Drug War Chronicle #524 - February 21, 2008

Editorial: Politicians Are Too Scared to Talk About Drug Prohibition, So We Must Talk

David Borden, Executive Director

Each week, as many of you know, our editor Phil Smith compiles a list of the latest reports on police corruption relating to the drug laws: "This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories." Phil has been writing these for more than five years -- I won't let him stop -- and in all that time I can only remember a single week in which he was unable to find any relevant news articles. Whatever one thinks of the police, the bottom line is that the drug laws corrupt some of them, and so long as we have these drug laws they always will.

To the south, a court in the nation of Colombia dealt with the perpetrators of a particularly troubling incident of government corruption at a level I hope we never see here. In May 2006, a judge found, an Army colonel and 14 of his troops massacred 10 Colombian narcotics police, ambushing them outside the city of Cali as they prepared to seize 220 pounds of cocaine to which they had been pointed (rightly or wrongly) by an informant. Mexico may even have it worse right now. In 2006 and 2007 roughly 4,000 people have been murdered in drug trade violence, and police are among the many suspects. While police corruption and drug trade violence have certainly taken their toll on our country here in the north, we should by no means rule out the possibility that things could get even worse.

And so the US government should take a lesson from the experience of Colombia, both for their sakes and for ours. Colombia is fighting the drug war in the way it does, in part because they have been pushed into it by US diplomatic pressure. Colombian cognoscenti in significant number understand that it is prohibition which causes drug trade violence, and that Colombia would be better off with some form of drug legalization -- The understanding may fall short of an outright consensus, but it is an understanding that is widely held nonetheless. Many US policymakers privately understand this too, but for reasons both political and ideological they not only refuse to deal with it, but in many cases continue to actively push other countries in the wrong direction. To be fair, drug warrior politicians in Colombia presumably find the drug laws useful for political purposes as well.

The situation is a wrongful one, and should be changed. Colombia doesn't deserve to be torn apart by flawed drug policies that it didn't invent, and it is our users here who buy most of their product anyway and thereby make it possible. There are viable options for reducing the harms of substance that don't involve prohibition, and which therefore don't cause drug trade violence, don't cause corruption, don't place addicts into the hell we've all seen, and that could actually work. Just because we talk about making drugs legal doesn't mean we won't still offer treatment, that the addicted won't organize for self-help, that we can no longer seek to discourage drug use or do harm reduction for those who don't listen. The exact best regulation system or set of programs is hard to tell, and every possible scenario has both pros and cons. But they all have in common that they are preferable to prohibition for almost every important measure one can construct.

The victims of the drug laws -- in Colombia, here, everywhere -- don't deserve what is being done to them. Since our politicians are mostly too scared to talk about this, it is therefore up to us to press the case. Bit by bit, the public will hear our ideas, and eventually turn our way. It is only an unfortunate matter of how many lives get ruined in the meanwhile.

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Top Doctors Association Says "YES" to Medical Marijuana in Historic Endorsement

In a position paper, a leading American medical association has endorsed the medicinal use of marijuana, called for more studies of its medical uses, and urged the US government to get out of the way. The position paper from the American College of Physicians was released last Friday after being approved by the group's governing body.

The American College of Physicians (ACP) is the nation's second largest doctors' organization, behind only the American Medical Association. It is made up of some 124,000 internal medicine specialists dealing primarily with adults.

The college pointed to strong evidence that marijuana has proven useful in treating AIDS wasting syndrome, glaucoma, and the nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy treatments. The college also noted that there is anecdotal evidence for many other medical uses of marijuana, but that research had been stymied by "a complicated federal approval process, limited availability of research grade marijuana, and the debate over legalization." The science of medical marijuana should not be "hindered or obscured" by the controversy over legalizing the plant for personal, non-medical use, the group said.

"This is a historic statement by one of the world's most respected physician groups, and shows the growing scientific consensus that marijuana is a safe, effective medicine for some patients, including many battling life-threatening illnesses like cancer and AIDS," said former US Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders in a press release from the Marijuana Policy Project. "Large medical associations move cautiously, and for the American College of Physicians to note 'a clear discord' between scientific opinion and government policy on medical marijuana is a stinging rebuke to our government. It's time for politicians and bureaucrats to get out of the way of good medicine and solid research."

