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DrugSense Weekly
September 30 ,1998 #066
A DrugSense publication

http://www.drugsense.org


Table of Contents

* Breaking News (03/29/24)


* Feature Article


Book Review: Shattered Lives
by Mikki Norris and Chris Conrad

* Weekly News In Review


*Constitutional Guarantees-

Drug Search Barred at Fed Buildings
Editorial: Search for Justice?

Prisons-

In The Joint on The Job
Report: Gap In Education, Prison Funds
Seeing Through the Illusions of the Prison-industrial Complex
Prison Growth Stealing Funds From Schools, Activists Say

Annals of Interdiction-

US General Sees Turning of Corner in Colombia
Admiral James M.  Loy, USCG, On the Western Hemisphere
Drug Elimination Act
New Drug Strategy Sought

Medical Marijuana-

UCSF Study Backs Claim Pot Kills Pain
UK - Don't Go Soft on Cannabis

Mexico-

Drug Gangs Devastate Indian Villages In Baja
Salinas Warns Mexico Against Drug Probe
OPED: Mexico Battles Plague of Corruption
Mexico: In Celebration Of Drug Smugglers

International News-

Use Of Crack Increases to Record Level
UK: Drugs Seizures Double
UK: Police in Seven Forces Investigated for Drugs, Bribery and Robberies
Canada: Kids Reported Used As Drug Mules
Australia: Easy Street For Hard Drugs

* Hot Off The 'Net


Drug War Graphical Charts Site
MMJ Petition
E-Thepeople Site

* DrugSense Tip Of The Week


The MAPNews Service

* Quote of the Week


Thomas Jefferson

* Fact of the Week


The "Gateway Theory"


FEATURE ARTICLE    (Top)

Editors Note: We don't normally insert a book review as our feature article but we feel that "Shattered Lives" deserved a little attention.  This is a quality publication that puts a face on the drug war and its victims.  It includes pictures of both victims and families, horror stories, and personal accounts of the devastation caused by the "War on Drugs" and is a very effective tool for quickly converting the uninformed, apathetic, or "fence sitters."

We encourage our readers to both obtain a copy and to consider "Shattered Lives" as a holiday gift to someone who needs to realize how the drug war is destroying our country and our freedoms.

"SHATTERED LIVES" (the book)

A wake-up call to every American.

Shattered Lives, Portraits from Americas Drug War

By the creators of Human Rights and the Drug War: Mikki Norris, Chris Conrad and Virginia Resner

"The federal agents promised that if I refused to help them gain the information against my husband, they would destroy my life.  This they did."

Amy Pofahl, age 37

Meet Amy Ralston Pofahl, a victim of overzealous law enforcement.  They took her home, her business, her bank savings even her wedding ring.  Now they have her life.  Amy is seven years into a 24-year sentence for a crime she did not commit her estranged husband's conspiracy to import and manufacture MDMA (ecstasy).

In the name of the Drug War, families are being torn apart, children orphaned, and homes and property seized as first-time, non-violent drug offenders are thrown into U.S.  prisons, serving harsh sentences of 10, 20 years and longer.

Learn how we got here, the costs and the statistics, and what can still be done to bring a just end to what has become America's longest war.

In this photo essay, you will see the faces and read the compelling stories of America's new POWs.  Your image of the Drug War may never be the same...

1998.  ISBN 0-9639754-3-9. Paperback. 12 color pages.
Mail check or money order for $19.95 + $3.95 s/h.to:
Creative Xpressions
PO Box 1716, El Cerrito CA 94530
www.hr95.org

Toll-free credit card ordering 888-265-2732

Wholesale/distributor inquiries: 510-215-8326


WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW    (Top)


Constitutional Guarantees-


COMMENT:    (Top)

Two Ninth Circuit decisions affected police powers; one, which refused to allow a check for weapons at federal buildings to be routinely expanded into a search for drugs was a victory for common sense.  This was offset by another case in which the court gave police carte blanche to perform unannounced searches on parolees.  These will, of necessity, intrude on the privacy of their families or living companions as well.


