Drug War Chronicle #545 - August 1, 2008

Editorial: Two Dogs Dead, a Family Traumatized, Another Day in the Drug War

David Borden, Executive Director

David Borden

That homeowner happened to be the mayor of the town, a fact which has drawn a lot of attention to the incident. Unfortunately, as reckless as this police squad's actions were, and as tragic the outcome, it is by no means unique. One study has estimated the number of SWAT raids nationwide at about 40,000 per year, and the killing of both dogs and people has occurred many times. One mother and child who lost their dog to a SWAT team spoke out in an interview with one of our supporters two years ago.

The rationale for the home invasion was that a package of marijuana -- 32 pounds of it -- had been delivered to the home. What was mentioned in the reporting, though, but not reflected on, is that the package had actually been brought to the home by the police! The sequence of events is both revealing and nauseating. A drug dog in Arizona smelled marijuana inside a package at the post office, addressed to the mayor's wife. Police brought the package to Maryland, and disguised as postal workers delivered it the house. The box sat outside all day. When Mayor Calvo came home, he brought the box inside, placed it near the door, and went upstairs. The SWAT team then stormed the house, killed the dogs, and locked the people up.

There are plausible ways in which the family can have had nothing to do with the package, despite it having been mailed to them, and Calvo and his wife seem unlikely lawbreakers. Police have yet to file any charges. Still, suppose that someone living in the home is guilty. Would that justify the actions of the police?

Absolutely not. The idea that a man returning to his home and moving a package from his porch to his hallway, should trigger a SWAT raid, by a team that had literally been waiting in hiding to see him move the package, is criminally insane. They didn't wait for the package to go inside because of any tactical purpose. They waited because they wanted to use the action of bringing the package inside as evidence. They had literally all day to figure out some way of being able to search the home without murdering their dogs! They didn't even have to bring the package to the house -- they already had the address with which it had been marked. They could have simply called the individuals in for questioning, or conducted an ordinary search or arrest warrant, waited for Mayor Calvo or his wife to walk up and approach them on the street, almost anything other than what they did.

And as evidence goes, moving the package inside the doorway is worthless anyway, or should be. Would you bring a package that arrived in your mail inside, maybe even open it to see what it contains? Doing so would prove nothing about your knowledge of the contents. So even that weak rationale falls to pieces.

The town's police chief, Patrick Murphy, who was not involved in the raid or informed of it, had wise words to say in the aftermath: "You can't tell me the chief of police of a municipality wouldn't have been able to knock on the door of the mayor of that municipality, gain his confidence and enter the residence," he told the Washington Post. "It would not have been a necessity to shoot and kill this man's dogs." He really wishes the narcs had contacted him about it first, and the tragedy thereby prevented.

But while the fact that this was the mayor's house makes the action even more deranged, it would be a mistake to regard that as the reason not to use a SWAT team. The truth is that entering a home in that fashion is unnecessary, and therefore wrongful, almost all of the time. SWAT teams are meant for emergency or other high-intensity situations -- hostage situations and the like -- not routine drug enforcement. But even if there had been 200 pounds of marijuana, or 2,000 pounds, there would still be no excuse. Invading a home in this manner endangers people and animals and property, for no good reason, if there is any other way of dealing with the situation.

Two dogs dead, a family traumatized -- another day in the drug war.

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Feature: Federal Marijuana Decriminalization Bill Has Its Coming Out Party

For the first time in decades, a marijuana decriminalization bill is before the Congress. Actually introduced by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) in April, the Act to Remove Federal Penalties for the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults (H.R. 5843) got its coming out party Wednesday as Frank, a handful of other representatives, and leaders of prominent drug reform organizations held a Capitol Hill press conference to push for the bill.

In the eyes of many, the bill couldn't come soon enough. Since 1965, more than 20 million Americans have been arrested on marijuana charges, 830,000 in 2006. Of those, nearly 90% were for simple possession. In addition to the jail time and other costs imposed on offenders, marijuana law enforcement costs society more than $7 billion a year.

While passage of a federal decriminalization bill would have little direct impact -- only 160 people were charged with federal marijuana possession offenses last year -- its symbolic impact could help break the marijuana law reform log-jam that has endured since the days of the hippies.

Here is the text of the bill in its entirety:

"Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no penalty may be imposed under an Act of Congress for the possession of marijuana for personal use, or for the not-for-profit transfer between adults of marijuana for personal use. For the purposes of this section, possession of 100 grams or less of marijuana shall be presumed to be for personal use, as shall the not-for-profit transfer of one ounce or less of marijuana, except that the civil penalty provided in section 405 of the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 844a) may be imposed for the public use of marijuana if the amount of the penalty does not exceed $100."

