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DrugSense Weekly
January 21, 1998 #030

A DrugSense publication

http://www.drugsense.org


We will experiment with changes in the format and content of the Newsletter from time to time in an attempt to make it more readable and informative.

We are including brief editorial comments on the significance of the selected articles and also shortening the text so as to include more articles.  We will also attempt to cover the amount of exposure a particular story gets by including references to more than one source.

Readers are encouraged to download those articles in which they have a particular interest; it is hoped the comments will help you select which articles to download.

Feedback welcome.  Please send your comments to our editorial staff. E-mail address are provided at the end of this newsletter.


Table of Contents

* Breaking News (04/24/24)


* Feature Article

     Top 10 Drug Policy Reform News Stories of 1997
          by Kendra E. Wright

* Weekly News In Review


Domestic News -

     Adolescents
          A Drug-testing Blunder VS. Why Not Test Students?

     Border War
          Pentagon To Scrap Armed Patrols Along Border
          Mexican Drugs: Don't Blame Free Trade For
                                Their Increase In Texas

     Cannabis Clubs
          Garden Grove Targets Cannabis Clubs
          State Senator Wants a Marijuana Summit

     Hemp News
          Farmers Reject Hemp

     Heroin
          A Way Out for Junkies?

     Trials & Sentencing
          As Crime Rate Falls, Number of Inmates Rises
          Man in Wheelchair Faces Third Strike
          Senate Votes To Censure Abernathy
          Making Crime Pay

     War On Drugs
          Anti-German Sentiment Aided Prohibition's Approval           Commonsense Drug Policy
          Search-and-Seizure Case Goes to Supreme Court
          Clinton To Order States To Fight Prison Drug Use

* Hot Off The 'Net      Dennis Miller Show Speaks Out
     Washington State Med MJ Hearings
     US Drug Czar Has New Web Site
     CNN Replaying "Weed Wars"


FEATURE ARTICLE    (Top)

Top 10 Drug Policy Reform News Stories of 1997

With the daily struggles associated with cannabis club lawsuits, mass arrests, the spread of AIDS and Hepatitis C, it is important to reflect upon our successes.  In 1997, the drug policy reform movement made great strides toward opening the debate and moving the world toward a more pragmatic drug policy.  Reviewing the Top 10 news stories of the year illustrates our progress.

by Kendra E.  Wright

1.  Physicians and medical institutions show growing support for reform.

* The two gold standards of American medicine support methadone reform. The National Institutes of Health joins the Institute of Medicine in support of widespread methadone availability.

* The American Medical Association endorses needle exchange and medical marijuana.

* Editor of the New England Journal of Medicine Jerome Kassirer challenges federal policy on medical marijuana.

* Leading doctors successfully sue the federal government over medical marijuana policy.

* The Physicians Leadership Council on National Drug Policy, made up of the elite in medicine, is created and urges public health approaches to drug control.

2.  The African American community's support for reform grows.

* Leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus call for an end to the needle exchange federal funding ban.

* Prominent African Americans including US Representative Maxine Waters, Henry Louis Gates of Harvard University, Ronald Hampton of the National Black Police Association and Ramona Edelin of the National Urban Coalition draw attention to the disparity in the crack vs.  powder cocaine sentencing laws and call for a reduction in the penalties for crack to be equal with those of cocaine.

3.  Drug policy reform makes progress worldwide.

* In England, the campaign for cannabis decriminalization picks up speed with support from the Sunday Independent.  Leading businessman, doctors, musicians and others join the effort.

* In France, Lionel Jospin is elected Prime Minister after saying he supports decriminalization of marijuana.  Three cabinet ministers come out for reform and France moves toward making marijuana available as a medicine.

* In Switzerland, citizens vote for reform in a landslide.  Research in Switzerland shows heroin maintenance works.  In particular, the study showed dramatic declines in crime rates.

