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DrugSense Weekly
June 17, 1998 #051
A DrugSense publication

http://www.drugsense.org/


Table of Contents

* Breaking News (04/24/24)


* Feature Article


CMA Backs Rescheduling of Marijuana
By Rick Bayer, MD

Weekly News In Review

UN General Assembly-

Chirac, Rising From Electoral Blunder, Seeks to Lead Again

Clinton Urges International Stand Against Drugs

U.N.  Aide Would Fight Drugs With 'Alternative Development'

Colombia, Myanmar Urge Alternative Crops

Big Names Sign Letter Criticizing War on Drugs

UN Special Session: Response-

U.S.  Proved 'War on Drugs' is Insane

U.N.  should take lead in fighting this scourge

Cheerleaders Against Drugs

Open Letter: Response-

The Drug War; A War On Poor, Lower Classes

Stand Up Against Soros' Drug Liberals

Pointing The Finger

500 Drug Geniuses

Concern Over Drug Legalization

Domestic News-

Test Of `Heroin Maintenance' May Be Launched In Baltimore

Fruit Flies Open New Understanding About Effects Of Alcohol

Report Shows More Cops Involved In Illegal Activities

International News-

Canada - Government Defies Court Order To Open Files On "Illegal"
Drug Sting

A Bolivian Legislator Who Just Says `Yes' To Coca

Sweden - Stockholm Is The Chicago Of Northern Europe

* Hot Off The 'Net


Ask Newt Gingrich a Question On-Line

* DrugSense Tip Of The Week


New "Top Stories Feature"

* Quote of the Week


Martin Luther King


FEATURE ARTICLE    (Top)

CMA Backs rescheduling of marijuana
By Rick Bayer, MD

During the California Summit on Medical Marijuana recently, the California Medical Association (CMA) came out in favor of rescheduling marijuana (mj) away from Schedule I, a drug schedule that prohibits medical prescribing, into an unspecified schedule that presumably would allow physician prescription of marijuana as medicine.  The actual CMA Board of Trustees wording was:

"Due to the lack of scientific justification for Schedule I classification of marijuana and the consequent virtual standstill in research on its medical benefits or harm, CMA's Board of Trustees last week voted to support efforts to reschedule marijuana."

"In addition, the Board supported efforts to obtain federal approval for a safe, reliable source of marijuana in California for research. Reacting to the hazardous and completely uncontrolled distribution of marijuana for medical use through buyers clubs and street sources, the Board also supported federal control over distribution for medical use in California through closely regulated sources."

Although this appears somewhat cryptic and conservative, it is moving in the right direction and should not be taken for granted.  In Oregon, on this fall's ballot, recriminalization of 1 oz.  of marijuana threatens our 25 years of decriminalization history.  Therefore, it appears that even "standing still" cannot be taken for granted.

I recently worked very hard to help my Oregon Medical Association (OMA) House of Delegates (governing body) see the wisdom in "not supporting" rather than "opposing" the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act (OMMA).  My main opposition called it "neutrality" and so did "The Oregonian" newspaper (the largest in the Pacific Northwest).  This is a big victory for patients and other activists in Oregon and elsewhere.  Among the doctors present at the OMA House of Delegates, compassion won out.  The consensus and mood was that 'our patients should not be sent to jail for using marijuana to seek relief from their medical problem'.

To some activists, these may seem relatively small gestures on the part of the California and Oregon Medical Associations.  To others, however, these are momentous albeit glacial-like evolutions.  Today, a friend faxed to me an editorial from an Eastern Oregon newspaper [The LeGrande Observer] attacking the OMA for its neutrality on OMMA.  The newspaper felt the OMA should have opposed OMMA.

Maybe it would be helpful if many of us in the medical marijuana movement acknowledged and thanked these associations for supporting dying and suffering patients.  If we take a moment to thank them, it may help the executive staffs and boards feel like the associations made the right decisions.  The Website of the OMA is
http://www.ormedassoc.org/ and that of the CMA is
http://www.cmanet.org/.  It would be foolish to take anything for granted and we need momentum to maintain our current gains as well as to achieve our future goals.

