DrugSense Home
DrugSense Weekly
June 24,1998 #052
A DrugSense publication

http://www.drugsense.org/


Table of Contents

* Breaking News (04/19/24)


* Feature Article


McCaffrey Warns Panel of Effort to Legalize Drugs
By CHRISTOPHER S.  WREN

Weekly News In Review

UN Aftermath-

LTEs 500 Drug Genuises

Top Anti-Drug Official Attacks Critics

Just Think About Drugs; Then Say 'No' To US Policy

Drug War Policy-

No Quick Solutions To Drug Abuse

Congress Challenges NBA'S Policies On Drugs

Time - Crank

Tobacco-

Editorial - Tobacco bill excesses

Student Smokers Face Suspension

S.F.  Teens Trying High-Nicotine 'Bidi' Cigarettes

Editorial - Smoke Gets in Their Ayes

Marijuana-

Simi Police Return Marijuana Plants To Patient

Medical Company Growing Cannabis

Group Petitions For Vote On Medical Use Of Marijuana

Relax marijuana laws - federal study

International News-

Kyrgyzstan - New Treasure Along Ancient Silk Road

Colombia - Colombia To Test Coca Herbicide

Canada - Hemp Farmers Still Await Go-Ahead From Ottawa

* Hot Off The 'Net


Nightline now Online

Register To Vote On-Line!

* DrugSense Tip Of The Week


Mike Gray Interview with Art Bell On-Line

* Quote of the Week


Abraham Lincoln


FEATURE ARTICLE    (Top)

New York Times Letters to the Editor Information Follows.  Please consider writing to the times regarding this article.

Drug Policy Official Warns Panel of Effort to Legalize Drugs

By CHRISTOPHER S.  WREN

Thursday, June 18, 1998 Page A29

WASHINGTON, June 17 -- The White House's top drug policy official today accused critics of the nation's zero-tolerance drug laws of pursuing an agenda to legalize drugs from marijuana to heroin and cocaine.

In written testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the official, Gen.  Barry R. McCaffrey, asserted, "There is a carefully camouflaged, exorbitantly funded, well-heeled elitist group whose ultimate goal is to legalize drug use in the United States."

While General McCaffrey named no names, he was clearly referring to a coalition of advocacy groups that argues that the global war on drugs has cost society more than drug abuse itself.  Some of those advocates attracted attention last week with an open letter to the United Nations Secretary General as the General Assembly opened a three-day special session on drugs.

The letter -- whose 500 signers included the former Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, former Secretary of State George P.  Shultz and two former Senators, Alan Cranston and Claiborne Pell -- argued that by focusing on punishing drug users, the United States and other countries had helped create a worldwide criminal black market that wrecked national economies and democratic governments.

The letter's signers also included George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist, who has spent as much as $20 million supporting research and advocacy groups working to change Americans' views on how to deal with drug use.  Mr. Soros said in an interview last week that he hoped that it would foster an open discussion of the issue.

But General McCaffrey, the Clinton Administration's director of national drug policy, said the critics were disguising their true purpose because Americans overwhelmingly opposed legalizing drugs.

"Through a slick misinformation campaign," he said, "these individuals perpetuate a fraud on the American people, a fraud so devious that even some of the nation's most respectable newspapers and sophisticated media are capable of echoing their falsehoods."

His assertion prompted the Judiciary Committee's ranking Democrat, Senator Joseph R.  Biden Jr. of Delaware, to propose hearings into the issue of legalizing drugs.

"Let's expose it for the fraud that it is," Senator Biden said.

Mr.  Soros could not be reached today because he was traveling in Sweden.  But one of the most prominent advocates of less punitive approaches to drug use, Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Lindesmith Center, a drug policy institute in New York supported by Mr.  Soros, called the general's criticism "an attempt to smear what's a very responsible approach to dealing with drug abuse in our society."

At the core of the disagreement is the concept of harm reduction, which to advocates like Mr.  Nadelmann, means finding ways short of abstinence to reduce the harm that drug abusers cause themselves and society. Needle exchange, in which addicts are given clean needles to try to stem the spread of AIDS, is a prominent example.

Kevin Zeese, president of Common Sense for Drug Policy, a group in Falls Church, Va., that also wants drug laws changed, said, "The reason why there is an upsurge of people advocating reform is because the current policy is not making for a safer or healthier society,"

But General McCaffrey called harm reduction "a hijacked concept that has become a euphemism for drug legalization."