"This statement by the American College of Physicians recognizes what clinicians and researchers have been seeing for years, that for some patients medical marijuana works when conventional drugs fail," said Dr. Michael Saag, director of the Center for AIDS Research at the University of Alabama-Birmingham. "One of the challenges in HIV/AIDS treatment is helping patients to adhere to drug regimens that may cause nausea and other noxious side effects. The relief of these side effects that marijuana provides can help patients stay on life-extending therapies."

"This statement by America's second largest doctors' group demolishes the myth that the medical community doesn't support medical marijuana," said Marijuana Policy Project executive director Rob Kampia. "The ACP's statement smashes a number of other myths, including the claims that adequate substitutes are available or that marijuana is unsafe for medical use. 124,000 doctors have just said what our government refuses to hear, that it makes no medical or moral sense to arrest the sick and suffering for using medical marijuana."

While the ACP position paper consists of 13 closely reasoned pages, the group summarizes its medical marijuana positions thusly:

Position 1: ACP supports programs and funding for rigorous scientific evaluation of the potential therapeutic benefits of medical marijuana and the publication of such findings.

Position 1a: ACP supports increased research for conditions where the efficacy of marijuana has been established to determine optimal dosage and route of delivery.

Position 1b: Medical marijuana research should not only focus on determining drug efficacy and safety but also on determining efficacy in comparison with other available treatments.

Position 2: ACP encourages the use of non-smoked forms of THC that have proven therapeutic value.

Position 3: ACP supports the current process for obtaining federal research-grade cannabis.

Position 4: ACP urges review of marijuana's status as a schedule I controlled substance and its reclassification into a more appropriate schedule, given the scientific evidence regarding marijuana's safety and efficacy in some clinical conditions.

Position 5: ACP strongly supports exemption from federal criminal prosecution; civil liability; or professional sanctioning, such as loss of licensure or credentialing, for physicians who prescribe or dispense medical marijuana in accordance with state law.

Similarly, ACP strongly urges protection from criminal or civil penalties for patients who use medical marijuana as permitted under state laws.

"The richness of modern medicine is to carefully evaluate new treatments. Marijuana has been in a special category because of, I suppose, its abuses and other concerns," Dr. David Dale, the group's president and a University of Washington professor of medicine, told Reuters in a phone interview.

An uncharacteristically terse David Murray, chief scientist for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, could only appeal to science in an interview with Reuters. "The science should be kept open. There should be more research. We should continue to investigate," he said.

Dale Gieringer, executive director of California NORML had a few nits to pick with the ACP's statement, but approved overall. "This is an important step," he said. "But when they say they support the existing federal supply system, it suggests they are unaware of all the systematic blockage of independent research caused by the NIDA monopoly and DEA interference."

Similarly, said Gieringer, while government licensing and regulation of medical marijuana makes sense, that doesn't mean we have to maintain the existing NIDA monopoly. "It just doesn't make sense to do that," he said.

Where Gieringer was pleasantly surprised was with the ACP's call to end the criminal persecution of medical marijuana patients, providers, and doctors. "They came out really forcefully against criminalization," he noted. "That's very impressive. No one else has been willing to address that. All of these apologists for the government run around saying you can't have unregulated medical marijuana, but that doesn't mean you need to throw patients and doctors in jail."

The medical community's embrace of medical marijuana has been timid and hesitant, with a number of important organizations, including the American Medical Association, lagging behind. This policy statement by the nation's second largest medical association should give that process an important boost.

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Stop Filling Prisons, California -- Advocates to Take Sentencing Reform Case to Voters

California's prison system is in crisis. With some 172,000 inmates, the state's prison system is second only to the federal system in size, and its budget has ballooned by 79% in the last five years to nearly $8 billion annually. Still, the system is vastly overcrowded and faces two federal class-action suits seeking to cap inmate populations because overcrowding is resulting in the state not delivering constitutionally adequate medical and mental health care.

In December, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he was considering a plan to release some 22,000 nonviolent inmates early in response to the festering crisis. But that one-shot approach would not deal with the systemic problems and policies that created the prison crisis in the first place.

Now, after years of inaction in Sacramento in the face of the crisis, a well-funded initiative campaign that would result in a seismic shift in California sentencing and prison policies, especially when it comes to drug offenders and those whose offenses are related to their problematic drug use, has gotten underway. Dubbed the Non-Violent Offender Rehabilitation Act (NORA), the initiative would dramatically expand the treatment and diversion options made available under a previous reform initiative, Proposition 36, as well as reform parole and probation programs, and make simple marijuana possession an infraction instead of a misdemeanor.