DRUG SEARCH BARRED AT FED BUILDINGS

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Heightened security rules for searches at federal buildings imposed after the Oklahoma City bombing are
unconstitutionally allowing guards to look for drugs, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The rules must be narrowed to allow only searches for weapons and explosives, the 9th U.S.  Circuit Court of Appeals said in a case from Hawaii.  Officers would still be allowed to seize any contraband they see in plain view while looking for dangerous objects, said lawyers in the case.

[snip]

Source:   Associated Press
Pubdate:   Thu, 17 Sep 1998
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n828.a03.html


SEARCH FOR JUSTICE?

A troubling California Supreme Court ruling on Monday could encroach on Americans' protection from unreasonable searches and seizures under the U.S.  Constitution's Fourth Amendment.

[snip]

The case under review involves the rights of parolees from prison and people they associate with.

The ruling enlarges police powers at the expense of private citizens' rights and, once again, that expansion of power is tied to waging the war on drugs.

[snip]

Source:   Orange County Register (CA)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.ocregister.com/
Pubdate:   Wed, 23 Sep 1998
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n836.a03.html


Prisons
---------

COMMENT:    (Top)

A report by the Criminal Justice Foundation directed attention to the oft-forgotten conflict between higher education and prisons.  The Foundation was headquartered in San Francisco before moving to Washington; with Berkeley also hosting a symposium on prison issues, it isn't surprising that Bay Area newspapers produced three excellent articles on the subject.

One reports on the marked increase in prison labor, one is devoted to the foundation's report (plus a lame rebuttal from Wilson's office); the third is an excellent op-ed by Angela Davis.  Her detailed analysis is right on the money; unfortunately her Sixties reputation may lead some to deny it the attention it deserves.  She points out that continuing prison expansion has the potential to unite many disparate grass roots organizations in opposition to further expansion.

Finally, a very cogent overview is supplied by a the Chicago Tribune, which gives a good appraisal of the connection between the report and the Berkeley conference.  Expect incarceration to receive more press attention as prison rolls increase; especially if gross tax revenues should diminish.


IN THE JOINT ON THE JOB

State prisons staff $155 million-a-year enterprise with inmates

Behind razor wire and lethal electric fences at more than 70 factories in California lies a hidden industrial empire, churning out an astonishing array of goods ranging from eyeglasses and flags to chairs and muumuus.

It makes things that even Sears Roebuck & Co.  does not usually stock, like the ``bear proof'' locker for $425.  Many prices are hard to beat - women's blue jeans for $12.10, men's shoes $31.25, 100 percent cotton nightgowns for $8.25.

The home of this $155 million-a-year enterprise is the California state prison system, viewed by most people as the maker of license plates, not a vast network of modern industrial plants producing 24,000 varieties of 1,800 different items.

[snip]

Source:   San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Pubdate:   21 Sep 1998
Page A17
Author:   Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n832.a03.html


REPORT:   GAP IN EDUCATION, PRISON FUNDS

Wilson's Office Calls Study `Drivel'

Under the administration of Gov.  Pete Wilson, more state tax dollars have gone to prisons and corrections than to the state's top two college systems - a gap that has never been wider in at least 30 years - according to a study released Tuesday.

The report, which was quickly denounced by Wilson's office, was issued by a liberal think tank called the Justice Policy Group, and it cited a growing trend across the United States to spend on corrections, not instruction.

Pubdate:   Wed, 23 Sep 1998
Source:   Examiner, The (Ireland)
Contact:  
Author:   Brian Carroll, Security Correspondent
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n828.a04.html


SEEING THROUGH THE ILLUSIONS OF THE PRISON-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

(Angela Y.  Davis is History of Consciousness professor at the University of California - Santa Cruz and an organizer of the upcoming conference Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex. An earlier version of this article appeared in Colorlines magazine.)

