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DrugSense Weekly
June 23, 2006 #454


Table of Contents

* Breaking News (03/28/24)


* This Just In


(1) Drug Users Find Meth Loopholes
(2) Can Freedom And Opium Coexist?
(3) Boy, 3, Hospitalized After Eating LSD-Laced Candy
(4) A Crusading DA And Drug Reform

* Weekly News in Review


Drug Policy-

COMMENT: (5-9)
(5) Cell Phones Link Fabrizi To Suspect
(6) Mayor Admits Cocaine Use In Speech To City Employees
(7) Prosecutors Apologize To Mayor In Connecticut
(8) Nationally, Meth Use Is Rare, Report Asserts
(9) Court: Trace Of Pot Is Enough

Law Enforcement & Prisons-

COMMENT: (10-14)
(10) Booty Behind Bars
(11) Two Die In Shootout At Federal Prison
(12) Westchester Corrections Officer Pleads Guilty To Drug Possession
(13) Ex-Deputies Denied Bail In Thefts
(14) OPED: Ex-Cons Need Not Apply

Cannabis & Hemp-

COMMENT: (15-18)
(15) West Hollywood Wants To Legalize Pot Use
(16) New County Marijuana Ordinance Raises Enforcement Questions
(17) New Lobbying Group Presses For Medical Marijuana Use
(18) Pot Activists' Hearing Hits Legal-aid Snag

International News-

COMMENT: (19-22)
(19) Military's Role In Massacre Stuns Colombians, Leader
(20) Cocaine Plants
(21) Australia Rightly Offended By Whiff Of Double Standards
(22) Tsar Admits: We've Lost The War On Drugs

* Hot Off The 'Net


    Cultural Baggage Radio Show
    Look For More No-Knock Drug Raids
    Resolution On The Medical Use Of Marijuana
    Commandos  And  Cocaine  -  The  Frontline  Of  The  War  On Drugs

* What You Can Do This Week


    MAP Media Activism Roundtable

* Letter Of The Week


     Prohibition Helps Promote Deadly Heroin / Stephen Young

* Feature Article


     Zarqawi And The Drug War / Jacob G. Hornberger

* Quote of the Week


     Marian Wright Edelman


THIS JUST IN    (Top)

(1) DRUG USERS FIND METH LOOPHOLES    (Top)

Determined drug users are finding loopholes in new laws that were designed to combat methamphetamine production, a government official told senators on Wednesday.

Congress and 39 states have passed laws restricting the sale of cold medications containing pseudoephedrine, a meth ingredient.  They limit the amount of medicines that individuals can buy, move the products behind pharmacy counters and require identification for purchase.

But Karen Tandy, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said she doesn't think the law "will combat 'smurfing.'"

"Smurfing" involves going to multiple stores to purchase enough pseudoephedrine or ephedrine to cook up a batch of meth.  The federal law only requires that drug stores keep a logbook of how much of the medication they sell to each individual.  Drugstores are not required to keep the records on computers, and there is no way to check an individual's purchases across state lines, Tandy said.

"The ability to adopt false IDs equally frustrates our ability to track that," she said at a hearing of two Senate Foreign Relations subcommittees.

John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, differed in his view.

Walters, the White House "drug czar," said there have been "dramatic declines" in domestic meth production, and they should be credited in part to the laws.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Thu, 22 Jun 2006
Source:   Times Record (AR)
Website:   http://www.swtimes.com/
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/3475
Author:   Maria Hegstad, Stephens Washington Bureau
Bookmark:   http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n813.a04.html


(2) CAN FREEDOM AND OPIUM COEXIST?    (Top)

Winning Afghan hearts and minds one poppy farmer at a time.

KABUL, Afghanistan--A military aide at NATO's headquarters in Afghanistan told me a story that explains how hard it will be to win the war here:

An Afghan farmer stops growing poppies and shifts to wheat.  But the Soviets destroyed the irrigation system 30 years ago, so he can't grow much.  There are no good roads, so he can't deliver what he has grown to market.  There's no money for silos, so he can't store the crop for another season.  His drug dealer pays a visit, says he doesn't want wheat, and tells the farmer to pay him $3,000--the sum he would have made by selling opium from the poppies--or he'll kidnap the farmer's daughter.  The farmer goes to the chief of police, who reminds him that the drug dealer is the regional governor's brother-in-law, and asks him, "Where's the $500 you owe me for protecting your property this year?"

It's the story, the aide said, of hundreds of farmers all over Afghanistan, and it's a story that is corrupting everything about Afghan life.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Wed, 21 Jun 2006
Source:   Slate (US Web)
Website:   http://www.slate.com/
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/982
Author:   Fred Kaplan
Bookmark:   http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n809.a03.html


(3) BOY, 3, HOSPITALIZED AFTER EATING LSD-LACED CANDY    (Top)

CEDAR PARK - The mother of a 3-year-old boy was arrested after her son ate candies laced with the hallucinogenic drug LSD during a weekend party.

Ashli Rene Freas, 22, was charged with child endangerment on Monday after taking her son to the hospital.  She posted $10,000 bond and was released Tuesday.

According to a police affidavit, Freas and her boyfriend took her son to a party at an apartment.  They went outside, leaving the boy inside with another adult.

The man who leased the apartment noticed that his roll of SweeTarts, which had been laced with the drug, was open and that nine pieces were missing.

Freas took her son home and called friends to come over.  Police said a friend, not Freas, called 911 after the boy had been hallucinating for more than an hour.

Chris Van Deusen, spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, said the state has been granted temporary custody of the boy, who will be placed in a foster home when released from the hospital.