About 35,000 California inmates, or about 20% of the prison population, are doing time for drug offenses. An unknown number, certainly in the thousands and possibly in the tens of thousands, are doing time for offenses related to their drug use. It is these offenders and their future brethren at whom the NORA initiative is aimed.

Sponsored by the Drug Policy Alliance Network, the lobbying arm of the Drug Policy Alliance and the Santa Monica-based Campaign for New Drug Policies, the people who engineered the successful Prop. 36 campaign, the NORA initiative would:

• Create a multi-track diversion program for adult offenders. Track I provides for treatment for nonviolent drug possession offenders with a plea held in abeyance during treatment. For those who wash out of Track I, Track II provides Prop 36-style treatment after conviction, with graduated sanctions for probation violations, including eventual jail time. Track III is an expansion of existing drug court programs, with stronger sanctions than the other tracks. Judges would have the discretion to use Track III not only for drug offenders, but for any non-violent offenders whose crimes are linked to their drug use. Track III would be mandatory for those identified as "high-cost offenders" (five arrests in the past 30 months). The initiative would fund the diversion and treatment program at $385 million per year.

• Create drug treatment programs for youth. NORA would invest about $65 million a year to build a prevention and treatment program for young people where none currently exists.
• Require California prisons to provide rehabilitation programs to all exiting inmates at least 90 days before release and for up to a year after release at state expense.
• Allow nonviolent prisoners to earn sentence reductions with good behavior and by participating in rehabilitation programs.
• Cut parole periods for qualifying nonviolent offenders to between six and 12 months, instead of the current up to three years. Early discharge from parole could be gained with completion of a rehabilitation program.
• Make simple marijuana possession an infraction (ticketing offense) instead of a misdemeanor.

Not only would NORA mean freedom for thousands of nonviolent drug and drug-related offenders, it would also save California billions of dollars. Prop. 36 is estimated to have saved at least $1.3 billion in five years by diverting offenders to treatment, and the California Legislative Analyst's Office projects that NORA could generate a billion dollars a year in savings for the prison system, as well as obviating the need for a one-time prison-building outlay of $2.5 billion.

Paid canvassers for NORA are already hitting the streets in California. They have until April 21 to gather some 435,000 valid signatures to put the measure on the November ballot. NORA will make that goal, organizers vowed.

"We've just announced this to our members and started gathering signatures," said Margaret Dooley-Sammuli of the Southern California office of the Drug Policy Alliance Network. "We're very excited. It looks like the largest sentencing and prison reform in American history will be on the November ballot."

"This is Prop 36 on steroids," said Dale Gieringer, executive director of California NORML. "If it passes, this will lead to a comprehensive rewrite of all of California's laws regarding sentencing, probation, and parole for nonviolent, drug-related offenses. And this is a professional campaign. The measure will be on the ballot in November," he flatly predicted.

"Prop. 36 has been such a success, it has been extensively studied and proven, but the biggest problem is that it isn't big enough," said Dooley-Sammuli. "Combined with the difficulty of getting any prison reform through and of even obtaining adequate funding for existing reforms because of the impasse in Sacramento -- we've seen so many prison reforms die there -- we thought we really needed to put this on the ballot for stable funding, more treatment, and more diversion," she said.

"But NORA is not just about expanding Prop. 36," Dooley-Sammuli was quick to point out. "This is primarily a prison and sentencing reform effort. It brings common sense solutions to the problem of over-incarceration in California, especially the over-incarceration of nonviolent offenders in this state."

"The state has been incredibly reluctant and negligent in addressing the whole problem of nonviolent prisoners," said Gieringer. "Every effort to extricate drug offenders from the prison system has been seen as a political hot potato and has gone nowhere. Sentencing reform is political poison in Sacramento, yet we have this simmering prison crisis here in California."

If the politicians refuse to act, said Gieringer, it is time to take the issue directly to the voters. "This initiative is very justified because of the negligence of California's political class in not dealing with these issues," he said. "In fact, it is overdue, and now we the people have to try to come to grips with the failure of our political leaders to act. And I think we have the public on our side. The polling on this has been very favorable. Most people think nonviolent drug offenses should be handled with treatment, not prison."

"We have federal judges considering whether to take over the entire state prison system," said Dooley-Sammuli. "We don't have solutions coming out of Sacramento. We have very real budget problems that mean we can't afford to keep spending what we are on incarceration. NORA reallocates state spending from incarceration to treatment and rehabilitation, so we will end up with substantial savings over time," she predicted.