* Canada moves forward on marijuana with a court decision favoring medical marijuana use and statements by leading police and other officials supporting reform.

4.  Hollywood gets behind medical marijuana.

* A special episode on Murphy Brown features the main character using medical marijuana to relieve nausea caused by chemotherapy treatments for her breast cancer.  After DEA Director Tom Constantine threatens the television program's producers, they re-air the show one month later.

5.  More judges come out for reform.

* Chief Judge of the U.S.  Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, Judge Juan Torruella

* U.S.  District Court Judge Kane in Colorado

* U.S.  District Court Judge John Curtain in New York

* Superior Court Judge James Gray, a friend of reform, decides to take a sabbatical from the bench to run for US Congress.

6.  George Soros makes the cover of Time magazine.

* Due in large part to his high profile drug policy-related philanthropy including $1 million to needle exchange, $25 million for reforms in Baltimore, general support to drug policy reform organizations and support of medical marijuana initiatives in California and Arizona, George Soros is featured in Time.

7.  Innocent US citizen's death prompts reevaluation of US drug policy
and border patrol.

* Widespread media attention of the Esequiel Hernandez shooting death by US Marines on the Mexican border resulted in a withdrawal of military troops from the border and a reevaluation of the use of military troops in domestic law enforcement and border patrol.

8.  US voters stand up to legislatures trying to reverse reforms.

* In Oregon, signatures are gathered to challenge recriminalization of marijuana.

* In Arizona, signatures are gathered to challenge a legislative attempt to undo the medical marijuana initiative passed in 1996.

9.  Opponents of medical marijuana back down.

* Attorney General Lungren endorses Senator John Vasconcellos' medical marijuana reform bill.

* Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey funds research on medical marijuana at the Institute of Medicine.

* NIDA approves AIDS research on medical marijuana.

* NIH hosts scientific conference on medical marijuana which concludes with broad support for medical use and further research on medical use.

10.  Feel-good drug prevention programs did not go without criticism.

* Research showing DARE fails our nation's children was published and reported on by major news media.

* For the first time, in response to the Monitoring the Future Study, parents spoke out against the drug war in an organized way.

* ABC's March Against Drugs received widespread critical coverage which resulted in ABC publicly admitting that they would think twice about doing another such propaganda campaign (how will they handle Clinton's 1998 $175 million Partnership for a Drug Free America advertising campaign?).


WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW    (Top)

Domestic News


Adolescents


Subj:   US: A Drug-testing Blunder VS.  Why Not Test Students?
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n035.a04.html

Source:   USA Today
Contact:  
Pubdate:   12 Jan 1998

COMMENT: One question among several: Who's going to monitor the    (Top)students' excretory efforts - teachers, deputy sherrifs; or will parents be asked to volunteer?

Would you want your twelve year old required to urinate in front of witnesses just to remain in school?

-----

When Miami schools decided to crack down on drug abuse, they instead found a way to squander money.  School districts around the country are watching Miami this week as the nation's fourth largest school system puts the finishing touches on an ill conceived program to randomly drug test its high school students.

Miami school officials are pushing the $200,000 plan as a bold new way to fight teen-age drug abuse.

Too bold, in fact.  The drug testing plan presents a flagrant threat to the personal liberties of 82,000 mostly law-abiding Miami high school students.  So to head off predictable legal challenges, school officials are watering down their testing procedures to the point of uselessness.

They're asking parents to okay drug testing for all high school students, not just those suspected of abusing drugs.  And to prevent charges that the program discriminates, children will be selected for the urine tests randomly using a lottery.

[continues: 82 lines]


Border War


Subj:   US: Wire: Pentagon To Scrap Armed Patrols Along Border
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n036.a02.html

Source:   Scripps Howard News Service
Pubdate:   14 Jan 1998

COMMENT: The Pentagon wants to scrap this program, because it's bad    (Top)public relations and resulted in only "modest success" whatever that is. There's no concern or remorse for the death of an innocent civilian.

