classified the plant as a "drug of concern" for several years now, but has yet to act to place it under the Controlled Substances Act. The plant's limited potential dependence could be one reason. Another could be that it is still relatively rare and unlikely to ever develop into a drug with a mass following.
That's fine with the scientists, who could see regulating salvia, but not prohibiting it. "The distribution of salvia should be regulated," Roth said. "We regulate nicotine and alcohol, and the effects of those compounds on human consciousness and perception is quite modest compared with salvia. That this is available over the Internet to young children is a bit irresponsible. They could engage in some dangerous behavior while taking it. We don't sell alcohol over the Internet."
But while Roth called for salvia to be regulated, he didn't want to see it added to the list of drugs proscribed by the Controlled Substances Act. "I'm against making it a Schedule I compound," he said. "Once you schedule something, it makes scientific research more difficult, and there is considerable potential for derivatives of the active ingredient to have great medical utility. Scheduling it makes it more difficult for those of us trying to relieve human suffering."
If salvia were prohibited, his work would suffer, said Prisinzano. "This would hurt clinical researchers more than me, and there is an effort underway to do clinical trials on humans before a review board now," he said. "But it would make it more difficult for me to get leaves. Right now we get them from head shops on the Internet."
Perhaps legislators in states like Iowa, Illinois, New Jersey, Oregon, and Texas, where prohibition bills are on the table, should calmly reassess the scope of the salvia menace and place such legislation on the back burner where it belongs. Or replace them with reasonable regulatory measures. But that's probably asking too much.
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With some 14,000 patients register\ed with the state under the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act (OMMA), Oregon's is one of the most successful programs in the country. But thanks to a well-organized, if fractious, activist community, as well as legislative foes of medical marijuana, OMMA itself (the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program) and the patients are the objects of a frenzy of activity in the legislature this year.
While some of the legislation has been inspired by the medical marijuana community, much is hostile. Oregon NORML, one of the leading activist organizations on the issue, identifies 19 separate pieces of legislation affecting medical marijuana patients, with only five winning the group's approval.
Among the bills are 12 measures calling for drug testing of everyone from police officers to elected officials to welfare recipients, including one that has already passed the Senate, SB 0465, which would shield employers from lawsuits from patients fired for testing positive for drug tests. There are also two bills that would amend OMMA, one in the House, HB 3299, and one in the Senate, SB 0161, as well as bills that would give prosecutors the option of charging cultivation as a misdemeanor instead of a felony and set up a state-operated dispensary system.
The main battles have been fought over the employee drug testing bill and the bills that would amend OMMA. While the session is unlikely to end until June, so far, it's been a bruising one for medical marijuana advocates. While they have a handful of strong advocates in the statehouse, including Sen. Floyd Prozanski (D-Eugene) and Sen. Frank Morse (R-Albany), those allies have been isolated in early votes -- the drug testing bill passed the Senate 25-5 -- or irritated with some measures put forth by activists.
The drug testing bill drew the opposition of the ACLU of Oregon, as well as medical marijuana supporters. "We believe that bill would undermine the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act, which was approved by the voters, permitting Oregonians suffering from serious medical conditions to be able to use marijuana to ease their suffering," said Andrea Meyer, legislative director for the group, who testified against the measure. "There are many patients whose ailments can be relieved so they become productive employees, just as is the case with the thousands of Oregonians who use prescribed substances."
"Employers rely on urinalysis for testing impairment, but that kind of testing does not indicate impairment," said Meyer. "There is no connection between the presence of THC metabolites and impairment. As we all know, THC can remain in the body for up to 30 days. This bill presumes that the medical marijuana user is impaired on the job, but that's not the case, and this does not address the underlying issue of safety, which is what it's all supposed to be about. If they are really concerned with safety, they would do impairment testing of all employees. What is important is that they can perform. The fact that someone used medical marijuana the night before coming in for work does not mean he is impaired."
But while the drug testing bill sailed through the Senate, which rejected a measure offered by Prozanski that would have explicitly protected patients, it may be dead in the water in the House. "It's been assigned to the House Ethics Committee, where the prevailing wisdom is that it's dead," said Leland Berger of Voter Power, who is intimately involved with medical marijuana legislation in Oregon. "It could rise again, but for now it's dead," he said.
So is SB 0676, which would have created a state garden and dispensary system as a pilot program for testing different strains. Championed by Oregon NORML, the bill would have addressed the chronic supply problems some patients face, but its chances withered in the face of fears it could provoke the DEA.
