Harm Reduction Project News Digest July 2, 2007

News & Opinion This Week 1. Zyklon On The US Border 2. Newsweek's "Debate" On Teen Drinking Dodges The Data 3. Needlestick Injuries Often Unreported By Surgeons 4. US House Repeals Needle Ban: Decision On Funding Thrills D.C. Officials Fighting The HIV/AIDS Epidemic 5.Gay Poles Head For UK To Escape State Crackdown 6. Africa Comment: Doubletalk Will Not Pay The Bills That Come With AIDS 7. Meth Ado About Nothing? Flavored Meth And Cheese Heroin Stories Smack Of Fearmongering 8. 2007 International Drug Policy Reform Conference: New Orleans 9. NewsflashIndonesia: Nationwide Activism Brings National Attention To Drug Problems C Quote (This one goes straight into the hall of fame) D How To Help E About HRP F Subscription Information ___ I. Zyklon On The US Border The Nation ~ July 9, 2007 By Alexander Cockburn Zyklon B arrived in El Paso in the 1920s courtesy of the US government. In 1929, for example, a Public Health Service officer, J.R. Hurley, ordered $25 worth of the material--hydrocyanic acid in pellet form--as a fumigating agent for use at the El Paso delousing station, where Mexicans crossed the border from Juarez. Zyklon, developed by Degesch (short for the German vermin-combating corporation), was made in varying strengths, with Zyklon C, D and E representing gradations in potency and price. As Raul Hilberg describes it in The Destruction of the European Jews, "strength E was required for the eradication of specially resistant vermin, such as cockroaches, or for gassings in wooden barracks. The 'normal' preparation, D, was used to exterminate lice, mice, or rats in large, well-built structures containing furniture. Human organisms in gas chambers were killed with Zyklon B." In 1929 Degesch divided the Zyklon market with an American corporation, Cyanamid, so Hurley likely got his shipment from the latter. As David Dorado Romo describes it in his marvelous Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An Underground History of El Paso and Juarez: 1893-1923 (Cinco Puntos Press, El Paso), Zyklon B became available in the United States when, in the early 1920s, fears of alien infection were being inflamed by the alarums of the eugenicists, most of them political "progressives." In 1917 Congress passed, and President Wilson--an ardent eugenicist and pro-sterilizer--signed, the Immigration Act. The Public Health Service simultaneously published its Manual for the Physical Inspection of Aliens. The manual had its list of excludables from the US of A, a ripe representation of the obsessions of the eugenicists: "imbeciles, idiots, feeble-minded persons, persons of constitutional psychopathic inferiority [homosexuals], vagrants, physical defectives...anarchists, persons afflicted with loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases...all aliens over 16 who cannot read." In that same year Public Health Service agents "bathed and deloused" 127,123 Mexicans at the bridge between Juarez and El Paso. The mayor of El Paso at the time, Tom Lea Sr., represented, in Romo's words, "the new type of Anglo politician in the 'Progressive Era.'" For Lea, "progressive" meant a Giuliani-style cleanup of the city. He had a visceral fear of contamination and, so his son later disclosed, wore silk underwear because his friend, one Doc Kluttz, had told him typhus lice don't stick to silk. His loins thus protected, Lea battered the US government with demands for a quarantine camp on the border where the Feds could protect El Paso from typhus by holding all immigrants for fourteen days. Health officer B.J. Lloyd thought this outlandish, telling the surgeon general that typhus fever "is not now and probably never will be, a serious menace to our civilian population." Lea sent his health cops into the city's Mexican quarter, forcing inhabitants suspected of harboring lice to take kerosene and vinegar baths and have their heads shaved and clothes incinerated. After barging into 5,000 rooms, inspectors found only two cases of typhus, one of rheumatism, one of TB and one of chicken pox. Though Lloyd opposed a quarantine, he did urge delousing for "all the dirty, lousy people coming into this country from Mexico." His facility was ready for business just as the Immigration Act became law. Soon Mexicans were being stripped and daubed with kerosene, their clothes fumigated with gasoline, kerosene, sodium cyanide, cyanogens, sulfuric acid and Zyklon B. The El Paso Herald wrote respectfully in 1920, "Hydrocyanic acid gas, the most poisonous known, more deadly even than that used on the battlefields of Europe, is employed in the fumigation process." The delousing operations provoked fury and resistance among Mexicans still boiling with indignation after a lethal gasoline blaze in the city jail some months earlier. As part of Mayor Lea's citywide disinfection campaign, prisoners' clothes were dumped in a bath filled with a mixture of gasoline, creosote and formaldehyde. Then the prisoners were forced, naked, into a second bath filled with "a bucket of gasoline, a bucket of coal oil and a bucket of vinegar." On the afternoon of March 5, 1916, someone struck a match. The jail went up like a torch. The Herald reported that about fifty "naked prisoners from whose bodies the fumes of gasoline were arising" caught fire. Twenty-seven died. In late January 1917, 200 Mexican women rebelled at the border, prompting a riot and putting to flight