Representative Smith is presumably upset that withdrawing troops from the border sends the "wrong message" to Mexico.  Whatever the right message is, it's not that our drug policy is either humane or intelligent.

-----

WASHINGTON - Defense Department officials will recommend permanently canceling armed military patrols along the Mexico border in the wake of a fatal shooting of a teenage goat herder by a U.S.  Marine last year, a senior defense official said Wednesday.

"It's not worth the legal liability for our soldiers, and the actual amount of drugs seized throughout the performance of those missions proved to be modest," said the senior defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

An ongoing study of the military's future role along the border has not yet been presented to Defense Secretary William Cohen.  But that study will advocate that support services including road building and intelligence gathering continue, while ground reconnaissance missions in the front lines of the drug war end, the official said.

The proposed end of the armed patrols drew outrage from Rep.  Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House immigration subcommittee.

"Reducing the already overburdened resources at the border opens the door for drug smugglers who are now bringing 70 percent of their product across the Southwest border," Smith said.

[continues: 62 lines]


Subj:   US TX: Editorial: Mexican Drugs: Don't Blame Free Trade For Their
Increase In Texas
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n033.a13.html

Source:   Dallas Morning News
Contact:  
Pubdate:   Monday, 12 Jan 1998

Website:   http://www.dallasnews.com
Discussion forum: http://forums.dallasnews.com/dallas (It's HOT - says our newshawk.)

COMMENT: The increased volume of traffic which followed NAFTA made    (Top)smuggling a little easier, but our laws are the magnet luring "illegal" drugs north of the border.  That magnet was turned on long before NAFTA was passed.

-----

Is free trade with Mexico causing increased drug trafficking in Texas?

That's what some Texas and U.S.  drug enforcement officials think. They blame increased truck traffic from Mexico under the North American Free Trade Agreement for the surge in cross-border flows of heroin, cocaine and marijuana.

Assume for a moment that what the officials say is true.  The natural remedy would be to repeal the agreement.  No free trade, no problem. Right?

Wrong.  Mexican drug trafficking is more complicated than that.

Everyone wants a panacea.  But repealing North American free trade would not be one.

Suppose that the United States and Mexico returned to the status quo before the free-trade agreement took effect in 1994.  Would that reduce high U.S.  demand for drugs? No.

[continues: 28 lines]


Cannabis Clubs


Subj:   US CA: Garden Grove Targets Cannabis Clubs
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n033.a12.html

Source:   Orange County Register
Contact:  
Pubdate:   Wednesday, January 14, 1998

Garden Grove - The city Tuesday was poised to revoke a business license it issued nearly three months ago to a cannabis club.

City officials voted unanimously to amend a provision in the city code, allowing the city to yank the license of any business engaging in "illegal activity."

"I'm the mayor of Garden Grove.  I have no intention of seeing headlines saying that it's OK to open up a marijuana farm in Garden Grove," Bruce Broadwater said.  "It's not going to happen."

The Orange County Patient, Doctors and Nurses Support Group Co-op rents a post office box in the city, but dos not have a permanent meeting place.

The group's founder, Marvin Chavez of Santa Ana, vowed after the vote to "keep fighting."

Chavez said the organization's purpose is to help those who need marijuana for medicinal purposes.

"It's for patients to all come together and support each other, come out of the closet and educate each other about our conditions, and take charge of our care," he said.

Chavez said his group does not sell marijuana but encourages members to grow it and provides it to those who don't for a donation.

Proposition 215, which was passed by California voters in 1996, allows patients suffering from a variety of illness to possess and grow marijuana for medical use with a doctor's recommendation.

The amended city law also allows the city to rescind a license if an application is filed with misleading or false information.

[end]


Subj:   US CA: State Senator Wants a Marijuana Summit
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n033.a04.html

Source:   Orange County Register
Contact:  
Pubdate:   Tuesday, January 13, 1998

COMMENT: This didn't get a lot of press attention, even in California,    (Top)but it's important to our cause and we've made it the subject of a focus alert.  It's precisely the type of issue which can be influenced by writing focused letters to CA news media.