Pubdate:   Wed, 21 Jun 2006
Source:   Associated Press
Continues:   http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/3990397.html


(4) A CRUSADING DA AND DRUG REFORM    (Top)

Rather than focus on the whipping that Congressional Democrats took on the pro-war resolution in Washington, let us go instead upstate to Albany and look at a Democrat who fought back when set upon by the right-wing attack dogs.

David Soares, the Albany district attorney, attracted attention when he became the first law enforcement official in decades to win an election by charging that his opponent was too tough on crime.  He ran against the Rockefeller drug laws.  The incumbent, an old-line Albany Democrat, Paul Clyne, had a reputation as a tough DA.  But he lost in the primary to a coalition of blacks, gays, reformers, and the Working Families Party.  At 35, Soares, a former junior member of the DA's office, was given no chance of winning, but he carried the primary with a whooping 62 percent of the vote.

Since he was elected in 2004, he's had run-ins with the police over investigations of excessive force and raised anxiety levels when he started an official corruption unit, but these brouhahas were minor compared to the one that started after his a speech at a harm reduction conference in Vancouver, British Columbia.  Harm reduction is the name for the public health approach to drug control.  It's most famous programs in New York City are needle exchanges which increase the supply of sterile needles and reduced needle sharing to stanch the spread of the AIDS virus.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Thu, 22 Jun 2006
Source:   Gay City News
Author:   Nathan Riley
Continues:   http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn_525/acrusadingdaanddrug.html


WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW    (Top)

Domestic News- Policy


COMMENT: (5-9)    (Top)

A story trickled out of Bridgeport, Connecticut this week ending with the mayor, John Fabrizi, tearfully confessing to violating the very ethics policy he had signed into law.  Even though others involved in the FBI investigation have been criminally charged, the mayor has only received an apology from an U.S.  Attorney for inadvertently leaking the information.

A Sentencing Project study dispelled our alleged "meth epidemic" by revealing "two-10ths of 1 percent of the U.S.  population" actually use the substance.  It's a shame that so many cold and sinus sufferers will continue to be given the third degree when buying their meds.

One of the reasons urine testing doesn't increase safety in the workplace is that it does not detect current cannabis 'intoxication' levels - it merely shows prior use.  The Michigan state Supreme Court has ruled that this faulty method can now be used to determine drugged-driving!


(5) CELL PHONES LINK FABRIZI TO SUSPECT    (Top)

Mayor's Phone Records Show 13 Calls To Accused Cocaine Dealer In 04

BRIDGEPORT -- Though Mayor John M.  Fabrizi said last month that he didn't know Shawn Fardy "personally," his cell phone records show he called the accused cocaine dealer at least 13 times between October and December 2004.  It's also the same time that Fardy is caught on a FBI wiretap placing a cocaine order "in code" to his accused drug connection, Juan Marrero, saying it's urgent that he get back to him because Fardy has a lot of anxious customers.  Marrero, who was arrested on Feb.  19, 2005, for narcotics trafficking, "regularly provided cocaine to Fardy who would in turn distribute cocaine to his own customers," Juan Gonzalez Jr., a member of the FBI Safe Streets Task Force, states in Fardy's arrest affidavit.

Fabrizi also failed to mention that as a justice of the peace he performed Fardy's marriage to Lori Lasorso in July 6, 2001, according to city records.

Another alleged link between Fabrizi and Fardy surfaced in documents filed in U.S.  District Court on Thursday in connection with a sweeping federal investigation into drug dealing in southwestern Connecticut.  Accused drug kingpin Juan Marrero told the FBI that Fardy, a Democratic Town Committee member, said he had a video showing Fabrizi using cocaine, according to the documents.

Marrero also said that he once provided Fardy with 15.5 grams of cocaine after Fardy told him that "Fabrizi was coming over" and "needed a hit," the documents said.

"I've made some poor choices in my personal life.  It's human. I've never claimed to be a choir boy," Fabrizi said last week, responding to the allegations.  Pressed on what the choices were, Fabrizi would only say: "They were poor choices on a social level & They were random poor decisions that were of a personal nature to me."

Fabrizi has not been charged with any crime.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sun, 18 Jun 2006
Source:   Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT)
Copyright:   2006 MediaNews Group, Inc
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/574
Author:   Marian Gail Brown and Bill Cummings, Staff writers
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n797/a06.html


(6) MAYOR ADMITS COCAINE USE IN SPEECH TO CITY EMPLOYEES    (Top)

BRIDGEPORT -- Amid a few boos and much stronger applause, Mayor John M.  Fabrizi on Tuesday stood before more than 200 city employees and residents and admitted he used cocaine in the past.

[snip]

Referring specifically to his past drug use, Fabrizi said flatly, "Over the course of a number of years I abused alcohol and used cocaine occasionally."

Admitting he used cocaine during his time in office as both City Council president and later as mayor, he said he has not used drugs in 18 months.

Tears running down his cheeks, Fabrizi said he sought help for a drug addiction and had hoped that he could handle it privately.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Wed, 21 Jun 2006
Source:   Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT)
Copyright:   2006 MediaNews Group, Inc
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/574
Author:   Bill Cummings
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n805/a01.html


(7) PROSECUTORS APOLOGIZE TO MAYOR IN CONNECTICUT    (Top)

BRIDGEPORT, Conn.  -- Federal prosecutors inadvertently filed a court document saying the mayor of Connecticut's largest city had used cocaine, but after a newspaper reported it Friday, they took the unusual step of apologizing to the mayor and had the document sealed.

[snip]

Fabrizi was named in a summary of an FBI interview with Juan Marrero, who faces cocaine-trafficking charges.  Marrero said an associate told him of a videotape of Fabrizi using cocaine, according to the Connecticut Post, which reviewed the document.