Reps. Lee, Frank and Clay at press conference (courtesy Drug Policy Alliance)

The federal government should stop arresting marijuana users, Frank said as he stood before the microphones flanked by Congressional Black Caucus members Reps. Lacy Clay (D-MO) and Barbara Lee (D-CA), and advocates Allen St. Pierre, executive director of NORML; Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, and Bill Piper, national affairs director of the Drug Policy Alliance.

Existing laws aimed at marijuana users punish otherwise law-abiding citizens and sick people whose doctors have recommended the drug, disproportionately impact African-Americans, and waste law enforcement resources, Frank said. They also amount to an unwarranted intrusion into the private lives of Americans, he said.

"There is absolutely nothing wrong with the responsible use of marijuana by adults and this should be of no interest or concern to the government," said NORML's St. Pierre. "In fact, the vast majority of marijuana smokers are adults who cause no harm to themselves or to anyone else, so there is no reason for the state to be involved."

Marijuana use should be treated like alcohol use, St. Pierre continued. "With alcohol we acknowledge the distinction between use and abuse, and we focus our law enforcement involvement on efforts to stop irresponsible use. We do not arrest or jail responsible alcohol drinkers. That should be our policy with marijuana as well," he said, noting that there were more than 11 million marijuana arrests since 1990.

Reps. Clay and Lee both emphasized the inordinate number of arrests of minority pot smokers. The application of the marijuana laws unfairly targets blacks, said Clay.

Clay called marijuana prohibition part of "a phony war on drugs that is filling up our prisons, especially with people of color." It is time for a "practical, common sense approach" instead, he said.

Lee also noted the disproportionate impact of marijuana law enforcement on the minority community, but as a representative of a state where medical marijuana is legal also singled out another group that suffers under the law. "This bill is about compassion," she said. "The federal government has better things to do than send sick people to jail."

MPP's Kampia noted that marijuana arrests outnumber arrests for "all violent crimes combined," and suggested that law enforcement concentrate less on pursuing nonviolent marijuana offenders. "Ending arrests is the key to marijuana policy reform," he said. "It is important to eliminate the threat of arrest. For the many marijuana users who aren't arrested, they still live in fear of arrest."

Marijuana prohibition is "one of the most destructive criminal justice policies in America today," said DPA's Piper, noting that in addition to arrest and possible imprisonment, marijuana users face the loss of jobs, financial aid for college, federal benefits, and access to low-cost public housing.

Even while conceding the bill has virtually zero chance of passing this year, earlier in the week Piper said you have to start somewhere. "The goal is to raise the issue and have something that advocates can organize around," he said. "But just having this bill introduced is groundbreaking in itself."

It could also rub off at state houses across the land, Piper said. "This will encourage state lawmakers to introduce similar bills. This is also something we can now turn around and use to lobby with at state houses," he said.

"There's a growing sentiment in Congress that the prisons are overcrowded," said MPP spokesman Dan Bernath. "I think we are at or near a tipping point, and this bill is a good way to start chipping away at our marijuana laws," he said. "This will set the stage for sensible marijuana reforms at the state and local level, as well as more meaningful federal reforms in the future."

If reformers see little likelihood of anything happening this year, the federal government's anti-drug bureaucrats were taking no chances. Crashing the gate at the press conference were Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) chief scientist Dr. David Murray and two aides. They came carrying glossy ONDCP propaganda and hoping to immediately rebut any claims by reformers, but both press corps and event participants seemed more bemused by their appearance than interested in what they had to say.

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Feature: Prescription Drug "Fatal Medical Errors" Rising Dramatically -- What Does It Mean?

A study released this week charted a startling increase in deaths from "fatal medical errors," particularly those associated with people mixing street drugs and alcohol with prescription medications at home. In this context, "fatal medical error" refers to people dying from taking prescribed medications, usually opioids, but also including other drugs, such as benzodiazepines (Valium, for example).

the pain reliever Oxycontin

According to the study by University of California at San Diego sociologist David Phillips, which examined all US death certificates from the beginning of 1983 to the end of 2004, the overall death rate from fatal medical errors increased more than three-fold over that period, but the death rate from fatal medical errors when the drugs are taken at home and combined with alcohol and/or street drugs has increased a whopping 30-fold.

That means that accidental overdoses at home with alcohol or street drugs involved accounted for 17% of fatal medical error deaths in 2004. That's a seven-fold increase over the 2.3% reported in 1983.

In real numbers, the study found 22,770 fatalities from medication errors in 2004, with 3,792 of them attributed to mixing meds with alcohol or other drugs. In 1983, by contrast, only 92 people died from mixing drugs.

The increase in fatal medical errors involving prescription drugs is larger than the increase in the use of prescription drugs themselves, which has increased about 70% in the last decade.

Fatal medical errors involving prescription drugs dispensed in a hospital or doctor's office setting increased only 5%, while such errors involving home use but no street drug or alcohol use and such errors involving medical settings and alcohol and/or street drug use both increased five-fold.