"It's pretty bad in the legislature this year," said Madeline Martinez, director of Oregon NORML. "Prozanski was upset about the dispensary bill. He has always been a friend of hemp and medical marijuana, but he is afraid this one will bring the feds down on us," said Martinez. "Sen. Morse says he doesn't think he can get it out of committee because the attorney general advised that that if it were to happen, everyone would start getting arrested," she explained.
"We need to do something, and I'm not really fond of the California dispensary model," said Martinez. "A lot of my patients are on SSI, so I don't want to see them paying $15 a gram. Gee, you can choose between your medical marijuana, your pharmaceutical drugs, and eating cat food. I'm really upset with and against the California model."
Martinez, a 56-year-old law enforcement retiree, runs a garden for patients, whom she provides with limited amounts of medical marijuana at no cost. "I'm blessed to have a wonderful garden. We are able to fill our donation buckets, and now other growers are donating five or six ounces at a time. It's amazing how seeing it happen has the power of creating a cycle of giving and giving," she said.
But while Martinez and her patients are able to get their medicine, that's not the case for many patients, who either lack the health, the skill, or the talent for growing, and that's the biggest failure of OMMA, she said. "That's the worst feature: no access," she said. "You pay for a right, and then you can't use it, especially if you're unable to grow for yourself. OMMA didn't address that."
Now the main battle remaining is over the bills that would modify the OMMA. HB 3299, pushed by Voter Power, contains several provisions protecting patients or providers, including reciprocity with other states, allowing people under court supervision to use medical marijuana, and imposing penalties on police for willful violation of the law. But it also contains a provision that would subject program members who transported medical marijuana without their registry card to 30 days in jail.
Martinez and Oregon NORML are not supporting HB 3229 in its current form. "There are many good things in HB 3299," said Martinez, "but 30 days in jail for patients caught transporting without their card? Some of the patients I take care of couldn't do one day in jail. That needs to come out."
It just might, said Berger. While HB 3299 appears dormant -- it has been referred to the graveyard known as the House Elections Rules and Ethics Committee -- some of its provisions may end up wrapped into SB 161. "SB 161, which includes some things we've been after for years, passed to the Senate floor on a unanimous vote last Thursday," he said. "We may be able to get stuff from 3299 into 161. Sen. Morse said he would see what he could do."
But for all the sturm and drang at the statehouse, the session may end with little actually happening on the medical marijuana front. That could change if the community were better organized, said Berger. "There is more cooperation and more positive feeling among activists than at times in the past," he said. "But at the same time, there is a sort of lobbying by mob, with different groups pushing different bills. What we really need to do is have a conversation the year before the next session, raise some funds, and hire a lobbyist. It's tough to get legislation passed in Oregon. You have to have a consensus among all the affected groups. Law enforcement, the program itself, and advocates all have to be on the same page, or it's not going to move. That means advocates have to be on the same page, too."
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Normally when we publish a book review in our
Drug War Chronicle newsletter, it gets readers but is not among the top stories visited on the site. Recently we saw a big exception to that rule when more than 2,700 of you read our review of the new book Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug War Statistics: A Critical Analysis of Claims Made by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Much of this reading took place during a week that had other very popular articles as well, so clearly the topic of this book, which was authored by respected academics Matthew Robinson and Renee Scherlen, has struck a chord. As well it should.
Please help DRCNet continue our own work of debunking drug war lies with a generous donation. If your donation is $32 or more, we'll send you a complimentary copy of Robinson and Scherlen's book to help you be able to debunk drug war lies too.
Over the coming weeks I will be blogging on our web site about things I've learned reading Lies, Damn Lies, and Drug War Statistics. Stay tuned!
Your donation will help DRCNet as we advance what we think is an incredible two-year plan to substantially advance drug policy reform and the cause of ending prohibition globally and in the US. Please make a generous donation today to help the cause! I know you will feel the money was well spent after you see what DRCNet has in store. Our online donation form lets you donate by credit card, by PayPal, or to print out a form to send with your check or money order by mail. Please note that contributions to the Drug Reform Coordination Network, our lobbying entity, are not tax-deductible. Tax-deductible donations can be made to DRCNet Foundation, our educational wing. (Choosing a gift like Lies, Damn Lies, and Drug War Statistics will reduce the portion of your donation that you can deduct by the retail cost of the item.) Both groups receive member mail at: DRCNet, P.O. Box 18402, Washington, DC 20036.