-----

A state senator urged state and federal officials Monday to take part in a summit on how to implement California's medical marijuana initiative.

Sen, John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clar, said he was "appalled and outraged" by federal and state responses to voters' approval of Proposition 215.

"It seems to me that fascism is rearing its ugly head," he said.

The 1996 ballot measure changed state law to allow patients suffering from cancer, AIDS, glaucoma and a variety of other illnesses to possess and grow marijuana for medical use, with a doctor's recommendation.

But Friday, the Justice Department filed civil suits against six marijuana buyers clubs, saying they violated federal laws against possession, cultivation and distribution of marijuana.

[end]


Hemp News


Subj:   US: Farmers Reject Hemp
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n036.a06.html

Source:   Reuters
Pubdate:   14 Jan 1997

CHARLOTTE, N.C.  U.S. farmers decided today to just say no to research into industrial hemp, a cousin of marijuana.  On a 198-168 vote, delegates to the American Farm Bureau convention went on record against production of industrial hemp and eliminated language in favor of research into it.

"Don't take the good name of Farm Bureau and associate it with these people," said Missouri Farm Bureau president Charles Kruse, who complained the AFB, the largest U.S.  farm organization, was being linked with groups like National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws.  "If we say we support research, we are going to continue to be used," he said.

Possibility of Profits Bill Sprague, president of the Kentucky Farm Bureau, said hemp might be a profitable crop.  Hemp has adherents in Kentucky who see it as the successor to tobacco.  The Kentucky Hemp Growers Cooperative Association, which supports international research, had a booth at the trade fair held as part of the AFB convention.

"We should at least continue to do some research work," Sprague said.

Industrial hemp, which contains virtually none of the mood-altering drug produced by marijuana, has excited interest as a fabric for apparel and furnishings, as well as its traditional use in rope and canvas.  It has a wider color range and a more durable fiber than other natural textiles, proponents say.

Law Enforcement Police worry that hemp cultivation would confound drug-law enforcement because hemp looks like marijuana, Kruse said. While most delegates shared Kruse's distaste for hemp, one asked if grain research should end because it can be converted into alcohol, misused by some people.

Copyright 1998 Reuters.

[end]


Heroin


Subj:   US: A Way Out for Junkies?
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n031.a14.html

Source:   Time Magazine
Contact:  
Pubdate:   January 19, 1998 VOL.  151 NO. 2

COMMENT: This is a good illustration of the popular myth that the "drug    (Top)problem" is about addiction and there is a magic bullet to be found to cure it.

We fail to realize that we've expanded the original pharmacologic problem of addiction into a thriving criminal business empire, widespread corruption of civil servants, and a huge police and prison bureaucracy, all the while rendering the plight of addicts much worse than it was before.

-----

When Ted C., a heroin junkie and former baseball umpire, heard about an experimental new treatment for his addiction, he was skeptical.  Doctors told him that a simple pill called buprenorphine could eradicate his enormous craving for the narcotic, which he had been snorting daily for several years.  It sounded too good to be true - junkies live in fear of the agony that arrives when a hit wears off- so Ted bought an extra bag of heroin the night before he took buprenorphine for the first time. Just in case.

But this time there was no pain.

"I went to the clinic, took the pill and went home.  I used the last of the bag and haven't touched heroin since," he says.

That was April, and today he still takes the tablets - one a day keeps the craving away - but he expects to stop using the drug in a few months.

"There was no struggle," he says.  "There is no downside to the drug."

[continues: 65 lines]


Trials & Sentencing


Subj:   US: NYT: As Crime Rate Falls, Number of Inmates Rises
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n044.a09.html

Source:   New York Times
Contact:  
Pubdate:   Monday, January 19, 1998

BOSTON - Despite a decline in the crime rate over the past five years, the number of inmates in the nation's jails and prisons rose again in 1997, led by a sharp increase of more than 9 percent in the number of people confined in city and county jails, according to a study released Sunday by the Justice Department.