Phillips and his coauthors pointed their finger at the ongoing migration of prescription drug dispensing from medical professionals at hospitals and doctors' office to patients at home. The decades-long shift in the location of medication consumption from clinical to domestic settings, they said, "is linked to a dramatic increase in fatal medication errors."

It is not just people swallowing prescription pills at home, but the involvement of other drugs in the overdoses that is disturbing, they said. "Domestic fatal medication errors, combined with alcohol and/or street drugs, have become an increasingly important health problem."

The study recommended increased screening for patient abuse of prescription drugs, alcohol, or street drugs, as well as increased vigilance toward prescribing medicines with known dangerous interactions with alcohol or street drugs.

But others in the medical profession are taking the study's findings and running with them. One medical blogger looking to restrict access to pain meds put it like this: "What is going on here is a direct result of politicizing medicine by the pain rights movement and the organizations that have mandated liberal pain management into guidelines and enforcement standards. More recently the push to promote patient satisfaction in healthcare organizations has resulted in liberalizing of prescribing opioid medications to make patients happy. Whatever happened to do no harm? Medicine has lost its way. These numbers should serve as a wake up call and re-examination of pain management practices."

And that is, unsurprisingly, raising hackles in the embattled pain relief movement. Pain relief advocates have long argued that access to effective opioid pain medications is too restricted, pointing to numerous cases of doctors prosecuted and imprisoned for their prescribing practices -- and the patients being left in the lurch.

"The pain relief movement had made only modest gains when it was faced with a government-wide crackdown, led by the Justice Department," said Siobhan Reynolds of the Pain Relief Network. "Now, those who know that they could find help in the form of opioids, find themselves shut out of care and stigmatized by the entire system. I don't think I have ever seen a more destructive phenomenon sweep this country... all in the name of a drug free America, an America which could never exist."

It's not pain patients who are dying of opioid overdoses, said California pain management physician Dr. Frank Fisher. "I've analyzed dozens of these deaths now, and the field of forensic pathology is in such disarray that any time they find an opioid post-mortem, they label the death an overdose," he said. "But pain patients almost never overdose because of the phenomenon of tolerance -- unless it's a massive deliberate overdose, and then they have to take the benzos, barbiturates, or alcohol."

"It's true that it's very hard for an opioid tolerant person to overdose -- if they know what they're doing," said Dr. Matt Das Gupta, an epidemiologist working with North Carolina's Project Lazarus, a program that distributes the opioid antagonist naloxone (Narcan) to drug users to prevent overdoses. But mixing opioids with other drugs or alcohol can fell even the hardiest opioid tolerant patient, he warned.

Most pain patients are dying of cardiac disease, said Fisher. "Heart disease kills pain patients because they're sedentary because of their conditions and they're under stress from chronic pain. What I'm seeing is an epidemic of cardiac disease brought on or exacerbated by chronic pain. Medical examiners are calling them overdoses because they have opioids in their systems, but the medical examiners are wrong when it comes to chronic pain patients."

Suicides among pain patients are no surprise, said Fisher, but they tend to be undercounted. "Unless they leave a note, the medical examiner never calls it suicide, they will call it undetermined or accidental overdose. The medical examiners are giving us terrible data," he complained.

"Medical examiners not coding properly is a perennial problem," said Das Gupta. But that could go both ways. "There are people who died who probably should be included, but were not coded as ODs. For example, one code is chronic use of opioids. If you include that, the numbers go up by 10% or 15%."

(For more on the controversies surrounding drug-related deaths, cause of death coding issues, and associated topics, check out this page at Brian C. Bennett's web site, Truth: The Anti-Drug War.)

While pain relief advocates such as Reynolds and Fisher are concerned primarily with protecting patients' access to effective opioid pain relievers, harm reductionists such as Das Gupta are concerned primarily with preventing overdoses and other deaths related to drug use. While the harm reduction movement has traditionally focused on the use of street drugs, like cocaine and heroin, the rapid increase in prescription drug deaths may be a sign that it needs to broaden its focus.

"When you look at deaths at the state level and start to pull actual medical examiner case files, you find that the people dying are really a mix of pain patients, non-medical opioid users, and heroin users," said Das Gupta. "Here in North Carolina, we found that 80% of prescription overdose deaths were people with prescriptions. That doesn't mean they were chronic pain patients, though; they could have been people scamming docs. What we have is a really heterogenous mix, and the way things are coded doesn't offer enough nuance."

Project Lazarus is trying to adjust, he said. "We've been tweaking traditional programs to a different setting. Instead of using needle exchange programs, we're doing it through doctors' offices," explained Das Gupta. "Anyone who prescribes opioids for pain in North Carolina should be considering naloxone for specific populations," he said. "There is an ethical responsibility for physicians not to endanger their patients' lives."

