Date: Wed, 09 Aug 2000
Subject: # 180 Urge Media To Expand Coverage Of Shadow Convention

Urge Media To Expand Coverage Of Shadow Convention

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #180 August 9, 2000

The Shadow Convention held alongside the Republican National
Convention in Philadelphia last week addressed issues, like drug
policy reform, that are generally ignored among the major parties.
While participants could see the value of the event, those of us who
weren’t there didn’t have many chances to see what was happening at
all. Broadcast media coverage of the Shadow Convention was quite limited.

The public at large will have another opportunity to hear what’s being
said about the drug war as the Shadow Convention reconvenes in Los
Angeles, along with the Democratic National Convention. Please write
to the media contacts below to urge them to spend more time covering
the Shadow Convention, and also to suggest the Shadow Convention’s
issues be raised by journalists during the other political convention
in LA.

WRITE A LETTER TODAY

It’s not what others do it’s what YOU do

***************************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OR TELL US WHAT YOU DID ( Letter,
Phone, fax etc.)

Please post a copy your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] Your letter will then
be forwarded to the list with so others can learn from your efforts
and be motivated to follow suit

This is VERY IMPORTANT as it is the only way we have of gauging our
impact and effectiveness.

**************************************************************************

CONTACT INFO:

C-Span http://www.c-span.org/
Questions about Program Air Times and Video Tapes, as well as comments
about C-SPAN programming. ([email protected])
Suggestions ([email protected])
Pone Numbers
Front Desk (202) 737-3220
Viewer Services: (765) 464 3080 – 0
Washington Journal: FAX (202) 393-3346
Alternate Fax Numbers 202 737 6226 737 3323

ABC News mailform http://abcnews.go.com/onair/email.html Peter
Jennings is the Senior Editor for World News Tonight, the daily
program. Address things to him.

CBS News Mailform. http://cbsnews.cbs.com/feedback/frameset/0,1712,412,00.html
Dan Rather is the Senior Editor of the Evening and other news
programming, address things to him. Contact page for Rather.
http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,15218-412,00.shtml

NBC Nightly News With Tom Brokaw [email protected] This page today has
some of their gop convention coverage. http://www.msnbc.com/news/NIGHTLYTB_Front.asp

“EXTRA CREDIT”

This is a National Issue. We need LOTS of media coverage.

Do a ZIP Code search for ZIP Codes in your area (or the Los Angeles Area
90012 thru 90089) Send a notice to ALL of your local newspapers, radio and
TV stations encouraging coverage on the LA Shadow Convention. This is an
easy fun and very productive way of increasing media exposure. See:
http://congress.nw.dc.us/wnd/

-OR-

Send your letter to any and all media contacts you have. See
http://www.mapinc.org/resource/email.htm to find Email contacts for
your local papers.

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SAMPLE LETTER

Dear C-Span,

I was disappointed the by the sparse coverage provided during the
Shadow Convention held simultaneously with the Republican National
Convention in Philadelphia. I watched some of the RNC on TV, but as
hundreds of reporters who were actually there noted, it was both
predictable and repetitive. Instead of rehashing that basic
observation again and again, couldn’t a few more of those reporters
and camera crews have been sent over to the Shadow Conventions, where
some controversial issues were actually being discussed?

I hope there will be more coverage from the Shadow Convention in Los
Angeles. It will make for a better informed public, but it will also
make for more interesting programming.

Please get the Shadow Conventions on the air. The American public
deserves the truth about the horrendous damage being caused to our
nation by the “war on drugs”

Stephen Young

IMPORTANT: Always include your address and telephone
number

Please note: If you choose to use this letter as a model please modify it
at least somewhat so that the paper does not receive numerous copies of the
same letter and so that the original author receives credit for his/her work.
—————————————————————————-

ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing
efforts

3 Tips for Letter Writers http://www.mapinc.org/3tips.htm

Letter Writers Style Guide http://www.mapinc.org/style.htm

****************************************************************************

TO SUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP, OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL SEE
http://www.drugsense.org/hurry.htm

TO UNSUBSCRIBE SEE http://www.drugsense.org/unsub.htm

***************************************************************************

Prepared by Stephen Young – http://home.att.net/~theyoungfamily Focus
Alert Specialist

Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000
Subject: #179 Shadow Conventions: Wash. Post Gets It, But Time Doesn’t

Shadow Conventions: Washington Post Gets It, But Time Magazine Doesn’t

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PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE
——-

DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 179 July 27, 2000

In an effort to raise consciousness about important issues overlooked
by the two major parties, political commentator Arianna Huffington is
organizing “Shadow Conventions” to coincide with the Republican and
Democratic national conventions. One of the issues to be highlighted
at the Shadow Conventions is the disastrous war on drugs.

In a piece from the Washington Post this week (below), columnist Judy
Mann makes it clear why the war on drugs must be confronted. She
illustrates how millions of Americans have been hurt by the drug war.
Mann also shows how the major parties have written off those millions
of Americans by keeping discussions about reform off the agenda.

On the other side of the spectrum, Time Magazine this week published a
report on the Shadow Conventions that casually dismisses the need for
drug policy reform. The story suggests Huffington tossed drug
prohibition into the mix of issues at the Shadow Conventions merely to
gain funding from billionaire George Soros. Anyone who has read
Huffington’s columns on the drug war in recent months knows she offers
a passionate and remarkably frank analysis (see http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n896/a01.html?194759
and http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n882/a02.html?194759 for
example). If Time’s reporter had analyzed the subject using facts
instead of speculation, surely he would have seen it is the drug
warriors themselves who are trying to squeeze every dime they can from
drug problems, not Arianna Huffington.

Please write one or two letters: one to the Washington Post to support
Mann’s assessment of the tragedies of the drug war; and/or another to
Time Magazine to tell editors that drug policy reform is crucial for
the future of America, even if political elites don’t want to talk
about it.

WRITE A LETTER TODAY

It’s not what others do it’s what YOU do

***************************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OR TELL US WHAT YOU DID ( Letter,
Phone, fax etc.)

Please post a copy your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] Your letter will then
be forwarded to the list with so others can learn from your efforts
and be motivated to follow suit

This is VERY IMPORTANT as it is the only way we have of gauging our
impact and effectiveness.

**************************************************************************

CONTACT INFO:

Source: Washington Post (DC)
Contact: [email protected]

Source: TIME (US)
Contact: [email protected]

***************************************************************************

ARTICLE #1

US DC: Column: Make War on the War on Drugs
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n1055/a03.html
Newshawk: Doug McVay http://www.csdp.org/
Pubdate: Wed, 26 Jul 2000
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2000 The Washington Post Company
Page: C13
Contact: [email protected]
Address: 1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
Feedback: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Author: Judy Mann, Washington Post
Cited: The Lindesmith Center / Drug Policy Foundation:

Homepage

MAKE WAR ON THE WAR ON DRUGS

The Justice Department has just issued another indicator of the damage
being done by the war on drugs: An all-time high of 6.3 million people
were under correctional supervision in 1999–1.86 million men and
women behind bars and 4.5 million on parole or probation, 24 percent
of them for drug offenses.

The criminal justice system reached 1 percent of the adult population
in 1980. Its reach now exceeds 3 percent–about one of every 32
people. Our $40 billion-a-year war on drugs has created more prisons,
more criminals, more drug abuse and more disease. An estimated 60
percent of AIDS cases in women are attributed to dirty needles and
syringes.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision probably will spur more
litigation in the drug war, as prisoners use the ruling to appeal
unusually harsh sentences.

