DrugSense Home
DrugSense Weekly
August 10,1998 #59

A DrugSense publication

http://www.drugsense.org/


Table of Contents

* Breaking News (04/20/24)


* Feature Article


THE DRUG _POLICY_ PROBLEM (PART Three)
Jeffrey A.  Schaler, PhD

* Weekly News In Review


Drug War Policy-

UK - OPED: Why Banning Drugs Makes the Problem Even Worse

US - Editorial: Changing The Drug Laws

House Drug Testing Plan Blocked

Book Review: Bookshelf: Addicted to Abolition

OPED - Let's Just Say 'No' To Us Drug-War Justice

Incarceration-

U.S.  Prison Population Tops 1.2 Million

Supermax Prisons Typify U.S.  Attitudes On Crime

In Iowa, Some Prisoners are Behind Barns

Mayor - 'I'm Not Anti-Prison, I'm Not Anti-Growth'

OPED - Drug Courts

Medical Marijuana-

Medical Marijuana To Appear On Nevada Ballot

Ruling Delayed on Use of Pot as AIDS Relief

Marijuana Helped to Save My Life, Prominent Harvard Scholar Says

Editorial - Praise And Pillory

Judge Says Jailed Medical Marijuana Advocate Must Receive Medication

Sports & Drugs-

UK - Medical Journal Backs Use Of Drugs In Sport

International News-

Russia - Moscow Orders War on Drugs

Tracing Money, Swiss Outdo U.S.  On Mexico Drug Corruption Case

Australia - Alarm At 'Deadly' Heroin Sold In ACT

UK - Heroin's New Image Hooks Teenagers

Burma - Tales of Terror Emerge From Victims

`Nothing Left' of Police Base in Colombia

* Hot Off The 'Net


McWilliams Speech Online
DrugSense Material used by NCIA

* DrugSense Tip Of The Week


The Sentencing Project

* Quote of the Week


John Kenneth Galbraith

* Fact of the Week


California Incarceration rate


FEATURE ARTICLE    (Top)

THE DRUG _POLICY_ PROBLEM (Part Three)
Jeffrey A.  Schaler, PhD

Editors note: This is the third and final chapter in Dr.  Schaler's excellent article.  Parts One and Two can be read in issues #57 and #58 at: http://www.drugsense.org/nl/

We encourage submissions by other reform leaders on drug policy issues.  Send your article to

PLAYERS IN THE DRUG POLICY GAME

The principal contenders in the current U.S.  debate represent three perspectives on drug policy in a free society: the prohibitionist or "drug warrior" perspective, the public health perspective, and the classical liberal or "libertarian" perspective.

DRUG WARRIORS

The "drug warrior" perspective is the foundation of our present drug control policies.  The drug warrior values a paternalistic state, which plays the role of protective parent in relation to vulnerable citizen-children.  His focus is on strict enforcement of prohibition and on the regulation of currently legal drugs (for example, prescription drugs).  Many drug warriors also advocate the expansion of sanctions to include tobacco and alcohol.  General Barry McCaffrey and William J.  Bennett--current and past "drug czars" respectively, former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse Robert J.  Dupont, and Congressman Charles B.  Rangel are drug warriors sharing this point of view.  They typically believe that drugs cause addiction and crime. In their view, public policies should aim to limit supply and punish users and dealers.  Thus we have the "war on drugs." Illegal drugs such as heroin, cocaine, crack, LSD, "speed," and marijuana, and the people who profit by selling them, are the enemy.

Here are some questions we need to ask in evaluating the "drug warrior" perspective: Do drugs cause crime and addiction? Does prohibition itself create lawlessness? Is it proper for government to regulate behavior if that behavior harms no one but the user? Do people have a right to own and use drugs as personal property? Is drug supply the best predictor of use? Are social, economic, and psychological problems related to drug use ignored and thereby perpetuated when policy focuses on eliminating supply and punishing drug users and dealers? Is the war on drugs a scapegoating device to distract citizens from other social problems which they may feel helpless to solve? Does prohibition serve the economic interests of prison builders, policy makers, and drug dealers? Can drugs ever be controlled? If drug prohibition can work outside a total police state, why is the drug trade flourishing in prisons, the most totalitarian institutions of our society?