"We're working on overdose prevention here in New York, but the people we have had access to are the heroin users," said Dr. Sharon Stancliff, medical director for the Harm Reduction Coalition, for whom she oversees drug overdose prevention projects in New York and San Francisco. "But the bigger problem is people misusing or abusing opioids. We need to be getting information out to the general practitioners who are prescribing these drugs. They need to be prescribing Narcan with all those meds," she suggested.

"We need to change the national agenda about overdose prevention," said Stancliff. "Naloxone is an answer, but it's not the only answer. We need naloxone, we need education, we need more research."

And, Stancliff added, the federal government needs to quit being an obstacle and start helping to solve the problem. "We don't have an early alert system, we have really bad surveillance, we're not getting the research done," Stancliff complained. "We don't know who is dying -- is it the people being prescribed the drugs? Is it people they're giving them to? Is it illicit drug users? We don't know enough. The Centers for Disease Control don't quite cover this, and it should be a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) issue, too. Maybe in the next administration, when harm reduction isn't a dirty word."

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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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Law Enforcement: This Week's Corrupt Cops Stories

Prison guards get busted as cocaine traffickers in Louisiana and New Jersey, and a pair of North Carolina cops plea to helping out the local cocaine trade. Let's get to it:

In Lake Charles, Louisiana, a Texas prison guard was arrested Monday night after Louisiana state troopers found 1.2 pounds of cocaine in her vehicle during a drug dog search after a traffic stop. LaQuatta Felder of Houston works at the Darrington Penitentiary in Rosharon, Texas, and was traveling with a former Darrington prisoner, Joseph Harris. Both were booked into the the Jefferson Davis Parish Jail for possession with intent to distribute cocaine.

In Newark, New Jersey, a veteran Newark prison guard was charged July 24 with leading a cocaine trafficking ring that bought the drug in Texas and Florida and sold it in New Jersey. Senior corrections officers Eugene Braswell, 29, worked at Northern State Prison. He first came under scrutiny last August, when he shot and killed a former Northern State prisoner outside his home. The investigation into that shooting led to two arrests earlier this month, and then Braswell and three others were arrested last week. Police found $16,000 in cash and a .357 magnum revolver when they searched his home. He is charged with leading a narcotics network, other drug charges, money laundering and conspiracy. Bail was set at $500,000.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, two former Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers have cut a plea deal with federal prosecutors in the case against them for conspiring with a drug dealer and an informant to sell crack cocaine. Ex-officers Gerald Holas Jr. and Jason Ross agreed to guilty pleas in return for a prosecutorial recommendation they be sentenced to the statutory 10-year minimum sentence for drug conspiracy. In return for the recommended minimum, the two men must make "full, accurate and complete disclosure" to federal authorities about their involvement in the conspiracy. If they're found to have lied, or if they commit any crime, the deal is off. The pair went down after a confidential informant told the FBI a drug dealer was being protected by them. They claimed they were "working" the dealer to make more arrests, but the feds didn't buy that. Now, local prosecutors say they will dismiss any drug cases brought by the pair. Those could number in the hundreds. The plea bargain must be approved by a federal judge in the fall.

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Racial Profiling: Latest Illinois Report Prompts Civil Rights Groups to Call for End to Consent Searches

The Illinois Department of Transportation earlier this month issued its annual report on race and traffic stops. The results showed that police were much more likely to ask minority drivers to consent to searches without probable cause, but that they were much less likely to actually find drugs, guns, or other contraband in consent searches directed at minority drivers.

car search

The results prompted a coalition of civil rights groups to last week call on Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D) to end the practice of consent searches. In a letter to Blagojevich, the ACLU of Illinois, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, the Rainbow/Push Coalition and several other civil rights groups called consent searches an "invidious device" that results in "condition of inequality imposed on minority citizens on our roadways."

The groups specifically asked Blagojevich to end consent searches by the Illinois State Patrol, which had even worse results than law enforcement at large. According to the statewide data, police agencies searched blacks three times more often and Hispanics more than twice as often as whites. But police discovered illicit goods roughly twice as often when whites agreed to searches. State troopers similarly singled out minority drivers, but their "hit rate" for discovering contraband during consent searches was even more racially skewed. Troopers were twice as likely to discover contraband in consent searches of whites than blacks, and eight times more often than in vehicles driven by Hispanics.

"Now we have the proof in the pudding and that is that not only are these searches occurring with greater frequency among minority drivers, but that they are occurring with dramatically less effectiveness," Harvey Grossman, legal director for the ACLU of Illinois, told the Chicago Tribune.

"Officers are more trusting of whites than they are of blacks, and they are particularly suspicious of Hispanics," Grossman said of state police. "It's clear from the data that officers require less certainty when they ask Latinos to be searched than they do whites, there are more stringent standards for whites."

The Tribune also reported that Blagojevich, who has been critical of racial profiling in the past, issued a statement saying he opposed "any unjustified differential treatment of any group," but did not address the request to stop the searches. "I look forward to working with the coalition to further our shared goals," Blagojevich said.

