| July 4, 2008 #556 | ||||||||||
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Table of Contents
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THIS JUST IN (Top) | ||||||||||
(1) DRUG CARTELS WINNING THE EVIL WAR (Top) | ||||||||||
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Analysts Estimate That As Many As Half of Police Officers Paid by
Cartels | ||||||||||
MEXICO CITY - President Felipe Calderon has staked his reputation on
wiping out Mexico's drug violence but his campaign is in trouble as
trafficking gangs murder ever more people, target police and openly
recruit hitmen. | ||||||||||
Calderon's first move on taking power 18 months ago was to launch a bold $7-billion army-led assault on powerful drug cartels, vowing to wrest back control of violence-scarred northern border states. | ||||||||||
His army busts have put a string of senior smugglers behind bars and
captured truckloads of cocaine and cash. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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(2) MEASURE B ENFORCEMENT ON HOLD UNTIL COURT RULES (Top) | ||||||||||
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A tangle of lawsuits have brought enforcement of Measure B to a
temporary halt while county law enforcement officials await court
rulings. | ||||||||||
Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman said the Sheriff's Office would
be delaying enforcement of Measure B's new medical marijuana plant
limits until Mendocino County Superior Court Judge John Behnke rules
on the lawsuit filed by county residents George Hanamoto and Paula
Laguna. | ||||||||||
"County counsel asked that we hold off until the next hearing date,"
Allman said. | ||||||||||
Behnke is scheduled to hear the case July 25. He dismissed Hanamoto
and Laguna's first complaint on April 23, ruling that Measure B did
not violate the Compassionate Use Act, which set California's state
medical marijuana plant limits. | ||||||||||
Hanamoto and Laguna have since refiled their suit based on the
decision in People v. Kelly in which a California Appellate court
ruled that the state medical marijuana limits set by SB 420 were
unconstitutional. Measure B set the same limits. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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(3) TORONTO COPS FACE CHARGES IN GROW-OP RAIDS (Top) | ||||||||||
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2 Officers, 3 Prison Guards Arrested | ||||||||||
Two uniformed Toronto police constables face multiple criminal
charges, including organized-crime allegations, for their role in
what investigators describe as an elaborate marijuana-cultivation
operation that ran for at least two years and involved dozens of
"grow houses." | ||||||||||
In early morning raids that scooped up a total of 23 people, mostly
in York Region, three prison guards who work at the Toronto West
Detention Centre were also arrested, as was a real estate agent
accused of buying properties in York Region for the express purpose
of turning them into marijuana factories. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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(4) WHO: NZ SECOND TO U.S. IN CANNABIS, COCAINE USE (Top) | ||||||||||
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New Zealand ranks second only to the United States in a scientific survey of illegal cocaine and cannabis use in 17 countries. | ||||||||||
The study uses data from the countries participating in the World
Health Organisation's world mental health survey. | ||||||||||
It found that 16.2 per cent of people in the United States reported
having used using cocaine at some time. | ||||||||||
The second highest level of cocaine use was in New Zealand, where
4.3 per cent of people reported having used the drug. | ||||||||||
Cannabis use was highest in the U.S. (42.4 per cent), followed by
New Zealand (41.9 per cent). | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW (Top) | ||||||||||
Domestic News- Policy | ||||||||||
COMMENT: (5-9) (Top) | ||||||||||
The Los Angeles Daily News ran several stories last week about
newborn babies being taken from mothers due to false positives on
drug tests. The stories are so important that we excerpt three of
the stories here, and strongly recommend the full stories to anyone
with time to read them. In addition to the overview and a shocking
look at the high numbers of false positives, there is a
heartbreaking story of one family who paid the ultimate price for
this cruel policy. | ||||||||||
Also last week, trouble in the U.S. peyote market; and one Ohio
town is having a conversation in the wake of drug sweeps at a local
school. | ||||||||||
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(5) DRUG WAR ON MOMS (Top) | ||||||||||
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Toddler, Newborn Wrongly Torn From Family in Stepped-Up Screening of
Pregnant Women | ||||||||||
Awakened by late-night pounding and his doorbell ringing, Palmdale resident Jesus Bejarano found a social worker and two sheriff's deputies demanding he turn over his 20-month-old daughter, Kelly. | ||||||||||
The social worker said Bejarano's 29-year-old wife, Cheila Herrera, had tested positive for amphetamines and PCP at Antelope Valley Hospital after giving birth to the couple's son a week earlier. Their son, Jesse, who was born prematurely and was still at the hospital, had already been placed in protective custody. | ||||||||||
"It was terrible," Herrera said of the Feb. 14 ordeal. "It was
pretty shocking to us. We didn't know what to do or say. We called
my mom, saying, 'They are taking our baby away.' | ||||||||||
"We started calling friends, but no one we know has gone through
something like this. We were crying. We thought, oh my God, they
took our baby." | ||||||||||
Last month, the couple sued Los Angeles County government for
unspecified damages, saying Herrera had never used drugs and the
social worker ignored a battery of expensive tests that proved the
initial drug-test results were wrong. | ||||||||||
Experts say the case highlights widespread problems with
California's system of drug-testing pregnant mothers, using
urine-screening tests that produce false-positives up to 70 percent
of the time, and inconsistent compliance by hospitals with a state
law designed to regulate the process. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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(6) FALSE POSITIVES ARE COMMON IN DRUG TESTS ON NEW MOMS (Top) | ||||||||||
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Up to 70 Percent of Initial Checks Can Be Wrong | ||||||||||
Hospitals' initial urine-screening drug tests on pregnant women can
produce a high rate of false positives - particularly for
methamphetamine and opiates - because they are technically complex