The court ruled that any factual determination used to increase a
sentence will have to be made by a jury, not a judge. While a judge
can use a standard of the preponderance of the evidence in sentencing,
a jury must decide beyond a reasonable doubt, says Graham Boyd,
director of the Drug Policy Litigation Project of the American Civil
Liberties Union. “If the government wants to impose draconian
sentences for drug crimes, they should have at the very least to prove
their case to a jury by a criminal standard, and that hasn’t happened
in the past–amazingly.”

That’s just one example of the civil rights casualties of a war in
which paramilitary police raid people’s homes and authorities seize
their assets without due process, flying in the face of the Fourth and
Fifth amendments.

A few politicians are brave enough to declare the obvious: The war on
drugs hasn’t worked. New Mexico’s Gary E. Johnson (R) was the first
governor to call for marijuana legalization and other major drug
policy reforms. Rep. Tom Campbell (R-Calif.), a candidate for the U.S.
Senate, is the first major-party politician to run statewide with a
platform that includes prescription access to heroin. They will speak
at the “shadow conventions” to be held at the same time as the
Republican and Democratic conventions to address three issues of
critical importance that organizers say are being given short shrift
by the two major parties: the drug war, campaign finance reform and
the growing gulf between rich and poor.

Drug policies affect millions of people who have family members behind
bars. Some of them will be at the shadow conventions. They will put
names and faces on this whole failed drug war effort. Many of them are
likely to be black. While African Americans constitute 13 percent of
the illegal drug users, they account for 74 percent of those sentenced
for drug offenses. Convicted felons lose their right to vote, a
backdoor way of reinstituting Jim Crow laws.

Pressure to change drug laws is mounting, and it is coming from
unlikely places, including farmers, who are forbidden to grow hemp,
the plant from which marijuana comes but which has other, non-drug
uses. The Lindesmith Center, which advocates drug policy reform, did a
survey several years ago that found more than 50 percent of farmers in
five midwestern and western states favored legalizing hemp. Only 35
percent were opposed.

“This was the first indication we had that the public, in fairly
conservative agricultural states, were supporting this,” says Ethan
Nadelmann, executive director of the center.

More recently, Hawaii and North Dakota passed legislation legalizing
hemp’s cultivation, and similar measures are “in play” in more than 10
other states, Nadelmann says. From 30 to 40 countries, including
Canada, have made it legal. “This is quite galling for farmers on the
northern border who can look across the border and see people growing
this stuff,” he says.

Nadelmann believes that both Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice
President Gore, the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates,
would be well served if they did some research on hemp. “It may be an
issue that a number of people care about, and it would be sending a
message they are willing to think rationally about the economic and
agricultural interests of farmers even when the product has a
relationship to marijuana.”

The Lindesmith Center is one of more than 35 public policy, health,
religious and racial advocacy organizations that sent a list of 10
tough questions to the presidential candidates during the primaries,
pointing out where the drug policies have failed and asking what they
would do to change them.

None of the candidates have answered, according to Kevin B. Zeese,
co-chair of the National Coalition for Effective Drug Policies,
although the groups will try to pursue the issue during the general
election campaign. “Unless the drug issue is forced on them, they
prefer to avoid it rather than confront it,” Zeese says. “Our basic
point is the drug war is bankrupt and our policymakers aren’t facing
up to it. We tried to construct those questions in a way that showed
the drug war methods are causing more problems than they solve, and we
got a range of groups to show a breadth of concern about this.”

Highly visible people, including Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura (I), are
now calling for a genuine debate on how to deal with drugs. Approaches
gaining support include legalizing marijuana (except for sale to
minors), prescription access to heroine, needle exchanges, taxing
drugs and redirecting most of the drug war funding into public health
and education.

We are a nation of intelligent and thoughtful people who deserve
better than overheated rhetoric and a drug policy dictated by crazy
hard-liners and pandering politicians. At the very least, in the face
of the well-documented harm the war on drugs has caused, we deserve a
debate on how to control the drug market in a way that works. This
lackluster presidential campaign would be a good place to start.

ARTICLE #2

US: Time Magazine: The Arianna Sideshow
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1052.a06.html
Newshawk: Come to the Shadow Conventions
Pubdate: Mon, 31 Jul 2000
Source: TIME (US)
Copyright: 2000 Time Inc.
Contact: [email protected]
Address: Time Letters, Time & Life Bldg., Rockefeller Center, NY, NY 10020
Fax: (212) 522-8949
Website: http://www.time.com/
Author: Andrew Ferguson
Bookmark: MAP’s link to shadow convention items:
http://www.mapinc.org/shadow.htm

Note: Shadow Convention websites: http://www.drugpolicy.org/
http://www.shadowconventions.com/

THE ARIANNA SIDESHOW The Activist And Socialite Has Plans For Two “Shadow
Conventions” She Hopes Will Roil The Establishment. What Are They Really About

IT’S NOT EASY GETTING A political convention off the ground –
especially when the convention is not really a convention but a
“shadow convention,” and especially when the politics being convened
is not the old-fashioned kind but a new, revolutionary kind of
politics that will “transcend the old categories of left and right.”
Arianna Huffington has been learning this lesson the hard way all
summer. While Americans across the country – hundreds of them! maybe
thousands! – eagerly await the twin spectacle of the Republican and
Democratic conventions in Philadelphia and Los Angeles, the syndicated
columnist and former Newt Gingrich confidant has been trying to round
up participants for a self-styled alternative – the Shadow
Conventions 2000, dubbed by sponsors as a “Citizens’ Intervention in
American Politics.”

“It’s really exploding in ways I could not have imagined,” Huffington
says, riding through downtown Philadelphia a few weeks before the
Republicans are scheduled to arrive. Today she has already held a
press conference, visited two newspaper editorial boards, met with a
dozen area activists and scouted the arena where the shadow revels are
to be held. But the complications never let up. An aide’s cell phone
beeps, and he hands it over. “Bill Bradley,” he says. Bradley has
unofficially agreed to appear at one of the shadow
conventions.

“Bill!” she says, though in her heavily Greek-accented English it
comes out “Beeeel!” “How are you’?”

A long silence ensues.

“Oh, Bill, that’s ridiculous,” Huffington says at last. “No, no, no.
He’s just trying to make trouble, Bill. It is false. He does not know
what he is talking about.”

In time she hangs up, evidently having mollified Bradley. “He just saw
Bob Novak on Inside Politics,” she explains, referring to the
conservative columnist and the CNN political show on which he
regularly appears. “Bill’s worried because Novak says no one knows who
is financing our conventions. Novak says if people knew, they would
not want to appear. This is false.” She sighs deeply. “But this is the
kind of thing we will have to put up with. The Establishment hates
anything it cannot control. What it cannot control, it tries to
eliminate.” Huffington and her colleagues are convinced they have hit
on a formula that will roil the muddy middle of American politics,
from Bushies on the one side to Gorites on the other. Their plan is
media-savvy and politically astute.

Concurrently with the party conventions, an assortment of activists,
professional pols and celebrities with populist pretensions (from
stand-ups like Bill Maher to superstars like Warren Beatty) will
gather for four days of speechifying, seminar giving and satirical
merrymaking, all on the indisputable assumption that the national
press corps (and the public) will be so starved for spectacle and
spontaneity that it will lavish attention on them – and their
issues. CNN and C-SPAN have expressed interest in broadcasting some
sessions live.