Watching medical associations and others agree with some of our positions is a sign of progress that should generate enthusiasm for our efforts.  In Oregon, it should be much less traumatic to win our OMMA campaign since we do not have to campaign against the OMA.  Please recall that the CMA was opposed to Proposition 215.  In California and the entire world, it is now important that the CMA now endorses rescheduling of marijuana away from Schedule I.  This is the type of mainstream support we need to encourage in order to win electoral contests and pressure our federal government.

Let us acknowledge and be encouraged by this evolution of opinion among some very conservative medical institutions.  Things will never change as fast as we desire but these changes still remain very desirable. Most importantly, these new positions should be used to change laws and attitudes that currently criminalize dying and suffering patients for medical use of marijuana.  On this, we can all agree.

Rick Bayer, MD
Board Certified, American Board of Internal Medicine
Spokesperson and Chief Petitioner, Oregon Medical Marijuana Act Director, Oregonians for Medical Rights
6800 SW Canyon Drive
Portland, OR 97225
503-292-1035 (voice)
503-297-0754 (fax)
Email:  
URL:   http://www.teleport.com/~omr/


WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW

COMMENT:    (Top)

Without question, the 2nd week of June was the most important news week in the recent history of the drug war, perhaps as much a watershed as after the February '96 Buckley editorial in National Review or the November '96 passage of 215 in California.

A measure of progress within our movement is the extent to which we are now able to both monitor and exploit developments in the news. What made the past week momentous was the focus of the world press on the UN Special Session in New York and the success of the reform movement in exploiting that focus.


UN General Assembly, Special Session on Drugs-


COMMENT:    (Top)

It's ironic that hard core drug warrior Chirac, by insisting that heads of state attend the General Assembly on Drugs, set the stage for the reform message to receive the widest possible coverage.

Clinton's muddled message (the drug war is both a success and a failure) started things off.  Editorial comment from around the world was decidedly mixed

Pino Arlacchi's resurrection of previously tried (and failed) crop substitution was to receive little support, except predictably, from two of the more corrupt drug producing nations, Burma and Colombia, which both stand to be beneficiaries.

The biggest news from New York was not went on within the UN, but what was barred from the Assembly- a plea for alternative strategies voiced in an open letter to Kofi Annan.

CHIRAC, RISING FROM ELECTORAL BLUNDER, SEEKS TO LEAD AGAIN

PARIS---There was still a tinge of shock in Jacques Chirac's voice as the French president recounted discovering in mid-May that President Bill Clinton, Prime Minister Tony Blair and other leaders attending the Group of Seven summit meeting did not intend to go to the United Nations for the special session on the world's drug problems that begins Monday.

"This seemed unthinkable to me," recalled Mr.  Chirac, who immediately began lobbying the leaders of the world's richest countries and Russia to add a trip to New York "as an act of faith" and compassion.  "How could we have this meeting be meaningful without the participation of the leaders of major drug-consuming countries, which contribute so much to the problem?" he asked.

[snip]

Source:   International Herald-Tribune
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.iht.com/
Pubdate:   Mon, 8 Jun 1998
Author:   Jim Hoagland, Washington Post Service
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n439.a05.html

CLINTON URGES INTERNATIONAL STAND AGAINST DRUGS

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Armed with plans for a $2 billion media campaign to help stanch the flow of narcotics across international borders, President Clinton today asked world leaders to ``stand as one against this threat'' without blaming each other for the problem.

In an opening address at the U.N.  General Assembly special session on drugs, Clinton told representatives of about 150 countries, including 35 heads of state and government, that it is time to stop bickering over whether blame for international drug trafficking lies with countries that demand drugs or those that supply them.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Tue, 9 Jun 1998
Source:   Associated Press
UN GE: Wire: United Nations To Hold Drug Summit
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n430.a04.html

U.N.  AIDE WOULD FIGHT DRUGS WITH 'ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT'

UNITED NATIONS -- With President Clinton and other world leaders coming here Monday for a special session of the General Assembly on the world's drug problems, the U.N.'s top anti-narcotics official has submitted a two-pronged strategy that moves beyond the conventional approach of intercepting illegal drugs and arresting traffickers.

Pino Arlacchi, the executive director of the U.N.  International Drug Control Program, proposes the ambitious target of eliminating opium poppies and coca plants, the raw ingredients of heroin and cocaine, in 10 years as well as substantially reducing marijuana.