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Harm Reduction: Bill to End Federal Needle Exchange Ban Filed

Rep. Jose Serrano (D-NY) and 25 cosponsors filed a bill Wednesday that would remove all restrictions on the use of federal funds for needle exchange programs (NEPs). The bill, the Community AIDS and Hepatitis Prevention (CAHP) Act of 2008 (H.R. 6680) is aimed at reducing the spread of blood-borne diseases that may be transmitted through infected syringes, such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C.

widely-used syringe exchange graphic

The CAHP Act is endorsed by a more than a hundred HIV/AIDS, hep C, and other public policy groups. They have been pushing for more than a year to get the ban lifted. The Harm Reduction Coalition was one of the groups welcoming Serrano's bill.

"The Harm Reduction Coalition applauds Rep. Serrano's leadership in taking on the outdated and harmful federal funding ban", said Allan Clear, the group's executive director. "The federal funding ban has resulted in tens of thousands of needless HIV and hepatitis C infections. We know that syringe exchange works -- it's time for Congress to pave the way, and give communities the flexibility to use their federal HIV prevention dollars according to their own needs and priorities."

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Medical Marijuana: DEA Seizes Medical Marijuana Seized By Seattle Police

Washington state has a medical marijuana law, and the city of Seattle has an ordinance making marijuana offenses the lowest law enforcement priority, but that didn't stop Seattle police from raiding the Lifevine medical marijuana co-op two weeks ago, seizing hundreds of patient files, as well as 12 ounces of dried buds and several pounds of leaf.

California medical marijuana bags (courtesy Daniel Argo via Wikimedia)

Now, it has become clear the medical marijuana will never be returned. The Seattle Police announced Wednesday that the DEA, acting at the request of US Attorney Jeff Sullivan, took the medicine last Friday.

The DEA tersely confirmed it had seized the medicine. "Accordingly, the DEA has seized and processed the marijuana for destruction; that concludes this matter," agency spokesperson Jodie Underwood said in a statement reported by the Associated Press.

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Marijuana: Joplin, Missouri, Decrim Initiative in Final Signature-Gathering Push

Organizers of a Joplin, Missouri, initiative that would decriminalize possession of up to 35 grams of marijuana are in a sprint to the wire in a last-minute bid to get the necessary number of signatures to get the measure on the November ballot. During the initial signature-gathering phase, canvassers gathered more than the required number of signatures, but many of them turned out not to be registered Joplin voters. Now the group has a 10-day window from August 5 until August 15 to come up with more valid signatures.

Organized by Sensible Joplin, the initiative would amend a city ordinance to make simple possession a civil infraction with a maximum $250 fine. That would remove the threat of a criminal record and all its collateral consequences from marijuana smokers and would save Joplin law enforcement resources currently being wasted on low-level pot busts, organizers argue.

To get on the ballot, the initiative needs 4,656 valid signatures, or roughly 15% of Joplin voters. Sensible Joplin originally turned in more than 5,600 signatures, but only 3,623 were valid. That means the group needs an additional 1,033 valid signatures in the next two weeks.

Organizers said it could be done. "It's definitely a workable situation," Kelly Maddy, president of Sensible Joplin and Joplin NORML told the Joplin Globe this week. "We still feel really good that we have a fighting chance to get this thing on the ballot."

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Marijuana: Fayetteville, Arkansas, Lowest Priority Initiative in Signature Drive

An initiative that would make adult marijuana offenses the lowest law enforcement priority in Fayetteville, Arkansas, is now in the signature-gathering phase. Canvassers in the Ozarks college town need 3,600 signatures to make the November ballot. If it makes it to the ballot and is approved, Fayetteville would become the second Arkansas town to approve such a measure. Eureka Springs did the same thing in 2006.

Directed by Sensible Fayeteville, the initiative would mandate that:

• Fayetteville law enforcement officers shall make law enforcement activity relating to marijuana offenses, where the marijuana was intended for adult personal use, their lowest law enforcement priority. Law enforcement activities relating to marijuana offenses include, but are not limited to, investigation, citation, arrest, seizure of property, or providing assistance to the prosecution of adult marijuana offenses.

• Fayetteville's prosecuting attorney shall make marijuana and marijuana paraphernalia offenses, where the marijuana and paraphernalia was intended for adult personal use, the lowest prosecutorial priority.
• This lowest law enforcement priority policy shall not apply to driving under the influence.

It would also order the city clerk to send letters every year to state and local representatives calling for marijuana law reform. That letter reads: "The citizens of Fayetteville have passed an initiative to de-prioritize adult marijuana offenses, where the marijuana is intended for personal use, and request that the federal and Arkansas state governments take immediate steps to enact similar laws."