“We want to throw light on the things that no one will be talking
about in the other conventions – and have a genuine debate, not an
infomercial,” Huffington says. She and her co-conveners – who
include Scott Harshbarger of Common Cause and antipoverty activist Jim
Wallis – have whittled their agenda down to three items. One day
will be devoted to campaign-finance reform, the next to the growing
income gap between rich and poor, and the third to “reforming” –
read liberalizing – the nation’s drug laws.

If all goes well, organizers hope, this trinity of issues will form
the nucleus for a “new politics,” re-energizing the half of the
electorate now so alienated from the old politics that it no longer
bothers to vote, Campaign-finance reform is the thread that ties all
other reforms together. “It’s no accident that the major parties
aren’t addressing the income gap and are ignoring the failed war on
drugs,” says Harshbarger, “The constituencies that are hurt by these
issues aren’t donating millions of dollars to the political parties.
Unless you fix campaign finance, you can’t move on to the other
issues.” Still, it seems a curiously arbitrary trio of concerns –
particularly the drug-war component, which scores scarcely a blip in
any catalog of the public’s disenchantments. Why single out drug laws
instead of guns, for example, or the environment, or educational
policy, or any of half a dozen issues with greater populist appeal?

One reason – ironically enough, given the convener’s hostility to
big money in politics – might be cash. A third of the convention’s
tab will be picked up by organizations funded by George Soros, the
international financier whose passion for ending the drug war has made
him an all-purpose bogeyman for political establishmentarians
everywhere. Other funding will come from foundations and individual
donors across a narrow span of the political spectrum, from the center
to the center left.

“Transcending the old categories of left and right,” after all, is a
favorite rhetorical trope of liberals who are tired of being dismissed
in a political culture that makes “moderation” the pre-eminent virtue.

NOTE: The rest of this article has been deleted for space reasons. To
read the whole piece, go to http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1052.a06.html

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SAMPLE LETTER #1

To the editor of the Washington Post:

Judy Mann does an excellent job of summarizing some of the tremendous
damage done by the drug war (“Make war on the war on drugs,” July 26).
Sadly, the politicians and government officials who have the power to
stop the tragedy prefer to pretend there is no tragedy. It seems as if
the simplistic “Just Say No” mantra repeated to the point of nausea by
politicians in the 1980s has been replaced by an attitude even more
frustrating and dangerous: “Just Say Nothing.”

It’s well past time for more American leaders to face their denial and
break the silence.

Stephen Young

SAMPLE LETTER #2

To the editor of Time:

Your article on Arianna Huffington and the upcoming Shadow
Conventions, “The Arianna Sideshow,” was a fair piece but I was
confused by the following:

“Still, it seems a curiously arbitrary trio of concerns –
particularly the drug-war component, which scores scarcely a blip in
any catalog of the public’s disenchantments.”

Barely scores a blip? Do you only read your own magazine? Get a clue.
There is an intense and powerful debate rising in the media of this
country. The drug war has taken the “land of the free” and made us the
most incarcerated nation on the planet.

Get out more often. In fact, step into the “Shadows” and see for
yourself.

Allan Erickson

IMPORTANT: Always include your address and telephone
number

Please note: If you choose to use this letter as a model please modify it
at least somewhat so that the paper does not receive numerous copies of the
same letter and so that the original author receives credit for his/her work.
—————————————————————————-

ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing
efforts

3 Tips for Letter Writers http://www.mapinc.org/3tips.htm

Letter Writers Style Guide http://www.mapinc.org/style.htm

****************************************************************************

TO SUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP, OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL SEE

http://www.drugsense.org/hurry.htm

TO UNSUBSCRIBE SEE http://www.drugsense.org/unsub.htm

***************************************************************************

Prepared by Stephen Young – http://home.att.net/~theyoungfamily Focus
Alert Specialist

Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2000
Subject: # 178 Sun-Times Recognizes Drug War As Factor In Violence

Sun-Times Recognizes Drug War As Factor In Violence

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PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE
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DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 178 July 22, 2000

Editorialists at the Chicago Sun-Times have been generally restrained
in their criticism of the drug war, but this week the newspaper called
for a serious discussion on decriminalizing drugs. The Sun-Times is
finally officially recognizing that the illegal drug market is major
cause of violence.

“There are many options between strict enforcement of the current drug
laws and decriminalization, but in order to determine whether there is
a better strategy for combatting illegal drug trafficking, the pros
and cons of decriminalizing drugs have to be debated in an open
forum,” the editorial said.

Please write a letter to the Sun-Times to support its call for an open
forum, one that isn’t even restricted by terms like
“decriminalization.”

WRITE A LETTER TODAY

It’s not what others do it’s what YOU do

***************************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OR TELL US WHAT YOU DID ( Letter,
Phone, fax etc.)

Please post a copy your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] Your letter will then
be forwarded to the list with so others can learn from your efforts
and be motivated to follow suit

This is VERY IMPORTANT as it is the only way we have of gauging our
impact and effectiveness.

**************************************************************************

CONTACT INFO:

Source: Chicago Sun-Times (IL)
Contact: [email protected]

***************************************************************************

ARTICLE

US IL: Editorial: Dialogue Can Spur New Look At Drugs
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1011.a06.html
Newshawk: Sledhead
Pubdate: Wed, 19 Jul 2000
Source: Chicago Sun-Times (IL)
Copyright: 2000 The Sun-Times Co.
Contact: [email protected]
Address: 401 N. Wabash, Chicago IL 60611
Feedback: http://www.suntimes.com/geninfo/feedback.html
Website: http://www.suntimes.com/

DIALOGUE CAN SPUR NEW LOOK AT DRUGS

Every so often the topic of decriminalizing drugs surfaces, only to be
squashed by fears that the proposal is too controversial to merit
serious discussion.

In 1995, Criminal Court Judge Richard E. Neville stirred quite a
debate among law enforcement officials when he advocated legalizing
drugs and challenged lawmakers to have a dialogue on this issue. At
the time, he and other supporters argued that removing drugs from the
street trade would reduce violence. James E. Gierach, a lawyer who
once ran for Cook County state’s attorney, also has advocated an end
to the drug war, which, according to the Human Rights Watch, has
resulted in a racial disparity in sentences for drug crimes.

Given that the skyrocketing prison population and the continued street
violence related to gang and drug wars affect African Americans
disproportionately, it is entirely fitting that a discussion of
decriminalizing drugs should be on the agenda at the anti-violence
summit of African American leaders that Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) has
scheduled for Saturday.

For a politician to express any support for legalizing drugs carries a
political risk since opponents later could accuse him of being soft on
crime. And to be clear, Rush is not advocating legalization; rather,
he correctly observes that there should at least be discussion on the
drug trade and violence. Rush also intends to take a look at the
Prohibition experience to see if it is relevant to the drug issue.
Indeed, now may be the right time to tackle this issue. The judicial
system has softened its stance. For example, more court systems are
choosing to divert those convicted on minor drug offenses to special
drug courts, where they are monitored while they receive substance
abuse treatment instead of being sent to prison.

There are many options between strict enforcement of the current drug
laws and decriminalization, but in order to determine whether there is
a better strategy for combatting illegal drug trafficking, the pros
and cons of decriminalizing drugs have to be debated in an open forum.
Hopefully, the leadership summit can help spark this debate as
participants look for ways to significantly reduce black-on-black
violence. This is just one issue that will be on the agenda. Rush is
to be commended for calling this meeting to address the violence
continuing to plague too many neighborhoods.