LEGALIZERS

The public health perspective on drug policy is represented by people who advocate the legalization and medicalization of drug use.  They regard addiction as a disease and criminal sanctions as inhumane and wasteful of tax money.  Hence they advocate treatment rather than punishment for drug use.  As Mayor Kurt Schmoke of Baltimore put it years ago, "The war on drugs should be led by the Surgeon General, not the Attorney General." Today the slogan of medicalization is "harm reduction." The advocates of medicalization, e.g.  the Drug Policy Foundation in Washington, D.C.  and The Lindesmith Center in New York, generally also support "medical marijuana" laws such as those passed recently in California and Arizona.  Ironically, prohibitionists and legalizers both embrace the medical model of addiction: they believe that drug addiction exists, that it is a disease, and thus that it is "treatable" as a disease.

In examining the public health perspective, we need to raise questions like the following: does medical treatment of addiction work? Can it ever work, or is it based on a logical mistake? Will medical control (e.g., through prescription drugs) create the same problems of lawlessness that are associated with prohibition? Does court-ordered and state-supported treatment violate the drug user's First Amendment rights? The late American Civil Liberties Union attorney Ellen M.  Luff addressed that issue in an important case that received national attention in 1988 (Maryland v.  Norfolk). Luff successfully argued that court-ordered attendance in Alcoholics Anonymous constitutes state entanglement with religion.  Similar cases have emerged since then (e.g. Griffin v.  Coughlin, 88 N.Y. 2d 674, New York Court of Appeals, decided 11 June 1996; Kerr v.  Farrey, 95 F.3d 472, 7th Cir. 1996; Warner v. Orange County Dept.  of Probation, No. 95-7055, 1997 WL 321553, 2nd Cir., 9 September 1996, amended 14 May 1997).  Should public funds be spent on moral indoctrination in the name of public health? Again, should the government control behavior that harms no one but the individual involved?

Calls for state-supported treatment are echoed by prohibitionists and legalizers alike.  An important point here is that whether treatment for addiction is voluntary or involuntary, state involvement in any capacity--e.g.  court-ordered attendance, state licensure of treatment facilities, or state subsidies for treatment programs-violates the invisible wall separating church and state.  This is because all treatment for addiction is essentially a religious activity.  The state has no business inside a person's head.

LIBERTARIANS

In the classical liberal, or libertarian, perspective (represented in somewhat different ways by psychiatrist Thomas Szasz and economist Milton Friedman), drug use is regarded not as a disease but as a behavior based on personal values.  It is regarded as an ethical rather than a medical issue.  Classical liberals cite the scientific evidence that drug use is a function more of mind set and environment than of chemistry or physiology.  They challenge the notion of "loss of control" that is integral to the prohibitionist and public health perspectives, basing their claims on studies of drug users who controlled their habits when motivated to do so.  They do not believe that drugs or addiction can cause crime.  In their view drugs are property and as such are protected by the Constitution; drug users need not be treated as "barbarians at the gate" requiring exceptions to the constitutional rule of law.  The classical liberals believe that a free-market approach to the trade of currently illegal drugs would reduce the crime and lawlessness associated with them under prohibition.  Valuing liberty over health, they criticize medicalization as paternalistic and statist.  In their view, informal social controls, either relational or self-imposed, are the appropriate focus of drug policy.

In judging the classical liberal perspective, we need to ask questions like the following: If drug prohibition is repealed, will there be a substantial increase in drug use? If there is, will the problems associated with increased drug use pose a greater threat to freedom than drug prohibition has? Will an American free market in currently illegal drugs create international problems in trade with prohibitionist countries?

WE NEED POLICY BASED IN FACT NOT FICTION

We need new ways of thinking about addiction-- ways of thinking consistent with empirical findings on addiction and inconsistent with mainstream ideas about drugs and the policies based on them.  There are no easy answers to the difficult questions I have posed here.  However, they must be addressed in the academic and policy making arenas.  Too often, professors are penalized for even asking those questions.  It is important that we choose the right course in drug policy, based on fact, not fiction-and even more important that we once again be free to choose.