"It's become a cover story for people who would lower the barriers to drug use," he said.

Mr.  Nadelmann responded, "The majority of harm reduction advocates oppose drug legalization, and that includes George Soros."

Until today, General McCaffrey had ignored the advocacy groups' lobbying, and so his sharp attack was a change in strategy.

After testifying, he said he was suggesting a debate about legalization, not a witch hunt.

"It's a legitimate subject of debate in our society if you do it openly," said General McCaffrey, who is retired from the Army.

He predicted that the notion would be "rejected resoundingly" once Americans discovered what was involved.

Mr.  Nadelmann said: "I would welcome the opportunity to debate him anytime or anyplace.  His trying to equate all forms of harm reduction with a free market approach to drug legalization is both false and duplicitous."

But Mark A.  R. Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the University of California at Los Angeles who follows drug issues, expressed concern that such a debate would detract from the more crucial task of finding ways to make the current anti-drug strategies work more effectively.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR INFORMATION:

Letters must include the writer's name, address and telephone number. Those selected my be shortened for space reasons (ie.  the shorter the better).

Fax letters to 212-556-3622 or send by email to

or by regular mail to

Letters to the Editor
The New York Times
229 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036


Ty Trippet
Director of Communications
The Lindesmith Center
New York,
NY 10019
212-548-0604
212-548-4670-fax


WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW

COMMENT:    (Top)

Preparing this COMMENTS section begins with a consideration of all the    (Top) articles archived by MAP from the preceding Monday through Sunday; then I try to make sense of the "Big Picture " and select, arrange and excerpt articles to portray it.  For the past two weeks, the plethora of drug news and opinion provoked by the UN session has created some welcome editing problems: which of the articles to select and how to classify them?

The following 16 articles were selected from the 248 items archived during the week of June 15 thru June 21.


UN Aftermath


COMMENT:    (Top)

Through shrewd advance planning, the reform movement parleyed a pro-forma UN Special Session into a publicity bonanza which not only proclaimed the existence of an organized opposition to conventional drug policy, but also uncovered a degree of media support which must have come as a nasty shock to drug warriors everywhere.

Denunciations of the open letter to Kofi Annan only provoked further skepticism from readers of the Wall Street Journal- no letters approving the Journal position were printed, leading one to wonder: did they receive any?

Worried warriors went so far as to consider Senate hearings to vilify reform; whether they will actually be held remains uncertain.

So many well-written calls to either abandon the drug war or seriously reconsider present policy were published that it's been a problem to select which to cite.  The Boston Globe editorial receives the nod as the most recent and one of the best reasoned.

Re: 500 DRUG GENIUSES

"Your recommendations on what to do about the drug war on your editorial ( "500 Drug Geniuses") are about as idiotic and pointless as putting on suntan lotion in hell."

Ghamal de la Guardia
Atlanta

[snip]

In your editorial I was shocked to see the following statement.

"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."

"What ever led the staff of The Wall Street Journal to descend into such childish petulance is beyond me."

Arthur Sobey
Norfolk, Nev.

[snip]

"If you change the phrase "War on Drugs" to "War on Poverty", you're left with the same arguments supporting a failed status quo that you rail against the other four days of the week.  Asking the left to set aside their ideology in the face of years worth of demonstrably unsuccessful policy, when you are unwilling to do the same, is the definition of hypocrisy."

Steven Haskett
Austin, Texas

[snip]

Your editorial makes me wonder when drug prohibitionists will ever come to understand the phrase 'consenting adults.'

In a free society, the state leaves consenting adults to do as they please, as long as they don't harm anyone else. 

Ananda Gupta
Bethesda, Md

[snip]

"As with abortion, tobacco, alcohol, homosexuality and other lifestyle issues regarding choice and conscience, the civil society provides ample area for debate and discussion.  And it is in the civil society that such issues should be resolved, not under the heel of the police power of government."

David W.  Holmes Fairfax, Va.

[snip]

"Don't forget that if we end the "war on drugs", a huge agency called the DEA won't have anything to do.  Those are good people and we certainly don't want them out of jobs, breaking into houses and such. And they set such a good example for other agencies, like the FBI, BATF, FDA, and a whole alphabet of other suddenly heavily armed agencies, out to protect Americans by breaking down their doors."