******************************************************************************

SAMPLE LETTER

To the editor of the Chicago Sun-Times:

I was pleased to read the editorial “Dialogue Can Spur New Look At
Drugs,” (July 19). The fact that the black market for illegal drugs is
a hotbed for violence and injustice just scratches the surface of the
problems created by the war on drugs. The drug war has scaled back
the Bill of Rights; the drug war prevents sick people from getting
appropriate medicine; the drug war encourages corruption in law
enforcement and other government agencies; the drug war is dragging
our nation into another foreign civil war without an exit strategy.

What good does the drug war do? It has not ended illegal drug use –
levels of use generally rose in the 1990s, along with government
anti-drug budgets and prison populations. It’s not making drug use any
more safe since drug deaths also rose in the 90s.

It’s easy to talk about the problems of the drug war; finding some way
to defend is a much bigger challenge.

Stephen Young

IMPORTANT: Always include your address and telephone
number

Please note: If you choose to use this letter as a model please modify it
at least somewhat so that the paper does not receive numerous copies of the
same letter and so that the original author receives credit for his/her work.
—————————————————————————-

ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing
efforts

3 Tips for Letter Writers http://www.mapinc.org/3tips.htm

Letter Writers Style Guide http://www.mapinc.org/style.htm

****************************************************************************

TO SUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP, OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL SEE

http://www.drugsense.org/hurry.htm

TO UNSUBSCRIBE SEE http://www.drugsense.org/unsub.htm

***************************************************************************

Prepared by Stephen Young – http://home.att.net/~theyoungfamily Focus
Alert Specialist

Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000
Subject: When Leaders Do What Is Right We Should Thank Them

——-
PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE
——-

When Leaders Do What Is Right We Should Thank Them

——-
PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE
——-

DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 177 July 11, 2000

President Clinton has commuted the prison sentences of four women;
Louise House, Shawndra Mills, Amy Pofahl and Serena Nunn; who were
convicted of drug crimes but received much harsher sentences than men
involved in the cases. This presents a rare opportunity to praise for
doing the right thing. Below is a sample letter to President Clinton.
Please consider sending your own letter.

Robert Field of Common Sense for Drug Policy wrote, in response to the
sample letter:

I am delighted to read Tom’s letter (below) of praise to President
Clinton for more than the obvious reason.

As I was discussing with a board member yesterday, now that our
movement has matured and is becoming a major political force, it is
very important that we be able to change hats from guerrilla warriors
to establishment players.

Oh, we will still need to be outspoken on our condemnation of abuses.
But the only way we will ever accomplish much is to be able to form
coalitions, flex political muscle, educate, reason with those in power
who are receptive to incremental change, and help guide and modify
their proposals and programs so that they are more consistent with
what we desire to accomplish.

Some of us are attracted to movements because it is our disposition to
be rebels. There is an important place for such people and without
what my rabbi calls “prophets” the world would be without vital critics.

Others can both see the wrongs and appreciate the progress is made
incrementally and by consensus, through give and take. They also
recognize that politics indeed make for strange bedfellows (the recent
forfeiture reforms comes to mind) and they are less interested in
finding reform soul mates than in achieving alliances towards bringing
about specific reforms – medical marijuana, decrim of marijuana,
lessening or mandatory minimums, legalization of syringe exchanges,
expansion of methadone availability, treatment in place of
incarceration or examples.

I hope Tom’s letter is symbolic of a movement that is achieving
prominence and is confident and pragmatic enough not limit its
potential by taking “all or nothing” stands.

Robert Field

Although Letters to the Editor are also appropriate, we are asking you
to send a letter to the White House to encourage more of the same –
release drug war prisoners serving these unbelievable mandatory
minimum sentences.

Organizations which have taken the lead on this issue
include:

Families Against Mandatory Minimums:

Homepage

The November Coalition:
http://www.november.org/

Human Rights and the Drug War:
http://hr95.org/

Jubilee Justice 2000: http://www.jubileejustice.org/

Other articles about this release:

US: 4 Women Granted Clemency By Clinton URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n957/a08.html

US MN: Clinton Commutes Federal Drug Sentence Of Minneapolis Woman
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n956/a04.html

US: Women Freed By Clinton From ‘Harsh’ Sentences:
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n959/a03.html

WRITE A LETTER TODAY

It’s not what others do it’s what YOU do

***************************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OR TELL US WHAT YOU DID ( Letter,
Phone, fax etc.)

Please post a copy your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] Your letter will then
be forwarded to the list with so others can learn from your efforts
and be motivated to follow suit

This is VERY IMPORTANT as it is the only way we have of gauging our
impact and effectiveness.

**************************************************************************

CONTACT INFO

Email:
[email protected]

Email via the White House webform: http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/Mail/html/Mail_President.html

Mail:
President William Clinton
1600 Pennsylvania Ave
Washington DC 20500

EXTRA CREDIT

Let your Senators and Representative know what you think about
mandatory minimums:

Contact your Senators:
http://www.senate.gov/contacting/index.cfm

Contact your Representative:
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Or bulk email them all: http://usa.letterstoleaders.com/

Plus a letter to the editor of your local newspapers is always
appropriate. Find the email addresses here: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/email.htm

***************************************************************************

ARTICLE

Pubdate: Sun, 09 Jul 2000
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2000 The New York Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Address: 229 West 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036
Fax: (212) 556-3622
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Forum: http://www10.nytimes.com/comment/

CLINTON COMMUTES 4 WOMENS SENTENCES

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Clinton has commuted the prison sentences
of four women who were convicted of drug crimes but received much
harsher sentences than men involved in the cases, a White House
spokesman said Sunday.

“The president felt they had served a disproportionate amount of
time,” said spokesman Jake Siewert. “They received much more severe
sentences than their husbands and boyfriends.”

The women freed under Friday’s order were Louise House, Shawndra
Mills, Amy Pofahl and Serena Nunn.

One man, Alain Orozco, also was ordered freed after serving time on a
drug conviction.

“I thought they were joking with me at first,” Nunn told ABC News,
which first reported on the commutations. “After I realized it was
actually happening, I began to tremble and one of the staff members
asked me if I wanted to take a seat. Right after that, the tears just
started flowing.”

Authorities said Nunn was convicted after being drawn into a
Minneapolis drug ring by her boyfriend, but received a stiff 14-year
sentence after refusing to inform on him. She served 10 years before
her release.

The federal judge who sentenced her lobbied the White House for her
early release.

“I frankly have never written a letter to the president before asking
that one of my sentences by commuted,” U.S. District Judge David Doty
told ABC News. “Ms. Nunn was obviously guilty of a crime, but a crime
that did not deserve the penalty the court was required to impose
under the sentencing guidelines.”

He referred to guidelines imposed by Congress in the 1980s, requiring
mandatory sentences for a number of drug violations. The guidelines
have be criticized by a number of federal judges who complain they
strip them of discretion.

Pofahl was convicted along with her husband, a Stanford University Law
School graduate and wealthy Dallas businessman, in connection with the
drug Ecstasy. While he received three years probation, she was
sentenced to 24 years without parole.

My knees buckled,” Pofahl told ABC News. “I was overwhelmed. I just
felt incredible that I was free to do things without someone looking
over my shoulder.”

The Pofahl case was profiled in Glamour magazine last year and the
Star Tribune of Minneapolis wrote about the Nunn case in late 1997.

Details of the House and Mills cases were not available from the White
House.