and interpretation of the results can be difficult, some experts
say. | ||||||||||
Tests for methamphetamine are wrong an average of 26 percent - and
possibly up to 70 percent - of the time, according to studies by the
University of Kansas Medical Center, U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration and the American Association for
Clinical Chemistry. | ||||||||||
And even the gold standard of maternal drug testing - meconium, a baby's first stool that is analyzed to assess a mother's drug usage over the past four or five months - can produce false positives for methamphetamine up to 70 percent of the time, said Dr. Barry Lester, a national expert on drug-exposed babies and a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Brown University in Providence, R.I. False positives can be triggered by everything from cold medicines and diet pills to poppy seeds, according to a January study by the University of Kansas published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. | ||||||||||
The study found cold remedy compounds, herbal medications and
doctor-prescribed medicines for anxiety or depression often produce
false positives for methamphetamines. | ||||||||||
On average, the study found initial urine screens for | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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(7) SEIZED BABY DIES IN FOSTER CARE (Top) | ||||||||||
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Mother Accused of Using Cocaine, Marijuana | ||||||||||
Growing up in Los Angeles County's foster care system, Elizabeth
Espinoza is sure of one thing: A baby needs its mother. | ||||||||||
Espinoza, who was separated from her own mother when she was young
because of neglect, also had her newborn baby taken by the
foster-care system when she tested positive for marijuana and
cocaine at the hospital after giving birth. | ||||||||||
Just three months later, the baby, Gerardo, died when his foster
mother strapped him into a car seat, took him to a neighbor's home
and left him in the car seat on a bed, according to a lawsuit filed
against the county's Department of Children and Family Services
seeking unspecified damages. | ||||||||||
The autopsy listed the cause of Gerardo's death as unknown, but
noted that "airway compromise" could not be ruled out and that a car
seat is not "a proper sleep environment for an infant." | ||||||||||
"The last time I saw him I hugged him," said Espinoza, 21, of Los
Angeles. "I felt something different. I felt like he was trying to
catch his breath. I think he missed his mother. | ||||||||||
"A lot of people say it, and I believe it myself: A baby should not
be taken away from their mother." | ||||||||||
Principal Deputy County Counsel Rosemarie Belda said the county had
not been served with the lawsuit yet and could not comment on
pending litigation. | ||||||||||
The case began two years ago when DCFS took 1-year-old Alexis R.
Martinez and her newborn baby brother, Gerardo, from Espinoza after
the positive drug test, according to Beverly Hills attorney L.
Wallace Pate, who is representing Espinoza. | ||||||||||
The suit alleges DCFS took Espinoza's children based on false and
perjured allegations that she was incapable of caring for her
children because of the positive drug test. | ||||||||||
Espinoza says a county social worker took her children despite her insistence she didn't take drugs. Gerardo had tested negative for drugs and had no signs of withdrawals, according to the lawsuit. | ||||||||||
Espinoza enrolled in a drug treatment program and had monitored
visits with her children until Gerardo's death two months later on
Aug. 2, 2006. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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(8) PEYOTE PITY (Top) | ||||||||||
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For South Texas Vendors of the Ceremonial Drug, Business Is
Dwindling | ||||||||||
A sign in front of Mauro Morales' Rio Grande City home announces his
business for everyone to see. "Peyote Dealer," it proclaims in large
block letters. | ||||||||||
Each day, drivers passing by slow down for double takes and some
even pull over, get out and snap photos. | ||||||||||
Who can blame them?, Morales asks with a mischievous grin. | ||||||||||
He is, after all, part of a dwindling fraternity. | ||||||||||
The slight, 65-year-old Rio Grande City man is one of only three
people in the United States - all in Starr and Webb counties -
-authorized to harvest and sell the psychedelic cactus. | ||||||||||
But as overharvesting continues to threaten peyote's growth range in
Starr County, he may not have much of a business for long - and
Native Americans may lose their access to a substance that drives
their religion. | ||||||||||
"It used to be you'd go out for a couple of hours and you'd find 500
to 1,000 plants," he said. "Now, you go out for six hours and you
don't come back with much." | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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(9) 30 ATTEND MEETING ON CANTON SCHOOL DRUG SWEEPS (Top) | ||||||||||
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CANTON - - The 30 or so people who attended an informational meeting
Monday on last month's controversial drug sweeps at Canton middle
and high schools fell into two camps: those who support it and those
who believe it went too far. | ||||||||||
"I applaud the superintendent for going forward with this search,"
said Sandy Sarmuk, a grandmother who is also a retired teacher. "The
presence of the police in the building should be [a] comfort to
every kid in the school." | ||||||||||
Others, including Elisa L. Villa, the mother and lawyer who organized the meeting, sharply disagreed. In their view, the searches chipped away at students' civil liberties, created a climate of fear and violated the school board's policy, which permits such searches only in response to a specific concern. | ||||||||||
Moreover, "everyone knows these things don't work," said Dr. Edward Kavle, a pediatrician in town. An educational campaign about the dangers of substance abuse and support for students coping with drugs and alcohol would prove far more effective, he said. | ||||||||||
But others cautioned against vilifying the police. "This is legal,
what they did," said Peter Getz, a retired Hartford police officer
who lives in town. Instead of being traumatized by the presence of
drug-sniffing police dogs, his daughter thought they were "cool," he
said. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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Law Enforcement & Prisons | ||||||||||
COMMENT: (10-13) (Top) | ||||||||||
At least some former law and order conservatives are seeing the
folly of the drug war, according to a story in the New York Times.