U.S.  Attorney Kevin O'Connor said Friday that Fabrizi was not a target of the drug investigation.  He said FBI reports, which summarize statements made by witnesses but are not always corroborated, are typically filed under seal.

"We made a mistake here, and I apologize to the mayor and anybody else named there," O'Connor said in a telephone interview.  "That information should not have come out in that form and that manner."

Pubdate:   Sat, 17 Jun 2006
Source:   Washington Post (DC)
Copyright:   2006 The Washington Post Company
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n787/a09.html


(8) NATIONALLY, METH USE IS RARE, REPORT ASSERTS    (Top)

WASHINGTON- Methamphetamine use is rare in most of the United States, not the raging epidemic described by politicians and the news media, says a study by an advocacy group.

Meth is a dangerous drug but is among the least commonly used, Ryan King,= policy analyst for The Sentencing Project, wrote in a report issued Wednesday.  Rates of use have been stable since 1999, and among teenagers meth use has dropped, King said.

"The portrayal of methamphetamine in the United States as an epidemic spreading across the country has been grossly overstated," King said.  The Sentencing Project is a not-for-profit group that supports alternatives t o prison terms for convicted drug users and other criminals.

The report cites statistics compiled by the government to make its case, including a 2004 survey that estimated 583,000 people used meth in the past month, or 0.2 percent of the U.S.  population. Four times as many people use cocaine regularly, and 30 times as many use marijuana, King said.

A separate survey of high school students showed a 36 percent drop in met h use between 2001 and 2005.

Pubdate:   Thu, 15 Jun 2006
Source:   Arizona Daily Star (AZ)
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/23
Author:   Alexis Huicochea, Associated Press
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n772/a06.html


(9) COURT: TRACE OF POT IS ENOUGH    (Top)

Motorists Can Be Charged Even If Not Intoxicated

TRAVERSE CITY -- Any trace of marijuana in a driver's blood could mean stiff penalties after a crash if someone is injured and killed, even if the driver was not impaired, a sharply divided state Supreme Court ruled.

The decision came after the court considered two cases, including a Grand Traverse County case of a woman who lost control of her sport utility vehicle in snowy conditions on M-72 and crashed into a car. The crash killed a passenger in the car and left two girls, then 10 and 11 years old, paralyzed.

Delores Marie Derror faces charges of operating a vehicle under the influence of drugs causing death and three charges of causing serious injury.

In a reversal of a Court of Appeals decision that came last year, the Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision found that a metabolite of THC -- the psychoactive substance in marijuana -- found in a driver's blood is enough to support the charges, even though the THC metabolite does not indicate intoxication.

In a decision written by Justice Maura D.  Corrigan and signed by justices Clifford W.  Taylor, Robert P. Young, Jr., and Stephen J. Markman, the court found that the Legislature's intent was to criminalize driving with any amount of a schedule 1 controlled substance in a person's body.

"It is irrelevant that a person who is no longer 'under the influence' of marijuana could be prosecuted under the statute," Corrigan wrote.  "If the Legislature had intended to prosecute only people who were under the influence while driving, it could have written the statute accordingly."

[snip]

The dissenting opinion, written by Justice Michael F.  Cavanagh and signed by justices Elizabeth A.  Weaver and Marilyn Kelly, called the majority's interpretation unconstitutional.

"This means that weeks, months, and even years after marijuana was ingested, and long after any risk of impairment has passed, a person cannot drive a car without breaking the law if a test can detect the presence of 11-carboxy-THC," Cavanagh wrote.

Pubdate:   Thu, 22 Jun 2006
Source:   Traverse City Record-Eagle (MI)
Copyright:   2006 The Traverse City Record-Eagle
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/1336
Author:   Patrick Sullivan
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n812/a03.html


Law Enforcement & Prisons


COMMENT: (10-14)    (Top)

As usual there are plenty of tarnished badge stories this week from both inside and out of our penal systems.  It is difficult to understand how people continue to believe in prohibition when it is not achieved in even the most controlled environments or by those who are in control.

An LA Times OPED describes how difficult it is for an x-felon to gain employment due to the prior-conviction question on most applications.  A few cities are trying to make the transition into society more likely by removing the question and giving applicants a chance to fully explain their past mistakes and present rehabilitation during interviews.


(10) BOOTY BEHIND BARS    (Top)

Inmates Bag Weapons, Drugs, Booze, Even Classified Government Material

FEDERAL PRISONS are brimming with a cornucopia of lethal weapons, hard-core drugs and homemade booze, and Corrections Canada brass are vowing to step up efforts to curb the contraband.

Documents obtained by Sun Media through Access to Information reveal that inmates have got their hands on everything from crack cocaine and heroin to explosives, hacksaws, pornography and classified government material.

[snip]

CSC spokeswoman Michele Pilon-Santilli says much contraband is seized at the door, but it's hard to detect because thousands of visitors, volunteers and contractors pass through each day.  Inmates also devise innovative ways to get drugs, from hiding them in body cavities to stuffing them inside tennis balls or dead birds tossed over the fence.

Pilon-Santilli says CSC is exploring improved technology to detect contraband and is encouraging inmates to take part in education, drug rehabilitation and harm-reduction programs.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sun, 18 Jun 2006
Source:   Ottawa Sun (CN ON)
Copyright:   2006 Canoe Limited Partnership
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/329
Author:   Kathleen Harris, Parliamentary Bureau
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n791/a03.html


(11) TWO DIE IN SHOOTOUT AT FEDERAL PRISON    (Top)

Third Person Hurt; FBI To Open Its Inquiry Today

A team of agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington D.C., will begin an investigation today of a shootout Wednesday that left two people dead and one seriously injured at the Federal Correctional Institution.