Gov. Schwarzenegger's move to release some prisoners early is necessary, but not sufficient, said Dooley-Sammuli. What is needed is not one-shot fixes, but systemic reforms, she said. "NORA is not a one-time opening of the jailhouse gates," said Dooley-Sammuli, "This is about systemic change in our sentencing and parole practices. This is not radical; it's common sense. This is not soft on crime; this is smart on crime. NORA will allow us to get past the politicking and get some solutions."

At this point early in the campaign season, there is no organized opposition, but that is almost certain to change. Too many powerful groups, from prosecutors to prison guards, benefit from the status quo, and fear-mongering on crime issues is a perennial favorite among politicians.

"The question is whether there will be any well-funded political opposition," said Gieringer. "Then there might be a real fight. But we haven't seen an opposition committee form yet. That's the real question mark."

NORA organizers have done their best to blunt opposition at the early stages by bringing potential opponents into the process, said Dooley-Sammuli. "We made many, many efforts to make this a collaborative process by reaching out to a wide variety of stakeholders. This has been a broad effort to bring in as many perspectives and sets of expertise as possible, and we've tried to make friends instead of foes," she said.

Coerced drug treatment is not the best of all possible worlds. But it's difficult to argue that drug law violators are better off in prison than in treatment. The NORA initiative will give California voters a chance to take a giant step in sentencing and prison reform and a small step toward true justice for drug users.

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In Memoriam: Dr. John P. Morgan

Dr. John P. Morgan, one of the leading supporters of drug policy reform within the medical and academic worlds, died last Friday in New York City at age 67. Morgan succumbed to leukemia in a case that came on suddenly, taking family, friends and colleagues by surprise, many of whom had enjoyed conversations with him at recent conferences where he had appeared quite healthy.

Morgan was a professor of pharmacology at City University of New York's Medical School from 1977 until his retirement in 2004. Though best known to the movement as coauthor of the 1997 book "Marijuana Myths, Marijuana Facts" -- with sociologist Lynn Zimmer, who passed away in 2006 -- Morgan has in fact been a staunch activist for drug law reform for decades. His service to the cause included a lengthy association with NORML, including many years sitting on its Board of Directors and Advisory Board, as well as on boards of the Drug Policy Foundation, now known as the Drug Policy Alliance.

Morgan was also a fixture at drug reform conferences, where, in addition to educating audiences on the intricacies of drug reform, he displayed a broad knowledge (and love of) popular music, especially pop music related to various drug cultures. On multiple occasions he gave presentations on marijuana references in classic jazz.

"Every single man and woman in this country and around the world who care about replacing prohibition-oriented policies with science/public health-based policies owe a man like John Morgan immense thanks and praise," said NORML executive director Allen St. Pierre in a statement announcing Morgan's untimely demise to the reform community.

Truly, Dr. John Morgan was a giant among advocates for a more humane drug policy. His achievements are enduring, but he will be sorely missed.

A memorial service for Dr. Morgan will be held at 2:00pm, Saturday, February 23 at City College on 140th Street and Amsterdam in Manhattan. It will be in the Faculty Dining Hall in the North Academic Center at Amsterdam and 138th street (map). The family asks that in lieu of flowers, donations in his name be made to support Stem Cell or Multiple Sclerosis research at Mt. Sinai Hospital. Call the hospital's Development Office at (212) 659-8500 or use their online gift form here.

Read Marsha Rosenbaum's tribute to John Morgan here. Read Jacob Sullum's tribute to him on the Reason web site here.

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Appeal: Three Exciting New Book Offers for Our Donating Supporters

We are pleased to announce our first membership premiums of 2008, three very different and important books:

Women Behind Bars: The Crisis of Women in the US Prison System. This work by Silja Talvi, one of the most active writers on criminal justice issues, draws on interviews with inmates, correctional officers and administrators, providing readers with a look at the devastating impact incarceration is having on our society.

Over the Influence: The Harm Reduction Guide for Managing Drugs and Alcohol. Dr. Patt Denning offers a much needed guide to options for dealing with substance use issues that go beyond the conventional "all or nothing" approaches.

Cannabis Yields and Dosage, by court-certified cannabis expert Chris Conrad, is the authoritative study of the science and legalities of calculating medical marijuana.