FOOTNOTE (to title):

1.  This article is excerpted from the introduction to Drugs: Should We
Legalize, Decriminalize, or Deregulate?, an anthology edited by J.A. Schaler, published by Prometheus Books, Amherst, N.Y.  (1998), part of their Contemporary Issues series.  This excerpt is reprinted here by permission of the publisher, E-mail: , phone orders (24 hours): Toll free (800) 421-0351

REFERENCE Schaler, J.A.  (1997). The case against alcoholism as a disease.  In W. Shelton & R.B. Edwards (Eds.) Values, ethics, and alcoholism, pp.  21-49, Greenwich, Ct.: JAI Press Inc.

Jeffrey A.  Schaler, Ph.D., a psychologist, is an adjunct professor of justice, law, and society at American University's School of Public Affairs in Washington, D.C.  He is currently at work on a similar book for Prometheus, co-edited with Magda E.  Schaler, M.P.H., on smoking rights and federal regulation, to be released later this year and is writing a book for Open Court Publishers in Chicago entitled "Addiction Is A Choice," to be released in 1999.  E-mail: http://rdz.acor.org/szasz/schaler


WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW    (Top)


Domestic News- Policy


COMMENT:    (Top)

A striking aspect of American drug policy is that no elected Representative in Congress will even question its validity.  This outspoken criticism of prohibition by a Member of Parliament simply couldn't happen in the US.

The dimensions of our political problem are made clear by the Times editorial: a popular, "tough on crime" governor who is enlightened on the issue of drug sentencing can't find legislative support to change drug laws that everyone agrees are unfair.

On a lighter note, the buffoons in Congress waffled on drug testing; a good thing, if you ask me- I want any who still indulge to be able to toke up once in a while.  The matching article about Waukegan High is pathetic; Jack Benny must be spinning in his grave.

They say there's no such thing as bad publicity.  If true, Satel's incredibly dishonest trashing of Mike Gray's book in the WSJ (where else?) probably helped far more than it hurt.

WHY BANNING DRUGS MAKES THE PROBLEM EVEN WORSE

Heroin use is soaring.  Indeed, the Home Office in new research, predicts an epidemic among young people as the drug spreads from the inner cities to the comfy shires.  Towns with serious hard-drugs problems are the target of a network of pushers who are rebranding heroin to make it more readily available and cheaper for children.

[snip]

Both Britain and America believe the solution lies in prohibition of drugs.  Yet 30 years of prohibition has made the US the drug sink of the world.  And Britain has the worst problems in Europe.

[snip]

Source:   European, The
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.the-european.com/
Pubdate:   Wed, 5 Aug 1998
Author:   Paul Flynn, Labour MP for Newport West
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n659.a06.html

CHANGING THE DRUG LAWS

Four years ago, in one of his first proposals as Governor, George Pataki announced that the time had come to revamp New York State's rigidly Draconian drug laws.  Enacted in 1973 under Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller, the laws mandated such penalties as 15 years to life for being caught with four ounces of cocaine.  Designed to suppress the drug trade, these sentences rivaled those for murder and rape.  But instead of wiping out the drug markets, the laws overloaded prisons and court dockets with addicts and low-level couriers.

[snip]

As it turned out, however, Mr.  Pataki could not persuade many of those in his own party to correct the mistakes of 25 years ago.  So the Governor has been quietly working around the edges to soften the impact of the Rockefeller laws by pardoning individual prisoners and pushing for alternative forms of incarceration, including drug treatment.  Doing the right thing quietly is better than not at all, of course, but it is time to deal openly with a sentencing mess that many judges and law enforcement officials have been protesting for years.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sat, 08 Aug 1998
Source:   New York Times (NY)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.nytimes.com/
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n663.a08.html

HOUSE DRUG TESTING PLAN BLOCKED

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican leaders have apparently quashed, at least for now, a plan by two Republican lawmakers to require drug testing of House members and their staffs.