[snip]

At 7:42 a.m.  Wednesday, shots rang out at the prison after agents with the FBI and the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General arrived to arrest six correctional officers.  The officers were indicted Tuesday on multiple charges.  The allegations against them include giving contraband to inmates in exchange for sex and intimidating inmates in an effort to cover up the scandal.

[snip]

It wasn't the first time guards at the facility have been accused of having sex with an inmate.  In 2000, K.P. Price was sentenced to probation in connection with charges that he had sex with and impregnated an inmate.  The inmate later sued Price.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Thu, 22 Jun 2006
Source:   Tallahassee Democrat (FL)
Copyright:   2006 Tallahassee Democrat.
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/444
Author:   Jeff Burlew, Democrat Staff Writer
Note:   Daniela Velazquez, Debra Galloway, Julian Pecquet and Rebeccah
Cantley-Falk contributed to this report.
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n812/a06.html


(12) WESTCHESTER CORRECTIONS OFFICER PLEADS GUILTY TO DRUG POSSESSION    (Top)

A Westchester County corrections officer pleaded guilty yesterday to narcotics possession and could face up to four years in state prison, authorities said.

Timothy Connolly of Yonkers was charged with one count of second-degree hindering prosecution, a felony, and one count of seventh-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance, a misdemeanor, for interfering with a narcotics investigation.

As part of his plea bargain, Connolly must resign from the Westchester County Department of Correction on June 28, according to Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore.

[snip]

In December, another Westchester corrections officer was arrested for his involvement in a drug raid.  Michael Gray of Hawthorne was charged with first-degree promoting prison contraband and third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, officials said.

Pubdate:   Tue, 20 Jun 2006
Source:   Journal News, The (NY)
Copyright:   2006 The Gannett Company, Inc.
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/1205
Author:   Reka Bala
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/newscsa/v06/n807/a04.html


(13) EX-DEPUTIES DENIED BAIL IN THEFTS    (Top)

A federal judge ordered two former Robeson County deputies detained until they are tried on charges of stealing money seized in drug operations, threatening suspects and committing arson.

[snip]

Strickland, 39, and Taylor, 36, are accused of wrongdoing while working as sheriff's deputies from 1995 until they left the department -- for different reasons -- in 2003.  They were indicted by a grand jury after a 3 1/2-year state and federal investigation called Operation Tarnished Badge.  In arguing for their detention, Assistant U.S.  Attorney Wes Camden said hundreds of witnesses came forward with evidence against the deputies.  He said one witness received three threatening telephone calls shortly after the deputies were arrested: "Bang, bang, you're dead," "You can run but you can't hide," and, "You won't never make it to trial to testify." Camden said the caller used a voice-altering device when making the calls.  Before Gates ordered the men detained, Camden outlined the government's case against them.

In 1997, Camden said, Strickland and Taylor were among deputies who used violence to remove people from the home of Hubert Ray Locklear, who is now a convicted drug dealer, and then burned the home to the ground.  Lovin also participated in the arson, the indictment says.

The next year, Camden said, Taylor conspired with others to burn Lewis Vernon's home and pawnshop.  The home was occupied at the time. Camden said Taylor paid someone $1,600 for helping to burn the home and used about 25 pounds of marijuana as payment for burning the pawnshop.  The 29-page indictment shows that Taylor faces six counts of distributing cocaine or marijuana.

Strickland, Taylor and Lovin are accused of stealing tens of thousands of dollars from drug-operation seizures along Interstate 95.  The three are accused of falsifying vouchers to steal the money.

Strickland, who headed the sheriff's drug enforcement division, is accused of stealing $11,000 from Daniel Watts in a common-law robbery at Watts' home.  The indictment says that Strickland threatened to harm Watts.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Bradsher said Strickland and Taylor could face life in prison if convicted. But Strickland's lawyer, James Parish, said Strickland faces a maximum of 20 years.  Strickland is named in far fewer counts than Taylor.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Thu, 15 Jun 2006
Source:   Fayetteville Observer (NC)
Copyright:   2006 Fayetteville Observer
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/150
Author:   Greg Barnes
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n784/a01.html


(14) OPED: EX-CONS NEED NOT APPLY    (Top)

Why should a prison past keep someone from punching a time card?

BELIEVE IN the American credo, do you? Second chances, bootstraps, clean slate, all that? Good for you.  I do too. Let's see whether you still do after reading this.

A vast class of men and women -- maybe 13 million of them -- live under an unbreakable glass ceiling.  They committed a crime, and they helped to put that ceiling in place themselves.  But isn't there a statute of limitations on punishment? Can't someone help them turn that glass ceiling into a sunroof?

These people, ex-felons mostly, are out of the cell, but they're still in "the box" -- the little square on almost every job application that asks, "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?" Most of us breeze by it.  For those millions -- and another 650,000 who are paroled or released every year -- that box is the end of the line.  Check that box, and check off your chance for a job.

[snip]

Boston, Chicago and San Francisco officials are "blocking the box" -- taking the prior-conviction question off applications for city and county jobs and leaving it to be asked in a face-to-face interview, where the full story can be told.  Los Angeles city and county are thinking of doing the same thing.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Thu, 15 Jun 2006
Source:   Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright:   2006 Los Angeles Times
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author:   Patt Morrison
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/newscsa/v06/n807/a11.html


Cannabis & Hemp-


COMMENT: (15-18)    (Top)

Our first two stories this week illustrate the power of community-based activism and direct democracy.  First an L.A. Times article about West Hollywood, where the local city council has just passed a resolution making cannabis possession by adults a "low police priority," further suggesting that cannabis use should be largely ignored in order to allow police to focus on more pressing matters.  Next, news that the LaCrosse (MI) County Board has passed a cannabis possession ordinance allowing offenders to receive a $250 fine and citation rather than criminal charges.  The ordinance will be applicable to first time adult offenders found to be in possession of 25 grams or less of cannabis.