"You know, in Arkansas, if you get caught a second time with marijuana, no matter what amount, it's an automatic felony. That destroys lives. That means you can't vote and you lose your financial aid to college," Sensible Fayetteville campaign director Ryan Denham told KNWA Fox 24. "This is clogging the court and jail system here in Washington County and it's taking away precious police resources," he said.

Lowest priority initiatives have already passed in six California cities (Oakland, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Santa Monica, West Hollywood), Seattle, Denver, Columbia, Missouri; Hailey, Idaho; and Missoula County, Montana.

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Southwest Asia: Iranian Harm Reduction Doctors Arrested, Held Without Explanation

Faced with an intractable and growing opiate addiction problem, in recent years Iran has increasingly embraced the principles of harm reduction. But now, according to an international doctors' human rights organization, two leading Iranian harm reductionists, the brothers Dr. Arash Alaei and Dr. Kamiar Alaei, have been detained without explanation by Iranian authorities.

International Anti-Drugs Day drug burning, Tehran

Physicians for Human Rights earlier this month initiated an international campaign and petition urging Iranian authorities to end the incommunicado detention of the pair and "to disclose their whereabouts, provide them access to lawyers and family, and either to charge them with an internationally recognized crime or release them immediately."

Dr. Kamiar Alaei is a doctoral candidate at the SUNY Albany School of Public Health and is expected to resume his studies there this fall. In 2007, he received Master of Science in Population and International Health from the Harvard School of Public Health. His brother Arash is the former Director of the International Education and Research Cooperation of the Iranian National Research Institute of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.

The Alaei brothers have held training courses for Afghan and Tajik medical workers and have worked to encourage regional cooperation among 12 Middle Eastern and Central Asian countries. They were key organizers of a tri-national meeting in 2004 in Tehran to discuss harm reduction and substitution treatment in Iran, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. At that meeting, Iran's programs proved to be inspiring role models for the region, according to medical experts who participated in the meeting.

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Latin America: In Bid to Reduce US Influence, Bolivia to Fund Own Anti-Drug Unit

The Bolivian government will fund an anti-drug unit for the first time next year in a bid to reduce foreign involvement in its fight against the cocaine trade. The primary foreign country involved in Bolivian anti-drug matters is the United States, although it currently gets some added from the European Union, too.

coca leaves drying by highway, Chapare region of Bolivia

That stance is a direct rebuke to the US, which seeks to eradicate all coca as an illicit drug crop. It also flies in the face of the 1961 UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which classifies the coca plant as a narcotic.

The US has pledged about $25 million in anti-drug aid to Bolivia this year, but next year Bolivia will do it on its own, funding the anti-drug unit at $16 million.

"One of Bolivia's responsibilities is to tackle drug trafficking, with our own... resources, with our vision, with our hard work," Ilder Cejas, an anti-narcotics adviser working for the Interior Ministry, told Reuters. The US will be allowed to collaborate with funds and advisors, but only within programs designed by the government, he added.

While the US government has been critical of Bolivia's coca production policy, the US ambassador said the US would continue to support anti-trafficking efforts. "We value the work of the (anti-narcotics unit) and the national police against drug trafficking... We want to continue collaborating," Ambassador Philip Goldberg was quoted as saying by the La Paz daily La Razón last Friday.

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Europe: Britain's Drug War Not Working, Think-Tank Finds

Traditional drug war law enforcement tactics have not worked in Britain, according to research released Wednesday by the UK Drug Policy Commission. The commission is a non-governmental body that lists among its objectives providing "independent and objective analysis of UK drug policy."

In the study, Tackling drug markets and distribution networks in the UK: a review of the recent literature, the researchers reported that British drug markets are "extremely resilient" and that increasing seizures of drugs had had little impact at the street level. Despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars each year on drug enforcement, "there is remarkably little evidence of its effectiveness in disrupting markets and reducing availability," the authors concluded.

"We were struck by just how little evidence there is to show that the hundreds of millions of pounds spent on UK enforcement each year has made a sustainable impact and represents value for money, and no published material to allow comparisons of different enforcement approaches," said Tim McSweeney, one of the authors of the review.

"All enforcement agencies aim to reduce drug harms and most have formed local partnerships to do this, but they still tend to be judged by measures of traditional supply-side activity such as seizure rates," said the commission's David Blakey. "This is a pity as it is very difficult to show that increasing drug seizures actually leads to less drug-related harm. Of course, drug dealers must be brought to justice, but we should recognize and encourage the wider role that the police and other law enforcement officials can play in reducing the impact of drug markets on our communities."

Still, the authors of the report suggested that law enforcement does have a role to play, particularly in focusing on drug markets with the most "collateral damage," such as gang violence, human trafficking, and drug-related criminality. Police need to work closely with local communities, the authors said, as well as recognizing the unintended and unanticipated consequences of enforcement measures, such as a "crackdown" that merely moves dealers to nearby neighborhoods.