[snip]

Date:   Wed, 05 Aug 1998 20:34:32 -0400
Size:   34 lines 1233 bytes
File:   v98.n652.a13
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n652.a13.html

WAUKEGAN HIGH EYES RANDOM DRUG TESTS

Waukegan High School students could be required to submit to random drug tests under a proposal being investigated by Waukegan school officials that, if adopted, would make the district one of the first in the nation to impose such a blanket policy.  Although other school districts have required drug testing of some students such as those involved in athletics, few schools have carried the policy as far as the one being reviewed by the Waukegan School District 60 Board of Education.

[snip]

Source:   Chicago Tribune (IL)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.chicago.tribune.com/
Pubdate:   Fri, 7 Aug 1998
Author:   Sheryl Kennedy
Section:   Metro DuPage, p.  1
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n664.a07.html

BOOKSHELF:   ADDICTED TO ABOLITION

At the turn of the last century, unrestricted access to morphine, heroin and cocaine led to a great wave of addiction in the U.S. Witnessing this devastation of people's lives, the nation responded with anti drug laws.  Somehow the simple lesson here-that drugs are dangerous-has been forgotten by many of our nation's elites.  Mike Gray's "Drug Crazy" (Random House, 251 pages, $23.95) is the product of such selective memory.

[snip]

Source:   Wall Street Journal
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.wsj.com/
Pubdate:   5 Aug 1998
Author:   Sally Satel
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n651.a11.html

LET'S JUST SAY 'NO' TO US DRUG-WAR JUSTICE

In the 18th century, the British government so routinely and wrongfully confiscated property from American colonists that the Colonies overthrew the crown and wrote their own constitution ensuring due process and forbidding unjust seizures.

In the late 20th century, the United States government has returned to the old and odious British ways: illegally seizing property under the guise of fighting narcotics, and trampling due-process guarantees along the way.

[snip]

Source:   Christian Sciense Monitor
Section:   Opinion/Essays
Pubdate:   Mon, 3 Aug 1998
Authors:   Phil Harvey and Mike Tidwell
Note; Phil Harvey is president of DKT International, a non-profit organization promoting reproductive health in developing countries and now sponsoring a domestic civil liberties project.  Mike Tidwell is author of 'In the Shadow of the White House: Drugs, Death and Redemption on the Streets of the Nation's Capital' (Prima, 1992).
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n653.a07.html


Incarceration
---------

COMMENT:    (Top)

The number of Americans under lock and key continues to rise, albeit at a somewhat slower rate; attitudes towards those in prison remains unselectively hostile, a mind-set encouraged by official rhetoric.

There continues to be growing awareness however, that the need to pay for what amounts to a huge entitlement program may not sit too well with the public when the bill is presented.  Private prisons and prison labor are among the ways of holding that bill to a minimum, but each has its downside.

Finally, "drug courts" are another way to both cheaply extend the reach of Big Brother and also extort fees for allies in the drug treatment racket: it follows that the Dallas Morning News would endorse the idea, especially if funded by the court's own victims via "forfeiture."

U.S.  PRISON POPULATION TOPS 1.2 MILLION

WASHINGTON - The nation's adult prison population grew to more than 1.2 million in 1997, its slow but steady rise fueled by inmates serving longer terms for violent crimes while a constant stream of criminals entered prison doors, the Justice Department reported yesterday.

The 5.2 percent growth to 1,244,554 federal and state prison inmates by year's end was slightly below the 7 percent annual average growth during the 1990s, the department's Bureau of Justice Statistics said. That was a net gain of 61,186 inmates during the year - very close to the annual average of 63,900 since 1990, when prison inmates numbered only 774,000.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Mon, 03 Aug 1998
Source:   Standard-Times (MA)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.s-t.com/
Author:   Michael J.  Sniffen, Associated Press writer
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n646.a06.html

`SUPERMAX' PRISONS TYPIFY U.S.  ATTITUDES ON CRIME

FLORENCE, Colorado - If, as some philosophers maintain, nothing tells more about a society than its treatment of prisoners, the proliferating super maximum security prisons speak eloquently of the fears and attitudes about crime in American.

This minimum-contact, so-called ``supermax'' concept is epitomized in the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility (ADX) in Florence.  Inmates call it the Alcatraz of the Rockies. Advocates call it unfortunate but necessary, given an increasingly violent prison population.  Critics call it a concept that didn't work in 19th-century America and is in danger of overuse now.