Next, a story from D.C.'s "The Hill" announcing the arrival of a new lobbying group in Washington: Americans for Safe Access.  Just a few months after opening up a Washington, D.C.  office, California-based ASA was hard at work lobbying conservative members of the House to support the upcoming Hinchey-Rohrbacher amendment that would stop the flow of federal funding for medical cannabis arrests and prosecutions in states that allow its use.

And lastly this week, news that Greg Williams - one of the co- defendants involved in the extradition hearings stemming from the DEA raid of Marc Emery Seeds - can't afford a lawyer for his case.  The Globe and Mail reports that Williams has been denied legal aid funding, and yet is scheduled to appear before the B.C.  Supreme Court on August 21st along with Michelle Rainey and Marc Emery in order to set a date for the extradition hearing.  And so goes the see-saw that is North American cannabis prohibition.


(15) WEST HOLLYWOOD WANTS TO LEGALIZE POT USE    (Top)

First West Hollywood officials required that pet owners be known as "pet guardians." Then they banned cat declawing and even considered outlawing pet cosmetic surgery.

On Monday, the Westside town famous for its novel municipal lawmaking took a stab at legalizing the recreational use of small amounts of marijuana.

But achieving that goal might prove difficult.

The City Council approved a resolution that urges the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department to make marijuana-related offenses a "low priority" that deputies should largely ignore.

In doing so, it became the first city in Southern California to request that its law enforcement agency look the other way at recreational pot us e and target only the sale of marijuana.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Tue, 20 Jun 2006
Source:   Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright:   2006 Los Angeles Times
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Authors:   Ashraf Khalil and Arin Gencer, Times Staff Writers
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n800.a04.html


(16) NEW COUNTY MARIJUANA ORDINANCE RAISES ENFORCEMENT QUESTIONS    (Top)

The La Crosse County Board last week passed a marijuana ordinance that would allow some low-risk, first-time offenders to be issued a citation and fine instead of facing criminal charges for possession of 25 grams or less of the drug.

The new ordinance raised many questions.  Here are some answers:

Q.  How many people are cited for first-time minor marijuana possession in La Crosse County courts each year?

A.  348 in 2005 and 307 in 2004, said Scott Horne, La Crosse County District Attorney.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Tue, 20 Jun 2006
Source:   La Crosse Tribune (WI)
Copyright:   2006 The La Crosse Tribune
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/229
Author:   Dan Simmons, La Crosse Tribune
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n801.a01.html


(17) NEW LOBBYING GROUP PRESSES FOR MEDICAL MARIJUANA USE    (Top)

On the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark decision allowing the federal government to overrule state medical-marijuana laws,= a new lobbying group is trying to persuade some of the House's most conservative members to protect the terminally ill's right to use the drug.

Americans for Safe Access (ASA), a nonprofit group funded by patients, doctors and researchers who support exploring marijuana's therapeutic potential, opened its Washington office last month and completed its firs t grassroots lobbying visits yesterday.

ASA's two lobbyists and seven members, dubbed "citizen experts," met Rep.= Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), who will offer his traditional medical-marijuan a amendment to the Justice Department
appropriations bill when it hits the floor next week, and 20 more House members, most from the California delegation.  California permits cannabis use for medical reasons, but the Supreme Court ruled last year in Gonzales v.  Raich that the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) could legally raid the supply of
state-sanctioned users.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Wed, 21 Jun 2006
Source:   Hill, The (US DC)
Copyright:   2006 The Hill
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/1509
Author:   Elana Schor
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n804.a07.html


(18) POT ACTIVISTS' HEARING HITS LEGAL-AID SNAG    (Top)

The possible extradition of Marc Emery to the United States to face charg es of distributing marijuana seeds is stalled because of a dispute about leg al funding for one of his two co-defendants.

Mr.  Emery, Michelle Rainey and Gregory Williams were arrested in July of 2005 at the request of the U.S.  government after an investigation by the U.S.  Drug Enforcement Agency.

They are accused of illegally selling marijuana seeds over the Internet a nd money laundering; if extradited and convicted, they face minimum sentence s of 10 years in prison.

A date for the extradition hearing has not yet been set because Mr. Williams, who is the manager of a website known as Pot TV, has indicated he cannot afford to hire a lawyer.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Thu, 22 Jun 2006
Source:   Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright:   2006, The Globe and Mail Company
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author:   Shannon Kari
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n810.a09.html


International News


COMMENT: (19-22)    (Top)

Prohibition continually fails to make things better, but prohibitionists forever think if they tinker with the formula, then it will work.  It isn't that prohibition is fundamentally flawed, unworkable, and contrary to human nature.  Oh no. Just a few 'bad apples' need to be removed, then the system will work, promise prohibitionists.  This week in Colombia, the proverbial bad apples in the Colombian Army slaughtered a unit of U.S.-trained elite anti-narcotics police, in what chief federal prosecutor-general Mario Iguaran described as "a crime -- a deliberate, criminal decision...  The army was doing the bidding of drug traffickers." The incident, which claimed the lives of ten police, comes at a time prohibitionists are under pressure for failing to stem the tide of Colombian cocaine.  The massacre, has according to the San Jose Mercury News, "has reinvigorated allegations that troops were involved in a wave of killings of civilians who the army claimed were rebels killed in combat."