Imprisonment has become the response of first resort to the problems facing people living in poverty.  Our prisons thus appear to perform a feat of magic.  But prisons do not disappear problems - they disappear human beings.  And the practice of disappearing vast numbers of people from poor, immigrant, and racially marginalized communities has literally become big business.

[snip]

Source:   San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.sjmercury.com/
Pubdate:   21 Sep 1998
Page C-1
Author:   Angela Davis
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n832.a02.html

PRISON GROWTH STEALING FUNDS FROM SCHOOLS, ACTIVISTS SAY

LOS ANGELES -- During the 1960s and early '70s as college students were protesting the Vietnam War, another movement began pushing its way to the fore: prisoner rights.

Inspired in part by Angela Davis, the young black militant who was imprisoned before being acquitted of kidnapping and murder charges in 1972, the movement focused on overcrowding, rapes and other inhumane conditions in the nation's jails and prisons.

[snip]

Davis, 53, a professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz, as well as college students and other former prisoners, have scheduled a conference this weekend at UC-Berkeley titled "Critical Resistance: Beyond the Prison Industrial Complex" to draw attention to the issue.

The conference is expected to call for a moratorium on prison construction and a focus on preventive measures to keep people out of prison.

[snip]

Source:   Chicago Tribune (IL)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.chicago.tribune.com/
Pubdate:   23 Sept 1998
Author:   V.  Dion Haynes
Section:   Metro Chicago


Annals of Interdiction


COMMENT:    (Top)

As the implementation of drug prohibition falls increasingly under military control it's to be expected that, despite what McCzar says, the "war" in drug war will become less a metaphor and more a realistic descriptive term.  Evidence for this can be found in statements made last week by two serving officers; first McC's successor as head of the Southern Command weighed in with an assessment of the Colombian quagmire which was eerily reminiscent of Westmoreland-.  Don't these guys read history?

The second came from the head of the Coast Guard, who in classic bureaucratic jargon, told Congress that he loved their concept of purging drugs from the Western Hemisphere, but needed more dough to do the job right.

Finally, we have McCzar himself, clearly unwilling to give up the idea of interdiction, but smart enough not to say anything too stupid.  He seems to be hoping for a high-tech magic bullet which will somehow detect drugs without slowing the commercial flows that NAFTA demands. Lots of luck, general.

U.S.  GENERAL SEES TURNING OF CORNER IN COLOMBIA

KEY WEST, Fla.  (Reuters) - The general leading the United States' war against the Latin American drugs trade said Thursday the situation was looking better in frontline Colombia, where American personnel have been helping the beleaguered military against traffickers' armies.

Marine General Charles Wilhelm, commander in chief of the U.S.  Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), said that with a new president and a change in the armed forces leadership, there were signs Colombia was "turning the corner."

[snip]

Source:   Reuters
Pubdate:   Fri, 18 Sep 1998
Author:   By Angus MacSwan
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n827.a09.html


STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL JAMES M.  LOY, USCG, ON THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
DRUG ELIMINATION ACT

Good morning, Mr.  Chairman Grassley, Chairman Coverdell, and distinguished Committee and Caucus members.  It is a pleasure to appear before you today to comment on Coast Guard drug interdiction and the proposed Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act.

I applaud the Act's goal of strengthening our Nation's counterdrug effort.  This legislation recognizes that the security of our maritime borders is a critical component of a balanced national strategy to reduce drug use and its destructive consequences.

[snip]

First and foremost the Coast Guard must be able to maintain current Services for all mission areas in fiscal year 1999 as requested by The President.  As a 3-year authorization, this legislation could result in outyear funding risks.  Without adequate outyear funding, I will not be able to operate additional assets or to sustain the operational increases for assets now in the Coast Guard inventory.

[snip]

Source:   Congressional Testimony
Pubdate:   16 Sep 1998
Website:   http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/loy.htm
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n834.a06.html


NEW DRUG STRATEGY SOUGHT

Director wants single official to coordinate border operations

New York Times WASHINGTON - U.S.  border inspectors searched slightly more than a million commercial trucks and railway cars entering the United States from Mexico last year.  They found cocaine stashed in cargo compartments on only six occasions, said Gen.  Barry McCaffrey, the White House director of drug-control policy.