police and troops on both sides. Now, Zyklon B is fatal when absorbed through the skin in concentrations of more than fifty parts per million. How many Mexicans, many crossing daily, suffered agonies or died after putting on those poisoned garments? Through oral histories, Romo has documented cancers, birth defects and deaths that he estimates could go into the tens of thousands and yet, as he told a reporter, "This is a huge black hole in history." The use of Zyklon B on the US-Mexico border was a matter of interest to the firm of Degesch. In 1938 Dr. Gerhard Peters wrote an article in a German pest science journal, Anzeiger fr Schdlingskunde, which called for its use in German Desinfektionskammern and featured photos of El Paso's delousing chambers. Peters went on to become the managing director of Degesch, which supplied Zyklon B to the Nazi death camps. He was tried and convicted at Nuremberg. (In 1955, he was retried and found not guilty.) In the United States, the eugenicists rolled on to their great triumph, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924, much admired by Hitler, which would doom millions in Europe to their final rendezvous with Zyklon B twenty years later. By the late 1940s, the eugenicists were mostly discredited, but the Restriction Act, that monument to racism, bad science and do-gooders, stayed on the books unchanged for forty years. In 1918 disease did leap across the El Paso border. Romo quotes a letter from Dr. John Tappan, who had disinfected thousands of Mexicans. "10,000 cases in El Paso and the Mexicans died like sheep. Whole families were exterminated." This was "Spanish" flu, which originated in Haskell County, Kansas. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Newsweek's "Debate" On Teen Drinking Dodges The Data Maia Szalavitz, June 27, 2007 STATS When parents allow their children to drink alcohol, the results are more complex than Newsweek claims. Covering the case of a woman who has been sentenced to 27 months in prison for providing alcohol to her 16-year-old son and his friends at a party (she confiscated car keys to prevent drunk driving, but lied to other parents about the fact that she was going to serve drinks), Newsweek presents what seems to be an unassailable case against parents teaching kids to drink responsibly. Quoting an expert from Stanford, the article says, "The earlier a kid starts drinking, the more likely they are to have problems with alcohol in their life." But the data that seems to support this position is more equivocal than that quote makes it sound. It is true that people who report that they started drinking before age 14 are far more likely to become alcoholics than those who don't start until after 20. But this is correlational data. Those who report drinking regularly before their peers tend to have alcoholic parents, high rates of trauma and other factors that increase their risks for alcoholism. The article doesn't cite one of the few studies looking directly at the effect of parents drinking with their kids. Published in 2004, it found that parents who drank at home with their kids had teens who were half as likely to binge drink as those who did not. Supporting Newsweek, however, the study did find that those who threw drinking parties for their teens had adolescents with double the rate of binging. But that could be an artifact of the fact that people who are willing to risk jail to throw teen drinking parties may have other kinds of problems, as the case of the woman who lied to her fellow parents suggests. The magazine then attempts to debunk claims that countries like Italy and France, which encourage early drinking with meals, have lower rates of alcohol problems. It quotes chief executive officer of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, who claims "The highest rate of cirrhosis of the liver is in France." This actually isn't true: according to a study published in the Lancet in 2006, Austria, Denmark, Germany and Scotland all have higher rates and differing alcohol policies. In terms of intoxication among teens, France has a slightly lower percent of teens who report it in the past month: 15% as opposed to America's 18%. Heavy teen drinking is somewhat higher in France according to that same 2003 report; however, this appears to be a relatively recent development, reflecting a shift away from France's traditional view of alcohol as a food and towards the Northern European view of it as drug. In other words, there's a whole other side to the story that Newsweek simply didn't cover. Given that 80% of teens will drink before they reach the legal age, it is not unreasonable for parents to consider ways to reduce the risks their kids face as a result, and the magazine does a disservice to them by blindly supporting current policy without fully investigating the research. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Needlestick Injuries Often Unreported By Surgeons By Alexis Grant ~ June 28, 2008 ~ Houston Chronicle Despite the risk of transmitting disease, about half of needlestick injuries suffered by surgical residents go unreported, including 16 percent of injuries involving patients who are likely to have HIV or hepatitis, according to a report published today in The New England Journal of Medicine. The survey of 700 surgical residents, which was conducted in 17 medical centers around the country in 2003, found nearly all surgical residents have been stuck accidentally with a needle during their five years of training, at an average of 1.5 injuries each year. Half were not reported to an employee health service. Needlestick injuries involving high-risk patients, or those with a history of HIV, hepatitis B or hepatitis C, were six times more likely to be reported than injuries involving low-risk patients. "It's been long suspected, but no one truly appreciated the magnitude of the problem," said Martin Makary, lead author of the report and a surgeon at Johns Hopkins medical school. "Every surgeon is destined to be on anti-HIV medications and is at risk for contracting HIV and hepatitis at far higher rates than we suspected." Though residents at Houston's medical center were not included in the survey, several local surgical residents and their supervisors agreed needlestick injuries are underreported, and that residents who know their patient is a likely carrier of certain diseases are more likely to report the injury. "I think a lot of it is really a person's perception of risk," said Dr. Jim Kelaher, director of Occupational Health Programs at Baylor College of Medicine. Each year, his office sees about 300 exposures, which include any contact with bodily fluid, and about half of those are needlesticks, he said. At Baylor, anyone who has suffered a needlestick injury is expected to report it to Kelaher's office. The patient who was involved with the injury is then tested to see whether they could be infectious, and depending on the risk, the resident can take steps to reduce the chances of transmission, such as taking an HIV prophylaxis. Makary's report did not indicate whether any of the residents included in his survey were infected. Dr. Sasha Adams, a third-year general surgery resident at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, said she has had two needlesticks during her training. She reported both even though she saw them as low-risk injuries because they resulted from solid needles, which carry less risk of disease transmission than hollow needles, or syringes. Although she reported her injuries, Adams, 35, said she realizes some of her colleagues do not. "Those (solid-needle injuries) are the kind that people probably are less likely to report because they already know the chance of anything getting passed with this is extremely low," she said. Her fellow residents use more caution, however, when stuck with a syringe, Adams said. "We're all very concerned about our own level of health and the effect it can have on our lives and families and future," she said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. House Repeals Needle Ban: Decision On Funding Thrills D.C. Officials Fighting The HIV/AIDS Epidemic By Mary Beth Sheridan and Susan Levine ~ Washington Post ~ June 29, 2007 The House yesterday lifted a nine-year-old ban on using D.C. tax dollars to provide clean needles to drug addicts, handing city leaders what they consider a crucial new weapon against a severe AIDS epidemic. The change reflects how Democrats are trying to use their new majority status in Congress to give the District somewhat greater autonomy. Congress has traditionally used its budget power over the city to flex its muscles on such local issues as gun control and abortion. Democrats also tried yesterday to abolish a prohibition on using federal money for the city's domestic-partner registry. The attempt failed. The development will have little practical effect because the city uses its own funds for that program, officials said. The needle-exchange and domestic-partner items were part of a $21 billion funding bill for the next fiscal year that covered more than two dozen federal agencies as well as the District. The bill includes more than $650 million for District schools, courts, libraries and other institutions. "For too long, Congress has unfairly imposed on the citizens of D.C. by trying out their social experiments there," said Rep. Jose E. Serrano, (D-N.Y.), chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that handles the D.C. budget. "The ban on needle exchanges was one of the most egregious of these impositions, especially because the consensus is clear that these programs save lives." The bill goes to the Senate, which is likely to make some revisions but is not expected to reverse the decision on needle exchange. The House action comes as the city is pressing for more rights on several fronts. Legislation to give the District its first voting member of Congress has passed the House and is in the Senate. In addition, a House subcommittee recently passed bills that would provide the city greater legislative and budget autonomy. Local officials were jubilant over the lifting of the ban. D.C. Health Director Gregg A. Pane said his department would commit $1 million toward needle-exchange programs for 2008. "It's a landmark day," he said, "something folks in D.C. have worked for for many, many years." Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who had lobbied her party's leadership for the change, said scrapping the rider from the budget bill was critical for a city that has one of the country's worst HIV/AIDS rates. "It is the only rider that has ever had life-or-death consequences," she said. Advocates say providing clean needles to addicts lessens the chance that they will share dirty ones, potentially passing on HIV and other blood-borne diseases such as hepatitis. Intravenous drug users make up about one-third of the District's new AIDS cases annually. "The science shows it's the right thing to do," Pane said. More than 210 such programs are in place in 36 states. About half receive local or state funding, according to the North American Syringe Exchange Network. The White House opposed lifting the needle ban, as did many Republicans and some Democrats. Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) offered an amendment to restore the prohibition, saying that needle-exchange programs "merely subsidize heroin use." That amendment was defeated 216 to 208. Souder squared off on the House floor against Serrano, who accused opponents of treating the District like a colony. "You would not be able to present this kind of an approach anywhere else except when it comes to dealing with the District of Columbia, because it is, for all intents and purposes, a territory or colony," Serrano said, adding that he hoped to change such attitudes. Souder countered that the District was a unique entity by constitutional design. "When we take large sums of money from our districts that then gets used in policies in our national capital . . . then we do have some obligation to the taxpayers in our district and to our nation" to supervise those funds, he said. Souder said he opposed needle-exchange programs anywhere, not just in the District. "It is not compassionate to enable addicts to continue their addiction. What we need to do is get them off," Souder said. And such programs have had mixed results, he added. A significant amount of the District's 2008 funding of needle-exchange programs is expected to go to the nonprofit PreventionWorks!, the only group doing such work in the city since the ban took effect. The organization's private funding has often been tenuous, limiting its growth and impact, according to Executive Director Paola Barahona. Last year, the organization passed out more than 236,00 needles. "I can't believe it," Barahona exulted yesterday. "It's been so long. Finally, finally, public health overcomes politics." Her group might be able to double the number of people served, to at least 4,000 users, by summer 2008, she said. "We've had plans for years. We could go for immediate expansion." In a statement, the Drug Policy Alliance noted that the American Medical Association, the American Public Health Association and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention endorsed needle-exchange programs as critical to reducing the spread of HIV/AIDS without increasing drug use. Many such programs also urge treatment to overcome addiction. The legislation considered by the House yesterday also sought to lift another prohibition on the District: a ban on the use of federal funds for the city's domestic-partner registry. Supporters said the move was symbolic because no federal funds were available for the registry. The White House was so opposed to that provision that it threatened to veto the entire spending bill. Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr. (R-Va.) offered an amendment reinstating the ban. It passed 224 to 200. "The U.S. House of Representatives should be on record supporting traditional marriage between a man and a woman, and oppose alternative definitions of marriage," Goode said. Gay and lesbian groups criticized the veto threat. "With his popularity at an all-time low, this president has yet again dipped his cup into the well of anti-gay bigotry," said Joe Solmonese, president of Human Rights Campaign. The District's domestic-partner registry allows cohabiting couples to be treated the same way as married people for such things as hospital visits or city employee benefits. About 800 people are registered, according to local officials, who say the program is maintained with a small amount of city money. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. Gay Poles Head For UK To Escape State Crackdown Thousands flock to Britain as Health Ministry unveils plans to 'cure' them By Colin Graham ~ The Observer ~ July 1, 2007 Polish gay rights groups claim thousands of homosexuals have fled the country to escape increasing persecution. Robert Biedron, 27, the head of the Polish Foundation Against Homophobia, said that 'huge numbers' of Polish gays had left the country following the rise to power of the right-wing government. He said: 'It is incredible. The Polish gay community has just left because of the climate of fear and persecution. 'Most of the people I know are now in England because of the current political situation. Not for economic reasons, but because of the persecution of homosexuals going on here. It's impossible for gays to be themselves in Poland.' He added: 'Around two million Poles have left the country seeking work and thousands of gays are among them. Many gays are approaching our foundation for help in emigrating to the UK.' Kamil Zapasnik, 22, a gay student who moved to London because he wanted to marry, said: 'It's very important to me that I am able to have a civil partnership and adopt children. In the UK I have that freedom.' Poland's Roman Catholic right-wing government has openly homophobic members and Polish media recently announced that the Health Ministry had created a special committee responsible for 'curing' gays. The Deputy Health Minister, Marek Grafowski, said that the ministry was also planning to identify how many people in Poland were gay and work out a set of behavioural guides to assist parents and teachers so that they can recognise any warning signs of potential 'gay behaviour'. Polish police have also been compiling a database on gays and the gay community in Poland which, although illegal under EU law, is apparently being done as part of a police investigation into a bomb threat two years ago by a gay man. He had reportedly identified himself as a member of the gay community who was angry when a gay rights march was banned in Warsaw. 