But in Ohio, at least one law and order judge still doesn't get it
at all. A different judge in Indiana is trying to sort out the mess
made by police who appear to have used money confiscated from
alleged drug deals as a general slush fund. And, finally, mark my
words, when semi-subs are outlawed, only outlaws will have
semi-subs. | ||||||||||
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(10) UNLIKELY ALLIES ON A FORMER WEDGE ISSUE (Top) | ||||||||||
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During his years as the attorney general of Virginia, Mark Earley periodically visited his state's prisons. In a very real way, he was looking at the human consequences of his career as a public servant, the men and women jailed for fixed, lengthy sentences without parole under laws Mr. Earley had endorsed. Not surprisingly, many inmates pulled back a few steps when introduced to their visitor. | ||||||||||
Eventually, though, Mr. Earley took their measure. What he
discovered, he recalled in a recent interview, were "not the Ted
Bundys, the mass murderers" but "kids who reminded me of my kids,
serving 5, 10, 15 years for drugs and going out and being rearrested
again." | ||||||||||
In those moments of recognition, Mr. Earley began a startling
transformation from a tough-on-crime crusader to an advocate for
prison reform and a prominent critic of the very type of drug laws
he had formerly promoted. Since leaving the attorney's general's
position in 2001, Mr. Earley has taken his new cause to a position
as president of Prison Fellowship Ministries, a national
organization based in the Washington suburbs. | ||||||||||
Motivated both by religious faith and a secular analysis of public
policy, Mr. Earley and the fellowship's vice president, Pat Nolan, a
former California legislator, have regularly testified before
Congress, written op-ed essays and given speeches on behalf of
efforts to roll back mandatory-minimum sentencing, equalize
penalties for crack and powder cocaine, and offer nonviolent
offenders treatment rather than incarceration, among other
initiatives. | ||||||||||
On the surface a redoubt of the religious right, firmly rooted in
evangelical Christianity and conservative politics, the Prison
Fellowship Ministries' liberal position on such issues underscores
the increasing irrelevance of such rigid categories. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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(11) ANOTHER BRUSH WITH THE LAW (Top) | ||||||||||
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Randy Brush got some solid whiffs of what ails America in recent
years, after serving nearly a year of a three-year prison sentence
for getting caught growing four marijuana plants on the roof of his
rural Wellsville home ( "Just What the Doctor Ordered," Jan. 24,
2007). The middle-aged, now-divorced father of three teens was
adamant: He was using the home pharmacy to calm the effects of a
multitude of medical ailments and pharmaceutical side-effects:
Arthritis. High blood pressure. Depression. And on... | ||||||||||
But try telling that, then or now, to Republican Judge C. Ashley
Pike of Columbiana County, who openly called Brush a lowlife in
court for quixotically assuming the medical cannabis defense and
attracting so many potheads to the courthouse. | ||||||||||
At the time, Brush blamed his then-wife for tipping off the authorities. He's not sure who's responsible this time for why the DEA rammed through the doors of his new Columbiana County apartment on May 28 with a fresh search warrant from Pike, more than a year after he was released from a halfway house in Cleveland. | ||||||||||
"They got me down and handcuffed me and were screaming, "Where is it? Where is it?' and I was like, "I'm not helping you out this time around, guys,'" the 48-year-old recalled via phone Monday while enjoying a camping trip with two of his three kids. "I had two plants but I destroyed them before they could get to them." | ||||||||||
In all, Brush estimates the feds found "not even an ounce" for their
troubles - a weight he believes will prevent a grand jury from
levying new felony charges. That doesn't mean he doesn't fear the
worst. | ||||||||||
"This county is ruled by Republicans," Brush says. "[Pike] was angry
I got out early. He wanted me sitting in jail. But if I go to court
again, I promise a show. I won't pay a fine or court costs or
anything. I'll go to jail. It doesn't bother me. I'm going to have
them wheel me everywhere I have to go, too [due to arthritis]. You
know how much I'll cost them?" | ||||||||||
Brush says his medical conditions cost the state as much as $250,000
for his 10 months of incarceration, including an appendectomy that
was long-overlooked because medical staff didn't believe his