[snip]

Author:   Christopher S.  Wren
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.nytimes.com/
Pubdate:   Sun, 07 Jun 1998
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n427.a13.html

COLOMBIA, MYANMAR URGE ALTERNATIVE CROPS

Leaders from two of the world's major sources of narcotics told a U.N.  drug conference Tuesday that programs to wipe out illicit crops will fail without money to help farmers grow alternative crops.

The United States has been noncommittal to a U.N.  proposal to provide financial incentives to Third World farmers to stop growing cannabis, opium poppies and coca, the raw ingredient of cocaine.

[snip]

Pubdate Wed, 10 Jun 1998
Source:   Orange County Register ( Ca)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.ocregister.com/
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n438.a01.html

BIG NAMES SIGN LETTER CRITICIZING WAR ON DRUGS

UNITED NATIONS---A drug reform institute financed by the billionaire philanthropist George Soros has amassed signatures of hundreds of prominent people around the world on a letter asserting that the global war on drugs is causing more harm than drug abuse itself.

The signers include a former United Nations secretary-general, Javier Perez de Cuellar, a former U.S.  secretary of state, George Shultz, the Nobel peace laureate Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, the former CBS television anchorman Walter Cronkite, two former U.S. senators Alan Cranston and Claiborne Pell, and the South African human rights activist Helen Suzman.

[snip]

Pubdate Wed, 10 Jun 1998
Source:   Orange County Register ( Ca)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.ocregister.com/
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n438.a01.html


UN Special Session: Media Response-
---------

COMMENT:    (Top)

Separate editorial responses to the substance of the UN debate and to the open letter are interesting to examine.  The former range from the frank jeering of Tim Meehan in the Ottawa Citizen to the obvious confusion of the Dallas Morning News.  Most were openly skeptical, as exemplified by the New York Times.  The Times' "Cheerleader" editorial may have been the most important single development of the week.

U.S.  PROVED 'WAR ON DRUGS' IS INSANE

While addressing the United Nations General Assembly regarding illicit drugs ( "New 'war on drugs' has familiar ring," June 9), U.S.  President Bill Clinton mentioned in passing that "For the first time in history, more than half the world's people live under governments of their own choosing.  In virtually every country, we see the expansion of expressions of individual liberty."

It's a shame this can't be said for the U.S., where the wasteful, futile and insane War on Drugs has:

* made the U.S.  the world's highest per capita jailer of its own citizens;

* rendered the U.S.  Constitution, once the envy of the world, not worth the paper it is printed on because of the jihad against drugs;

* made alcohol prohibition and Vietnam look like roaring successes by comparison.

[snip]

Source:   Ottawa Citizen ( Canada)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
Pubdate:   Wed, 10 Jun 1998
Author:   Timothy J.  Meehan
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n441.a03.html

U.N.  SHOULD TAKE LEAD IN FIGHTING THIS SCOURGE

Ambitious is the word to use in describing the global anti-drug strategy crafted by former anti-Mafia crusader Pino Arlacchi.  Because the plan by the current head of the U.N.  anti-drug agency is so sweeping - promising as it does massive reductions in the worldwide availability of cocaine and heroin - it virtually sets itself up for skepticism.  But instead of carping at such a vision, the nations of the world should eagerly second Mr.  Arlacchi's overriding message: the need to reduce demand and supply at the same time.

Fortunately, the approach generally dovetails with the views of another influential player in the fight, President Clinton.  In a speech Monday, he used the occasion of the U.N.  General Assembly's first session in a decade dedicated exclusively to drug-related issues, to warn that merely pointing fingers helps no one.

[snip]

Source:   Dallas Morning News
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.dallasnews.com
Pubdate:   Fri, 12 Jun 1998
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n451.a04.html

CHEERLEADERS AGAINST DRUGS

Manhattan is filled this week with world leaders attending a well-intentioned but misdirected United Nations conference on drugs.

With drugs more plentiful and cheaper than ever worldwide, the leaders are mostly extolling failed strategies to combat the problem.

Pino Arlacchi, the Italian official who heads the organization's International Drug Control Program, is promising to eliminate coca leaf and opium poppies, the basis of cocaine and heroin, in 10 years.