'The police are not allowed to catalogue "homosexual data", but it's enough to look into the police investigation associated with the bomb in order to establish a list of names and addresses,' said Ewa Kulesza, a former personal data protection general inspector. It is not just the police who are openly homophobic. Lech Wojtewski, 23, from Warsaw, said his doctor had referred him to a vet when he went to for a check-up. 'He told me there was a specialist for people like me and gave me an address. When I got there it was a vet. 'I called him and he said, "What did you expect? You are an animal".' When Krystian Legierski, 29, opened a gay club, Le Madame, it was shut down by Warsaw local authorities who hired private security guards to break down the doors, despite an appearance there by John Malkovich a day earlier. 'I understand why people emigrate, but injustice can only be rectified by resistance, not emigration,' Legierski said. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Comment: Doubletalk Will Not Pay The Bills That Come With AIDS July 2, 2007 ~ Paul Zeitz ~ Business Daily Africa First lady Laura Bush is visiting four African countries, including Zambia, where I worked in HIV/Aids programmes for six years in the 1990s. We can count on the news media to show us Mrs Bush touring Aids programmes, welcomed by singing children. My refusal to cheer along might seem churlish, to say the least. After all, many more Africans are receiving Aids treatment than when I worked there, and much of this is thanks to Bush administration programmes. Globally, more than one million people are benefiting from treatment because of US assistance. And President Bush made headlines in May when he announced a proposal to double US spending on global Aids to $30 billion between 2009 and 2013. But let's take a closer look at the proposal. The fine print shows that Bush is really just extending Aids funding at its current level for the next five years. We're now allocating about $5.4 billion a year, and if we just stayed on that trajectory from 2009 through 2013, it would total about $27 billion. The president's "doubling'' claim is based on a 2003 pledge to spend $15 billion from 2004 through 2008. In other words, what Bono - who is often quoted as an expert on global health - called "great news'' patently isn't. Belatedly, some saw their mistake, with the New York Times editorialising last week that Bush's proposal amounted to only "a slight increase.'' Extending US funding is the right thing to do, but it will be catastrophic if Congress doesn't provide a much more substantial increase as well. The need for effectively targeted US assistance is growing, not leveling off. In Zambia, for instance, 17 per cent of the population is living with HIV, and there is a major tuberculosis threat as well, including extremely drug-resistant strains. Funding for TB treatment is lumped in with the Aids budget, and countries in Asia as well as Africa need much more help tackling this deadly infection - not only to protect their own populations but to lower the risk of its spread to other countries. Leveling off funding also makes a mockery of America's global leadership. The fight against Aids is now geared toward one overarching, US-endorsed goal: universal access to all Aids-related services by 2010. Of course, similar targets have been set, and missed, in the past. But in the post-9/11 world, promises to poor countries have taken on a new seriousness. It no longer will do for wealthy countries to issue vague excuses when the deadline arrives. There is a way the US could leverage a global response to meet this 2010 goal. Each year, a portion of US HIV/Aids funds are given to the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an international public/private partnership. And each dollar the US contributes is matched by $2 from other countries. The Bush administration recently signed on to a plan to dramatically increase how much money the Global Fund hands out each year. But when it came time for the United States to cough up its share, the tone changed. Last week, as the House of Representatives was debating the foreign aid bill, the president sent a "statement of administration policy'' to dissuade Congress from increasing America's payment into the Global Fund. So, while the first lady is visiting a programme in Mozambique that depends on money from the fund, her husband is working to limit US contributions. Perhaps the next president can go beyond PR spin and actually help the world get ahead of HIV/Aids and other health crises. My organisation, the Global AidsAlliance, has joined health experts and African religious leaders to lay out for the presidential candidates a detailed, 10-point plan on strengthening health systems and fighting Aids. It calls for a minimum of $50 billion in spending from 2009 to 2013, including full allocations to the Global Fund. Our appeal might succeed. Some candidates already