| July 1997 #001 | ||||||
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A DrugSense publication
http://www.drugsense.org http://www.mapinc.org | ||||||
Table of Contents
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Welcome to DrugSense Weekly
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So what is DrugSense Weekly and why are you receiving it? | ||||||
The DrugSense Weekly newsletter and web page is designed for
the activist on the go. For these members we offer this newsletter,
our Weekly MAP FOCUS Alerts, and DrugNews Digest. We
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DrugSense is the new name of the larger and more diverse
"umbrella" organization which will encompass the various reform
activities we have in mind. Of course our biggest and most
significant effort is the Media Awareness Project (MAP) Inc. and
it will continue to be our primary focus, but we felt that the
flexibility offered by a parent organization which may develop in
other directions will be in the best interest of all our many and
varied members and factions. | ||||||
DrugSense is also a new web page and domain name. Please visit | ||||||
It is designed to make it simpler and quicker than ever to become
involved in our growing group of active members. In less than 30
seconds you can sign up to receive this weekly newsletter, the
daily DrugNews-Digest and the weekly FOCUS Alerts that will
make it quick and easy to stay involved and active in the reform
movement. | ||||||
If you are too busy to monitor the various chat lists, you will find
that DrugSense Weekly newsletter will do a great job of keeping
you informed and up to speed as well as offering tips, upcoming
events and other valuable information. | ||||||
Features and format of DrugNews Weekly will develop over time
but it is our sincere hope that this newsletter will grow to become
an effective tool for all our members. | ||||||
We welcome comments/suggestions from our readers. Feel free to
send e-mail to the Drug Sense newsletter's editor, Tom Hawkins,
. | ||||||
How has the Internet changed the way you get involved in the
issues? Every one of our lives have been changed by the Internet
and the coming of on-line activism. | ||||||
Care to take a shot at a feature article? Send our editor a few paragraphs about how the Internet has changed drug policy activism for you and your story may be in one of our future issues. | ||||||
Well, that's about it for this week. Enjoy!
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Tom Hawkins, editor
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Upcoming Activist Events
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Rally to End Hemp Prohibition
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Annual High Times World Extravaganza
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Earth Restoration Faire /Hemp Education Day
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Seattle HempFest
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Highlights From MAPTalk (Top) | ||||||
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Here's the published version of Jerry Epstein's wonderful Oped
piece that was published in the Sunday (6-22-97) Dallas Morning
News.
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Drug War Has Failed Miserably
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Jerry Epstien
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Ezequiel Hernandez is dead, another victim, not of drugs, but of
the War On Drugs.
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An innocent 18 year old boy, who everyone says was a good kid,
who was just tending his family's goats, has been shot by Marines
given the job of stopping the drug flow. | ||||||
Most Americans have a good sense of the fact that the War On
Drugs has failed in its basic intent to curb the availability or the
abuse of drugs. | ||||||
Ezequiel's death is a tragic example of a less understood facet: the damage done by the unintended consequences of our policy. | ||||||
If the War On Drugs had to be justified like most endeavors, by a
balance sheet, it would have been terminated long ago. Its
minuscule accomplishments, if any, are dwarfed by a roll call of
innocent victims.
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The victims aren't just Ezequiel, or the thousands like him in a
dozen foreign countries. They also include:
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* The courageous law enforcement officers who have been killed
in the 7 line of duty. | ||||||
* The thousands of inmates who rot in prisons for having merely
possessed drugs. | ||||||
* The women who contract HIV/AIDS from contact with
someone they may not even know is a drug user.
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* The millions of victims of crimes committed to get the money
needed to purchase drugs whose price has been inflated a
hundredfold. | ||||||
* The victims of gangs whose activities are financed by those
profits. | ||||||
The list goes on and on and on. | ||||||
And for what?
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Of all addiction to drugs and alcohol, alcohol accounts for 80% of
it. Addiction rates for many drugs have been constant for at least
18 years. If all heroin and cocaine disappeared, are we so naive as
to think the users then would become teetotalers or genteel
sippers of the occasional glass of wine?
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So we are engaged in a monstrous effort [totally fruitless] to
switch 20% of our addicts to an alcohol addiction that holds far
more health hazards and inflicts far more anti-social behavior on
society. | ||||||
But it is not just the absurdity of our policy or the myriad
individual tragedies that we must suffer. The very ethos of
America -- traditions and values that we have nurtured since our
inception -- is being eroded.
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In the name of the war on drugs, we have seen a warping of the
traditional balance sought by our Founding Fathers. Federal
power, especially coercive power, is on the rise.