Copies of Women Behind Bars or Over the Influence can be requested with donations of $30 or more -- donate $55 or more to receive both. Copies of Cannabis Yields and Dosage can be requested with donations of $20 or more -- donate $45 or more for Cannabis Yields and Dosages plus one of the others. Donate $70 and receive all three books as our thanks. We also continue all our other recent offers -- visit our donation page online to view all the offerings in the righthand column.

You can also preview Cannabis Yields and Dosage online at ChrisConrad.com -- the print copies we'll send you are thanks for your generous donations, and I hope you will donate. Your donations will help DRCNet as we advance our campaign to stop dangerous SWAT raids in routine situations; to take on new issues like the drug penalties in welfare and housing law; to advance the dialogue on drug legalization; to continue our stunning web site successes of the last third of 2007; while continuing to publish our acclaimed and widely-used newsletter, Drug War Chronicle.

So 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 one or more gifts 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.

Thank you for your support.

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Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

Slim pickings on the corrupt cop front this week, but we still have a Los Angeles probation officer rounded up in a major bust and a small town Pennsylvania cop about to pay for his big ambitions. Let's get to it:

In Los Angeles, an LA County probation officer was arrested over the weekend in a major federal drug bust that netted a dozen people in the San Gabriel and Pomona valleys. Probation Officer Crystal Dillard was arrested along with her boyfriend, Jerron Johns, whom authorities identified as a member of the Crips. She is accused of participating in multiple crack cocaine sales. Dillard and Johns appeared in a 17-count indictment accusing 23 defendants of participating in a ring that sold marijuana, cocaine, and crack cocaine. Dillard is accused of making drug drops at various locations where Johns would pick them up and deliver them to a person who turned out to be a confidential informant. Dillard and Johns are now in federal custody.

In Pittsburgh, a former South Fayette Township patrolman awaits sentencing after pleading guilty to conspiring to distribute cocaine. Bernard Golling and his friend Michael Monz were arrested in July upon receiving nine pounds of cocaine in a Fedex shipment. Monz was sentenced last Friday to 57 months in federal prison. Golling will be sentenced May 23. He faces more time than Monz because he was in uniform when he picked up the package and thus carried a gun during the commission of a drug offense.

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Marijuana: New Hampshire Decriminalization Bill Hits Bump

A New Hampshire bill that would decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana hit a bump Tuesday when the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee gave it a thumbs down. But despite the committee vote, the bill is not dead and will be the subject of an expected roll-call vote on the House floor.

The move was especially disappointing coming after a subcommittee of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee approved it on a 3-1 vote last week. But even that vote had resulted in a scaling back of the original proposal. Instead of the original one ounce cut-off point, the subcommittee voted to make it one-fourth of an ounce.

HB 1623 would reduce the penalty for possession of small amounts of marijuana from a Class A misdemeanor with possible jail time to a violation punishable by a maximum fine of $200. Sponsored by Reps. Jeffrey Fontas (D-Nashua), Andrew Edwards (D-Nashua), and Charles Weed (D-Keene), the bill has garnered strong public support, but also loud law enforcement opposition.

While proponents were disappointed with the committee's decision not to recommend the bill for further action, they expect a lively floor debate. "We're looking forward to taking the conversation to the floor of the House," Fontas said following the session.

"It's clear that legislators are becoming increasingly concerned about the unintended consequences of marijuana prohibition," explained Matt Simon, executive director of the New Hampshire Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Policy, the Marijuana Policy Project-affiliated group that is leading the campaign. "Based on this vote, it seems discussing sensible marijuana policy still makes some people uncomfortable. But people sure are talking, and they're realizing the consequences of penalties that far exceed the offense they're supposed to correct."

Eleven states have decriminalized marijuana possession, including New Hampshire neighbors Maine and New York. The Vermont Senate passed a similar measure last week.

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Latin America: Colombian Soldiers Convicted of Killing Colombian Narcotics Police

In one of the most depraved cases of corruption in the Colombian armed forces in recent years, a Colombian court Monday convicted an army colonel and 14 soldiers of massacring 10 members of an elite, US-trained anti-drug police unit and an informant at the behest of drug traffickers. A judge in Cali found Col. Bayron Carvajal and his soldiers guilty of aggravated homicide for the May 2006 ambush outside a rural nursing home near Cali. The men will be sentenced in two weeks.

The soldiers bushwhacked the police unit as it was about to seize 220 pounds of cocaine that the informant had told them was stashed inside a psychiatric facility in the town of Jamundí. The soldiers fired hundreds of rounds at the police and attacked them with hand grenades. Six of the police officers were found to have been shot at close range. No drugs were recovered.