Rick Berger

[snip]

Pubdate:   Mon, 15 Jun 1998
Source:   Wall Street Journal ("Voices" in Online Edition)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.wsj.com/
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n461.a08.html

TOP ANTI-DRUG OFFICIAL ATTACKS CRITICS

WASHINGTON -- The White House's top drug-policy official accused critics of the United States' zero-tolerance drug laws Wednesday of pursuing an agenda to legalize drugs, from marijuana to heroin and cocaine.

In written testimony before the Senate foreign relations committee, the official, Gen.  Barry McCaffrey, charged, "There is a carefully camouflaged, exorbitantly funded, well-heeled elitist group whose ultimate goal is to legalize drug use in the United States."

[snip]

His assertion prompted the judiciary committee's ranking Democrat, Sen.  Joseph Biden of Delaware, to propose hearings into the issue of legalizing drugs.  "Let's expose it for the fraud that it is," Biden said.

Source:   New York Times ( NY)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.nytimes.com/
Pubdate:   Fri, 19 Jun 1998
Author:   Christopher S.  Wren
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n476.a07.html

JUST THINK ABOUT DRUGS; THEN SAY 'NO' TO US POLICY

''We believe the global war on drugs is now causing more harm than drug abuse itself.''

Under that banner headline in a double-truck ad of the June 8 New York Times, an astounding array of prominent and accomplished world citizens appealed to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for a major shift in drug-fighting worldwide.

Fully one-twelfth of all international trade involves traffic in illegal narcotics, it is claimed.  And while no one can be sure of the scope of the drug economy, the number could be right on the button.  And it is also inescapable that governments worldwide routinely fail to contain the worsening social deterioration that accelerates despite ever-harsher methods.

[snip]

Source:   Boston Globe
Section:   Page E04 of the Sunday opinion section
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.boston.com/globe/
Pubdate:   Sunday, June 21, 1998
Columnist:   David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n480.a03.html


Drug War Policy
---------

COMMENT:    (Top)

The op-ed by David Musto confirms beyond question what many have suspected for a long time: the author of a book exposing many basic inanities of drug prohibition twenty-five years ago still doesn't "get it" himself.

Brash drug warrior Hastert may have bitten off more than he can chew.

Time, a major promoter of crack hysteria an decade ago, is at it again with this depressingly similar "special" on methamphetamine which could easily have been written by the DEA.

NO QUICK SOLUTIONS TO DRUG ABUSE

AFTER three decades of studying the history of drugs and drug policy in the United States, I was impressed by the Clinton administration's recent proposal for a 10-year drug strategy.  Here, at last, comes recognition of the need for a steady and consistent policy over an appropriate span of time.  A common fault in drug policy has been anticipating or promising dramatic results within an unrealistically brief period.

[snip]

Source:   San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.sjmercury.com/
Pubdate:   Fri, 19 Jun 1998
Author:   David F.  Musto

CONGRESS CHALLENGES NBA'S POLICIES ON DRUGS

A congressional subcommittee led by Congressman J.  Dennis Hastert challenged the National Basketball Association Tuesday to adopt a "zero tolerance" policy on drugs.

In a letter sent to NBA Commissioner David Stern and Players Association Executive Director Billy Hunger, 27 members of Congress urged the league to expand its drug testing policy so all players are tested for marijuana use.  According to a task force statement, only NBA rookies are tested for marijuana.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Wed, 17 June 1998
Source:   Daily Herald ( IL)
Section:   Sec.  1, page 26
Contact:  
URL:   Website: http://www.dailyherald.com/

CRANK

The drug once called speed has come roaring back as a powdery plague on America's heartland...

BILLINGS--It's a full-moon Friday night, and Jennifer, 25, a hard-core looker ( smoker of methamphetamine, known as crank) has been wide awake around the clock for almost four days.  She isn't yet seeing plastic people, shadow men or transparent spiders-just three of the fabled hallucinations of the Billings, Mont., crank scene, a hyper stimulated subculture sickeningly rich in slang and folklore.