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P.S. You can read Chronicle editor Phil Smith's review of the book here.
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More cops arrested, a dispatcher, too, and yet another prison guard goes to prison. Let's get to it:
In Wallace, North Carolina, a Wallace Police officer was arrested April 3 on a raft of drug and robbery charges. Officer David Brown Jr., 31, was charged with conspiring to sell cocaine, conspiring to deliver cocaine, conspiring to sell marijuana, conspiring to deliver marijuana, robbery with a dangerous weapon and conspiring to commit robbery with a dangerous weapon. The following day, he was also charged with receiving a bribe. Brown was arrested after an investigation by the State Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, and the Wallace Police Department. At last report, he was jailed on bonds totaling $350,000 at the Duplin County Jail.
In Clarksville, Indiana, a Clarskville police officer was arrested April 3 for peddling morphine pills. Officer Franklin Mikel, 34, got busted after allegedly trying to sell 30 pills to an Indiana State Police undercover officer at a local skating rink. He was last reported to be in jail awaiting arraignment.
In Oglesby, Illinois, a police dispatcher faces charges she tipped off the suspect in a drug raid that police were on the way. Kara Kamin, 22, was fired and charged after a February 22 drug raid came up empty-handed. She faces a May trial date. The case was in the news this week because the man she allegedly helped elude police was arrested on more drug charges in Minnesota.
In Saranac Lake, New York, a state prison guard was sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to selling heroin to inmates after he was busted on videotape. Michael Bradish, 43, a guard at the Bare Hill Correctional Facility in Malone, was sentenced to one-to-four years in prison after pleading guilty in February to first degree attempted promotion of prison contraband and fifth degree possession of a controlled substance. Bradish had small packets of heroin mailed to him, then took them into the prison and sold them. He was caught on tape receiving 37 bundles and arrested as he carried the drugs to work the next day.
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In November 2005, voters in Denver approved a municipal ordinance legalizing the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Denver police and prosecutors refused to play ball, continuing to cite people under the state marijuana law. Now, to add insult to injury, arrest figures from the police department show they are arresting more people for marijuana possession than ever.
SAFER's Chickenlooper activist (photo courtesy SAFER)
With 2,446 misdemeanor pot charges last year, Denver police busted 11% more people for pot in 2006 than they did in 2005. That's less than the increase in the overall number of arrests between the two years, which was up 14%.
But it was still too much for Mason Tvert, who as head of SAFER Colorado led the Denver legalization campaign. "If there's one, it's too many," Tvert told the Rocky Mountain News. "They (police) have the discretion not to arrest." Tvert also pointed out that the city's black population bears the brunt of marijuana law enforcement. Blacks make up 11% of the city's population, but are 32% of those arrested on misdemeanor marijuana charges.
Tvert has led a band of activists on a campaign to embarrass Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper over the arrest figures. This week, the activists have trailed Hickenlooper as he conducted campaign forums called "A Dialogue With Denver." Hickenlooper, who owns the Wynkoop Brewing Company, has so far refused to answer any questions related to the arrest figures, despite being hounded by a man dressed in a chicken suit calling himself "Whine-Coop Chickenlooper" and holding a sign asking "What's So Scary About Marijuana?"
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(Interested parties in or near Rhode Island should check out the SSDP Northeast Regional Conference in Providence from later today through Sunday.)
leading RI patient activist Rhonda O'Donnell, at DC protest
A bill that would make Rhode Island's medical marijuana law permanent is headed for House and Senate floor votes after the House Health, Education and Welfare Committee passed it on a 10-3 vote Tuesday and the Senate Health and Human Services Committee passed it on a unanimous voice vote Wednesday. Unless
HB 6005 and its companion legislation in the Senate,
SB 0791, pass, the Rhode Island medical marijuana program will be ended on June 30.
The Rhode Island legislature last year overrode a veto by Gov. Donald Carcieri (R) to make the state the 11th to legalize medical marijuana, but the final version of the measure included a sunset provision. So far, some 244 Rhode Islanders have registered with the state to use the drug with medical approval.
One of those patients, Craig Paquette of Richmond, who suffers severe spinal pain from injuries suffered in a car wreck fifteen years ago, as well as serious side effects from narcotic pain relievers, praised the House committee vote. "I do not want my family to see me suffer. I am off the painkillers now, and with a little marijuana, my pain is reduced, my sick stomach goes away, and I feel human again," he said in a statement after the vote. "Because of this law, I have a quality of life I would never have had without it, and I would hate to have that taken away."