Australians are upset at the double standards shown over the the twenty-year sentence of Schapelle Corby for allegedly smuggling cannabis into Indonesia, compared to the two year sentence served by Abu Bakir Bashir, mastermind of a Bali nightclub in 2002 which killed over 200 people.  Bakir's sentence was recently even further cut, leading the New Zealand's Daily News to opine this week that, "Schapelle Corby's 20-year term was not affected by the Indonesian spirit of forgiveness to its leading fomenter of terrorism and hatred against the infidel 'kaffirs'."

Drug czars and tsars are creatures of public relations, serving at the pleasure of the administrations and regimes who appoint them. They exist to "show" subjects of the regime that the regime means business, it means to "fight" those errant drugs.  So when Scotland's "drug tsar" Tom Wood last week came out and publicly admitted the drug war was "long lost", then other, more politically correct officials, rushed to the press stating that Wood (chairman of the Scottish Association of Alcohol and Drug Action Teams) was just all wrong.  "We can never as a nation be drug-free," noted Wood, "No nation can, so we must accept that.  So the message has to be more sophisticated than 'just say no' because that simple message doesn't work." Such is a "a very dangerous message to go out," cried Margaret Mitchell, Scottish Conservative justice spokeswoman.  Wood's message was made all the more dangerous as Wood ("a former deputy chief constable") comes from an unassailable law enforcement background.


(19) MILITARY'S ROLE IN MASSACRE STUNS COLOMBIANS, LEADER    (Top)

JAMUNDI, Colombia - On a dirt road dotted with country homes near the western city of Cali, three trucks carrying an elite squad of anti-narcotics police pulled up to the gates of a psychiatric center for a planned raid about an hour before dusk.

Within minutes, all 10 officers in the U.S.-trained unit were dead in a ferocious attack that stunned Colombians and severely embarrassed President Alvaro Uribe Velez just as he was savoring a crushing re-election victory.

The killers allegedly were no typical outlaws.  The gunmen firing from roadside ditches and from behind bushes were a platoon of 28 soldiers who unleashed a barrage of some 150 bullets and seven grenades, according to a ballistics investigator.

[snip]

In the hours after the May 22 ambush, the head of the army stood by his men, calling the massacre a tragic case of "friendly fire," with the soldiers probably having mistaken the armed police for leftist rebels known to operate in the area.

But the nation's chief criminal investigator quickly produced a more chilling motive.

"This was not a mistake, it was a crime -- a deliberate, criminal decision," chief federal prosecutor-general Mario Iguaran told a shocked nation June 1.  "The army was doing the bidding of drug traffickers."

[snip]

The allegation of a premeditated massacre follows findings by the United Nations and human rights groups that Colombia's military is behind a recent wave of disappearances and killings of unarmed civilians.

Together, the charges have badly damaged the credibility of an army on which Uribe has leaned heavily in a remarkably successful effort to reduce rebel attacks and kidnappings for ransom.  The ambush also drew a rare rebuke from Colombia's backers in the U.S.  Congress, which has approved $4 billion in mostly military and anti-narcotics aid since 2000.

"What took place in Jamundi changes your thought process," Iguaran, the chief federal prosecutor, said in an interview with the Associated Press.  "Previously I had the impression that the human rights abuses, if inevitable in every army throughout the world, wasn't a real problem in Colombia.  Now I have my doubts."

The scandal has reinvigorated allegations that troops were involved in a wave of killings of civilians who the army claimed were rebels killed in combat.

Just this month an army captain and three subalterns were arrested in Antioquia state on suspicion of masterminding the June 1 abduction of salesman Saul Manco Jaramillo, who was snatched from a taxi while with his girlfriend.  He hasn't been seen since.

In Washington, Rep.  James McGovern, D-Mass., proposed cutting U.S. aid to Colombia's military and police next year by $30 million, a symbolic 5 percent.

His proposal failed, although 174 members of Congress supported it. The vote coincided with the State Department's certification that the Colombian army is making progress in rooting out abuses within its ranks, despite a spotty record and a long history of abetting illegal, right-wing paramilitary groups.

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sun, 18 Jun 2006
Source:   San Jose Mercury News (CA)
Copyright:   2006 San Jose Mercury News
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/390
Author:   Joshua Goodman, Associated Press
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n796.a07.html


(20) COCAINE PLANTS    (Top)

BOGOTA, Colombia - A key component of the U.S.-backed war on drugs appears to be failing.

Despite record drug seizures and spraying of herbicides, production of the plant used to make cocaine increased by 8 percent in Colombia, to 330 square miles, the United Nations said Tuesday - even as authorities sprayed coca fields totaling 25 times the size of Manhattan.

Pubdate:   Thu, 22 Jun 2006
Source:   Ogdensburg Journal/Advance News (NY)
Copyright:   2006 Johnson Newspaper Corp.
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/689
Author:   Associated Press
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n811.a08.html


(21) AUSTRALIA RIGHTLY OFFENDED BY WHIFF OF DOUBLE STANDARDS    (Top)

Australians have every right to feel cheated about the blatant double standards of the Indonesian system of justice, says the Taranaki Daily News.  Even if Brisbane beauty therapist Schapelle Corby had willingly and audaciously tried to smuggle a boogie-board bag of marijuana through Customs on the Indonesian island of Bali, her 20-year jail sentence is massively out of kilter against the treatment of Abu Bakir Bashir.  He is the founder and director of Jemaah Islamiah, an Islamist school and terrorist training base, identified as such by the United Nations and thus targeted for global attention.  Its graduates were the bombers at Bali's Kuta Beach nightclubs in 2002, which killed 202 people, including 88 Australians and three New Zealanders.