[snip]

Pubdate:   22 Jun 1998 Week
Source:   Time Magazine
Section:   Vol 151 No 24 Page 24
Contact:  
Author:   Walter Kirn with Patrick Dawson
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n467.a11.html

Tobacco


COMMENT:    (Top)

The tobacco bill died officially in the middle of last week.  A remarkably prescient editorial in the Seattle Times predicted both its demise and the reason for it days before the event.

The next pair of articles suggest reasons why we may be headed toward some form of prohibition: the self-righteous conviction that health concerns alone entitle the government to control behavior on the one hand-and the power of the profit motive to exploit every available opportunity on the other.

The editorial in the San Jose Merc demonstrates that most people, the Mercury-News editorial writer included, simply don't understand the challenge implicit in the tobacco bill (or any other potential drug regulatory bill, for that matter): how do we retain a company producing an addictive, dangerous product as a responsible, law-abiding, tax-paying, member of the community? Demand for their product will always be there; failure to retain a legal industry producing it will guarantee that a criminal product, sold on a black market under the worst possible circumstances.

TOBACCO BILL EXCESSES

IF you thought the primary purpose of the federal legislation was to curb teen smoking, punish cigarette-makers for past deceptions, or recoup health costs for victims, think again.

Democrats and Republicans have latched onto the package as an all-purpose vehicle for tax-cut goodies - even as they push for a bipartisan, multibillion-dollar tax hike on cigarettes that will disproportionately hit middle- and lower-income Americans.

[snip]

Political freeloaders are tacking on ideological decorations to a once-promising tobacco bill that inevitably - and mercifully - will collapse of its own weight.

[snip]

Source:   Seattle Times ( WA)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.seattletimes.com/
Pubdate:   Sunday 14 June 1998
Author:   OPINION - Seattle-Times
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n457.a05.html

STUDENT SMOKERS FACE SUSPENSION

Proposed legislation would make it illegal to carry a cigarette

Toronto Star Queen's Park Bureau

Ontario students could be suspended and sent for addiction counselling if they're caught with an unlit cigarette under a bill that has been approved in principle.

Opposition MPPs yesterday denounced the proposed legislation as draconian, likening it to ``grabbing a shovel to swat a fly.''

[snip]

Source:   Toronto Star (Canada)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.thestar.com/
Pubdate:   Friday, June 19, 1998
Author:   Theresa Boyle
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n473.a03.html

S.F.  TEENS TRYING HIGH-NICOTINE `BIDI' CIGARETTES

Strawberry scented cigarettes, shaped like marijuana joints and spiked with extra nicotine, are being sampled at an alarming rate by San Francisco teens, a new survey shows.

The cigarettes, called "bidis" -- also "beedies" and "beadies" -- are manufactured in India and are widely available in grocery stores in paper-wrapped bundles of 20 for as little as $1.25 a pack.

Results show that 58 percent of students surveyed at four city high schools had tried bidis at least once and that two-thirds knew someone under the legal age of 18 who had purchased them.

[snip]

Source:   San Francisco Chronicle
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Pubdate:   Thu, 18 Jun 1998
Author:   Sabin Russell, Chronicle Staff Writer
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n476.a03.html

SMOKE GETS IN THEIR AYES

THE Senate just couldn't handle the tobacco issue.

If senators just could have focused on the original goals of Sen.  John McCain's tobacco bill -- curbing teen smoking, regulating nicotine as a drug, ending the flood of costly lawsuits and penalizing the tobacco industry for years of deadly lies -- they might have been able to pass it.  Instead, they focused on the money, the $516 billion the bill was expected to cost the tobacco industry over 25 years.

[snip]

Source:   San Jose Mercury News ( CA)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.sjmercury.com/
Pubdate:   Fri, 19 Jun 1998
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n477.a03.html


Marijuana


COMMENT:    (Top)

After a month of dreary news from California, it's a pleasure to highlight the "man bites dog" story from Simi Valley.  Of course the cops didn't give back all the dope- do you think they're stupid just because they're cops?

A steady stream of stories attesting to British interest in medical marijuana continues.

AMR may be controversial, but no one can say they haven't been busy. The Latest state where they a trying to qualify a petition is Nevada, where the already complicated initiative process is further complicated by a need to amend the State's constitution, and thus hold a second election.

SIMI POLICE RETURN MARIJUANA PLANTS TO PATIENT

Authorities say 62-year-old Dean Jones, who was arrested last month, is protected by a law that allows for medical use of pot.