******************************************************************************

SAMPLE LETTER

President William Clinton
1600 Pennsylvania Ave
Washington DC 20500

Dear President Clinton:

After nearly eight years of intense frustration with your
administration for its abysmal lack of intelligence and leadership in
the field of drug policy, it’s a genuine pleasure to be able to
congratulate you for granting clemency to five federal prisoners who
were serving obscenely long drug sentences.

In a perfect world, there would be no criminal drug markets; people
with drug problems would have stumbled into them the same way smokers
and alcoholics do now. Those who chose to could also get over them the
same way; through their own initiative and with the help of medical
professionals of their own choosing – certainly not through the
intervention of their local narc or sheriff .

Who ever said we live in a perfect world? But — no matter what its
motivation — the same small step which freed five people also calls
attention to the gross injustice of our drug laws, and may thus be but
the first on a long journey.

For that I also thank you.

Sincerely,

Tom O’Connell, MD

IMPORTANT: Always include your address and telephone
number

Please note: If you choose to use this letter as a model please modify it
at least somewhat so that the President does not receive numerous copies of
the same letter and so that the original author receives credit for his work.
—————————————————————————-

ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing
efforts

3 Tips for Letter Writers http://www.mapinc.org/3tips.htm

Letter Writers Style Guide http://www.mapinc.org/style.htm

****************************************************************************

TO SUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP, OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL SEE
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***************************************************************************

Prepared by Richard Lake Sr. Editor, DrugNews

Please help us help reform. Send drug-related news to
[email protected]

Date: Tue, 04 Jul 2000
Subject: “Whatever Happened To Innocent Until Proven Guilty?”

“Whatever Happened To Innocent Until Proven Guilty?”

——-
PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE
——-

DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 176 July 4, 2000

BE A PATRIOT. FIGHT THE DRUG WARRIORS WITH A LETTER.

While celebrating Independence Day, Americans might to keep in mind
that drug prohibition creates institutions with little respect for
liberty or justice. US News And World Report this week describes South
Florida Impact, a drug task force that treats the innocent like they
are guilty. The task force has nearly destroyed businesses by wrongly
accusing owners of drug crimes. And Impact still kept some of their
money.

It seems Impact is more concerned with the size of citizen’s assets
than in abstract notions like fairness. Such imperial behavior is
supported by drug warriors like Barry McCaffrey. It is understandable
why other area police are supporters too. As the article notes,
“…Impact funds itself entirely through asset seizures, and it doles
out millions more dollars to area police departments.”

The alleged goal of Impact is to reduce crime, but Impact itself has
been laundering money, almost as much as it has seized. Please write a
letter to US News to thank editors for the article even though it’s a
sad reminder of how the ideals of the Declaration of Independence are
ignored in order to escalate the drug war.

WRITE A LETTER TODAY

It’s not what others do it’s what YOU do

***************************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OR TELL US WHAT YOU DID ( Letter,
Phone, fax etc.)

Please post a copy your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] Your letter will then
be forwarded to the list with so others can learn from your efforts
and be motivated to follow suit

This is VERY IMPORTANT as it is the only way we have of gauging our
impact and effectiveness.

**************************************************************************

CONTACT INFO

Source: U.S. News and World Report (US)
Contact: [email protected]

***************************************************************************

ARTICLE

US FL: A Case Study In Policing For Profit
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n911.a01.html
Newshawk: Sledhead
Pubdate: Mon, 10 Jul 2000
Source: U.S. News and World Report (US)
Copyright: 2000 U.S. News & World Report
Contact: [email protected]
Address: 1050 Thomas Jefferson Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20007-3871
Fax: (202) 955-2685
Feedback: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/usinfo/infomain.htm
Website: http://www.usnews.com/
Forum: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/forum.htm
Author: David E. Kaplan

A CASE STUDY IN POLICING FOR PROFIT

A ‘Model’ Drug Task Force Comes Under Fire

Clay Waterman was dumbfounded. Authorities in Miami had seized his
company’s checking account, bank officials told him last June, for
reasons unknown.

Waterman was the manager of Penn Industries, a family-run supplier of
auto accessories in Oklahoma City, and neither he nor the company had
ever had trouble with the law before.

Behind the seizure, Waterman soon learned, was a police task force
known as South Florida Impact. The task force, it turned out, had
grown suspicious when Penn’s only Colombian client had used a money
exchanger to make cash deposits of $2,500 into Penn’s Florida account.
Impact claimed the deposits were profits from illegal drug deals.

So it seized Penn’s entire account=ADsome $78,000, including its
payroll and operating accounts.

Facing bankruptcy, Penn’s owner cashed in his retirement funds and
took out a mortgage on his home. It was only after two months of
negotiation=ADand $13,000 in legal fees=ADthat Impact released all but
$3,000 of the money. “There was no due process,” says Waterman.
“Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?”

You might say it fell victim to America’s drug wars. To help break the
back of the nation’s $50 billion narcotics trade, law enforcement has
increasingly turned to asset forfeiture, a process allowing the
government to seize cash, cars, homes, and other property it claims is
the result of criminal activity.

Forfeiture abuse has grown so common in recent years that Congress
passed a law in April raising the burden of proof required before
federal agents can take action. Significantly, though, the new law
affects only federal seizures.

And as Clay Waterman can attest, many of the worst abuses occur at the
local level.

Operating under a patchwork of state laws, local police departments
have turned forfeiture into a cash cow that pays for new buildings,
squad cars, and equipment.

Police along interstates in the South are notorious for stopping
drivers and relieving them of “suspect” cash. And cops in Missouri
last year outraged citizens by circumventing a state law directing
forfeited funds to education: The cops simply turned over their
seizures to federal agents, who kicked back up to 80 percent to local
police. “The focus is on short-term, easy money, not detective work,”
laments Bill Gately, a former U.S. customs money-laundering expert.
“When I went to police chiefs on big cases, I had to show what the
[financial] return was.”

Policing for profit may have reached its highest form in
Florida=ADwhere billions in drug money wash through the state each
year=ADand, in particular, with Impact. A force of some 50 officers
backed by nearly a dozen police agencies, Impact funds itself entirely
through asset seizures, and it doles out millions more dollars to area
police departments. It has helped seize no less than $140 million in
suspected drug money since 1994, while confiscating over 30 tons of
cocaine and nearly 7 tons of marijuana.

And its work has resulted in 532 arrests and 71 deportations. Barry
McCaffrey, the nation’s drug czar, has cited Impact as a model of
effective law enforcement. But to others, Impact is a case study in
what has gone wrong with the headlong pursuit of criminal money: a
record, they say, of unwarranted seizures, poor accountability, and
cops more intent on grabbing cash than crooks.

A good deal. Impact was the brainchild of two retired federal agents,
Woody Kirk of the U.S. Customs Service and Mike Wald of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. Wald gained national attention posing as a
Saudi sheik’s assistant in the 1970s Abscam sting.

In 1993, the two men pitched a novel idea to Miami-area police chiefs:
a self-sustaining task force on money laundering that would split all
seized assets among participating police departments.

Unlike Wald, who joined Impact as a Coral Gables police commander,
Kirk became a full-time consultant to the group.

Along with his expertise in money laundering, he brought a gold mine
of informants from whom he hoped to profit.

And profit he did. In a move that angered many in law-enforcement
circles, Kirk fashioned an unusual deal in which Impact paid him 25
percent of all assets he helped seize. In just the first year,
according to a state audit, Kirk earned $625,000. “It was,” Kirk said,
“a very good deal.”