The total number of Americans locked up in jails and prisons reached 1,725,842 last June, the Justice Department said, meaning that the national incarceration rate was 645 per 100,000 persons, more than double the 1985 rate of 313 per 100,000.

The continued divergence between the shrinking crime rate and the rising rate of incarceration raises a series of troublesome questions, said criminologists and law enforcement experts, including whether the United

States is relying too heavily on prison sentences to combat drugs and whether the prison boom has become self-perpetuating.

"In the stock market, the smart money is always with the law of gravity: What goes up must come down," said Franklin Zimring, director of the Earl Warren Legal Institute at the University of California-Berkeley. "The astonishing thing with the rates of incarceration in the United States is that they've been going up for 20 straight years, defying gravity."

[continues: 71 lines]


Subj:   US CA: Man in Wheelchair Faces Third Strike
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n034.a02.html

Source:   Orange County Register
Contact:  
Pubdate:   Tuesday, January 13, 1998

COMMENT: Most of the 3rd strikes in California have been marijuana    (Top)offenses.  So much for a law allegedly to protect us from "violent" criminals.

-----

He says his disability makes the possible punishment excessive.  He allegedly bought a macadamia nut he thought was rock cocaine.

A marshal's deputy pushed the suspect into the courtroom Monday wheelchair to the defense table.

Fost Morris, 56, who lost both legs to diabetes, who suffered three heart attacks in recent years, whose right arm is scarred from cancer surgery, hardly struck an imposing courtroom presence as he launched what he viewed as a fight for his life.

This time, the fight that had nothing to do with life-threatening disease.

Morris could get 25 years to life under California's "three strikes, you're out" law.

Santa Ana police say Morris tried to buy on cocaine rock during an undercover sting in August.  He actually bought a decoy - a macadamia nut.

[continues: 68 lines]


Subj:   US GA: Senate Votes To Censure Abernathy
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n036.a07.html

Source:   Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Contact:  
Pubdate:   Thu, 15 Jan 1998
Website:   http://www.accessatlanta.com/news/

COMMENT: It's not likely that a white state Senator would have been    (Top)busted for similar foolishness, and if he were; it's probable the vote to censure wouldn't be so nearly unanimous.  Abernathy's contratemps gave his "colleagues" a rare opportunity to be racist and politically correct at the same time.

From a broader perspective, how much respect can we have for a law which is so openly flouted by so many? The Senator's behavior isn't all that unusual, it's getting caught that is.

-----

The debate was short and the decision swift, but the Georgia Senate's move to censure Sen.  Ralph David Abernathy III on Wednesday could echo through the legislative session.

The censure, which passed by a 51-2 vote, marked only the second time in modern history that the Senate had issued such a strong reprimand against one of its members.

Afterward, Abernathy (D-Atlanta) said he was "prepared to move on," but that may be wishful thinking.  A move in the House to impeach him shows no signs of abating.

Abernathy, the son of a beloved civil rights leader, offered no resistance to the censure, which resulted from his attempt to conceal a small amount of marijuana in his underpants as he stepped off an airplane from Jamaica to Atlanta on Dec.  1. He sat silently at his desk and abstained from voting while his colleagues decided his fate.

[continues: 45 lines]


Subj:   US: Making Crime Pay
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n034.a10.html

Source:   St.  Paul Pioneer Press
Contact:  
FAX: 612-228-5564
Website:   http://www.pioneerplanet.com/
Pubdate:   Tue, 13 Jan 1998

COMMENT: Through the magic of geography, "slavery" in China becomes    (Top)"rehabilitation and job training" in the US.

-----

Private prisons exploit inmates and the penal system in the name of turning a profit.