SIMI VALLEY--It was a rare day for the Simi Valley police--giving back pot plants they earlier seized from the backyard of a man arrested on suspicion of felony cultivation.

But Dean Jones had a court order requiring officers to do just that. The order came after prosecutors Friday said Jones was protected by Proposition 215, the 1996 medical marijuana law, and would not be charged.

[snip]

Source:   Los Angeles Times ( CA)
Pubdate:   20 June 1998
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.latimes.com/
Fax:   213-237-4712
Author:   COLL METCALFE, Times Staff Writer
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n478.a06.html

MEDICAL COMPANY GROWING CANNABIS

A secret cannabis farm has been established with the support of the Government to investigate the medicinal uses of the illegal drug. Thousands of cannabis plants are being grown in large glasshouses, with humidity, light and temperature controls, at an undisclosed location in south-east England.

The 10 million pound project is being carried out behind tall fences, amid tight security.

GW Pharmaceuticals, the first company licensed by the Government to cultivate and possess large quantifies of cannabis, has been advised on security by the Home Office and Special Branch.

[snip]

Source:   Telegraph, The ( UK)
Contact:  
Author:   Sean O'Neill
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n459.a05.html

GROUP PETITIONS FOR VOTE ON MEDICAL USE OF MARIJUANA

Allowing patients to use an illegal drug is an issue of compassion, not Cheech and Chong, supporters say.

CARSON CITY -- A group that wants Nevadans to vote to allow sick people to use marijuana for medical reasons turned in petitions Tuesday signed by more than 69,000 people.  But whether that is enough to qualify for a spot on the November ballot remains in doubt.  "We know it is close," said Dave Fratello, secretary-treasurer of Americans for Medical Rights.  "If we lose one county we don't make it."

[snip]

Source:   Las Vegas Review-Journal
Contact:  
Fax:   702-383-4676
Postal:   P.O.  Box 70, Las Vegas, Nev. 89125
Website:   http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/
Author:   Ed Vogel Donrey Capital Bureau
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n464.a06.html

COMMENT:    (Top)

Like every previous study of the "marijuana problem" by an appointed Commission since 1896, the latest one in Canada has concluded that the harms of Cannabis are greatly exaggerated and its use either shouldn't be penalized, or penalties should be token.

Sadly, the corollary is that in every case, such findings have been ignored by whoever is in power.

Relax marijuana laws: federal study

CANNABIS POSSESSION WARRANTS FINES, NOT JAIL TIME, GOVERNMENTAL REPORT
SAYS

A federally funded think-tank on drug abuse recommends decriminalizing marijuana possession.

The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse says existing criminal penalties against marijuana smokers have done little to enhance public health and safety, while placing a heavy burden on police and the justice system.

The centre's newly published study, Cannabis Control in Canada, proposes dropping jail as a possible punishment for marijuana possession.  Instead, the offence would become a civil violation, subject to a fine only.

[snip]

Source:   Ottawa Citizen (Canada)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.ottawacitizen.com/
Pubdate:   Sun, 14 Jun 1998
Author:   Jim Bronskill The Ottawa Citizen
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n464.a10.html


International News


COMMENT:  

Countries from the former Soviet Union made a huge addition to the worlds's thriving criminal drug market; their populations are young, poor, and desperate; the countries themselves adjoin drug producing nations or sit astride drug trade routes; there's relatively little AIDS of Hep C awareness their incidence to explode along with injection drug use.  A worse recipe for social disaster is hard to imagine.

With each passing week, Colombia's news grows worse; it appears that tebuthiuron (Spike) will be used, despite warnings from its manufacturer against such use .  Imagine our response if Canada demanded we poison our environment and risk the health of our population with such an agent, on the off chance that teens in Ontario might use drugs.

Finally, just to prove that such behavior isn't limited to the US, It gives some perverse satisfaction (but not pleasure) to cite the diabolical way Canada is frustrating farmers who had planned to grow hemp.  If we are all very patient for another year or two, there will eventually be a hemp crop in North America.

NEW TREASURE ALONG ANCIENT SILK ROAD

Smugglers take opium from Afghan mountains to European markets

OSH, Kyrgyzstan--FIRST Ravshan became an opium addict; then he found a new career.  His suppliers paid him in fat packets of white powder to shuttle their product from this remote corner of Central Asia to new customers in Russia.