complaints of lingering pain. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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(12) JUDGE WANTS BANKING RECORDS IN FORFEITURE PROBE (Top) | ||||||||||
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MUNCIE -- Judge Richard Dailey wants records reflecting all deposits
and withdrawals -- and copies of cashed checks -- from a First
Merchants Bank account that contained funds confiscated from accused
drug dealers by the Muncie-Delaware County Drug Task Force and the
county prosecutor's office. | ||||||||||
The Delaware Circuit Court 2 judge on Friday issued court orders for
those banking records, along with those of two city government
accounts and tax forms reflecting payments to Delaware County
Prosecutor Mark McKinney, Deputy Prosecutor Eric Hoffman and former
Deputy Prosecutor Louis Denney, who filed the civil lawsuits that
led to the forfeitures. | ||||||||||
Dailey -- who in recent weeks has conducted a series of hearings on
what the judge referred to in Friday's orders as "allegations of
fraud upon the court in civil drug forfeiture cases" -- also issued
an order for "all information" on federal grants that city
government, the DTF and the county sheriff's department "used for
drug interdiction or enforcement, in Muncie, Ind., from 1996 to
present..." | ||||||||||
In one of Friday's orders, Dailey wrote that McKinney had
"repeatedly asserted to this court that he may enter into
confidential agreements and dispose of drug forfeiture funds without
court adjudication..." | ||||||||||
The judge wrote that through his own investigation he had determined that grants from the U.S. Department of Justice required that all forfeitures "must first be adjudicated in state courts." | ||||||||||
In ordering that he be given copies of the banking and tax records,
Dailey also noted testimony that McKinney last year received a
personal check for $8,413 from an auctioneer who had sold property
seized from suspected drug dealers, and that a tax form reflects the
city in 2007 paid the prosecutor more than $5,000, also in drug
forfeiture funds. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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(13) SEMI-SUBS, USED TO CARRY DRUGS, MAY BE OUTLAWED (Top) | ||||||||||
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U.S. Bill Surfaces to Target | ||||||||||
TAMPA -- Semi-submarines are plying the eastern Pacific and
Caribbean packed with tons of cocaine. | ||||||||||
Just a few years ago a novelty, the vessels, which travel 99 percent below the surface of the sea, are becoming the method of choice for drug lords to smuggle cocaine from Colombia, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Ruddy, who oversees "Operation Panama Express," an international drug investigation headquartered in Tampa. | ||||||||||
The vessels are becoming so common, a bill has been introduced in
Congress to make it a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison
just to be on one, regardless of whether there are drugs onboard.
That's because authorities think the only purpose of the vessels is
to smuggle drugs. | ||||||||||
"This is our new challenge in the maritime counter-drug mission,"
Ruddy said. | ||||||||||
Today, the bleary-eyed crew of the fifth semi-submersible
interdicted by investigators appeared in U.S. District Court here.
Crews of four other vessels interdicted since 2006 have all pleaded
guilty to drug trafficking. Those who have been sentenced have
received prison terms ranging from nine years to 17 years and six
months. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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Cannabis & Hemp- | ||||||||||
COMMENT: (14-17) (Top) | ||||||||||
As noted in the last issue of this newsletter, a recent drug war
surge in California has caused at least one columnist to question
federal priorities. | ||||||||||
Yet another cannabis consumer has fallen victim to a grossly
disproportional paramilitary police raid. | ||||||||||
The depiction of "cannabis culture" in the popular media is a double-
edged sword, normalizing cannabis and humanizing growers, sellers and
consumers on the one hand, while fostering and perpetuating
stereotypes on the other. | ||||||||||
Yet another study has concluded that cannabis is less harmful than
alcohol and tobacco, which is rather like saying that the Earth is
smaller than the Sun ... by several orders of magnitude. Do we
really need more studies on this subject? | ||||||||||
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(14) AS FIRES RAGE, THE LAW PROTECTS US FROM MARIJUANA (Top) | ||||||||||
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Almost anybody who's lived in California for even a few years knows
from where that acrid smell in the air and the yellow haze in the sky
have been coming. And we know the scary feeling that comes with them.