[snip]

For his active support in this tally of bloodshed, Bashir was last year jailed for 30 months - a derisive term by Western standards.

This insult to those killed and wounded in the attacks was aggravated by its almost immediate reduction to 26 months.

Then this week he was freed for good behaviour and as part of an amnesty to commemorate Indonesia's 60th anniversary of independence.

In all, he served 14 months.

Schapelle Corby's 20-year term was not affected by the Indonesian spirit of forgiveness to its leading fomenter of terrorism and hatred against the infidel "kaffirs".

[snip]

Pubdate:   Fri, 16 Jun 2006
Source:   Daily News, The (New Zealand)
Copyright:   2006, Independent Newspapers Limited
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/1056
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n792.a06.html


(22) TSAR ADMITS: WE'VE LOST THE WAR ON DRUGS    (Top)

Scotland's drugs tsar has sparked a furious row by openly declaring that the war on drugs is "long lost".

Tom Wood, a former deputy chief constable, is the first senior law enforcement figure publicly to admit drug traffickers will never be defeated.

Wood said no nation could ever eradicate illegal drugs and added that it was time for enforcement to lose its number one priority and be placed behind education and deterrence.

But his remarks have been condemned by Graeme Pearson, director of the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA), who said he "strongly disagreed" with Wood.

The row has erupted as concern mounts about the apparent inability of police, Customs and other agencies to stem the flow of illegal drugs.  It was reported yesterday that an eight-year-old Scottish school pupil had received treatment for drug addiction.

And despite decades of drug enforcement costing millions of pounds, Scotland has one of the worst drug problems in Europe, with an estimated 50,000 addicts.  At least half a million Scots are believed to have smoked cannabis and 200,000 are believed to have taken cocaine.

Wood holds the influential post of chairman of the Scottish Association of Alcohol and Drug Action Teams, a body which advises the Executive on future policy.  The fact that Wood and Pearson are at loggerheads over the war on drugs is severely embarrassing for ministers.

Wood said: "I spent much of my police career fighting the drugs war and there was no one keener than me to fight it.  But latterly I have become more and more convinced that it was never a war we could win.

"We can never as a nation be drug-free.  No nation can, so we must accept that.  So the message has to be more sophisticated than 'just say no' because that simple message doesn't work.

"For young people who have already said 'yes', who live in families and communities where everybody says 'yes', we have to recognise that the battle is long lost."

He added: "Throughout the last three decades, enforcement has been given top priority, followed by treatment and rehabilitation, with education and deterrence a distant third.

"In order to make a difference in the long term, education and deterrence have to go to the top of the pile.  We have to have the courage and commitment to admit that we have not tackled the problem successfully in the past.  We have to win the arguments and persuade young people that drugs are best avoided."

Wood said he "took his hat off" to the SCDEA and added that it was essential to carry on targeting dealers.  He stressed he was not advocating the decriminalisation or legalisation of any drugs.

[snip]

And Scottish Conservative justice spokeswoman Margaret Mitchell said: "I accept Wood's sincerity, but this is a very dangerous message to go out.  I would never say that we have lost the war on drugs.  Things are dire, but we should never throw up the white flag."

[snip]

Pubdate:   Sun, 18 Jun 2006
Source:   Scotland On Sunday (UK)
Copyright:   2006 The Scotsman Publications Ltd.
Details:   http://www.mapinc.org/media/405
Author:   Marcello Mega and Kate Foster
Continues:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06.n791.a01.html


HOT OFF THE 'NET    (Top)

CULTURAL BAGGAGE RADIO SHOW

Tonight:   6/23/06 - Gary Jones on FBI death in Florida prison, Cliff
Thornton running for Gov in Conn.  5 Tin Foil Hats awarded to SCOTUS, John Tierney of NY Times

Audio:   http://drugtruth.net/cbaudio06/FDBCB_062306.mp3

Last:   6/16/06 - Eric Sterling of Criminal Justice Policy Foundation,
Terry Nelson of LEAP, Drug War Facts.

Audio:   http://drugtruth.net/cbaudio06/FDBCB_061606.mp3

Podcast:   http://www.csdp.org/news/news/csdpodcasts.xml

Listen Live Fridays 8:00 PM, ET, 7:00 CT, 6:00 MT & 5:00 PT at www.KPFT.org


LOOK FOR MORE NO-KNOCK DRUG RAIDS

More Collateral Damage in Wake of Supreme Court Ruling, Experts Warn

6/23/06

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/441/collateraldamage.shtml


RESOLUTION ON THE MEDICAL USE OF MARIJUANA

The Presbyterian Church USA passed a resolution in support of medical marijuana at its national meeting in Alabama this week.

http://72.54.6.218/Business/Business.aspx?iid=134


COMMANDOS AND COCAINE - THE FRONTLINE OF THE WAR ON DRUGS

A Reporter's Notebook from the Coca Fields of Colombia

By Jeffrey Kofman, ABC News, June 22, 2006

http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=2109321&page=1


WHAT YOU CAN DO THIS WEEK    (Top)

MAP MEDIA ACTIIVISM ROUNDTABLE

Tue.  June 27 /06, 09:00 p.m. ET

Join leading hearts and minds from the drug policy reform movement as we discuss ways to write Letters to the Editor that get printed.  We'll also discuss ways to get notable OPEDS printed in your local and in-state newspapers.

http://mapinc.org/resource/paltalk.htm


LETTER OF THE WEEK    (Top)

Prohibition Helps Promote Deadly Heroin

By Stephen Young

This is regarding "Deadly heroin mix tightens grip on city; Across Chicago, police and hospitals are racing to curb a surge in fatal overdoses, many of them linked to a potent blend of the drug and a powerful painkiller" ( Page 1, June 8).  How many thousands of words are going to be printed in the Tribune about overdose deaths from heroin before someone finally dares to type out the one word at the root of the whole problem?