[snip]

He said that more efficient cooperation and superior technology were needed to interdict illegal drugs at the southwestern border and its 24 ports of entry and 39 other sanctioned crossing points.

Buying more sophisticated radar, scanning and night-vision equipment, he said, would cost a fraction of the $2 billion that the government already spends annually to combat border smuggling.

"I'm not talking about the Marshall Plan," McCaffrey said.  "I'm talking about better organization."

[snip]

Source:   Houston Chronicle (TX)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.chron.com/
Pubdate:   Sun, 20 Sep 1998
Author:   CHRISTOPHER S.  WREN
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n831.a09.html


Medical Marijuana

COMMENT:    (Top)

Without a doubt, the story of the week was the report from UCSF that animal studies support the concept that cannabinoids reduce pain by acting on specific neural pathways in a fashion similar to, but demonstrably separate from, opioids.  This will be pure gold in arguing for passage of medical marijuana initiatives.  The story, broken by the afternoon Examiner, was picked up around the world; as were comments by the Marijuana Policy Project.  Maybe we're finally seeing some balance in the coverage of drug issues.

Even though the article from the UK was posted late, the views of British LEOs dovetail so well with the logic of American sheriffs on medical marijuana and the need for prisons that I just had to include it.  Clearly the prison-industrial complex is an idea with an international following.


UCSF STUDY BACKS CLAIM POT KILLS PAIN

Research adds to evidence drug is medically useful

A circuit in the brain stem that is switched on and off by the active ingredient in marijuana is the latest in a mounting pile of scientific evidence pointing to the drug's ability to kill pain, a new UC-San Francisco study said Wednesday.

The substance, a synthetic form of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), has an effect similar to morphine in an area at the base of the skull that is known to block pain impulses.

Importantly, researchers found that the substance uses a different way to trigger the blockage, suggesting that marijuana-like drugs might be developed as effective painkillers without the unwanted side effects of opiates.

[snip]

Five states and the District of Columbia have initiatives on the November ballot similar to California's Proposition 215, which allows seriously ill patients to grow and use marijuana for pain relief, with a doctor's recommendation, without being prosecuted under state law.

To cannabis advocates like Chuck Thomas of the Marijuana Policy Project, the study is further proof that the thousands of people with cancer, AIDS and other diseases who are using the drug to feel better are on the right track.

"These patients are not stupid and should not be going to jail," Thomas said.

[snip]

Source:   San Francisco Examiner (CA)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.examiner.com/
Pubdate:   September 23, 1998
Author:   Ulysses Torassa, Examiner Medical Writer
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n827.a01.html


DON'T GO SOFT ON CANNABIS

THE Government is being urged not to legalize the use of cannabis for medical treatment.

Police chiefs are strongly opposed to the move on the grounds that drug users will escape prosecution for possession by claiming they are undergoing treatment.

The Police Superintendents' Association, meeting in Bristol this week, will ask home Secretary Jack Straw to fund research into the therapeutic uses of cannabis so that proper controls can be introduced. It points to the American experience where police have given up prosecuting drug users in some states because courts routinely accept medical usage as a defence.

[snip]

The superintendents - the frontline operational managers of the police service - are also set for confrontation with ministers over plans to reduce the prison population and save money by finding alternatives to custodial sentences.  The central theme of their annual conference will be a debate on the subject Does Prison Work? At which controversial former Director-General of the Prison service, Derek Lewis, will be a guest speaker.

The president, Superintendent Peter Gammon, is expected to tell the Home Secretary that prison is the only acceptable penalty for persistent offenders even if their crimes are not serious.