The only exceptions are the narcs, state and federal, who think it's
marijuana smoke. | ||||||||||
As California's wildfires overwhelm the resources to fight them,
federal and state agents - hundreds of them - have been sweeping
through Humboldt County and a sliver of Mendocino County in pursuit of
commercial pot growers. | ||||||||||
An FBI spokesman was quoted in the Eureka Times-Standard last week as
saying that 450 agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and
other federal agencies would be executing 27 search warrants in what
they called "Operation Southern Sweep." But, he said, they wouldn't be
going after medical marijuana dispensaries or their patients. "We're
not here to set policy or interfere with California's compassionate
use." | ||||||||||
There's good reason for that forbearance. The investigation of the pot
growers, as in the past, was initiated by the California Justice
Department's Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement and involved state drug
agents as well as the California Highway Patrol, county sheriff's
deputies, and local cops. Years ago, Attorney General - later governor
- George Deukmejian, wearing a flak jacket, himself choppered in to
lead one of the raids. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
When the feds act alone, they don't have to bother with fine lines, or
worry about whether the cancer, multiple sclerosis and glaucoma
patients they bust or whose property they seize will now live with
even more pain and difficulty negotiating their already tough lives.
Federal law pre-empts state law, and federal law, still stuck in the
absolutism of the G-man era, says pot is a terrible drug now and
forever. | ||||||||||
The link between the wildfires and the pot raids is more than
symbolic. That's a no-brainer. If more resources were diverted from
the drug wars to things that really endangered the community,
firefighters would have gotten some of the help last week they were
begging for. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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(15) REEFER MADNESS: TRASH SEARCH LED TO DEADLY POLICE RAID (Top) | ||||||||||
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What prompted Pembroke Pines police to conduct a dawn paramilitary
raid that ended with the June 12 shooting death of homeowner Vincent
Hodgkiss? | ||||||||||
In its application for a narcotics search warrant, police cited an
anonymous complaint of drug dealing, surveillance of high-turnover
visitors and two searches of Hodgkiss' trash by detectives, who found
scraps of paper with handwritten numbers and trace amounts of "green,
leafy substance" that tested positive for marijuana. | ||||||||||
Police conducted the raid with its Special Response Team (similar to
SWAT) two days after Broward Circuit Judge Dale Cohen approved the
search warrant. | ||||||||||
As a result of the investigation, police recovered about an ounce and a half of pot -- and a 46-year-old father ended up dead. | ||||||||||
Is this what America really wants from its War on Drugs? | ||||||||||
"None of this makes sense," said Roger Scott, an Orlando defense attorney who heads the Florida chapter of NORML, which advocates the legalization of marijuana. "Do you realize that right now prisons are releasing violent criminals early to make room for drug offenders?" | ||||||||||
Instead of relaxing marijuana laws, the Florida Legislature keeps
getting tougher. This year, it approved a new law increasing penalties
for marijuana growhouses. Those possessing more than 25 plants would
get mandatory prison time, up to 30 years if children live at the
house. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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(16) POT: NOW STARRING IN YOUR FAVORITE MOVIE (Top) | ||||||||||
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Judd Apatow had a problem. The test screenings for his movie The 40-
Year-Old Virgin were killing. But the jokes that were really landing
were the ones featuring pot. Sophomoric, Cheech-and-Chong-y cheap yuks
about weed. But funny ones. He called his old friend Garry Shandling
to ask whether he should leave them in. They went with the only
responsible choice: comedy comes first. | ||||||||||
The film opened, and nobody made a big deal about the pot. Nor did
Apatow get called out when the lead character in his next big hit,
Knocked Up, was an inveterate stoner. And on Aug. 8, Pineapple
Express, which he produced, arrives; it's named after a particularly
potent (and fictional) strain of Cannabis sativa. | ||||||||||
Time was, pot movies were like Grateful Dead concerts or parent-
teacher conferences: you had to be wasted to enjoy them. And the genre
had two tones, either apoplectic or apologist. But this summer is
bringing us a bumper crop of movies and TV shows--Pineapple Express,
The Wackness, Humboldt County and Showtime's Weeds among them--with
THC in their DNA. Not stoner stories so much as plots that happen to
involve pot, they ask, 37 years after the war on drugs was declared,
whether there's a place in the culture for treatments of pot that
neither criminalize nor celebrate it. | ||||||||||
Marijuana is growing onscreen while use of the drug, which has been
widespread for nigh on 40 years, is flattening. About 6% of Americans
smoked it regularly in 2002, and about 6% of them lit up in 2006. And
no, it's not the same 15 million stoners. Many users tend to pick it
up in their teens, then drop it in their 20s. And 50% of them don't
use any other drugs. Selling it is still illegal, but the pot dealer
is no longer the panic-inducing bogeyman he used to be. In movieland,
he's become a stock character, about as threatening as the hot woman's
quirky roommate. | ||||||||||
But funnier. "I'm always a proponent for the comedy involved in people
who are under the influence," says Apatow. "I just think it's fun