The word is "prohibition."

Instead we get headlines like this one, which makes it sound like inanimate powder is making decisions for society.

In reality the problems are caused by market forces.

Prohibition makes drug sales remarkably lucrative, making dealers ruthless and often violent.

Prohibition encourages drug sellers to push the most potent form of a drug and to attempt to open markets with novel products ( even if those products are quite dangerous ).

A total lack of regulation means buyers never know exactly what they are getting.

Because they are breaking the law to feed their habits, many users avoid interactions with authorities, including doctors and other health-care workers; they may even be afraid to call an ambulance when they see fellow users overdosing.

The rising body count we see around the country is the fruit of prohibitionist labors, as was the spike in deaths due to tainted liquor during alcohol prohibition.

There are other ways to deal with heroin.  A program in Switzerland that distributed free heroin to addicts and gave them a place to use it nearly stopped overdose deaths completely, while many participants reduced their drug intake and some willingly entered treatment programs to get clean.

U.S.  officials like drug czar John Walters will protest that such programs send the wrong message.

The message Walters wants to send is that drug use leads to misery and death.

Thanks to the policies of prohibition, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Stephen Young

Pubdate:   Tue, 13 Jun 2006
Source:   Chicago Tribune (IL)
Referenced:   http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v06/n737/a07.html
Author:   Stephen Young


FEATURE ARTICLE    (Top)

Zarqawi And The Drug War

by Jacob G.  Hornberger

After several consecutive months of bad news for U.S.  officials - the Marine massacre at Haditha, the disclosure of secret CIA renditions and torture camps in former Soviet-bloc countries, the weekly deaths of American troops, and the daily kidnappings, beheadings, and suicide bombs in Baghdad - U.S.  officials and pro-occupation supporters received a big morale booster with the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, or as Australian Prime Minister John Howard put it, "a huge boost for anti-terrorist force s in Iraq."

But isn't this the same type of periodic morale booster that we've seen i n the war on drugs for the past 30 years? How many times have we seen feder al officials and the news networks over the years hyping the arrest or killi ng of some big drug lord?

Do you recall the capture of Manuel Noriega, the leader of Panama? U.S.  officials, as well as the mainstream news media, were totally hyped up during the military invasion of Panama to capture someone accused of bein g one of the primary drug dealers in the world - someone who, by the way, h ad been on the payroll of the CIA.  The news briefings and press coverage of the Panamanian invasion and capture of Noriega came close to matching tha t of the Zarqawi killing.  In fact, amidst all the hoopla, one could have ev en been forgiven for concluding that Noriega's capture finally meant that th e decades-long war on drugs would be finally over.

Alas, it was not to be.  There were always more drug dealers and drug lord s to go after.  There was also the perpetual need for ever-increasing federa l budgets to finance the continuation of the drug war.

Do you recall the famous Medellin Cartel, which operated out of Colombia in the 1970s and 1980s, and its leaders Pablo Escobar and Carlos Lehder? For years, the feds focused the public's attention on them, much as they do n ow with particular terrorists, suggesting that busting them would bring a "major blow" to the illegal drug trade.

Ultimately Escobar was killed, Lehder was incarcerated, and the Medellin Cartel was destroyed.  What happened? The feds simply moved on to new drug-war targets on which they focused the public's attention.  Even today - after more than 30 years of drug warfare - hardly a week goes by without some law-enforcement agency, either at the national, state, or local leve l, striking a "major blow" in the long-running drug war by making another bi g drug bust, an event that is then inevitably hyped by the local or nationa l news media.

No matter how many drug busts are made or drug lords arrested or killed, the drug war continues onward with no sign of it ever ending.

The reason is simple: It is the federal government's drug war itself that gives rise to the drug dealers and drug lords that it then gets all hyped up about busting.  Without the drug war, there would be no drug lords to bust because they'd all be out of business, much as booze lords went out of business with the end of Prohibition.

It's no different with the government's war on terrorism, where the killi ng of one terrorist simply produces more terrorists, which means that the wa r on terrorism, like the war on drugs, continues onward with no sign of its ever ending.

The reason is simple: It is the federal government's own interventionist foreign policy, including the death and destruction that arise from such policies as sanctions, invasions, and occupations, that give rise to the deep anger and hatred that then produces the terrorist blowback.

By dismantling America's overseas military empire, and restoring the noninterventionist foreign policy of a constitutional republic, the threa t of terrorism against the United States would disappear.

Thus, the American people have a choice to make, with respect not only to the war on drugs but also to the war on terrorism.  If they choose to continue such wars, they simply need to recognize that the result will be an endless supply of drug lords and terrorists and, therefore, perpetual war.  And as we continue to learn, there are enormous financial costs that come with such wars, to say nothing of ever-growing infringements on civi l liberties.

If, on the other hand, Americans want to eliminate the supply of drug lor ds and the supply of terrorists and restore a stable, prosperous, and free society to our land, there is but one way to accomplish that: by ending t he war on drugs as well as the U.S. government's interventionist foreign pol icy.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of the Future of Freedom Foundation - http://www.fff.org


QUOTE OF THE WEEK    (Top)

"You just need to be a flea against injustice.  Enough committed fleas biti ng strategically can make even the biggest dog uncomfortable and transform even the biggest nation." - Marian Wright Edelman


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