Such claims get in the way of effective programs to reduce drug use.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Tue, 09 Jun 1998
Source:   New York Times (NY)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.nytimes.com/
Author:   Editorial page editors


Open Letter: Response-


COMMENT:    (Top)

As revealing as the editorial skepticism with which the world's media greeted the UN deliberations, was the publicity and endorsement they accorded the open letter to Kofi Annan.

Alexander Cockburn's op-ed in the LA Times may be the most realistic appraisal of all.  If accurate, it warns us not to become too elated over our present success in embarrassing the drug war.

Also revealing is the outrage provoked among hard-core
prohibitionists- in Sweden, at the Wall Street Journal, and from a lonely Abe Rosenthal at the Times.

Finally, Barry McCaffrey's attempt to make light of the legalization movement while also confessing that it worries him reveals his thinking to be as muddled as Clinton's.

THE DRUG WAR: A WAR ON POOR, LOWER CLASSES

Historically, the drug wars have been a pretext for social and political repression.

"We believe the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself." This was the banner on a double-page ad in the New York Times on Monday, timed to coincide with the big United Nations' special session in New York on drugs.  Hundreds of prominent people from around the world signed on to the view that the drug war has been a disaster and "the time has come for a truly open and honest dialogue about future global drug control policies."

[snip]

So to call for a "truly open and honest dialogue" about drug policy, as all those distinguished signatories in the advertisement requested, is about as realistic as asking the U.S.  government to nationalize the oil industry.  Essentially, the drug war is a war on the poor and the dangerous classes, here and elsewhere.  How many governments are going to give up on that?

Source:   Los Angeles Times - COLUMN/OPED
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.latimes.com/
Author:   Alexander Cockburn
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n447.a08.html

STAND UP AGAINST SOROS' DRUG LIBERALS

Governments of the world must stand up against drug liberalism.  The UN session on narcotics is promising.  Politicians must never fall for the cynical surrender that the legalization movement stands for.  Today the Swedish social minister Margot Wallstrom will address the UN about the importance to fight against drugs.  Queen Silvia of Sweden is taking part of the panel discussion about children, youth and narcotics during the UN meeting about drugs.  It is nice that Sweden can show a broad unity on the narcotics issue.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Tue, 9 Jun 1998
Source:   Aftonbladet ( Sweden)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.aftonbladet.se/
Translation:   Olafur Brentmar
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n441.a11.html

POINTING THE FINGER

The three-day meeting on fighting drugs was one of the more useful United Nations conferences in decades.

It was well led by Pino Arlacchi, the Italian Mafia-buster, drew chiefs of state and narcotics specialists from every part of the world, and wound up with a plan to eliminate the growing of illegal heroin and cocaine in 10 years -- certainly difficult but certainly doable.

So, months before the opening Monday, a campaign to attack the conference was planned.

It was worked out by Americans who devote their careers and foundation grants not to struggling against narcotics but legalizing them under one camouflage or another.

[snip]

Source:   New York Times (NY)
Author:   A.  M. Rosenthal
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.nytimes.com/
Pubdate:   Fri, 12 Jun 1998
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n447.a06.html

500 DRUG GENIUSES

With 500 of the world's prominent people serving as foot soldiers, there's now a war on against the war on drugs.  As the U.N. General Assembly opened a special anti-drugs session this week, an international group of eminences urged the world to cede victory to the drugs' allure and concentrate its money and attention on making the addicts more comfortable.

[snip]

The letter is mostly the sort of high-minded pabulum needed to attract such famous names as former U.N.  Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar or former U.S.  Secretary of State George Shultz. The word "legalize" never appears.  Nor do the words cocaine, heroin, marijuana, methamphetamine or designer drugs.  For the "We Believe" signers, it's all just "drugs." We hope all these sophisticated folks won't feel their judgment is being too terribly offended if we say quite bluntly: They have just been enlisted in Mr.  Soros's legalization crusade.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Wednesday, 10 June 1998
Source:   The Wall Street Journal
Section:   Lead Editorial
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.wsj.com/
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n439.a04.html

CONCERN OVER DRUG LEGALIZATION

UNITED NATIONS, ( June 9) IPS - The United States admits it is concerned -- but not alarmed -- by the growing new demand for the legalization of drugs in the country.