watching anyone acting like an idiot." Alcohol, the comic intoxicant
of choice for generations of filmmakers, is now too strongly
associated in people's minds with spousal battery and drunk driving to
be truly hilarious. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
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(17) CANNABIS SAFER THAN ALCOHOL OR TOBACCO, SAYS STUDY (Top) | ||||||||||
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CANNABIS is less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco, according to a
major review published by the EU drugs agency. | ||||||||||
The report said most users cease smoking cannabis by their late 20s or
early 30s and that the vast majority did not experience any negative
effects. | ||||||||||
"On every comparison of dangerousness we have considered, cannabis is
at or near the bottom in comparison with other psychoactive
substances," said author Robin Room, in an analysis contained in a
700-page EU report on cannabis. | ||||||||||
The report, A Cannabis Reader: Global Issues and Local Experiences,
was published yesterday by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs
and Drug Addiction to coincide with international day against drug
abuse and illicit trafficking. | ||||||||||
Mr Room examined a range of research on the health effects of legal
and illegal drugs, which compared the substances based on
dangerousness or harm, degree of intoxication and dependence. These
found: | ||||||||||
* Harm: Ecstasy and cocaine highest, followed by alcohol and heroin,
with cannabis lowest. | ||||||||||
* Intoxication: Alcohol highest, heroin next, then cocaine, cannabis
fourth. | ||||||||||
* Dependence: Tobacco highest, heroin second, cocaine third, alcohol
fourth and cannabis lowest. | ||||||||||
The study follows a report this week by the National Advisory
Committee on Drugs, which highlighted sharp rises in cannabis use in
many parts of Ireland. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
International News | ||||||||||
COMMENT: (18- ) (Top) | ||||||||||
To demonstrate their drug-fighting zeal, communist officials in
China had six "drug dealers" executed last week. While China
regularly executes ostensible drug "dealers," the executions have
little effect. "The number of drug-related cases have been growing,"
admitted Supreme People's Court spokesman Ni Shouming. With China's
growing economic prowess comes a growing smorgasbord of drugs: "The
quantity and new types of drugs are increasing." | ||||||||||
The Mexican government last week gladly accepted $400 million of
money courtesy the U.S. taxpayer, "to fight drugs." To make the
arrangement more acceptable to Mexican politicians and law
enforcement, "House and Senate leaders toned down the human rights"
concerns. Ironically, shortly after the $400 million gift to Mexican
drug war camp followers was announced, embarrassing police training
videos surfaced in Leon, Mexico in which police are shown being
taught how to torture suspects. "Perhaps it looks inhuman to us,"
explained one Mexican official, but everyone else is doing it, too:
this is a "method that is used all over the world." Police are shown
training how to force a victim "to crawl through vomit and injecting
carbonated water into the nose of another." | ||||||||||
And in Canada this week, another B.C. grow op bust. Fifteen police,
trained in the latest U.S. SWAT-team tactics, raided a grow
operation in Prince Rupert. As is customary, guns were drawn, and
"perps" were roughed up and thrown to the ground. After all, grow
ops are associated with possible danger to children. Electrical
hazards, chemical hazards: all these things and more inside of a
grow op could harm kids, we are told: so police want to take grow
shows down - to save the kids. Confused police suspected something
was amiss when the marijuana plants they expected to find turned out
to be, well, tomatoes. A search of the employee's cars failed to
turn up so much as a single cannabis cigarette. Police left, but so
far haven't mentioned the flub, nor have they apologized to the
indoor tomato farmers they roughed up. And all that talk about how
grow shows might "endanger children" with the indoor lights,
chemicals and dangerous wiring? Switch the plant from cannabis to
tomatoes, and such indoor grow op concerns vanish. | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
(18) SIX DRUG DEALERS EXECUTED (Top) | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
Six people were executed in Yunnan and Henan provinces, and the
Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region for dealing in large quantities of
drugs in three separate cases, the Supreme People's Court (SPC) said
yesterday. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
SPC spokesman Ni Shouming said the country's anti-drug campaign
remains tough. | ||||||||||
"The number of drug-related cases have been growing with more gangs,
families, and organizations involved," he said. | ||||||||||
The quantity and new types of drugs are increasing, he | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
(19) MEXICO ACCEPTS ANTI-NARCOTICS AID FROM U.S. (Top) | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
MEXICO CITY -- With a deadly drug war spreading around the country,
beleaguered Mexican officials on Friday welcomed $400 million in
anti-narcotics assistance in a bill that was given final
Congressional approval in Washington on Thursday night. | ||||||||||
The White House said that President Bush would sign the bill, though lawmakers had trimmed $100 million from his request. The aid package, which will send helicopters, drug-sniffing dogs and technical help to Mexico, came dangerously close to falling apart. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