Ravshan is thousands of miles from New York, where a drug summit was held last week at the United Nations.  But he is exactly the kind of person President Clinton and other world leaders will have to reach if they are to make a dent in the world's multibillion-dollar drug trade, as they have pledged.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sun, 14 Jun 1998
Source:   San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.sjmercury.com/
Author:   Inga Saffron, Mercury News Moscow Bureau

COLOMBIA TO TEST COCA HERBICIDE

DRUGS:   The U.S.  made weed killer can be dropped from higher
altitudes,boosting pilot safety, but its maker opposes this use.

Bogota, Colombia - Bowing to demands from Washington, the Colombian government has agreed to test a granular herbicide to kill coca crops,despite public warnings from the chemical's U.S.  manufacturer against its use in Colombia.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sat, 20 Jun 1998
Source:   Orange County Register ( CA)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.ocregister.com/
Author:   Diana Jean Schemo - The New York Times
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n477.a06.html

HEMP FARMERS STILL AWAIT GO-AHEAD FROM OTTAWA

Some application errors have delayed the process

MONCTON - Poor paperwork is spoiling the province's inaugural attempt to grow hemp.

Enterprising farmers from across the province eagerly sent in applications to grow the sister plant of marijuana in early April.

Now, more than two months later, most of the farmers are still waiting for the go-ahead from Ottawa - thanks to hundreds of error-filled applications, says a Health Canada spokesperson.

"Probably a majority of applications had to be returned because things were wrong," says spokesperson Bonnie Fox-McIntyre.

[snip]

Source:   New Brunswick Telegraph Journal ( Canada)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.nbpub.nb.ca/TELE/INDEX.HTM
Pubdate:   Sat, 13 Jun 1998
Author:   Mark Reid, Telegraph Journal


HOT OFF THE 'NET    (Top)
Nightline now Online

For anyone who missed it or wants to review it, the Nightline piece is now available online using RealVideo (which can be downloaded for free at the same site)

http://www.legalize-usa.org/video5.htm

-------

Register to vote on-line!

A brand new site now allows you to register to vote On-Line.  This makes it easier than ever to register and since the web is so heavily pro reform it is likely to help our movement.

Simply visit

http://www.netvote98.mci.com/

and register.  In a week or two you receive a card that must be signed and returned.  Shortly thereafter you will receive you voter registration authorization.

Please use this to register as many reformers as possible.


TIP OF THE WEEK


Mike Gray Interview with Art Bell On-Line

The Mike Gray Interview on the Art Bell Show was terrific, (nationally syndicated on 400 radio shows late night Thursday).  It can be heard using RealAudio at:

http://ww2.broadcast.com/artbell/archive.html#jun98

(You may want to fast forward to the second hour of the show which is Mike's hour)

This was a really terrific job by Mike.  He was knowledgeable, articulate and covered all the main bases.  He took on and debunked the most prevalent drug war myths.  Art is a full blown reformer and tossed mostly soft balls.  Couldn't have been much sweeter.

Mike got out our latest really good drug stat "The number of cops in jail (due to drug corruption) has gone up 500% in the last 5 years as well of dozens of other interesting snippets and facts that definitely moved all but the most ardent drug warrior to both reconsider their views and/or buy the book.

Art plugged DrugSense on his web site and the new member sign ups went through the roof this week.


QUOTE OF THE WEEK    (Top)

`It has ever been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues' - Abraham Lincoln


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.

News/COMMENTS-Editor:   Tom O'Connell ()
Senior-Editor:   Mark Greer ()

We wish to thank all our contributors and Newshawks.

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.

REMINDER:  

Please help us help reform.  Send any news articles you find on any drug related issue to

PLEASE HELP:

DrugSense provides this service at no charge BUT IT IS NOT FREE TO PRODUCE.

We incur many costs in creating our many and varied services.  If you are able to help by contributing to the DrugSense effort please Make checks payable to MAP Inc.  send your contribution to:

The Media Awareness Project (MAP) Inc.
d/b/a DrugSense
PO Box 651
Porterville, CA
93258
(800) 266 5759

http://www.mapinc.org/
http://www.drugsense.org/

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

http://www.DrugSense.org/
http://www.mapinc.org


Back Issues: 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010