are thinking boldly about repairing America's international standing through expanded foreign assistance. But that noble project will falter unless candidates base their proposals not on their public relations value but on what is actually needed to win the battle against disease. Paul Zeitz is the executive director of the Global AidsAlliance -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. Meth Ado About Nothing? Flavored Meth And Cheese Heroin Stories Smack Of Fearmongering June 22, 2007 ~ Join Together ~ Bob Curley It sounds like a recipe for a bellyache: "strawberry quick" and "cheese." Sure enough, these purported new drug fads have been giving prevention experts indigestion, but the agita is mostly over fears that overreacting officials and media could inadvertently cause a trend where none exists -- and that attention on these "flavor of the month" drugs could distract from larger alcohol and other drug problems confronting youth. In February, the Carson County (Nev.) Sheriff's Department reported seizing a quantity of what was described as strawberry-flavored methamphetamine, quickly dubbed "strawberry quick" after a container of Strawberry Quik drink mix was reportedly found at a meth lab. "Strawberry Quick is popular among new users who snort it because the flavoring can cut down on the taste. Teenagers who have been taught meth is bad may see this flavored version as less harmful," the Nevada Department of Public Safety warned. In March, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) echoed the warning, and reports spread about meth being flavored with chocolate, cola, and other flavors. In a widely circulated story in USA Today, a DEA spokesperson said the informants told drug agents that flavored meth could be found in at least nine states. Meanwhile, around the same time the national media began picking up on the story of so-called "cheese" heroin, a mix of black-tar heroin and Tylenol PM that has become popular in the Dallas area and is linked to a number of overdose deaths among adolescents. Although local newspapers had been reporting on the mix since at least last spring, a story on "cheese" recently appeared as front-page news on CNN.com, along with warnings about the potential for the drug to spread to other communities. "Cheese and strawberry quick are classic examples of how drug traffickers take their poisons and change the appearance, color, taste or name" to market to teens and younger children, DEA special agent Steven Robertson told the Dallas Morning News on June 15. Reacting to these stories, lawmakers in the U.S. Senate introduced legislation that would increase penalties for people who sell flavored methamphetamine, and called for "cheese" heroin to be included in the national anti-drug media campaign. Just one small problem: nobody is quite sure that flavored meth actually exists, and even concerned officials in Texas say there's precious little evidence that "cheese" heroin is anything but a local problem. A Sea of Secondhand Reports Flavored meth is somewhat akin to the Loch Ness Monster: everyone has heard of it, but firsthand sightings are hard to track down and verify. Various media reports around the U.S. have raised the alarm about the dangers of this new drug, but invariably concede that no cases have been reported locally. A breathless report from WAVE-TV in Louisville, Ky., is illustrative: "A dangerous new form of meth is headed to the area and it's aimed at kids. It's called Strawberry Quick, but unlike the popular breakfast drink, this drug can kill," according to reporter Shayla Reaves. "Strawberry meth looks and tastes a lot like the candy known as 'pop rocks.' It's got a strawberry flavor and scent, and it even pops in your mouth, just like the candy. While no cases have been reported in Kentucky, police say its not a matter of if it arrives, but when." Meanwhile, in Evansville, Ind., Kim Dacey of WFIE-TV reported, "Across the country, law enforcement are tracking a new type of methamphetamine designed for young users, and its headed for the Tri-State. The taste of this new meth is changing. Police across the country are noticing a new type of meth, made with different colors, and flavors, like strawberry. Police say its made using products you can find in any grocery store." The WFIE story quotes Gibson County Sheriff Allen Harmon saying, "One of the things they're using is the powdered strawberry quick mix, chocolate mix that's a powder they put in milk to make it flavored. We've been told they're using that, and melted Lifesavers." In the next breath, however, Harmon adds that the flavored version of the drug hasn't shown up locally. Attempts by Join Together to trace the one seemingly solid report on flavored meth back to its source have not, as of this writing, produced any clarity. Reached on Friday, the Carson County (Nev.) Sherrif's Department could not confirm whether the meth it seized was flavored or just colored. However, both the DEA and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy told Join Together that they have not been able to identify a single confirmed seizure of flavored meth. "There are a lot of people in prevention and law enforcement talking about it, but in terms of actual seizures we haven't seen much," said Tom Riley, a spokesperson for ONDCP. Rojean White, a spokesperson for the DEA, told Join Together that while local DEA agents have heard stories about flavored