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Weekly: This Week in History

August 2, 1937: The Marijuana Tax Act is passed by Congress, enacting marijuana prohibition at the federal level for the first time. Federal Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger tells the Congressmen at the hearings, "Marihuana is an addictive drug which produces in its users insanity, criminality, and death."

August 2, 1977: In a speech to Congress, Jimmy Carter addresses the harm done by prohibition, saying, "Penalties against a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marijuana for personal use. The National Commission on Marijuana... concluded years ago that marijuana should be decriminalized, and I believe it is time to implement those basic recommendations."

August 6, 1990: Robert C. Bonner is sworn in as administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Bonner had been a federal judge in Los Angeles. Before he became a judge, Bonner served as a US attorney from 1984 to 1989.

August 4, 1996: In the midst of an election season that included California's medical marijuana initiative, Prop. 215, state narcotics agents, at the direction of California Attorney General Dan Lungren, raid the Cannabis Buyers' Club of San Francisco.

August 7, 1997: The New England Journal of Medicine opines, "Virtually no one thinks it is reasonable to initiate criminal prosecution of patients with cancer or AIDS who use marijuana on the advice of their physicians to help them through conventional medical treatment for their disease."

August 1, 2000: The first Shadow Convention convenes in Philadelphia, PA, with the drug war being one of the gathering's three main themes.

August 7, 2000: The Houston Chronicle runs a front page story about the corruption of paid informants in drug cases.

August 3, 2001: The Miami Herald reports that the CIA paid the Peruvian intelligence organization run by fallen spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos $1 million a year for 10 years to fight drug trafficking, despite evidence that Montesinos was also in business with Colombian narcotraffickers.

August 1, 2004: The Observer (UK) reports that the US blames Britain's "lack of urgency" for its failure to arrest the booming opium trade in Afghanistan, exposing a schism between the allies as the country trembles on the brink of anarchy.

August 3, 2004: Sixty percent of Detroit's residents vote in favor of Proposition M ("The Detroit Medical Marijuana Act") which amends the Detroit city criminal code so that local criminal penalties no longer apply to any individual "possessing or using marijuana under the direction... of a physician or other licensed health professional."

August 5, 2004: In a Seattle Post-Intelligencer op-ed entitled "War on Drugs Escalates to War on Families," Walter Cronkite calls the war on drugs "disastrous" and a "failure," and provides a plethora of reasons why it should end immediately.

August 6, 2004: The Ninth Circuit orders the release, pending appeal, of Bryan Epis, who had been convicted of conspiracy to grow 1,000 marijuana plants in a federal trial in which the jury was not allowed to hear that he was a medical marijuana activist.

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Job Opportunity: Executive Director, Justice Policy Institute, DC

The Justice Policy Institute is a Washington, DC-based research, policy and communications advocacy organization whose mission is to end society's reliance on incarceration, and to promote effective solutions to social problems. Since 1997, the Justice Policy Institute (JPI) has worked to enhance the public dialog on incarceration through accessible research, public education, and communications advocacy. Policymakers, the media, advocates, people who work in the juvenile and criminal justice system and the general public rely on JPI's timely analysis to help implement policies to reduce the use of incarceration, and promote effective public safety strategies. JPI's research is frequently cited by policy makers and in America's leading print and electronic media, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. JPI has published over 100 pieces of research, including reports, monographs, articles, fact sheets, and other materials used to promote policy reform. By providing communications and research technical assistance to national and state-based reform initiatives, including foundation-led efforts, JPI has played a significant role in helping America turn the tide against runaway prison expansion.

JPI is engaged in work to support the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, Models for Change: Systems Reform in Juvenile Justice, the Partnership for Treatment, Not Incarceration in Maryland, and other juvenile and criminal justice projects that seek to reduce the use of incarceration. In the past decade, JPI has worked closely on projects with the Center for Child Law and Policy, the Youth Law Center, the National Juvenile Justice Network, the Drug Policy Alliance, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the Campaign for Youth Justice, Critical Resistance and various governmental and non-profit agencies.

In the last decade, JPI's research and communication strategies have been used to help prevent federal laws to try more young people as adults from being enacted, and worked with national and state-based campaigns to repeal these laws; prevent a number of initiatives to lengthen prison sentences or tougher juvenile justice measures from being enacted at the local, state and federal level; pass legislation to divert drug involved individuals from prison to drug treatment programs in Maryland and California; develop a constituency to help enact the Prison Rape Elimination Act; reshape public opinion to where reform of California's "Three Strikes Laws," and reforms to Maryland's drug sentencing statutes are now being considered; elevate the importance of, and promoted effective strategies to reduce the number of young people in pre-trial juvenile detention, and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in juvenile justice system.