During the trial, more than a hundred witnesses testified. Some of them linked Carvajal to both leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers. Carvajal claimed his troops were attacking leftist rebels working with drug traffickers, but that didn't fly. Neither did the military's original explanation that the deaths were accidental. The military later conceded that its inquiries suggested links between the soldiers and drug gangs operating in the region.

Under Plan Colombia, the US has sent an average of $650 million a year in recent years to fight the drug trade and the leftist guerrillas of the FARC. Most of that money has gone to expand, equip, and train the Colombian military and police. Part of the rationale for that aid was that it would reduce corruption and human rights abuses in the Colombian armed forces.

The Carvajal case is not the only one to tarnish the image of the Colombian military lately. In the last two years, high-ranking military officers have been accused of selling secrets to drug traffickers to help them escape capture and planting fake bombs to advance their careers. Killings of noncombatants by the military are also reportedly on the increase after decreasing during the early years of Plan Colombia.

Meanwhile, for all the billions spent, that Colombian cocaine just keeps on coming.

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Europe: Grow Ops Pop Up in Southern Norway

Norwegian police have made a number of marijuana grow operation arrests this year, according to the Oslo newspaper Aftenposten. Gardens busted on Kråkerøy Island, near Fredrikstad, and Kongsberg in Buskerud over the weekend were just the latest indications that cannabis cultivation is taking off in the land of the Norse.

Those two raids were the fourth in a week, and the 14th and 15th in recent months in southern Norway. Other garden busts have occurred in Telemark, Buskerud, Hedmark, and Østfold counties. Many of the busts have involved Vietnamese growers, according to police.

Police believe many of the grow ops are linked, and the national crime unit, Kripos, has been called in to aid local investigators. "We've noticed that many of these cases bear similarities," said Kripos spokesman Atle Roll-Mathiesen. "We've gotten involved, to look at the links between them."

Scandinavian countries generally have tough drug policies, and Norway's drug laws are no exception. While small-time drug possession, including marijuana possession, is charged under a relatively lenient section of the Norwegian criminal code, drug cultivation or trafficking offenses, including those involving marijuana, are serious crimes punishable by up to 21 years in prison.

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Australia: Queensland Passes Tough New Drug Law

The parliament of Queensland passed a bill last week that will increase penalties for the possession, manufacture, or trafficking of Ecstasy (MDMA) and PMA (paramethoxyamphetamine or "Death") by rescheduling them as Schedule 1 drugs, the most serious classification under the Australian state's drug classification scheme. The bill also increases the penalties for a number of other drugs and precursors and has provisions to criminalize the possession of analogues to the drugs banned by the state.

Under the new law, maximum penalties for the possession, manufacture, or sale of Ecstasy and PMA will increase from 20 to 25 years. Maximum penalties for the possession, manufacture, or sale of Valium, Sarapax, steroids, Rohypnol, and ephedrine will increase to 20 years imprisonment. Previously, the maximum penalty for their supply or trafficking was five years jail while possession carried a maximum of two years imprisonment.

The Drug Misuse Amendment Bill of 2007 will be a "serious deterrent" to drug abuse, said Queensland Attorney-General and Minister for Justice Kerry Shine. "We are determined to fight the increase in drug use in our society and these laws provide a serious deterrent to anyone thinking of becoming involved in the illegal drug trade," he said, according to Sydney Morning Herald.

"New offences have been created for the supply and production of substances such as pseudoephedrine and for the possession of equipment used in the production of dangerous drugs such as pill presses," he said. Under the new law, possession of such items can garner a prison sentence of up to 15 years.

"We have also introduced a new concept called 'analogue' which means that drugs not named in the Drugs Misuse Act, but which have a similar structure pharmacological effect, will attract the same penalties as drugs that are in it," Shine noted.

While enforcement of the new drug laws will undoubtedly lead to more people doing more prison time in Queensland, the bill claimed that the cost of implementation will be "nil." It also addressed concerns about the liberty interests of Queensland residents, saying: "Whilst it could be said that these amendments will affect the rights and liberties of individuals by increasing penalties it should be noted that the penalties are maximum penalties, not mandatory penalties and will not have retrospective effect."