meth from local law-enforcement colleagues, they "haven't had any" seizures themselves. Experts say that there's a real possibility that local police are confusing colored meth -- which is relatively common -- with flavored meth. Tom McNamara, a meth trainer and special-projects coordinator for the Southern Illinois Drug Task Force Group, told Join Together that meth made from Sudafed or some generic versions of the drug will have a light-pink color because of the dye used in the pills. Moreover, he said, meth made from anhydrous ammonia treated with GloTell -- a chemical marker designed to discourage thefts -- will be bright pink. The drug also can appear greenish or blue. "We've had that forever," said McNamara of colored meth, whereas his inquiries about flavored meth have yielded nothing. "The warnings are well-intended, but they have no substance," he said. Jeanne Cox, executive director of the Meth Project Foundation, says that while she has seen and heard the news reports about flavored meth, no firsthand accounts of the drug have come in. An inquiry on a prevention listserv run by ONDCP yielded similar results. "We are all still trying to figure out what's going on with strawberry meth and if it really exists," said Cox. The lingering uncertainty didn't stop Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) from introducing the "Saving Kids from Dangerous Drugs Act," which doubles mandatory prison terms for anyone who "manufactures, creates, distributes, or possesses with intent to distribute a controlled substance that is flavored, colored, packaged or otherwise altered in a way that is designed to make it more appealing to a person under 21 years of age, or who attempts or conspires to do so." "This bill will send a strong and clear message to drug dealers -- if you target our children by peddling candy-flavored drugs, there will be a heavy price to pay," said Feinstein. "Flavored meth -- with child-friendly names like Strawberry Quick -- is designed to get people to try it a few times. It's all about hooking young people, and we have to stop this practice before it grows any further. So, this legislation will increase the criminal penalties for anyone who markets candy-flavored drugs to our youth -- by imposing on them the same enhanced penalties applied to dealers who distribute drugs to minors." Contacted by Join Together, a spokesperson for Feinstein said that the legislation was in response to reports from DEA and ONDCP, including a letter from drug czar John Walters that -- again -- alludes to flavored meth without confirming its existence. "In the case of flavored/colored methamphetamine, local law enforcement, local and national media, communities and schools should be commended on bringing attention to this problem," Walters wrote to Feinstein on June 4. "ONDCP will closely monitor all available information about this issue to determine appropriate steps with regard to emerging trends and patterns of use." Worries that Bill, Stories Could Spread 'Cheese' Unlike strawberry meth, there is no doubt that so-called "cheese heroin" exists. Drug dealers have long cut black-tar heroin with diphenhydramine to sell it in powdered form, according to Jane C. Maxwell, Ph.D., a senior researcher at the Gulf Coast Addiction Technology Transfer Center in Austin. In the Dallas area, however, dealers have been cutting heroin with Tylenol PM (which contains diphenhydramine and acetaminophen) to make "cheese," a cheap, snortable version of the drug that has become especially popular among young Hispanics, according to Maxwell and other experts. However, Maxwell said that the recent national media coverage on "cheese" could actually make the problem worse. "While we have not seen adolescents starting use of cheese heroin other than in Dallas, my Community Epidemiology Work Group colleagues report that young adults who are already in heroin use are now mixing their heroin with Tylenol PM and calling it "cheese," which shows the unintended results of all the media publicity," Maxwell told Join Together. Suzanne Wills of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas expressed similar alarm about a bill by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) that would add "cheese" heroin to the list of drugs covered by ONDCP's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. "We must work now to crack down on this lethal drug before it spreads further and destroys the lives of more young people," Cornyn said. "Raising awareness of the dangers of 'cheese' heroin is critical in the effort to stamp it out ... News reports indicate that young people begin using 'cheese' because they wrongly believe the drug is not 'really' heroin and is, therefore, not as dangerous. A public awareness campaign is key to correcting this misconception and reversing the tide of this dangerous new drug." Wills said that Cornyn's bill, like the media hype, has the potential to turn a purely local problem into a national one. "DEA agent Steve Robertson says cheese heroin is confined to the Dallas region but, 'it wouldn't take long to spread,' she recently wrote to Cornyn. "It won't take long at all if the drug czar's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign gets hold of it." ONDCP also is wary of Cornyn's proposal. "Cheese is a significant threat in Dallas and one that needs to be dealt with aggressively," agency spokesperson Jennifer de Vallance told the