[snip]

Source:   Chicago Tribune (IL)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.chicago.tribune.com/
Pubdate:   Sun, 2 Aug 1998
Author:   Lisa Anderson, Chicago Tribune
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n648.a02.html

IN IOWA, SOME PRISONERS ARE BEHIND BARNS

CLARION, Iowa - Dripping sweat and dressed in a fluorescent orange pullover, George Nelson, a prisoner doing time for theft, was not exactly the kind of worker Wright County had in mind some 12 years ago when officials provided $90,000 to help build a huge new egg factory.

[snip]

The idea of inmates working at private businesses is anathema to organized labor.

"If prison labor is wrong in China, it's sure as hell wrong in Iowa," said Mark Smith, president of the Iowa Federation of Labor.  "Prisoners are being used to hold down wages."

[snip]

Source:   Chicago Tribune (IL)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.chicago.tribune.com/
Pubdate:   Fri, 7 Aug 1998
Author:   Larry Fruhling
Section:   Sec.  1, p. 6

MAYOR:   "I'M NOT ANTI-PRISON, I'M NOT ANTI-GROWTH"

CALIFORNIA CITY - Hot on the heels of intense scrutiny by residents about Mayor Larry Adams' letter to the Planning Commission last week came this disclaimer Tuesday night, "I'm not anti-prison, I'm not anti-growth."

[snip]

Tuesday's discussion brought out a few lone voices to speak against the city's efforts to bring at least one more prison here.  Until now the overwhelming majority of residents, city officials and business owners have voiced nothing but anticipation for the economic development expected to follow prison construction.

The city is already smacking its lips at the thought of new jobs, a resurrected real estate market, a supermarket, more retail stores, maybe even a fast-food place.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Thu, 06 Aug 1998
Source:   Bakersfield Californian
Section:   Local
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.bakersfield.com
Author:   Debby Badillo Californian Correspondent
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n667.a02.html

DRUG COURTS

The right way to address the continuing epidemic

Dallas County officials of face a dilemma concerning the continued operation of to drug courts here.

County commissioners agree that drug trafficking is reaching the crisis level.  But they cannot all agree that funding two courts are strictly for drug-related trials is fair, when there are so many other major criminal cases are waiting to be heard.

What's the solution? Use more of the drug dealer s 'own money to pay the cost of prosecuting the cases.  District Attorney John Vance's office has said it is willing to commit cash from drug forfeitures to the budget for the two specialized Dallas County courts.  That makes good sense.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Thu, 06 Aug 1998
Source:   Bakersfield Californian
Section:   Local
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.bakersfield.com
Author:   Debby Badillo Californian Correspondent
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n667.a02.html


Medical Marijuana


COMMENT:    (Top)

After months in the background, the issue of medical marijuana is back on center stage.  For one thing, there are new ballot initiatives in Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, and Washington State.

In Canada, a court considering a medical marijuana prosecution heard compelling testimony from an impressive witness.

Prosecution of two patient-activists in Southern California with all mention of 215 excluded by two blatantly biased judges underscores the relentless opposition of law enforcement to any relaxation of marijuana prohibition.

On the federal side, the continued incarceration of AIDS patient Peter McWilliams in a setting where his medical regimen has been compromised, is fast approaching the dimensions of blatant human rights abuse.

MEDICAL MARIJUANA TO APPEAR ON NEVADA BALLOT

CARSON CITY, Nev.  (AP) - Nevada's secretary of state on Monday qualified a medical marijuana proposal - seemingly up in smoke for the lack of just 43 signatures - for the November ballot.

[snip]

Source:   Associated Press
Pubdate:   Mon, 3 Aug 1998
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n647.a04.html

RULING DELAYED ON USE OF POT AS AIDS RELIEF

A judge has reserved his decision on whether Toronto AIDS activist James Wakeford should have the right to use marijuana for medicinal purposes.