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The constitutional protections of individual liberty are being
diminished (the judicial system notes the "drug exception to the
4th Amendment"). The formal separation of powers distorted by
mandatory minimum sentences and informally by law
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Ironically, the use of the criminal justice system, for what is fundamentally a public health problem, has so overloaded our courts that they no longer function effectively. And this pales beside the havoc we have created in foreign countries. | ||||||
Now dies Ezequiel, a victim of the passing of yet another tradition,
the prohibition on the use of the armed forces as a police force on
domestic soil.
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I have proudly served as an officer in the Marines and assert that they are as fine a group of fighting men this country can produce, but their use in this manner is inappropriate. They have been trained to kill a foreign enemy in time of war. Their misuse has resulted in the killing of a treasured fellow citizen. | ||||||
We have forfeited what should be priceless for empty promises of
increased security. Every individual has the capacity to resist the
use of drugs. If we persist in enlisting the police power of the state
to save us from ourselves, we will gain nothing; twice zero is still
zero. But the costs will be dear. There will be many more
Ezequiels, many more weeping friends and families. | ||||||
Jerry Epstein is vice president of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas | ||||||
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New York Times
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Dear Editor
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The Christopher Wren Piece "Seductive Drug Culture Flourishes
on Internet," (NYT 6/20) while a very good effort at portraying the
multifaceted nature of the Internet, left the reader with an
inaccurate impression about the positive and profound
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The Media Awareness Project (MAP) Inc. is dedicated to the
dissemination of truthful and accurate information on drug policy
issues. The unfortunate fact is that much of the information
generated by the government is biased, flawed, and lacking in
science and reason.
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This is understandable as most of this information is based on
myths and hysteria perpetrated by pro-drug war organizations like
CADUCA (Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America). | ||||||
The article was correct to point out the dominance of the reform
perspective on the Internet. What was not mentioned is the reason
"drug warriors" are not well represented on the Internet is they
have little or nothing to say other than the repetition of tired drug
war rhetoric and outdated inaccuracies.
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The reason MAP volunteers attempted to overload the CADUCA
800 phone line provides an excellent example of these
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The fact is that there are volumes of evidence supporting
marijuana as medicine, much of which was presented in a major
news conference in San Francisco last February which was
attended by numerous respected medical professionals. These
blatant fabrications from organizations like CADUCA, Partnership
For a Drug Free America, and the Drug Czar himself must stop.
MAP has been designed and implemented to counter these
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Readers who fear for their children's safety at what they will find
on the Internet are welcome to visit our web site at
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We will immediately correct any inaccuracy that can be found there and would not even think of posting "How to" information for teaching kids how to obtain or use drugs. MAP volunteers have children too, and we all fear for our children's future. We wish to discuss alternatives to the prison-building, drug-infested, crime-riddled society which we have created as a direct result of our current foolish drug policies. We also wish to return our nation to one in which logic prevails over emotional alarmism. | ||||||
The Internet is the beginning of the end for our failed policies of
prohibition. As Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey was quoted to
have said in the Wren article:
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"We say in a democracy that good ideas will drive out bad ones, So if the good ones aren't there, we're left with the bad ones." | ||||||
MAP is an attempt to drive out the horribly bad idea that
prohibition can work in a free society and replace it with the good
ideas of reason, compassion, science, and good old fashioned
common sense. | ||||||
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A BIG WAYTAGO FOR TOM O'CONNELL
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USA Today Circ 2.05 million (largest circ in the US) Ad value of
Tom's LTE
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***** $7,218 *********
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Tom O'Connell Wrote
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USA and other newspapers headlined the story of the deal between cigarette manufacturers and the several states suing them for damage to their residents' health. If approved by Congress and signed by the President, this agreement will allow the tobacco industry to continue operating and earning profits as it passes the costs of the settlement on to its addicted customers. | ||||||
If any proof were needed that for decades, America has conducted
a drug policy beyond logic, or even sanity, this deal provides it.
A moment's thought is enough to understand that the tobacco
industry entered into the deal because they want to remain legal,
in other words, government has enormous clout with a legal
industry. | ||||||
Ask yourself if the producers and marketers of "illicit" drugs
could ever be prevailed upon to enter a room and negotiate with
the government. Ask yourself also if the vaunted war on drugs has
been successful at anything but enriching criminals, wrecking
lives, filling prisons and wasting money that could be better spent
elsewhere. | ||||||
Then ask yourself how long we can, in conscience, continue to
support a destructive insanity with increasing billions of our tax
dollars every year. | ||||||
Thomas J. O'Connell, M.D.