"We are very disturbed by the trend," Gen.  Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said and added that, if polling data was considered, there was "not a shred of support" for legalization.

McCaffrey, however, dismissed as insignificant the increased support for legalization within the intellectual and academic communities.  "It is a case of the mouse that roared," he told reporters here today.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Wed, 10 Jun 1998
Source:   Inter Press Service
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n450.a03.html


Domestic News


COMMENT:    (Top)

A couple of highly significant developments with great potential for affecting drug policy were nearly eclipsed by events at the UN: there is a good chance that a heroin maintenance trial may be conducted in Baltimore under the auspices of Johns Hopkins.  Predictably, opposition from the feds will be fierce.

At UCSF, researchers have moved closer to the elusive goal of establishing a genetic basis for alcoholism.

Unsurprisingly, the lure of easy money from thriving illegal markets is corrupting record numbers of law enforcement officers.  The numbers are still small, but may be just the tip of a big iceberg.

TEST OF `HEROIN MAINTENANCE' MAY BE LAUNCHED IN BALTIMORE

Health Commissioner, Experts Back Plan To Give Drug To Addicts; `Will Be Politically Difficult'

Johns Hopkins University drug abuse experts and Baltimore's health commissioner are discussing the possibility of a research study in which heroin would be distributed to hard-core addicts in an effort to reduce crime, AIDS and other fallout from drug addiction.

The plan for a trial of "heroin maintenance" for some Baltimore addicts who have refused or failed in traditional drug treatment is still at a preliminary stage.  Conscious that the issue could be politically explosive, the doctors involved are treading carefully and trying to persuade colleagues in other cities to launch such studies simultaneously.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Wednesday, 10 June 1998
Source:   Baltimore Sun ( MD)
Author:   Scott Shane, Sun Staff
Contact:  
Fax:   410-332-6977
Toll free number: 800-829-8000
Mail:   The Baltimore Sun Company 501 N.  Calvert Street P.0. Box 1377
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n443.a06.html

FRUIT FLIES OPEN NEW UNDERSTANDING ABOUT EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL

BOSTON (AP) -- Drunken flies that carry a genetic mutation named ``cheapdate'' are helping scientists unravel one of life's mysteries: why some people can hold their liquor better than others.

The research found that fruit flies -- and perhaps people, too -- are especially apt to get inebriated if they naturally produce low levels of a chemical called cyclic AMP.

These are, of course, just flies, but scientists have long known that the basic processes of life in such simple creatures often turn out to be virtually identical to the ones involved in more complicated animals, like people.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Thurs, 11 Jun 1998
Source:   Associated Press
Author:   Daniel Q.  Haney, AP Medical Editor
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n446.a01.html

REPORT SHOWS MORE COPS INVOLVED IN ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES

WASHINGTON - In greater numbers and in more places than ever, police are succumbing to the temptations posed by huge sums of cash from illegal drugs.

Official corruption, which has raged for years in the nation's big cities, is spreading to the hinterlands.  So rampant has it become that the number of federal, state and local officials in federal prisons has grown fivefold over the last four years, increasing from 107 in 1994 to 548 today, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

Although only a tiny fraction of the nation's law-enforcement officials are behind bars, the increase in their numbers reflects a harsh reality: Despite the government's "war on drugs," the problem is defying concerted efforts to stamp it out.

[snip]

Source:   Seattle Times (WA)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.seattletimes.com/
Pubdate:   Sun, 14 Jun 1998
Author:   Jack Nelson and Ronald J.  Ostrow, Los Angeles Times
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n455.a02.html


International News


COMMENT:    (Top)

We're used to thinking of the RCMP as squeaky-clean, as opposed to the police of Mexico or certain American cities, but this article in the Ottawa Citizen suggests that they may be humanly fallible after all.

The Bolivian story amply illustrates just one of the reasons that Arlacchi's simplistic crop substitution idea won't work.

We couldn't resist the report on crime in Stockholm as a companion piece to the militant drug prohibitionist sentiment expressed in the editorial above.