Gov. Carcieri doesn't care. His spokesman, Jeff Neal, told the Providence Journal Wednesday he opposes making the medical marijuana law permanent. "First," Neal said, "this Rhode Island statute is in direct conflict with the federal ban on marijuana. Second, the governor shares the concerns of the state police that a state medical marijuana law promotes the illicit drug trade while also making marijuana more available to children and others not using it for medical purposes."
But Rhode Island legislators have overridden the governor's veto once already on medical marijuana. Perhaps they will have to do it again.
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The Minnesota medical marijuana bill narrowly passed the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday on a 5-4 vote. The bill, SF 345, has already been approved by the Senate Health, Housing and Family Security Committee and now heads for a vote in the Senate Finance Committee.
The bill would allow seriously ill patients to use marijuana with a physician's recommendation.
A House companion bill, HF 0655 has so far successfully followed a similarly torturous path. It is now before the House Finance Committee for the second time.
The favorable vote came despite sometimes heated testimony by law enforcement officials who argued it would "send the wrong message," lead to increased marijuana use, be difficult to enforce, and conflict with federal law. But the bill's lead sponsor, Sen. Steve Murphy (D-Red Wing) called those concerns overstated.
"I'm happy that we are one step closer to passing this bill that will help patients suffering from cancer, MS, and other diseases to receive the care their physicians recommend," said Murphy after the vote.
The number of states with laws protecting medical marijuana patients from arrest increased on April 2, when New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) signed the 12th state medical marijuana law. The other states with medical marijuana laws are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.
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For more than a decade, Californians seeking medical marijuana have been able to purchase it through dispensaries. Now, the state of California wants a cut of the action, and the medical marijuana community is not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
In February, the state Board of Equalization sent a notice to medical marijuana retailers urging them to get a seller's permit like other retailers. "If you sell medical marijuana, your sales in California are generally subject to tax and you are required to hold a seller's permit," the notice said. It went on to warn sellers that "if you do not obtain a seller's permit or fail to report and pay the taxes due, you will be subject to interest and penalty charges."
Some club owners welcome taxation as part of the "normalization" of medical marijuana. But others worry that any tax information they submit could be used against them by federal drug enforcement agents.
"It's frustrating," Chris Moscone, an attorney for the San Francisco dispensary the Hemp Center, told the McLatchy Newspapers Monday. "There are basically two camps: Those that want to be treated like legitimate businesses, and the other side, where they're still rebels and don't want to be taxed."
It was a case involving the Hemp Center that led to the February letter from the Board of Equalization. As the board reviewed the Hemp Center case, it realized that while the dispensary was paying taxes on t-shirts, hats, pipes, and bongs, it was not paying taxes on the medical marijuana it sold. Upon review, the board determined that medical marijuana is subject to state sales tax because it is neither approved by the Food and Drug Administration nor supplied by a pharmacist.
To tax medical marijuana, the board had to update its guidelines. Under previous rules, sellers of illegal items could not get a seller's permit, but the dispensaries will be able to. The board will also allow dispensaries to sign a waiver instead of disclosing what they are selling, a move that could ease some concerns about federal authorities using tax records to persecute providers.
State officials estimate there are somewhere between 150 and 200 dispensaries. So far, only 27 have applied for and been issued seller's permits. But those numbers are likely to increase in the wake of the February letter.
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And we thought meth cook registries went too far. China's National Narcotics Control Commission announced Wednesday that it has established a data bank to monitor drug users. More than 785,000 people have been listed in the data bank since it began last August under the Ministry of Public Security.
Chinese anti-drug poster
The drug user data bank is supposed to determine the number of China's drug takers, verify their identities, and monitor their current situation, an official with the narcotics control commission said. But it is also being used as a law enforcement tool, with authorities citing it as helpful in recent drug cases.
According to official numbers, which are undoubtedly low, by 2005, China had 1.16 million drug users, a 35% increase since 2000. But that number shrank to 720,000 by August of last year because of "compulsory rehabilitation measures and strict checks on chemicals and narcotics," the ministry said.
Under China's forced treatment program, drug users can be held for up to six months, but in February, Beijing police were considering extending that period to a year. This appears to be part of an effort to clean up the city before the 2008 Olympics. "We do not rule out the possibility of compelling all drug abusers in the capital to give up their addictions before the Olympics," said Fu Zhenghua, deputy director of the Beijing Public Security Bureau.