Too good, perhaps.

On learning of Kirk’s commissions, the U.S. Justice Department
threatened to cut off all cooperation unless the commissions stopped.

Impact complied, putting Kirk on a retainer that pays him $10,666 each
month.

But Kirk’s deals with informants continued. In an interview, Kirk
confirmed that, as the commissions ended, he asked two of his
informants to sign contracts pledging him a share of the 15 percent
they received as a reward from asset seizures. One agreement, obtained
by U.S. News, reveals that Kirk lent the man $50,000 and, in return,
was to receive 60 percent of the informant’s reward money.

Kirk admits lending another informant $115,000, also an advance on
reward money.

Kirk says these contracts were meant only as “an insurance policy” in
case he left Impact, and he insists he personally never made money
from them. But veteran law-enforcement officials say such deals, even
if not illegal, undermine the integrity of police work and create
conflicts of interest.

Former customs agent Bill Gately calls the commissions “abhorrent. . .
. It just grates on the nerves of a lot of cops who did the work Kirk
has done.” Says John Moynihan, a former DEA specialist in dirty cash:
“In money-laundering investigations, there can be no room for personal
interest in any transaction.” Impact officials also expressed surprise
at Kirk’s side deals and said that the matter is now under review.

Small comfort.

Of broader concern is Impact’s dependence on forfeitures for its
entire budget, which has fueled charges that it is overaggressive in
seizing property.

Wald says that 95 percent of Impact’s seizures go uncontested, but
that’s small comfort to Hernon Manufacturing. In 1998, the
Orlando-based epoxy maker found its main bank account frozen after
Impact traced a deposit back to its lone Colombian client.

Agents seized over $30,000, including Hernon’s payroll; months later,
most of the money was released. (Officials kept $6,000 for “legal
fees.”) Another 1998 case nearly bankrupted Omega Medical Electronics,
a three-person supplier of medical instruments in Wilmington, N.C.
Impact seized its entire account after tracing cash deposits from a
Colombian client to a Miami branch of Omega’s bank. Almost two years
later, officials agreed to return nearly all of the funds.

Critics also say Impact is overreaching as it runs far-flung cases
overseas and engages in money laundering on a scale virtually unheard
of for a local operation.

The task force performs undercover “stings” to catch real money
launderers, but the practice is controversial. To create a convincing
front, Impact itself has washed more than $120 million since 1994, and
that money has largely recycled back to drug dealers. These funds
should be offset by the $140 million Impact has helped seize, but that
is not enough of a return for some laundering experts. “You want to
seize at least twice what you launder,” argues ex-DEA analyst
Moynihan. “If not, you’re creating as much crime as you’re solving.”
Accountability is also a concern.

When the DEA and FBI run undercover laundering cases, they must
prepare inch-thick plans that are approved by the attorney general
herself, with frequent reviews by special auditors.

By contrast, Impact’s oversight comes from a steering committee of
state and local officials, with audits by the city of Coral Gables.
“We’ve never missed a nickel,” says director James Butler.

Butler attributes all the flack against Impact largely to turf battles
among rival agencies. “Nearly all the criticism is professional
jealousy,” he says. Still, concerns have mounted to the point where
the DEA and Customs Service in Miami will no longer work with Impact,
and the Justice Department is conducting a review.

Depending on the outcome, the inquiry could halt federal participation
with the group entirely. Such a move, critics say, could send an
overdue message to hundreds of local police agencies now hooked on
money from asset seizures.

******************************************************************************

SAMPLE LETTER

To the editor of US News and World Report:

I found the story “A Case Study in Policing For Profit” (July10) very
disturbing, but I’m glad US News brought it to the public’s attention.
The drug war breeds the type of contempt for citizens displayed by
South Florida Impact. The nerve of supposed public servants who
unapologetically pillage innocent private businesses, keeping “legal
fees” even when the businesses are exonerated, is outrageous. The task
force members make a great living and they help the elites of the
underworld by laundering millions of dollars in drug money, but
there’s no shortage of illegal drugs in south Florida. Those who want
them can get them, those who want to stay away from them must do so on
their own.

The truth is, groups like South Florida Impact don’t want illegal
drugs to go away. They simply want to reap the profits of the black
market just like their counterparts in the illegal drug business. The
dealers and drug warriors are making the most out of drug prohibition.
Until the drug war finally ends, the best an average American can hope
for is to avoid the crossfire.

Stephen Young

IMPORTANT: Always include your address and telephone
number

Please note: If you choose to use this letter as a model please modify it
at least somewhat so that the paper does not receive numerous copies of the
same letter and so that the original author receives credit for his/her work.
—————————————————————————-

ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing
efforts

3 Tips for Letter Writers http://www.mapinc.org/3tips.htm

Letter Writers Style Guide http://www.mapinc.org/style.htm

****************************************************************************

TO SUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP, OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL SEE

http://www.drugsense.org/hurry.htm

TO UNSUBSCRIBE SEE http://www.drugsense.org/unsub.htm

***************************************************************************

Prepared by Stephen Young – http://home.att.net/~theyoungfamily Focus
Alert Specialist

Date: Thu, 29 Jun 2000
Subject: Penthouse Exposes Mindless War On Marijuana

Penthouse Exposes Mindless War On Marijuana

——-
PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE
——-

DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 176 Thursday June 26, 2000

The number of problems created by marijuana prohibition make it
difficult to give a good overview in a single article, but writer
Michael Simmons makes a nice attempt in Penthouse this month. His
article (below) shows how many people are getting hurt by the war on
pot, and how activists are working to stop it.

Please write a letter to the magazine to thank editors for
distributing this important information.

WRITE A LETTER TODAY

If not YOU who? If not NOW when?

***************************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OR TELL US WHAT YOU DID (
Letter,Phone, fax etc.)

Please post a copy your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] Your letter will then
be forwarded to the list with so others can learn from your efforts
and be motivated to follow suit

This is VERY IMPORTANT as it is the only way we have of gauging our
impact and effectiveness.

**************************************************************************

CONTACT INFO

Source: Penthouse (US)
Contact: [email protected]

***************************************************************************

ARTICLE

US: Reefer Mindless
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n884/a06.html
Newshawk: Jo-D and Tom-E
Pubdate: Tue, 01 Aug 2000
Source: Penthouse (US)
Section: Cover story
Copyright: 2000 General Media Communications, Inc.
Contact: [email protected]
Address: 11 Penn Plaza, Twelfth Floor, New York, NY 10001
Fax: (212) 702-6262
Website: http://www.penthouse.com
Author: Michael Simmons

REEFER MINDLESS

[On the cover: Special Report: Reefer Mindless – It’s time to end the
vicious, stupid, losing war on pot]

As we enter a new century, the decades-long war against marijuana
continues, with pot busts doubling in the past decade, and tens of
thousands of Americans behind bars for possessing, growing, or selling
the nation’s third favorite recreational drug. When will this official
Reefer Madness end? Possibly sooner than anyone thinks.

“We are locking up this country!” the boyish-looking man in a suit
thundered from the podium. “Should drug use in the privacy of your own
home =85 end you up in jail?”

The packed crowd in a conference room at the Pyramid Crowne Plaza
Hotel in Albuquerque, New Mexico, answered the question with an
emphatic “NO!”

“Does anybody want to press a button and retroactively punish the 80
million Americans who have done illegal drugs?” the man asked. “NO!”
the crowd roared back again. “And did I mention that I’m one of those
people? I’m one of the 80 million!”