[snip]

Source:   Toronto Sun (Canada)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.canoe.ca/TorontoSun/
Pubdate:   Fri, 7 Aug1998
Author:   Sam Pezzano
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n664.a06.html

MARIJUANA HELPED TO SAVE MY LIFE, PROMINENT HARVARD SCHOLAR SAYS

Stephen Jay Gould tells Toronto court to allow medical use of drug

[snip]

Source:   Toronto Sun (Canada)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.canoe.ca/TorontoSun/
Pubdate:   Fri, 7 Aug1998
Author:   Sam Pezzano
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n664.a06.html

EDITORIAL:   PRAISE AND PILLORY

Rx: Marijuana

Judges have latitude to interpret the law, justifiably.  But it is hard to fathom, much less justify, the recent decision by an Orange County Superior Court Judge, Robert Fitzgerald, that Marvin Chavez, who founded the Orange County Cannabis Co-Op, cannot use Proposition 215 as a defense in his trial on charges of selling marijuana.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sun, 2 Aug 1998
Source:   Press-Telegram (CA)
Contact:   .
Website:   http://www.ptconnect.com/
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n660.a02.html

JUDGE SAYS JAILED MEDICAL MARIJUANA ADVOCATE MUST RECEIVE MEDICATION

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A federal judge ruled Friday that a medical marijuana advocate jailed on drug charges must have access to medications to treat his AIDS and cancer.

U.S.  Magistrate Judge Andrew Wistrich said he will ensure Peter McWilliams receives the appropriate medicine, but the judge also turned down a request to lower his $250,000 bail.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sat, 01 Aug 1998
Source:   Fresno Bee, The
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.fresnobee.com/
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n642.a10.html


Sports and Drugs


COMMENT:    (Top)

There was a more considered response to the issue of "doping" of athletes from a prestigious medical source: The Lancet weighed in on the side of choice.

MEDICAL JOURNAL BACKS USE OF DRUGS IN SPORT

A medical journal has joined those thinking the unthinkable about drug-taking among athletes, arguing that sport has become so artificial that it is hard to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable aids to success.

The Lancet says today that competitors are nowadays best described as highly-paid "professional entertainers" in an arena where "fair play is becoming an old-fashioned idea".  Science, it says, already has a deep influence on the eating habits of competitors, with the line between drugs and nutritional supplements increasingly blurred.

The journal states: "How can the dignity of athletes be preserved during testing? Why should an adult competitor not be allowed to make an informed choice about a substance provided it is legally acquired?"

Pubdate:   Sat, 08 Aug 1998
Source:   Telegraph, The (UK)
Contact:  
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n661.a02.html


International News


COMMENT:    (Top)

By all accounts, the Russian underworld has thrived on the Western sponsored drug war.  Not to be outdone, the government has now entered the game and will be competing for their share of revenue from the illegal drug market.

A long NYT article reviews the Byzantine saga of high level Mexican corruption in detail, focusing on the seeming ineptitude (unwillingness) of American agencies in nailing down a case against the Salinas brothers.

Heroin remains a major concern in the non-US English speaking world while, Burma, a major supplier of that heroin received unusual exposure in at least one American paper, there was even a bold mention of the involvement of the Burmese government in the heroin trade.

Finally, a short excerpt describes the deteriorating situation in Colombia, Burma's Western Hemisphere counterpart.

MOSCOW ORDERS WAR ON DRUGS

MOSCOW'S mayor, Yuri Luzhkov, yesterday ordered police to stamp out its drug problem by raiding bars, discos and clubs frequented by young people.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sat, 08 Aug 1998
Source:   Daily Telegraph (UK)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Author:   Marcus Warren, Moscow
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n662.a07.html

MEXICO CITY - When the young chief of Switzerland's drug police arrived here in late 1995 to inquire about $132 million found in Swiss bank accounts belonging to the influential elder brother of a former president, he knew enough about Mexico's political underworld to be wary of his official hosts.

[snip]

Yet while the Swiss are preparing to use that evidence in a civil court action to confiscate the fortune of Salinas, the elder brother of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, a much larger and more experienced group of law enforcement officials in the United States has been unable to make a similar case of their own.

[snip]

Source:   New York Times (NY)
Pubdate:   Tue, 04 Aug 1998
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.nytimes.com/
Author:   Tim Golden, New York Times
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n656.a02.html

ALARM AT 'DEADLY' HEROIN SOLD IN ACT

Children as young as 12 were among a record 42 heroin overdose victims in Canberra last month.