Well, heck, with that handy data bank, police should have no problem finding people to drag off to the drug re-education camps.
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Independent French presidential candidate and anti-globalization activist José Bové kicked off his campaign Monday by calling for the legalization of marijuana. The call came in his first nationally televised address as a candidate -- the first by any candidate, all 12 of whom participated in a drawing to see when they would get air time.
José Bové (courtesy Wikimedia)
"Marijuana needs to be decriminalized," Bové told viewers. "This is as much part of the daily routine today as drinking alcohol."
While Bové said "decriminalize" instead of "legalize," his reference to alcohol -- which is legal in France -- suggests he envisions a similar legal and regulated regime for marijuana. Under current French law, which does not distinguish between "soft" and "hard" drugs, drug possession is punishable by up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.
Bove is a farmer and long-time left-leaning anti-globalization activist. He is best known for leading the unauthorized dismantling of a McDonald's restaurant in Millau in 1999 to protest hormone-treated beef. During his address to the nation, he called for the establishment of a leftist political force to challenge the sclerotic official French left and the rising right.
The leading contenders in next week's election are Conservative Nicolas Sarkozy, a drug policy hard-liner; Socialist Ségolène Royal, and centrist François Bayrou. If the first round fails to produce a clear winner, a run-off will be held May 6. According to a poll released Tuesday, Sarkozy is leading with 28%, Royal has 22%, Bayrou 19%, and hard-right Jean-Marie Le Pen 14%. Bove is in the next tier of candidates, huddled with two others with a mere 2% of the vote. Nevertheless, his activist profile has generated some attention for the issue.
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April 19, 1943: Albert Hoffman takes the first dose of LSD in Basel, Switzerland.
April 14, 1989: A congressional subcommittee on Narcotics, Law Enforcement, and Foreign Policy, chaired by Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), issues a report finding that US efforts to combat drug trafficking were undermined by the Reagan administration's fear of jeopardizing its objectives in the Nicaraguan civil war. The report concludes that the administration ignored evidence of drug trafficking by the Contras and continued to provide them with aid.
April 13, 1995: The US Sentencing Commission votes to equalize penalties for crack and powder cocaine quantities for trafficking and possession offenses, a proposal that would have become law on November 1 if Congress took no action. Attorney General Janet Reno urges Congress to reject it the next day.
April 15, 1998: California Superior Court Judge David Garcia orders Dennis Peron, author of Proposition 215, to cease operations of his Cannabis Cultivators' Club (CCC) in San Francisco. Judge Garcia writes, "The court finds uncontradicted evidence in this record that defendant Peron is currently engaging in illegal sales of marijuana." The illegal sales, the court said, were to "primary caregivers," not patients as defined by California's medical marijuana law. Peron agrees to resign as head of the CCC in an effort to keep the operation open.
April 16, 1998: The Iowa Legislature overwhelmingly approves a bill enhancing marijuana penalties for repeat offenders, and enabling police officers to conduct drug tests on drivers who appear to be operating under the influence of marijuana.
April 18, 2001: Kenneth Hayes and Michael Foley are acquitted by a Sonoma County, California jury on charges of cultivating and possessing marijuana. The two were arrested for growing 899 marijuana plants for the 1,200 members of a San Francisco medical marijuana club called CHAMP (Cannabis Helping Alleviate Medical Problems).
April 17, 2002: While under the influence of amphetamines issued to them by the US government in order to stay awake during the mission, two US pilots mistakenly drop a bomb that kills four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. The Air Force-issued "go pills" may have impaired the pilots' judgment, says David Beck, lawyer for Maj. William Umbach, adding that the pilots were given antidepressants upon returning from their mission. "The Air Force has a problem. They have administered 'go pills' to soldiers that the manufacturers have stated affect performance and judgment," Beck said.
April 16, 2004: Richard Paey, a wheelchair-bound pain patient, is sentenced to 25 years in prison by a Florida judge. Paey, who was convicted of forging prescriptions for pills to ease chronic, severe back pain dating from failed surgeries after an auto accident in 1985, was sentenced under Florida law as a drug dealer -- though even prosecutors conceded there is no evidence he did anything other than consume the opioid pain relievers himself.