This impassioned speech, delivered last November before a group of drug-law
reformers attending a panel discussion on “The Drug War: Who Is Winning?,”
could have been made by any one of 70 million Americans who have smoked
pot, or the millions more who’ve tried harder stuff. But here was Gary E.
Johnson, second-term Republican governor of New Mexico, denouncing the war
on drugs as “a miserable failure.” The 47-year-old triathlete, who now
abstains from all mind-altering substances, including sugar, admitted prior
to winning his first term in 1994 to using both marijuana and cocaine
during his college days. After declining to run for higher office following
his second and last term (which expires January 2002), Johnson began to air
his maverick views. He has received enthusiastic praise from those who see
the drug war as an attack by the government on its own citizens. He’s also
become the whipping boy for everybody from White House drug czar Barry
McCaffrey, who claimed that school kids were referring to the governor as
“Puff Daddy” Johnson (“This is goofy thinking that’s harmful to New
Mexico,” remarked the czar — “He ought to be ashamed of himself”), to
fellow New Mexican politicos and law-enforcement officials, to a
middle-school cheer leading team that refused to meet with Johnson because
of his views.

In a conversation after the conference, Johnson discoursed upon the
“reefer madness” scare tactics prevalent in his own youth, today’s
ludicrous brain-on-drugs-equals-fried-eggs analogy, and the inability
of rule makers to differentiate between substances as disparate as pot
and heroin. “We lived the lie,” he said. “Kids continue to live it,
see it played out on them. Take the [Partnership for a Drug-Free
America] advertisement, ‘Here’s your brain, here’s your brain on
drugs.’ Well, okay, so that means marijuana. We experienced the same
thing. We did marijuana. And it’s not what it’s been portrayed. You
don’t lose your mind. You don’t have a propensity to do crime. It’s
okay. It’s not a bad experience. So does that mean what the rest of
the government is telling us is also a lie?”

[snip]

Johnson is a mind-blowing anomaly — a politician who tells the truth,
consequences be damned. And the core truth he speaks is that at the
heart of the multibillion-dollar drug war and its thousands of related
jobs in law enforcement and the prisons system is the nonsensical
demonization of marijuana. For 63 years, since the passage of the
Marihuana (sic) Tax Act of 1937, Americans have been told that pot is
an addictive narcotic that causes everything from amotivational
syndrome to sociopathic behavior to premature death. (The Controlled
Substances Act of 1970 classified marijuana as a Schedule I drug,
along with heroin and L.S.D., thus categorizing it as a substance with
a high potential for abuse and no medicinal applications.) Yet as we
enter the twenty-first century, pot is the third favorite recreational
drug of choice in the United States after alcohol and tobacco. Unlike
alcohol and tobacco, however, marijuana cannot be bought legally for
pleasure or relaxation by Americans who run to the corner store.
Unlike alcohol or tobacco, marijuana found in the possession of adults
can result in criminal sanctions ranging from the equivalent of a
parking ticket to, in the case of a federal statute governing the
import or growing of more than 50,000 plants or pounds, the death penalty.

But the truth is that, slowly and inexorably, the Berlin Wall of
Prohibition is crumbling. The millions of Americans who have either
tried or continue to smoke marijuana know that its negative side
effects are either overstated or outright lies, and public outrage at
the constitutional violations perpetrated in the name of the drug war
is increasing exponentially. Medical marijuana has enjoyed majority
support wherever it’s been on a ballot. And farmers looking for a
profitable crop, entrepreneurs looking for an environmentally and
financially green product, and young people looking for a cause have
transformed hemp — the non psychoactive cousin of marijuana, with
hundreds of beneficial uses — into a $200-million-a-year industry.

Still, there is a dangerous disconnect at work in America regarding
marijuana. Viewers guffaw when the gang in That ’70s Show paints a
marijuana leaf on the town’s water tower — cultural code that
marijuana is a relatively harmless drug as well as a rite of passage
for youth. Reefer jokes are cracked on The Simpsons and by Jay Leno on
the Tonight Show, and weed is smoked to hilarious effect in such major
studio movies as Dazed and Confused and The Big Lebowski. Meanwhile,
tens of thousands of Americans are arrested annually, imprisoned, and
made to face forfeiture of their homes and belongings because of its
use, cultivation, or sale. Furthermore, draconian mandatory minimum
sentencing (the least amount of prison time to be served by law)
passed by Congress and many states is grossly disproportionate to the
alleged crime, as well as leaving judges no leeway to take into
consideration the particulars of each case.

[snip]

Last November, Time magazine ran a tongue-in-cheek but factually
accurate breakdown of the particular social groups that prefer certain
drugs. For pot smokers, the social group was described as “everyone.”

According to recent studies, more than 70 million Americans have
smoked marijuana at least once in their lifetime, 11 million use it
monthly, and about half of those inhale almost daily; this means that
about five percent of people over the age of 12 can be loosely defined
as pot smokers, and between five and six million of them are dedicated
stoners.

Of course these figures must be gauged against the reality that many
potheads will not ‘fess up to illegal behavior, even when guaranteed
anonymity. With “zero tolerance” the watch-phrase of the antidrug
forces and corporate policy makers, such paranoia is completely
justified. If you factor in expanded police power to search and seize,
payments to informants, snitching for plea bargains, aggressive
conspiracy charges, and mandatory urine testing, the pot smokers’
dilemma becomes abundantly clear. Their jobs and their families, not
to mention their very freedom from imprisonment, are constantly at
stake. As R. Keith Stroup, the 56- year-old founder and director of
the Washington-based National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana
Laws, observes, “People are in the closet; they’re intimidated after
20 years of the war on drugs. They can’t be honest; they might lose
their jobs, or they might get drug-tested. There are all kinds of
reasons why people are not necessarily honest about how they feel
about marijuana smoking — including those of us who smoke.”

[snip]

Although domestic pot production has been rising steadily over the
years, with increasing amounts being grown indoors under scrupulous
conditions aimed at producing high-potency, high-priced weed, it is
imported marijuana, primarily from Mexico, that remains the toker’s
mainstay, especially in locales where there is no pot-growing culture
and high-quality strains are hard to find or afford.

Debate rages over whether marijuana is stronger than it was 20 years
ago. The antidrug warriors say yes, maintaining it’s so much more
potent that it’s a different drug, thereby justifying their
zero-tolerance tactics. To bolster their contention, they point to
research done at the University of Mississippi, the home of the
federal government’s pot farm. The Potency Monitoring Project at Ole
Miss has found that pot is stronger now than in the early seventies,
though its average strength has been consistent since the early
eighties. On the other hand, independent analyses have detected higher
THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, pot’s psychoactive cannabinoid) content in
such seventies strains as Maui Wowie and Thai Stick than in most
currently avail- able strains, bolstering the contention of pot
advocates that today’s weed presents no unique danger.

Not content to attack marijuana alone, zero-tolerance zealots also
target its “delivery systems.” Most states have some form of anti
paraphernalia laws on the books, and while there are no available
statistics on how many candy-store owners get raided for carrying
Bambu rolling papers, the paraphernalia laws come in handy when
prosecutors want to “pile on” years to a drug offender’s prison
sentence. Furthermore, the paraphernalia laws are often used by the
local police as a pretext for an assault in what is at its core a
cultural war. Says NORML’s deputy director Allen St. Pierre, “It’s
literally town by town by town. If a shop owner has things such as
NORML information, or High Times or other countercultural magazines at
hand, or if there are T-shirts or other cultural affectations in the
store that would lead a reasonable person to believe that marijuana
was part of the culture within, then that’s the standard that one
would probably use to arrest somebody for selling paraphernalia.
That’s why most prudent paraphernalia stores strew their displays with
tobacco and insist on 18′ and over, as they should, and have zero
discussions beyond the obvious.”