Police and the ACT Ambulance Service have now issued a warning of heroin in unprecedented quantities, deadly purity and cheapness, flooding the market and leaving young people at risk.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sat, 08 Aug 1998
Source:   Canberra Times (Australia)
Section:   News, Page 3
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.canberratimes.com.au/
Author:   Peter Clack
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n664.a04.html

HEROIN'S NEW IMAGE HOOKS TEENAGERS

Battlefields on the front line

DRUG-PUSHERS have changed the image of heroin so successfully that its use has reached epidemic proportions in many British towns and cities, a government report said yesterday.

[snip]

"The heroin outbreaks spreading across Britain are primarily a product of purposeful supplying and marketing.  The precursor to all of this had been the strong, sustained availability of pure, inexpensive heroin, primarily from southwest Asia."

[snip]

Source:   Times, The (UK)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.the-times.co.uk/
Pubdate:   Tue, 4 Aug 1998
Author:   Richard Ford
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n651.a10.html

TALES OF TERROR EMERGE FROM VICTIMS

Rape, torture murder are its instruments

Bangkok

As riot troops man strategic positions in tense Rangoon for today's 10th anniversary of the Burmese military's fierce suppression of a pro-democracy uprising, human rights groups say that the army is committing fresh atrocities at an alarming rate.

[snip]

Increasingly, the regime's concept of "development" is being extended to grabbing control of the lucrative narcotics trade, analysts say. Burma is one of the world's largest suppliers of heroin.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sat, 08 Aug 1998
Source:   San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Page:   A 12
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Author:   Sandy Barron Chronicle Foreign Service
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n662.a10.html

'NOTHING LEFT' OF POLICE BASE IN COLOMBIA

BOGOTA, Colombia - The faint voice crackled over the two-way radio: ``The base has been destroyed.  There is nothing left. The police have been taken away as hostages, and the soldiers, too.''

The voice of Luis Rodriguez, a resident of Miraflores, related a tale of catastrophe in a jungle village that hosts Colombia's largest police anti-narcotics base.

[snip]

Source:   Miami Herald (FL)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.herald.com/
Pubdate:   Thu, 06 Aug 1998
Author:   Tim Johnson - Herald Staff Writer
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n661.a07.html


HOT OFF THE 'NET    (Top)

Legalize-USA has done it again.  Peter McWilliams outstanding speech from the Libertarian Party national convention is now on-line for all to hear.

Anyone who reviews this speech will be struck by the injustice and incongruity represented by the fact that this brilliant patriot is currently incarcerated and being held on an outrageous $250,000 bail.  He is not receiving proper medication for his AIDS and cancer, and is obviously being persecuted for his beliefs.

McWilliams' speech to Libertarians: http://www.legalize-usa.org/video6.htm

--------

Thanks to Paul Lewin for this heads up.  An impressive feather in the cap for all the hard working DrugSense volunteers and staff:

Thanks to the excellent work of DrugSense/MAP and its army of volunteers, the prestigious National Center on Institutions and Alternatives is focusing its "Myth of Month" on the ONDCP's anti-drug media campaign.

As a result the quality documentation made available through the DrugSense/MAP site, NCIA was able to forcefully call the anti-drug media campaign what it is: a myth.

I hope you will let your supporters know about this site & their role in its creation.  The exact link is: http://www.igc.org/ncia/mythc.html


TIP OF THE WEEK


The sentencing Project has a web site with a good deal of information ant statistics that can help your letter writing, debates, and in providing factual information to others about incarceration rates and much more. Check out:

http://www.sentencingproject.org/

http://www.sentencingproject.org/pubs/tsppubs/prison~1.htm


QUOTE OF THE WEEK    (Top)

`In all life one should comfort the afflicted, but verily, also, one should afflict the comfortable, and especially when they are comfortably, contentedly, even happily wrong' - John Kenneth Galbraith


FACT OF THE WEEK    (Top)

California Incarceration Rates

There are more prisoners in the state of California alone, than in any entire country in the world except Russia and China.

Source:   Currie, E.  Crime and punishment in America. (1998). New York, NY:
Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt and Company, Inc.


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/


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