In subsequent negotiations, House and Senate leaders toned down the human rights language but did not eliminate it altogether. The bill still calls on Mexico's armed forces to cooperate with civilian prosecutors when soldiers are accused of committing abuses, and still requires the State Department to report to Congress on the Mexican government's collaboration with civilian groups who have been strongly critical of the security forces in the past. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
(20) VIDEOS OF VIOLENT POLICE TRAINING APPEAR AS MEXICO AWAITS U.S. AID (Top) | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
MEXICO CITY -- Videos showing Mexican police learning torture
methods appeared on the Internet this week as the country, soon to
receive hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. anti-drug aid, is
seeking to improve its human rights record. | ||||||||||
The videos show officers in the city of Leon, about 150 miles
northwest of Mexico City, forcing one of their colleagues to crawl
through vomit and injecting carbonated water into the nose of
another. An instructor, whose face can be seen in one video, barks
out commands in English. Leon Police Chief Carlos Tornero told the
Associated Press that the instructor is from a private U.S. security
firm, but he declined to say which one. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
The videos -- first uncovered by a local newspaper, El Heraldo de
Leon -- ran repeatedly Tuesday on television stations here and
prompted huge headlines in daily newspapers. La Jornada, a
left-leaning Mexico City newspaper, declared, "Law enforcement in
Leon teaches police to torture." | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
Residents in several states have accused Mexican soldiers of
committing hundreds of human rights violations, including rape and
unjustified shootings, during a crackdown on drug cartels. Activists
say Mexicans frequently do not make human rights complaints against
local police for fear of retribution. | ||||||||||
In recent months, human rights concerns shaped negotiations between
U.S. and Mexican lawmakers over a $400 million U.S. aid package
designed to help Mexico fight drug cartels. | ||||||||||
Mexican officials persuaded the U.S. Congress to remove some human
rights conditions, but a provision prohibiting Mexico from using
testimony derived from tortured witnesses remained in the final
bill. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
"Perhaps it looks inhuman to us," Guerrero told El Heraldo de Leon.
"But it is part of a preparation method that is used all over the
world." | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
(21) RUPERT COPS RAID TOMATO GROW-OP (Top) | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
Red-faced drug cops looking for a marijuana grow-op came up with a
tomato grow-op instead. | ||||||||||
Prince Rupert commercial fisherman Bruce Aleksich said yesterday
that about 15 Mounties burst into his business last Thursday, only
to find 400 tomato plants in various stages of growth. | ||||||||||
After a bleak spring, Aleksich decided to grow the tomatoes under
lights. | ||||||||||
He has recently been rotating the tomatoes between the indoors and
outdoors. | ||||||||||
When RCMP arrived at about 9 p.m., Aleksich told them he was a good gardener with nothing but tasty tomatoes in the building. | ||||||||||
Despite his edible alibi, Aleksich, two employees and two visitors
were forced to the ground. "They had us on the floor for over an
hour," he said. "All of us were cuffed. I don't know how it got to
the point where guns were drawn." | ||||||||||
After finding the tomatoes, the cops checked all the vehicles for
drugs, Aleksich said. Aleksich said he has heard nothing from the
RCMP about their mistake. | ||||||||||
[snip] | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
HOT OFF THE 'NET (Top) | ||||||||||
THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION DOCUMENTS FAILURE OF U.S. DRUG POLICIES | ||||||||||
By Bruce Mirken, AlterNet. Posted July 2, 2008. | ||||||||||
WHO survey of 17 countries finds that the U.S. has the highest rates
of marijuana and cocaine use. | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
PLAN MEXICO: UPHILL BATTLE WILL CONTINUE AGAINST FAILED MODEL | ||||||||||
By Laura Carlsen | ||||||||||
On June 26, after months of intense manoeuvering in Washington, the
U.S. Senate passed the final version of the "Merida Initiative" and
the President subsequently signed it into law. | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
HOW LONG DOES DRUG PROHIBITION NEED TO CONTINUE BEFORE IT'S DECLARED A FAILURE? | ||||||||||
By David Borden, Drug War Chronicle | ||||||||||
The day we legalize drugs is the day we can begin to clean up the mess that
the drug prohibition experiment has created. | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCES IN BRAZILIAN ANTHROPOLOGY | ||||||||||
By Bia Labate and Sergio Vidal | ||||||||||
Translated by Luana Malheiro; Revised by Brian Anderson | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
DRUG TRUTH NETWORK | ||||||||||
Century of Lies- 07/01/08 - Cliff Thornton | ||||||||||
Cliff Thornton of Efficacy discusses the political implications of the
drug war + Russ Bellville of NORML's audio stash opinion piece &
Loretta Nall discusses Alabama's justice system. | ||||||||||
Cultural Baggage Radio Show- 07/02/08 - Arnold Trebach | ||||||||||
Professor Arnold Trebach, author of Fatal Distraction + LEAP report
from Terry Nelson, Glenn Greenway with Poppygate report, OP-ED from
Bruce Mirken of Marijuana Policy Project & Amsterdam prohibits tobacco
not pot. | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
WHAT'S THE OPPOSITE OF A DRUG-FREE SOCIETY? | ||||||||||
By Jacob Sullum | ||||||||||
With the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration celebrating its 35th
birthday this week, the publication of a new study estimating drug use