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Southeast Asia: Methadone Maintenance Coming to Ho Chi Minh City

Vietnam has generally appeared in these pages in recent months because of its penchant for using the death penalty on drug traffickers, but now Vietnamese authorities have taken a step in a different direction, at least when it comes to users. Last Friday, officials in the capital, Ho Chi Minh City, announced that a methadone maintenance program for opiate users will be getting underway there.

In remarks reported by VietnamNet, Ho Chi Minh City Health Department Deputy Director Le Truong Giang announced that the Ho Chi Minh City AIDS Committee will start providing methadone to heroin users beginning next month. The one-year program sponsored by the World Health Organization will operate out of community counseling centers in several districts in the city, Giang said.

The program in Ho Chi Minh City will be the second to operate in Vietnam. For the past year, some 700 drug users in the northern port city of Haiphong have been participating in a pilot program funded by the US and British governments. That program will end at the end of this year.

Giang said that results from methadone maintenance programs in Australia, China, and Indonesia all showed that providing heroin users with access to methadone maintenance therapy would dramatically reduce crime. Methadone is provided for free to users, he added. If the Ho Chi Minh City and Haiphong programs are proven to be effective, they would be expanded, Giang said.

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Europe: Poll Finds Britons Prefer Status Quo on Marijuana, But One Quarter Would Support No Penalties At All

A poll conducted last month by the Angus Reid Global Monitor found that a plurality of Britons -- 41%--believe people caught possessing marijuana for their personal use should face the penalties associated with Class C drugs. Another 27% said marijuana possessors should face no penalty at all.

Under the Misuse of Drugs Act, possession of Class C drugs (marijuana, tranquilizers) is punishable by up to two years in prison, possession of Class B drugs (amphetamines, barbiturates) garners up to five years, and possession of Class A drugs (heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine) is worth up to seven years. Marijuana was down-scheduled to Class C in 2005, but the Labor government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown is hinting broadly that it will reschedule it back to the more serious Class B in the near future.

But according to the Angus Reid poll, while 68% of respondents favored either the status quo or some form of decriminalization or legalization, only 13% supported treating marijuana possession as a Class B drug offense, and only 11% supported subjecting pot smokers to the seven years in prison associated with Class A drugs. Nine percent of respondents had no clue.

Oddly enough, Angus Reid itself spun the poll results as suggesting support for a tougher line on marijuana. "Most Britons Want Jail for Marijuana," read the headline of its release. While that headline is factually accurate -- 65% think marijuana possession should be punished as a Class A, B, or C drug offense -- it is misleading because a plurality supports the status quo -- not an increase in penalties -- and a sizeable minority supports having no penalties at all.

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Weekly: This Week in History

February 23, 1887: The 49th Congress of the United States enacts legislation that provides a misdemeanor fine of between $50 and $500 for any US or Chinese citizen found guilty of violating the ban on opium.

February 26, 1995: Former mayor of San Francisco Frank Jordan is quoted in the Los Angeles Times, saying, "I have no problem whatsoever with the use of marijuana for medical purposes. I am sensitive and compassionate to people who have legitimate needs. We should bend the law and do what's right."

February 28, 1995: In compliance with the 1994 Crime Act, the US Sentencing Commission issues a report on the current federal structure of differing penalties on powder cocaine and crack cocaine, recommending that Congress "revisit" penalties enacted for those offenses.

February 25, 1997: President Bill Clinton proposes spending $175 million for a national television blitz targeting drug use by America's youth. Matching funds from the private sector would be sought. Clinton says, "If a child does watch television -- and what child doesn't -- he or she should not be able to escape these messages."

February 28, 1998: President Clinton recertifies Mexico as a fully cooperating ally in the struggle against drug smuggling despite a letter from 40 US senators urging Clinton to deny certification.

February 27, 1999: Conservative William F. Buckley, Jr. is quoted in the New York Post: "Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could."

February 22, 2000: Due to drug-related violence, the US State Department issues a traveler's advisory warning for Tijuana, México City, and Ciudad Juárez, which are labeled as "dangerous." Juárez Mayor Gustavo Elizondo protests to US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

February 24, 2000: Members of the Belgian Parliament make a proposal to modify their laws in order to partially decriminalize the possession of cannabis and its derivatives. Simple marijuana possession is effectively decriminalized three years later.

February 28, 2000: UPI reports that Spanish researchers said the chemical in marijuana that produces a "high" shows promise as a weapon against deadly brain tumors. A research team from Complutense University and Autonoma University in Madrid found that one of marijuana's active ingredients, THC, killed tumor cells in advanced cases of glioma, a quick-killing cancer for which there is currently no effective treatment.