[snip]

Pubdate:   13 Sep 1998
Source:   The Mail on Sunday (UK)
Author:   Chester Stern, Crime Correspondent
Contact :
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n839.a06.html


Mexico
---------

COMMENT:    (Top)

Mexican events continued to embarrass the American drug war; the man thought to be the main target in last week's shocking mass assassination was, in addition to being a successful drug trafficker, also an indigenous person from a tribe with an unsettled relationship with both drugs and trafficking.  That relationship was examined in a long NYT article.

Exiled ex- President, Carlos Salinas, now living in Dublin reacted strongly to Swiss allegations (they are investigating banking violations) of his brother's complicity in drug trafficking.  As if that weren't enough, the article by Holger Jensen describes the present chaotic state law enforcement agencies south of the border.

A somewhat different perspective is provided by a long article in the Baltimore Sun describing how narcotrafficantes have come to be revered as heroes in Culiacan, the smuggling capital of Mexico's wild west.

DRUG GANGS DEVASTATE INDIAN VILLAGES IN BAJA CALIFORNIA

SANTA CATARINA, Mexico - After five centuries of killing and pestilence that began with the Spanish conquest, only a few hundred of Baja California's indigenous people are left alive.  And now they are being hunted down and killed by drug traffickers.  The violence began two years ago when the leader of an indigenous village that resisted traffickers' efforts to take over communal lands for drug cultivation was gunned down, along with another Indian, in an ambush along a rural road.

While some have resisted, other Indians have been seduced by the quick fortunes that can reward those who manage desert airstrips or offer other services to the drug cartels.  And that has resulted in a string of killings in the Indian communities that cling to the arid hills 60 miles south of the California border.

The violence took on horrifying new dimensions last week when two entire families of Indians from the Pai-Pai ethnic group, along with a household of neighbors, were dragged from their homes and shot to death in a driveway in Ensenada, a coastal city to which some Indians have migrated.  It was Mexico's worst incident of drug-related bloodshed in memory.

[snip]

Source:   New York Times (NY)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.nytimes.com/
Pubdate:   26 Sep 1998
Author:   Sam Dillon
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n834.a05.html


MEXICO CITY-Former President Carlos Salinas Gortari lashed out from his self-imposed 0 seclusion Monday, warning Mexico's top justice officials that they could be implicated in a widening scandal about drug trafficking during his administration.

Salinas counterattacked after the leak of a report claiming that his brother Raul virtually ran narcotics traffic in Mexico during the 1988-94 Salinas presidency.  That secret report was drawn up by Swiss police investigating possible money laundering by Raul Salinas.

[snip]

His brother also denies criminal activity.  But the secret report prepared by the Swiss police during their three-year investigation paints a devastating portrait of Raul.  Expanding on previously reported allegations that he was tied to leading drug traffickers, it reportedly depicts the former president's brother as a virtual godfather.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Tue, 22 Sep 1998
Source:   Los Angeles Times (CA)
Contact:  
Fax:   213-237-4712
Website:   http://www.latimes.com/
Author:   Mary Beth Sheridan, Times Staff Writer
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n823.a04.html


MEXICO BATTLES PLAGUE OF CORRUPTION

Mexico is a country where crooked cops are the norm rather than the exception and the worst of them prey on the capital.

Authorities in Mexico City admit a daily average of 700 crimes involving weapons and resulting in the deaths of at least six people. That's the official figure.  The Mexican press says it's much higher.

[snip]

About 70 policemen are fired every month for failing drug tests.  But police involvement in the drug trade and other crimes is so routine that only the most horrific raise public ire.

[snip]

Ideally, says Mexico City's mayor, the only way to reform the force is to fire all the cops and begin again.  But, he points out, "past administrations have fired thousands and then we just end up with thousands of armed, unemployed cops on the street, many of whom become criminals."

[snip]

Source:   Santa Maria Times (CA)
Contact:   Santa Maria Times PO Box 400 Santa Maria, CA 93456-0400
Fax:   1-805-928-5657
Pubdate:   Monday, September 21 1998
Section:   Opinion, World View, page A-4
Author:   Holger Jensen
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n829.a05.html


IN CELEBRATION OF DRUG SMUGGLERS

`Narcoculture': In northwest Mexico, a culture of adoration grows for narcotics smugglers, who beat the odds by getting their goods across the border to feed the habits of gringos.