rates across countries is well-timed. | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
INGESTING MAGIC MUSHROOMS HAS LONG LASTING POSITIVE EFFECTS | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
THE BALLAD OF ESEQUIEL HERNANDEZ | ||||||||||
In 1997, U.S. Marines patrolling the Texas-Mexico border as part of
the War on Drugs shot and killed Esequiel Hernandez Jr. Mistaken for
a drug runner, the 18-year-old was, in fact, a U.S. citizen tending
his family's goats with a .22 rifle. He became the first American
killed by U.S. military forces on native soil since the 1970 Kent
State shootings. "The Ballad of Esequiel Hernandez," narrated by
Tommy Lee Jones, explores Hernandez's tragic death and its torturous
aftermath. | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
WHAT YOU CAN DO THIS WEEK (Top) | ||||||||||
WRITE A LETTER | ||||||||||
Don't Teach Our Children Crime. A DrugSense Focus Alert | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
HELP PASS THE HINCHEY-ROHRABACHER MEDICAL MARIJUANA AMENDMENT | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
LETTER OF THE WEEK (Top) | ||||||||||
NO WORRIES IN EATING CANNABIS | ||||||||||
By Matthew M. Elrod | ||||||||||
Re: "That little joint could kill your child, MD says," June 26. | ||||||||||
I would have hoped that it goes without saying that parents should
not leave cannabis within reach of young children, but if a child
dies from cannabis poisoning it will be the first such death in
recorded history. | ||||||||||
Whole cannabis is non-toxic and it is physically impossible to
fatally overdose on it. In contrast, dozens of children die from
eating cigarettes and cigarette butts every year. Hundreds more are
poisoned from eating house and garden plants. | ||||||||||
Further, whole cannabis is not psychoactive when ingested orally, unless it is first heated to several hundred degrees for a period of time or, as your cautionary article mentioned, baked into food. | ||||||||||
All the same, a child would have to consume several times its own
weight in cannabis brownies to fatally overdose on cannabinoids,
long after the caffeine, chocolate and sugar consumed reached toxic
levels. | ||||||||||
Matthew M. Elrod | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
FEATURE ARTICLE (Top) | ||||||||||
WAR ON DRUGS AS A DESTROYER OF THE FAMILY UNIT | ||||||||||
By Pete Guither | ||||||||||
I've long talked about how the war on drugs damages the inner cities
and low income areas. The lure of black market profits is greater,
the transactions tend to be more public, and there's a stronger
direct push for arrest and incarceration. | ||||||||||
One of the casualties of this is the family left behind when dad is
sent to prison for dealing. Now you've got a poor family in a poor
neighborhood, without a father figure, dependent on welfare, and the
kids grow up looking for an escape from that life (gangs, drugs,
etc.) | ||||||||||
And again, for any of the mindless "well, don't do the crime if you can't do the time" law and order types, this is not just about individual choices -- it's about the fact that prohibition creates certain destructive economic incentives and realities. By continuing to stand in front of a long line of about-to-be incarcerated drug criminals individually saying "he deserves it... he deserves it... he deserves it..." you ignore your responsibility as a rational player in society to make societal changes for the better. | ||||||||||
So one of the realities is the broken family. But Reason's Kerry Howley takes it a step further in the Los Angeles Times ( http://drugsense.org/url/l6jhSHUH ), opining that more families suffer the fallout than just those who have a male in prison: | ||||||||||
"For low-income black women, the world really isn't cooperating. We
put an awful lot of nonviolent black men behind bars, which is not
generally conducive to good fathering. With so many young men
absent, the marriage markets are heavily skewed against women, and
mothers who might otherwise demand that men stay home and change
diapers find themselves in a miserable bargaining position. In his
book 'The Logic of Life,' Tim Harford describes one study indicating
that 'a one-percentage- point increase in the proportion of young
black men in prison reduces the proportion of young black women who
have ever been married by three percentage points.'" | ||||||||||
Ilya Somin of Volokh Conspiracy follows up in "Why the War on Drugs
is Bad for Family Values" | ||||||||||
"Some conservatives might argue that the kinds of men who get
arrested for drug possession or dealing wouldn't make good husbands
even if they stay out of prison. Perhaps that is true in some cases.
But these men still probably beat the alternative of single
parenthood. Moreover, Kerry's point about bargaining position is
crucial here. If fewer men from these communities were in prison,
there would be more competition between them in the dating market
and thus stronger incentives for them to behave in ways that appeal
to women." | ||||||||||
These are important points to remember when discussing the war on
drugs with social conservatives in particular. | ||||||||||
If they believe that the two-parent family is a value that should be
desired, then the drug war is a negative factor in achieving that
dream. | ||||||||||
And stop worrying about gays destroying marriage. The real danger to
marriage is prohibition. | ||||||||||
Pete Guither is the author of Drug WarRant - www.drugwarrant.com - a
weblog at the front lines of the drug war, where this piece was
first presented. | ||||||||||
| ||||||||||
QUOTE OF THE WEEK (Top) | ||||||||||
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to
favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops
without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and
lightning." - Frederick Douglass | ||||||||||
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