If it has a payroll, privatize it.  So goes the reigning doctrine of the day.  The urge to privatize invades all sectors, all services, even when common sense screams for us to pause and reconsider.  One of the most painfully thoughtless examples of this stampede is the privatization of U.S.  prisons.

The initial justification for privatizing prisons was that it would save the taxpayers a ton of money.  It hasn't. A 1996 study by the General Accounting Office found "no credible evidence" of such savings.

But money isn't really the issue.  Liberty and dignity are. Investors in prison corporations expect to double their money every five years. To meet that goal, costs per inmate must be minimized, the jail cells must he fully occupied, and the inmates themselves must be exploited. Private prisons are dangerous for prisoners and for our social fabric.

[continues: 57 lines]


War On Drugs


Subj:   US WI: Anti-German Sentiment Aided Prohibition's Approval
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n036.a03.html

Pubdate:   Thu, 15 Jan 1998
Source:   Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Contact:  
Fax:   (414) 224-8280
Website:   http://www.jsonline.com/

Editors note: Our NewsHawk writes: This is part of a series on Wisconsin's Sesquicentennial.  There are some parallels here!

It was the day the high life - at least legally - left Wisconsin.

On Jan.  16, 1920, Prohibition signaled last call for 9,656 Wisconsin saloons, and the $67,000 the state chapter of the Anti-Saloon League of America had spent in pushing for a ban on beer and booze had paid off.

At $6.93 per shuttered saloon, the league said, the high price of living couldn't touch "the low cost of dying for saloons.  Let 'em die while the dying is cheap!"

Of course, rumors of drinking's death were greatly exaggerated.

Wisconsin was dragged kicking and screaming into temperance.  Milwaukee breweries employed 6,000 workers and slaked a major share of the nation's thirst for beer.  For the many immigrants from beer-drinking countries (78.3% of state residents "had an inherited wet predilection," dry forces calculated) beer-drinking was a cultural pleasure, not the vice opponents saw.

[continues: 35 lines]


Subj:   US: PUB: Commonsense Drug Policy
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n032.a04.html

Source:   Foreign Affairs, Vol.  77 No.1.
Pubdate:   January-February, 1998
Contact:   http://www.foreignaffairs.org/

Note:   "Commonsense Drug Policy" as published in Foreign Affairs
contained only one footnote.  But over the next few weeks, they'll be adding dozens of footnotes & links to this article at
http://www.lindesmith.org/library/foreigna.html

COMMENT: This article is long and densely written, but for those with an    (Top)interest in policy issues, it's worth downloading and studying in its entirety.

Not only does Nadelmann point out the consistent denial by US officials of drug war failures, he also contrasts the willingness of European and Commonwealth governments to consider at least some elements of "harm reduction" with the adamant refusal of US officials to soften their punitive policies in any way.

-----

In 1988 Congress passed a resolution proclaiming its goal of "a drug-free America by 1995." U.S.  drug policy has failed persistently over the decades because it has preferred such rhetoric to reality, and moralism to pragmatism.

Politicians confess their youthful indiscretions, then call for tougher drug laws.  Drug control officials make assertions with no basis in fact or science.  Police officers, generals, politicians, and guardians of public morals qualify as drug czars-but not, to date, a single doctor or public health figure.

Independent commissions are appointed to evaluate drug policies, only to see their recommendations ignored as politically risky.  And drug policies are designed, implemented, and enforced with virtually no input from the millions of Americans they affect most: drug users.

Drug abuse is a serious problem, both for individual citizens and society at large, but the "war on drugs" has made matters worse, not better.

[continues: 350 lines]


Subj:   US: Search-and-Seizure Case Goes To Supreme Court
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n033.a11.html

Source:   Orange County Register
Contact:  
Pubdate:   Wednesday, January 14, 1998

COMMENT: I get it: It would have been OK to shoot him, but it wasn't OK    (Top)to break his window.