CULIACAN, Mexico - Near the stage at a recent concert by the band Los Tigres del Norte stand four young men in cowboy boots, large belt buckles, tight jeans and cowboy hats.

Three are college students - studying computers, architecture and dentistry - and one is a teacher.  But they are dressed like country boys, as if they were not, in fact, born and raised in Culiacan, a city of more than 700,000 people, capital of the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa.

[snip]

The "narcocorrido" has become the favored pop music for much of northwest Mexico.  Ballads - telling of bandits or revolutionary heroes - have been a part of Mexican folk music for at least a century. Recently, the "narcoballad" has taken over the genre.

Narcocorridos limn the exploits of drug smugglers - executions, betrayals, shootouts with the "federales" - bloody events set to a polka beat and obliviously cheerful accordion line.

[snip]

Source:   Baltimore Sun (MD)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.sunspot.net/
Pubdate:   21 Sep 1998
Author:   Sam Quinones , Special To The Sun
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n823.a10.html


International News


COMMENT:    (Top)

English-speaking nations continue to read a litany of drug war failures in their daily press; record seizures, record drug use, and record police corruption.  The headlines say it all.

USE OF CRACK INCREASES TO RECORD LEVEL

RECORD AMOUNTS of crack cocaine, the highly addictive drug, are available on the streets of Britain, the Home Office and criminologists have discovered.

[snip]

Cocaine seizures by customs and excise have risen sharply in the past three years, from 940kg in 1995 to 2,074kg last year.

[snip]

Source:   Independent, The (UK)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.independent.co.uk/
Pubdate:   Mon, 21 Sep 1998
Author:   Jason Bennetto, Crime Correspondent
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n822.a03.html


DRUGS SEIZURES DOUBLE

ILLEGAL drugs with an estimated street value of more than UKP6m were seized by the RUC last year - double the total for the previous year, it was revealed today.

The RUC Drug Squad recovered UKP 6,614,955 worth of drugs in 1997, compared to UKP 3,282,110 in 1996 - a rise of over UKP3m.

In comparison, statistics released in Scotland show UKP 9m of drug seizures last year in an area roughly three times the size of Northern Ireland.

[snip]

Source:   Belfast Telegraph
Contact:  
Pubdate:   Mon, 21 Sep 1998
Author:   Peter McVerry
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n822.a03.html


POLICE IN SEVEN FORCES INVESTIGATED FOR DRUGS, BRIBERY AND
ROBBERIES

MORE than 110 police officers in at least seven forces in England and Wales are being investigated, or face charges, in an unprecedented series of anti-corruption inquiries.

[snip]

Superintendent Phil Jones, of Merseyside Police, said the case had revealed the vulnerability of British police officers to corruption and the "fabulous" bribes that drug dealers could offer.  "Officers have seen their income decrease sharply as overtime and allowances have been abolished.  At the same time, the money at the disposal of the drug dealers has become huge.  It has not been politically convenient to accept there is a growing danger of corruption.  But this is the policing issue for the next century."

[snip]

Source:   Independent, The (UK)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.independent.co.uk/
Pubdate:   Fri, 25 Sep 1998
Author:   Jason Bennetto and Jonathan Foster
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n837.a02.html


KIDS REPORTED USED AS DRUG MULES

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (Reuters) - Honduran children are being used by drug gangs to peddle cocaine in Canadian cities, a children's rights group said yesterday.

Casa Alianza officials said several children from Honduras had swallowed stones of the drug crack, derived from cocaine, and were seriously ill in Canadian hospitals after being caught by Vancouver Police.

[snip]

Source:   Toronto Star (Canada)
Contact:  
Website:   http://www.thestar.com/
Pubdate:   Sat, 19 September 1998
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n821.a11.html


EASY STREET FOR HARD DRUGS

HARD drugs such as heroin and speed are readily available in Adelaide.

