April 8, 1989: Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo is arrested in Mexico. Guillermo Gonzalez Calderoni leads a team of Federal agents who arrest the drug lord in a residential suburb of Guadalajara. Gallardo is imprisoned on charges relating to the kidnapping and murder of Enrique Camarena. His nephews, the Arellano-Felix brothers, inherit part of his drug-trafficking empire.
April 6, 1995: ABC News airs a special entitled "America's War on Drugs: Searching for Solutions" in which legalization is presented as an alternative to the failing war on drugs.
April 6, 1998: Dr. Dennis Rosenbaum's six year study of 1,798 students, "Assessing the Effects of School-based Drug Education: A Six Year Multilevel Analysis of Project DARE," finds that "DARE had no long-term effects on a wide range of drug use measures," that DARE does not "prevent drug use at the stage in adolescent development when drugs become available and widely used, namely during the high school years," and that "DARE may actually be counterproductive."
April 5, 2000: The Journal of the American Medical Association publishes "Trends in Medical Use and Abuse of Opioid Analgesics." The researchers conclude: "Conventional wisdom suggests that the abuse potential of opioid analgesics is such that increases in medical use of these drugs will lead inevitably to increases in their abuse. The data from this study with respect to the opioids in the class of morphine provide no support for this hypothesis. The present trend of increasing medical use of opioid analgesics to treat pain does not appear to be contributing to increases in the health consequences of opioid analgesic abuse."
April 6, 2000: The First National Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics convenes at the University of Iowa.
April 9, 2002: NORML launches a $500,000 campaign featuring bus shelter signs and telephone booth posters carrying a quote from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who when asked whether he had ever tried marijuana said, "You bet I did. And I enjoyed it." NORML used Bloomberg as the centerpiece of its campaign to urge the city to stop arresting and jailing people for smoking marijuana. "Millions of people smoke marijuana today. They come from all walks of life, and that includes your own mayor," said NORML Executive Director Keith Stroup.
April 8, 2003: The US House of Representatives Government Reform's Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources holds a hearing on the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas and Counterdrug Technology Assessment programs because, as Subcommittee Chairman Souder stated, "HIDTA has reached far beyond its intended focus on national drug trafficking. We will need to consider how best to streamline and increase accountability within the HIDTA program."
April 10, 2003: In the wake of the federal conviction of medical marijuana grower Ed Rosenthal, US Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) and 27 other members of Congress introduce H.R. 1717 (the "Truth in Trials Act").
Permission to Reprint: This content is licensed under a modified Creative Commons Attribution license. Content of a purely educational nature in Drug War Chronicle appear courtesy of DRCNet Foundation, unless otherwise noted.
Comments
This Week In Histoey
You say the use of opiate and opiate-like analgesics are up among the drug using crowd. If the government acts quick and legalizes Marijuana the use of opiates would go down. The quality of the 15-25% THC cannabis high is very similar to the opiate high except for the physical addiction. I am right now detoxing off of Methadone Matenance after 8 years due to a 2 year addiction to good quality china white heroin in NYC. I can tell you all about the opiate addiction/withdrawal effects. High THC content marijuana makes the withdrawls not as sever. You will still have the sever physical withdrawals but good qualtiy cannabis does help to control the overall pain of the opiate/heroin withdrawal without possible addiction to THC. No its not trading one addiction for another for cannabis is not physically addictive like opiates. I got addicted in NYC and cleaned up in Iowa where the people actually let the Methadone Maintenance people use marijuana. Then the feds stepped in and so, not if you want federal money, marijuana use is not allowed. So from then on if you had THC in your urine drop you get put on probation. However, my dr gave me a prescription for Marinol so now it doesnt count as a dirty drop. Only because I have Diabetic Neuropathic Gastro Paresis, which means alot of the stomach muscles used to digest food are paralyzed, resulting in delayed stomach emptying, resulting in a state where I surf waves of nausea from mild to severe every hour of everyday. Someday marijuana will be totally legal and the War On Drugs will be discontinued because it is a failure.
Opiate dependancy
My view is why do people think they 'have' to come off opiates.Heroin and opium should be licenced with user able to obtain the required amount from a pharmacy.Opium could be legalized and sold through opium shops or opium dens.One cannot o/d on opium one simply goes to sleep.Heroin use would go down if opium was legal.Evidence in US and Far East was that prior to opium deciminalisation most users prefered the social character of opium smoking and only switched to heroin and morphine when supplies run out or got to expensive.It is the illegality of drugs that causes the problems the adulteration of the product,its control by criminal gangs,the cost and the unsafe environment created by the need to be furtive to avoid the law.People get ripped off with no redress,o/d victims left in unsafe situations because of fear of the police.No other health issue gets treated like this,worse than terrorists.
Failed drug war
I wish the government would wake up and see that alot more money could be made if marijuana were legal,..I also agree with the horrendous way that heroin users are treated,My best friend is hooked on the stuff. And there needs to be some help for someone like him. They treat drug dependent people very,very bad.
Maybe obama will do something to help people that are being arrested for minor drug posession.
The Profit of the War
If you had a multi trillion dollar business and no morals what woyuld you do toprotect it.
Tye dealers have far too much money to ever be defeated. They are the biggest supporters of the war on drugs
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