Dallas Morning News on June 15. "But there are probably more cost-effective ways to deal with it than one of a national scope like the media campaign." Driven to Distraction Addiction experts also worry that national concern about a phantom "flavored meth" epidemic distracts from well-established problems with youth alcohol and other drug use -- and overlooks the very real marketing of flavored alcohol and tobacco products to kids. "Alcohol and tobacco manufacturers have used sweeteners to trap young people into using their products, so it's no surprise there may be stories about illicit drug makers trying the same technique," said David Rosenbloom director of Join Together. "We need to be vigilant, but the real and present danger that parents and policymakers must act on are the alcohol and tobacco companies peddling sweetened drinks and cigarettes to our children." "We just don't want this to distract from the real problems out there," said the Meth Foundation Project's Cox. McNamara, the Illinois meth law-enforcement trainer, added, "The concern I have is that there will be a situation where people get all excited about something that didn't happen, and won't get involved when something serious does happen." ONDCP's Riley told Join Together that he recently got a strawberry-meth alert from a Washington, D.C., area school. "I've never gotten anything from them about alcohol or marijuana," he said. "Those are the substances that have, by far, the largest impact on teens." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. 2007 International Drug Policy Reform Conference Brochure, Banner, Sponsorship, Travel, & Agenda Info The International Drug Policy Reform Conference is the world's principal gathering of people who believe the war on drugs is doing more harm than good. The Drug Policy Alliance has strategically designed this conference in an attempt to connect the dots among the wide range of drug policy issues we face today: everything from syringe access and medical marijuana to state-based reform movements and the impact of drug use on our cultures and communities. WHY SHOULD YOU GO TO NEW ORLEANS? A Hurricane named Katrina laid bare an array of problems, many of which were exacerbated by failed social and drug war policies. Isn't that reason enough? Having attended both harm reduction and drug policy conferences in New Orleans, I suggest you register and make your travel arrangements ASAP. There will be great food, hot music, and brilliant discourse. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. Newsflash Indonesia: Nationwide Activism Brings National Attention To Drug Problems OSI Nationwide activism by current and former drug users and NGOs marked June 26, the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Drug Trafficking in Indonesia. In Jakarta, approximately two hundred activists arrived at the national parliament house on four buses from all corners of the city and two other provinces. Covering their buses with banners and broadcasting their demand for an end to the incarceration of drug users, harm reduction, methadone, and advocacy groups engaged in the symbolic release of drug users from three cages brought to the gates of the government to demonstrate for treatment rather than jail time. Representatives from STIGMA, a non-governmental organization working to improve treatment options for drug users, were invited to talk to government officials and a meeting with national legislators has been scheduled. The organizers were featured on an hour-long radio talk show broadcasted on 50 stations. The Jakarta action was part of a national effort, with actions by users groups and harm reduction activists in Banten, Bali, Jakarta, Bandung, and several cities in West and East Java that received local and national press attention. Activist groups spoke out for the scale-up of methadone clinics, more rehabilitative alternatives to jail time, and an end to the criminalization of drug users, and gained the attention of local legislators, health officials, and media. ***** For more information please contact Nick Bartlett, [email protected], +62 813 20607539, or Bani Risset, [email protected], +62 21 75904240 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- C Quote "Our success in Iraq must not be measured by the enemy's ability to get a car bombing in the evening news." The terms of success set out by Mr Bush included "the rise of a government that can protect its people, deliver basic services for all its citizens and function as a democracy even amid violence". Mr Bush suggested Israel as a standard [for Iraq] to work towards. "In places like Israel, terrorists have taken innocent human life for years in suicide attacks. "The difference is that Israel is a functioning democracy and it's not prevented from carrying out its responsibilities. And that's a good indicator of success that we're looking for in Iraq." George W. Bush - U.S. President --- D How To Help The Harm Reduction Project is able to provide services through the support of individuals such as yourself. Please help us make a difference and pledge your support today! PLEASE CLICK HERE TO DONATE or call 801-355-0234 ext 3# for more information. --- About HRP The Harm Reduction Project works for the enhancement of services available to marginalized populations HARM REDUCTION PROJECT SALT LAKE CITY | DENVER | WASHINGTON D.C. TEL (801) 355.0234 FAX (801) 355.0291 www.harmredux.org