Inquiries by The Advertiser suggest most users have "contacts" from whom they can easily buy drugs such heroin.

Some dealers are also known to sell drugs in and around hotels, although the risk of being caught is far higher.

[snip]

Source:   Advertiser, The (Australia)
Contact:  
Pubdate:   Sat, 19 Sep 1998
Author:   Police Reporters, Jeremy Pudney and John Merriman
URL:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n822.a11.html


HOT OFF THE 'NET    (Top)

Thanks to Tom Paine for the following:

Below is a web page of nothing but CHARTS against the Drug War.  It has clickable LINKS and a clickable table of contents.  It is a one-of-a-kind compilation, and it succinctly, quickly, and graphically exposes the truth about the horrors of the U.S.  Drug War. Feel free to use any or all of it in any way anywhere.

http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/1995/tost.html


http://www.E-thepeople.com

As the movement to eliminate criminal penalties for the medical use of cannabis grows, it becomes even more important for everyone to take every opportunity they can to speak out.  By signing this petition, you will demonstrate that the American public has passed the point of tolerance for the persecution of suffering people by denying them medication that is safe and effective.  Please sign this petition and then pass it on to at least ten more friends.  Let me know about your efforts!

The petition is located at:

http://www.e-thepeople.com/etp2/affiliates/national/fullview.cfm?ETPID=0&PET ID=50381&ETPDIR=affiliates/national

Login:   Thomas
Password:   Jefferson

CASE SENSITIVE!!!!!!


The petition above is hosted by E-The People,
http://www.e-thepeople.com a nonpartisan Web service promoting communication between citizens and government.

At E- The People, you can:

-Send a letter to any one of 140,000 local, state, and federal officials in 7,000 towns and cities!

-Start a petition to fix a pothole or change a policy, and promote it on our national site!

-Sign a petition about a cause you care about!

E- The People is sponsored by the Alex Sheshunoff Initiative, an organization dedicated to the empowerment of communities through technology.


TIP OF THE WEEK


The MAPNews Service.

One of the DrugSense missions is to provide you with current news on drug policy related topics.  By visiting and becoming familiar with our many services you can decide what best suits your needs.  It is a combined effort of hundreds of NewsHawks, editors and volunteers worldwide.  It is designed not only to keep you informed but to encourage you to reply to various articles via letters to the editor.

MAPNews - Is the service that sends you the whole enchilada.  All articles all the time.  This service is for the very serious drug news reader. You will receive hundreds of full text news articles each week from all over the world.

DrugNews-Digest - is a quick read synopsis of all drug news with links to the full text that can be easily emailed to you or read on-line.

Subscribe or unsubscribe to either service easily at:
http://www.mapinc.org/lists/

The DrugSense Weekly - Which you are reading now, is our attempt to further simplify your life by selecting the most important drug news of the week.

It is replete with some easily identified, concise, and informative editorial comment by Dr.  Tom O'Connell.

Subscribe to the weekly at: http://www.drugsense.org/

The DrugNews Archive - is a easily searchable collection of nearly 20,000 news articles it is an amazing information resource that is limited only by your imagination on what you wish to search for information about.  It is very effective at finding answers to drug policy questions, cites, quotes, etc.  quickly and reliably. See:

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/


QUOTE OF THE WEEK    (Top)

"A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest.  The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation."

--Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), U.S.  president. Letter, 20 Sept. 1810


FACT OF THE WEEK    (Top)

The "Gateway Theory"

The gateway theory takes a statistical association between an extremely popular behavior, marijuana use, and an unpopular behavior, cocaine use, and then implies that one causes the other.  There is no evidence to this assertion, and CASA (National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse) acknowledges that it has not been able to determine if there is any causal relationship between the two.

Source:   Merrill, J.  C. &; Fox., K.S., Cigarettes, Alcohol, Marijuana:
Gateways to Illicit Drug Use, New York, NY : The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (1994).


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