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Hi All,
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In the fine tradition of the "We Get Published" section of the MAP
WWW Site... Announcing the MAP On Air Library at
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This new "On Air" section will keep members informed of
upcoming radio/TV events, complete with call-in details when
available and provide a listing of completed events by our
members. | ||||||
Feel free to browse the MAP Site's new section. If you have an event to add, past or future, corrections or comments send the details to On Air Librarian Tom Hawkins, . | ||||||
Tom Hawkins
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Wired magazine has trashed the Christopher Wren NY times
Article Check out
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(or see below)
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I assume it will also be in the next print edition. | ||||||
As a result of this article I will be doing the Pat and Mike radio talk show on online activism. It will tape next week and AIR in 5 radio stations from Tampa to Hawaii. It is also broadcast on the Internet. More details will follow for those who want to tune in. | ||||||
Wired Magazine
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Three weeks into their latest round of Net-bashing, editors at The New York Times on Friday reduced the Gray Lady's front page to an exercise in Daliesque surrealism, where paranoid speculation and unsupported allegations can be ironically referred to as "reporting." We're talking, of course, about the Christopher Wren-penned screed "A Seductive Drug Culture Flourishes on the Internet," which rose to new heights of absurdity with each successive paragraph. At one point, Wren the reactionary even noted that, "partly owing to free-speech protection, the Internet lacks a quality-control mechanism to separate fact from hyperbole or from outright falsehood, even in discussion that may ultimately encourage an activity that remains illegal, for Americans of all ages." This from a reporter employed by the newspaper that has defended all the way to the Supreme Court (and won) its right to publish material that the government claimed had been obtained illegally, because of a rather unambiguous appendage to the Constitution of the United States called the First Amendment. These days at the Times, it seems, the amendment can be alternately defended or vilified - with the magic variable being "Which approach will serve our business interests today?" | ||||||
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Just about the time I get discouraged and think no one is getting it,
I read something like the following. This op-ed appeared in my
local paper. I don't think the author is an activist (yet), but if I can
recruit him for Map, I will. Contact info for the San Mateo Times
follows the article. No e-mail, unfortunately.
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Tom O'Connell
San Mateo Times, 5/27/97 | ||||||
MY WORD
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Drug war Undermines Liberty
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By Bernhard Haisch
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Let me make it clear: I am no advocate of drugs. I am a
professional scientist, married to a church choir director, with a
family of three teen-agers to raise. | ||||||
I certainly to not want my teen-agers abusing drugs. But, over the
past few years, news items and facts and rhetoric about the
national "war on drugs" started catching my attention. So I did
some reading and some thinking. And now I am pretty worried
about the implications, for our society and our liberty. Consider
the following:
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1. We seem to be fueling the world's largest black market, a
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2. We are stuck building costly, overflowing prisons, turning
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3. Primarily as an anti-drug offensive, the government has granted
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In an amazing ruling, the Supreme Court upheld the right of the
government to do just that. A wife lost her share of a seized
automobile because her husband had used it in soliciting a
prostitute. That happened to not be a drug case, but no matter, the
principle was established and the war on drugs is where seizure is
being widely used by the government. | ||||||
4. We are appalled when Islamic regimes ban Western books,
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And yet we allow our government to throw our own citizens in
prison for things done in private. On what moral or constitutional
grounds can we justify controlling the mere possession or private
use of something?
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We may not want people to be using drugs, but do we really want
to give the government the power to incarcerate its citizens for
this? To me, this seems barbaric and an ominous road that
threatens all of our rights. | ||||||
I have come to the conclusion that our national war on drugs poses
a greater danger to our society than the drugs themselves. Its time
to re-think our drug policies from square one. Which drug, are
really dangerous? Which are addictive and which are not? Which
drugs might even have useful effects?
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The citizens of California have voted that marijuana has valid
medical uses. Users of MDMA (Ecstasy) report a sense of
euphoric empathy with others. I read about some monks using it
successfully to create a blissful state. Are these things bad? Are
these things that people should go to jail
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In the end, we might decide that we could cut crime and help
balance the budget by regulating and taxing the sale of most drugs;
as we do with alcohol and tobacco. | ||||||
Prohibition failed. The federal 55 mph speed limit failed. It looks
to me as if our war on drugs is failing badly and, worse still,
undermining our liberty at the same time. | ||||||
What are we giving up to wage a losing war on drugs? Who is
profiting from the present situation?
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It is time to stop the war mentality rhetoric and start thinking these
things through rationally. | ||||||
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Bernhard Haisch Lives in Redwood City. | ||||||
Please sign your letter and include a home address and daytime
and home phone numbers. | ||||||
Please limit your letter to 250 words. They may be edited for
brevity and clarity. | ||||||
1080 S. Amphlett Blvd., San Mateo 94402- 1802. Phone 348-4334. Fax 348-4446. | ||||||
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Drug Sense Tip of the Week
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Don't forget the Media Awareness Project, MAP, offers an editing
service for your letters to editors, elected officials, etc. Just send a
copy to and one of our volunteer editors will
proofread your work and return comments to you via p!
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This is a free service and there's no need to subscribe to any
additional e-mail lists. Give it a try today.
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The DrugSense Newsletter is compiled and edited by
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Mark Greer
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