-----

Washington-With memories still fresh of a deadly federal siege in Waco, Texas, the Supreme Court considered Tuesday whether a SWAT team in Oregon went too far when an officer with a search warrant broke into a residence without knocking first.

Several justices said the search-and-seizure case from Boring, Ore., poses questions about how much force police can use and how much danger must exist before they can use no knock entries.

Federal prosecutors want the Supreme Court to overturn lower-court rulings that barred use of weapons seized in the 1994 Oregon search as evidence in a gun possession case.

Police charged Herman Ramirez after searching his home for another man,a prison escapee with a history of violence who was not found there.

With 45 law officers surrounding the Oregon residence at dawn, an officer broke a window and waved a gun in a garage where an informant had told police guns were stored.

Ramirez said he and his wife thought they were being burglarized.  He ran to a closet, got a gun and fired it toward the garage.  Ramirez said he then realized the window was broken by police and surrendered.

A federal judge ruled that the search violated the Constitution's Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and said the weapons could not be used as evidence.

The judge said that although the officers' knowledge of the escaped inmate's violent past justified entering Ramirez's home without knocking, they had to do so without damaging his property.

[end]


Subj:   US: LAT: Clinton To Order States To Fight Prison Drug Use
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n031.a01.html

Source:   Los Angeles Times
Contact:  
Fax:   213-237-4712
Pubdate:   January 12, 1998

COMMENT: This directive is a tacit admission of failure which once again    (Top)raises the question: If we're unable to keep drugs out of our prisons, how do we expect to keep them off our streets?

-----

WASHINGTON - In an effort to break the link between drugs and crime, President Clinton plans today to order the states to assess the prevalence of drug use in their prisons and chart their success at reducing it, according to a senior White House official and a draft of the presidential directive.

Last year, as a condition of federal prison grants, Clinton and Congress gave the states until March to spell out their plans for combating drug use behind bars.  Taking that a step further, the directive the president is expected to sign today would require studies of the level of drug use in prisons and annual progress reports so that the public and the federal government can judge how well the states are doing.

The evidence is conclusive that criminals continue abusing drugs and alcohol while in prison and, once released, "go back out and commit crimes to feed their habits," said Rahm Emanuel, a top Clinton domestic policy advisor.  The president's goal, Emanuel added, is to "rip the habit out of them" while they are in prison through a combination of mandatory drug testing and treatment.

[continues: 78 lines]


HOT OFF THE 'NET


Dennis Miller Show Speaks Out

The theme of the recent Dennis Miller show on HBO was the War on Drugs and guest on the show was Bill Maher (Politically Incorrect).

The show was great and one of the few occasions that the mainstream media unilaterally condemned the War on Drugs on various grounds.

For those that missed the show it should be available at the Legalize U.S.A.  site.

Just follow the multimedia links at http://www.legalize-usa.org


Washington State Med MJ Hearings

Washington State's Senate Health & Long-Term Care Committee held a hearing Tuesday concerning Med MJ.

You can hear how it went using RealAudio at the following URL:  
http://www.tvw.org/ram98/019878.ram


US Drug Czar Has New Web Site

Check out the ONDCP Drug Policy Information Clearinghouse at http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/


CNN Replaying "Weed Wars"

CNN, as part of replaying Weed Wars, has a web site on marijuana issues. The full story is at: http://cnn.com/HEALTH/9702/weed.wars/

They are taking a poll on medical marijuana and other reform issues.  The poll is at:
http://cnn.com/HEALTH/9702/weed.wars/get.interactive/poll/poll.html

Visit today to participate in the poll and see the latest results.


DS Weekly is one of the many free educational services DrugSense offers our members.  Watch this feature to learn more about what DrugSense can do for you.

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News Review Comments: Tom O'Connell,
Senior Editor: Mark Greer,

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NOTICE:   In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C.  Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

Mark Greer
Media Awareness Project (MAP) inc.
d/b/a DrugSense

http://www.DrugSense.org/
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