JPI's budget is roughly $750,000 annually and it is supported by grants from several national foundations. JPI currently has a staff of six, with a cadre of long-time professional consultants who work with the staff to achieve the mission through research and communication work. JPI's office, staff and Board are based in Washington, DC. JPI is poised to grow, and increase its influence and policy impact.

JPI is seeking a dedicated and experienced leader to move the organization forward. The executive director must be committed to and respect JPI's historic mission, and understand the organization's place within the larger field working for more sensible sentencing and correctional policies, and juvenile justice reform. The executive director must have a background in juvenile and criminal justice research, understand and have implemented research and communications strategies to achieve policy reform goals, and know how to harness both research and communications strategies to support policy reform. While the organization is seeking someone with strong leadership qualities, the organization's key strength is that it works collaboratively with other organizations and initiatives, and harnesses our core skill sets to support other organizations through research and communication work.

Specific responsibilities of the Executive Director include direct supervision of all staff and consultants to complete products to support five major projects that cross the domains of juvenile and criminal justice reform; ensuring that research projects reflect the JPI brand type, quality, and design to maximize their policy impact; ensuring that well-planned and strategic communication techniques are employed to maximize JPI's policy impact; serving as "editor-in-chief" on JPI written materials; serving as primary spokesperson for JPI; maintaining ongoing relationships with press; working with project staff and consultants to conduct other public relation activities on JPI projects; soliciting grants and maintaining ongoing relationships with funders; ensuring sufficient funding for organizational projects and operations; overseeing, managing and maintaining the budget; being responsible for organizational assets, expenditures, salaries, benefits, and overseeing annual reports and accounting reviews; engaging in semi-annual fundraising drives and solicitations; recruiting and hiring; establishing training, supervision, management and staff evaluations; identifying opportunities for staff professional development; completing reports for, and communicating with, the Board of Directors; recruiting new board members; engaging in organizational development activities to enhance the quality and impact of JPI's work; developing policy positions that help advance the work of reducing society's reliance on incarceration; and conducting research and developing communications and advocacy strategies to achieve those goals.

Qualifications include having experience managing within or directing a nonprofit organization, government agency or equivalent academic center or program (experience with personnel management is particularly desirable); good strategic thinking and understanding how to craft and move a policy reform agenda; creativity; being a team player; possessing the skills to work with government, allied organizations, organizers and advocates; and being able to find the balance between advocating for change when required and managing projects that work to use research and communications to build a consensus for change with policymakers and key stakeholders; having experience with juvenile and criminal justice issues. Having experience working in a national organization that engages in research, communication or advocacy on a national level is also a plus. Fundraising experience is highly desirable.

People of color and individuals with direct experience with the criminal justice system are strongly encouraged to apply. The Justice Policy Institute is an equal opportunity employer.

Salary is commensurate with experience, generous benefits included.

To apply, please e-mail your resume and cover letter to Tara Andrews, JPI Board of Directors at [email protected].

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Job Opportunity: State Legislative Affairs Director, National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, DC

Working with a network of NACDL members, affiliate organizations, and allies, the Director will promote state-level criminal justice policy initiatives. General responsibilities include: supporting and training network members; providing direct assistance to state reform initiatives; coordinating and coalition-building among national and state organizations; conference and meeting organizing; lobbying and testifying before policy-making bodies; facilitating the sharing of information and resources among advocates in different states; media relations; and developing policy materials and reports.

Qualified applicants will have experience advocating criminal justice policy issues, preferably at the state level; extensive knowledge of criminal justice issues; the ability to work collaboratively; and strong writing skills. Law degree preferred but not required. Some travel required. Convenient downtown location. Salary and benefits competitive with legal non-profits.

To apply, send a cover letter, resume and salary history to Viviana Sejas, Executive Assistant, [email protected].

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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! Check out the Speakeasy main page at http://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy.

prohibition-era beer raid, Washington, DC (Library of Congress)

Since last issue:

Scott Morgan writes: "Marijuana Laws Killed Two People This Week," "SWAT Team Kills Mayor's Dogs in Botched Drug Raid," "Drug-Sniffing Turtle Discovers Marijuana," "Six More Drug War Disgraces," "US Drug War Funding Supports Human Rights Violations in Mexico," "Isn't it Already Illegal to Traffic Drugs in a Submarine?," "Drug Raid: Police Shoot Man, Find Nothing But Codeine Syrup," "Everyone Should Know the Story of Rachel Hoffman," "Concerned Citizen Launches "Drugs Bring Death" Campaign."

David Borden joins a blogosphere dialogue on "Drug Dealing, Entrepreneurship, and Drug Prohibition."

Phil Smith excerpts police reactions to the Frank marijuana decrim bill in "Hey, Dirtbags, Ya Wanna Know What Cops Think About Frank's Decrim Bill (and You)?"

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.

Again, http://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy is the online place to stay in the loop for the fight to stop the war on drugs. Thanks for reading, and writing...

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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

• 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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