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Weekly: Blogging @ the Speakeasy

Along with our weekly in-depth Chronicle reporting, DRCNet has since late summer also been providing daily content in the way of blogging in the Stop the Drug War Speakeasy -- huge numbers of people have been reading it recently -- as well as Latest News links (upper right-hand corner of most web pages), event listings (lower right-hand corner) and other info. Check out DRCNet every day to stay on top of the drug reform game!

Since last issue:

Blog Editor Scott Morgan brings us "Drug Testing Welfare Applicants Will Only Cause Horrible Problems," "Rule #1 of Drug Legalization is Don't Talk About Drug Legalization" and "Judge Throws Out DEA Agents' Lawsuit Against 'American Gangster'" (and more coming out soon, the Chronicle is publishing early this week), while Chronicle Editor Phil Smith hits "A Big Bump on the Road to the Mexico."

David Guard posts numerous press releases, action alerts and other organizational announcements in the In the Trenches blog.

Please join us in the Reader Blogs too.

Thanks for reading, and writing...

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Students: Intern at DRCNet and Help Stop the Drug War!

Want to help end the "war on drugs," while earning college credit too? Apply for a DRCNet internship for this fall semester (or spring) and you could come join the team and help us fight the fight!

DRCNet (also known as "Stop the Drug War") has a strong record of providing substantive work experience to our interns -- you won't spend the summer doing filing or running errands, you will play an integral role in one or more of our exciting programs. Options for work you can do with us include coalition outreach as part of the campaign to repeal the drug provision of the Higher Education Act, and to expand that effort to encompass other bad drug laws like the similar provisions in welfare and public housing law; blogosphere/web outreach; media research and outreach; web site work (research, writing, technical); possibly other areas. If you are chosen for an internship, we will strive to match your interests and abilities to whichever area is the best fit for you.

While our internships are unpaid, we will reimburse you for metro fare, and DRCNet is a fun and rewarding place to work. To apply, please send your resume to David Guard at [email protected], and feel free to contact us at (202) 293-8340. We hope to hear from you! Check out our web site at http://stopthedrugwar.org to learn more about our organization.

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Feedback: Do You Read Drug War Chronicle?

Do you read Drug War Chronicle? If so, we'd like to hear from you. DRCNet needs two things:

1. We are in between newsletter grants, and that makes our need for donations more pressing. Drug War Chronicle is free to read but not to produce! Click here to make a donation by credit card or PayPal, or to print out a form to send in by mail.
   
   
2. Please send quotes and reports on how you put our flow of information to work, for use in upcoming grant proposals and letters to funders or potential funders. Do you use DRCNet as a source for public speaking? For letters to the editor? Helping you talk to friends or associates about the issue? Research? For your own edification? Have you changed your mind about any aspects of drug policy since subscribing, or inspired you to get involved in the cause? Do you reprint or repost portions of our bulletins on other lists or in other newsletters? Do you have any criticisms or complaints, or suggestions? We want to hear those too. Please send your response -- one or two sentences would be fine; more is great, too -- email [email protected] or reply to a Chronicle email or use our online comment form. Please let us know if we may reprint your comments, and if so, if we may include your name or if you wish to remain anonymous. IMPORTANT: Even if you have given us this kind of feedback before, we could use your updated feedback now too -- we need to hear from you!

Again, please help us keep Drug War Chronicle alive at this important time! Click here to make a donation online, or send your check or money order to: DRCNet, P.O. Box 18402, Washington, DC 20036. Make your check payable to DRCNet Foundation to make a tax-deductible donation for Drug War Chronicle -- remember if you select one of our member premium gifts that will reduce the portion of your donation that is tax-deductible -- or make a non-deductible donation for our lobbying work -- online or check payable to Drug Reform Coordination Network, same address. We can also accept contributions of stock -- email [email protected] for the necessary info.

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Webmasters: Help the Movement by Running DRCNet Syndication Feeds on 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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Resource: DRCNet Web Site Offers Wide Array of RSS Feeds for Your Reader

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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Resource: Reformer's Calendar Accessible Through DRCNet Web Site

DRCNet's Reformer's Calendar is a tool you can use to let the world know about your events, and find out what is going on in your area in the issue. This resource used to run in our newsletter each week, but now is available from the right hand column of most of the pages on our web site.

• Visit http://stopthedrugwar.org each day and you'll see a listing of upcoming events in the page's right-hand 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.

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