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Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) is an international nonprofit educational organization that was created to give voice to law enforcers who know the "War on Drugs" is a manifest failure, but worse, it is also a terribly destructive, self-perpetuating, and ever-expanding policy. Prohibition must be replaced with legalized regulation of all drugs, which will reduce the incidence of death, disease, crime, and addiction without destroying generations of our children through arrest and incarceration. In five years LEAP has grown from five founding police officers to over 7,000 members in sixty-six countries. LEAP has 150 current and former police and corrections officers, judges and prosecutors, DEA and FBI Agents in its speakers bureau, which has given more than 2,700 presentations around the world. We expect at least to double our membership and number of speakers in the coming year. LEAP's main office is located at 121 Mystic Avenue, Medford, Massachusetts 02155, phone (781) 393-6985.
Job 1: Office and Project Manager Position -- $25,000 to $30,000 annually
GENERAL STATEMENT OF DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: This is a full time position. The Office and Project Manager provides general support to the Executive Director and Administrative Director. The Manager works closely with the Speakers Bureau Coordinator and Conference Coordinator managing LEAP member volunteers and overseeing events.
SPECIFIC DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: Management of: Interns and volunteers; Membership correspondence/recruitment; Volunteer coordination and outreach; Donor coordination and outreach; Researching and writing grants; Researching national and international drug policy, legislation, law enforcement and drug interdiction tactics; Crafting bi-monthly press releases; Assisting with media coordination, speakers bureau coordination and conference coordination; Purchasing/Mailing; Editing and updating the LEAP blog; Editing and emailing monthly newsletter; Data Entry for Databases.
JOB REQUIREMENTS: The following are all required of applicants for this position: Understanding and complete support of LEAP's Mission and Goal (read "About LEAP" at http://leap.cc/About/about.php); Must be able to interview and work in Medford, Massachusetts; Must have ability to handle confidential matters with a high level of integrity; Excellent interpersonal & communication skills (both written and oral); Demonstrable ability to work independently, multi-task, and be pro-active in anticipating and correcting problems; Expected to innovate, design, and implement systems that maximize the effective and efficient functioning of the expanding organization; High level of proficiency in computer software programs (especially MS Word, Excel, and Outlook) and ability to use the Internet as a research tool, as well as ownership of a computer; A College degree or experience in similar jobs.
Job 2: Media Director position -- $30,000 annually
GENERAL STATEMENT OF DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: The Media Director is a full time position. S/he will be responsible for all media contacts at national and international levels and any other significant media coordination, as well as posting press releases.
The Media Director will work with the Speakers Bureau Coordinator assuring media contacts are being made by LEAP venue bookers for all speakers when they are conducting individual presentation and while on tours or at conferences. The Media Coordinator works with Executive Director and representatives of LEAP's Public Relations Consultant to accrue better media management. The Media Coordinator reports directly to the Administrative Director.
The ideal candidate will be familiar with a team-approach to developing publicity and will be comfortable directing multiple volunteers. This person must be familiar with multiple forms of media including editorial writing, Internet blogging, and news reporting as well as the workings of national media outlets. The ideal candidate for this position is articulate and convincing in any verbal or written presentations. Multiple language skills are also helpful.
Preferred places of residency for the Media Director are the Boston area or locations in proximity to major media outlets. Applications accepted and interviews conducted on a rolling basis. Position is open effective immediately.
SPECIFIC DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: Create and maintain a database of media outlet contacts (newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, and Internet); Identify key national and international news sources; establish and maintain relationships with them; Feed story ideas, reports, press releases, and other media materials to key reporters; In conjunction with the Speakers Bureau and main office, coordinate letter writing campaigns, craft press releases and Opinion Editorials; Generate ideas for coverage of LEAP presentations and conference attendances; Solicit invitations for appearances by LEAP speakers on major radio and television programs.
The following Additional Qualifications are all required of applicants for this position: Understanding and complete support of LEAP's Mission and Goal (read "About LEAP" at http://leap.cc/About/about.php); Must have ability to handle confidential matters with a high level of integrity; Excellent interpersonal and communication skills (both written and oral); Demonstrable ability to work independently, multi-task, and be pro-active in anticipating and correcting problems; Expected to innovate, design, and implement systems that maximize the effective and efficient functioning of an expanding organization; High level of proficiency in computer software programs (especially MS Word, Excel, and Outlook) and ability to use the Internet as a research tool, as well as ownership of a computer; A College degree or equivalent experience and training.
LEAP's main office is located at Suite 9, 121 Mystic Avenue, Medford, MA 02155.
How to Apply:
Please e-mail your resume and cover letter to Allison Silva at [email protected] or call (781) 393-6985.
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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 on our web site as they become available.
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