GOVERNMENT DEFIES COURT ORDER TO OPEN FILES ON 'ILLEGAL' DRUG STING

Privy Council Refuses To Release Secret Cabinet Documents; Justice Department Stops Trial In Mountie Money-Laundering Operation Privy Council Clerk Jocelyne Bourgon said the documents are exempt from disclosure.

VANCOUVER -- The federal government, defying a court order, is blocking the disclosure of legal opinions and other documents showing how RCMP brass approved undercover currency exchange operations in Montreal and Vancouver.

Deputy RCMP Commissioner Terry Ryan and Jocelyne Bourgon, Clerk of the Privy Council, have each filed sworn affidavits in British Columbia Supreme Court, saying the documents about the police-run currency exchanges are confidential.

[snip]

But, as the Citizen has reported this week in a series of articles examining the Montreal operation, the cash-strapped and short-staffed undercover unit was overwhelmed by the amount of business it received and could keep track of only a fraction of the illicit drug loot and suspected cocaine dealers passing through.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sat, 13 Jun 1998
Source:   Ottawa Citizen (Canada)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
Author:   Andrew McIntosh, The Ottawa Citizen
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n452.a02.html

A BOLIVIAN LEGISLATOR WHO JUST SAYS `YES' TO COCA

LAUCA ENE, Bolivia -- Like congressmen all over the world, Evo Morales hugs babies and makes fist-thumping speeches.  But that's where the similarities end.  For starters, this congressman chews coca leaves in public.

In fact, as Morales returned to his district recently, he was not at all embarrassed to be photographed caressing the coca bushes that grow on his property.  During his election campaign last year, he ran on the slogan "Vote for coca!" He won 70 percent of the vote in a field of 10, which is perhaps not particularly surprising since his district, the tropical region of Chapare, produces 85 percent of the refined cocaine produced in Bolivia every year.

[snip]

Since President Hugo Banzer Suarez announced in January his intention to eradicate the coca industry in Chapare by the year 2002, Morales has been leading road blockades and accusing the president and his family of being international traffickers themselves -- charges that he has failed to substantiate but that have won him screaming newspaper headlines and considerable national television exposure.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sat, 13 Jun 1998
Source:   New York Times ( NY)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.nytimes.com/
Author:   Clifford Krauss
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n453.a09.html

STOCKHOLM IS THE CHICAGO OF NORTHERN EUROPE

Open War in the Underworld

Peaceful Stockholm is well on the way to changing from the Venice of the North into the Chicago of the North.  Gangster wars have taken dozens of lives already this year.  The latest victim was a well known 45 year old iraqi.  He was mowed down in broad daylight at the weekend.

Shootouts in cafes, well planned murders in public places, hired killers bomb explosions, bullets in the back of the neck, machine gun fights and other serious crimes have taken place in Stockholm this year.  A common element in all of these crimes is that they have been carried out by foreigners or immigrants with connections to the underworld

Smuggling of narcotics and cigarettes as well as the night club business is behind these violent crimes.  Owning a night club is a good way of laundering dirty money.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Tue, 9 Jun 1998
Source:   Vestra Nyland ( Finland)
Contact:  
Language:   Swedish
Translation:   "John Yates" ()
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n453.a09.html


HOT OFF THE 'NET    (Top)

Ask Newt Gingrich a Question On-Line

Gingrich Announces New Internet Service/Live Chat Tomorrow

Speaker Will Respond to Questions from the Public Via RealAudio, Text

House Speaker Newt Gingrich today announced the launch of "Ask the Speaker," a new Internet feature that will allow Americans to ask questions and get answers directly from the Speaker on the legislative and policy issues they care about.  Twice a month, the Speaker will select a question from those submitted and answer it in RealAudio format, which will then be made available to the public via SpeakerNews http://speakernews.house.gov A text version of the answer will also be made available.

Ask your question at http://speakernews.house.gov/asknewt/


TIP OF THE WEEK


A new "Top Stories Feature" has been added to both the MAP and DrugSense web pages.  They enable you to quickly read or review the hottest drug-related news articles of the day.  See:

http://www.drugsense.org/

http://www.mapinc.org/


QUOTE OF THE WEEK    (Top)

The soft-minded man always fears change.  He feels security in the status quo and has an almost morbid fear of the new.  For him, the greatest pain is the pain of a new idea.  - Martin Luther King Jr.


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