From sea to shining sea, and contrary to popular perception, the war
against marijuana is increasing in intensity. According to available
data, pot busts have accelerated in the 1990s, most notably during the
phony-liberal Clinton administration. F.B.I. statistics for 1998
record 682,885 marijuana arrests, 88 percent for mere possession,
belying law enforcement’s conventional spin that the enforcers are
mainly concerned with large-scale growth and distribution rackets.
These figures are slightly lower than those of the year before, when
NORML noted that the Clinton administration had already out busted the
kinder, gentler George Bush by 30 percent on an average yearly basis.
In fact, pot busts have more than doubled since 1990, while those for
heroin and cocaine fell by more than 50 percent. In 1998, 44 percent
of all drug arrests were for marijuana; one out of every 25 criminal
arrests was for marijuana possession; and one in seven persons in
prison for drugs had been convicted on marijuana charges.
(Interestingly, the number of pot arrests has risen steadily while the
estimated number of smokers has fallen off from a reported high in
1979.) Approximately 43,000 Americans are presently behind state or
federal bars for marijuana, at an estimated social cost of $7.5
billion annually. More Americans get popped annually for marijuana
(and many receive harsher sentences) than for murder, rape, robbery,
and aggravated assault combined. According to current federal
mandatory minimum-sentencing law, you can be imprisoned for 15 to 21
months and fined $1 million for delivery or sale of a single joint,
and slapped with five to 40 years and a $2 million fine for possessing
more than 100 plants. Cultivating or selling more than 1,000 plants or
1,000 kilograms can earn you a life sentence in a federal
penitentiary.

[snip]

Matters are far from laid-back for pot enthusiasts in California. Last
October, the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, an interagency
eradication effort, announced that it had already seized 241,164
plants for the year 1999. The confiscated plants had an estimated
value of $965 million, up 80 percent over the ’98 tallies, and 40
percent higher than the previous record year of 1985. And while
law-enforcement figures warned that the passage in 1996 of Proposition
215, the initiative that legalized medical marijuana in California,
would tie their hands and create a de facto legalization of
recreational marijuana use in the state, there were nearly 2,000 state
pot prisoners in California is July of ’99, an increase of ten percent
since the proposition passed with the support of 56 percent of voters.
In fact, while possession of less than an ounce is punishable by a
relatively light $100 fine, the state’s cops and prosecutors see red
when it comes to anything greater than an ounce, especially where
cultivation and/or distribution are concerned, with the possible
exemption (thanks to Proposition 215, as we shall see) of some medical
marijuana operations.

New York State tops the United States for the greatest number of pot
busts per 100,000 smokers (at 6,294 as of 1997), but regionally most
take place in Mid-western states (for sales/manufacture) and the
Midwest and South (for possession). Justice in some of these states is
often wildly disproportionate to the alleged crime, even when compared
with the national standard. Oklahoma, for example, has what are
overall probably the harshest pot penalties in the United States.
Possession of any amount (such as the residue of a joint) can bring up
to a year in jail and a $500 fine. A second offense (a second bust for
the residue of a joint) warrants two years to life and a $20,000 fine.
Possession of paraphernalia (say, a single rolling paper) is
punishable by a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. Four years to life
imprisonment is mandated for sale or delivery of under 25 pounds, and
the minimum penalty increases with larger quantities. Punishments are
doubled for sale to a minor or within 1,000 feet of a school. And, as
in several other states, you can have your driver’s license suspended
as penalty even if you’re not driving while nabbed.

Will Foster is the most well-known victim of Oklahoma’s zero-tolerance
legislation. The 42-year-old Tulsa father of three was given a 93-year
sentence in 1997 for 60 plants (said the prosecutor; 10 plants and 50
seedlings and clones, Foster maintained). Foster has advanced
rheumatoid arthritis, precisely the kind of ailment for which pot has
been shown to be an effective medicine in numerous studies, including
six presented to the Society for Neuroscience in Washington, D.C., in
1997. In the summer of 1998, Foster’s sentence was reduced to 20
years, but Governor Frank Keating has ignored repeated pleas and
declined to pardon him. In fact, Keating is pushing the Oklahoma
legislature to toughen its marijuana laws.

Latter-day frontier injustice is not limited to state law, however.
Current federal mandatory-minimum (or “man-min”) sentencing, codified
by the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986, prevents judges from using their
discretion and orders lopsided sentences disproportionate to the
alleged crimes. A man-min sentence can be reduced only if the
defendant cooperates with the prosecution and snitches others out in
the pursuit of questionable conspiracy convictions. It’s a quid pro
qua deal: You give us the names of fellow travelers in order to notch
our belts with more guilty verdicts, and you’ll do less time or none
at all. Often, far more culpable informants receive lighter sentences
than the people they inform on. Throw in forfeiture laws, according to
which, until recently, a drug offender — or even anyone suspected
prior to trial — forfeits his or her assets to be divvied up among
the law-enforcement agencies involved in the case, and the result is
incentive for cops and prosecutors to use the Constitution as toilet
paper.

Consequently, the number of conspiracy prosecutions against Americans
arrested for the sale or manufacture of weed has soared, wreaking
havoc on thousands of lives. Take, for example, the horror visited
upon the Tucker family of Georgia.

[snip]

In some cases, alleged marijuana transgressors face a far more deadly
penalty than prison. Donald Scott, a 61-year-old wealthy Malibu
rancher, was murdered in 1992 by a joint task force (comprised of
members of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, L.A.P.D., Park
Service, D.E.A., Forest Service, California National Guard, and
California Bureau of Narcotics) conducting an early-morning raid on
the pretense that Scott was growing pot on his property. Responding to
his wife’s screams, a clueless Scott grabbed a gun and confronted the
intruders. Two bullets were pumped into him. No pot was found. Ventura
County District Attorney Michael D. Bradbury released a report
criticizing the task force for using false information to secure a
search warrant. Bradbury characterized the effort as an attempt to use
forfeiture laws to slice up Scott’s considerable assets between the
participating agencies. “Clearly one of the primary purposes was a
land grab by the Sheriff’s Department,” Bradbury wrote. While no
law-enforcement agency or officer was ever charged with a crime, Los
Angeles County and the feds tentatively agreed to pay $5 million to
Scott’s survivors earlier this year.

More recently, Mario Paz, a 65-year-old father of six and grandfather
of 14, was shot dead in his Compton, California, home last August by
officers from the nearby El Monte Police Department who were engaged
in an ongoing investigation. Again, it was an early-morning putsch on
an uncomprehending victim. It turns out a suspected pot dealer had
used Paz’s address as a mail drop. And once again no marijuana was
found, nor was any police officer charged with murder. In January, Q.
J. Simpson attorney Johnnie Cochran filed a suit on behalf of Paz’s
survivors, accusing the cities of El Monte and Compton of wrongful
death and conspiracy to violate Paz’s civil rights.

[The article has been cut here and snipped above to keep this mailing
to a reasonable size. To read the rest of the article, visit
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n884/a06.html]

******************************************************************************

SAMPLE LETTER

To the editor:

Thank you for your article Reefer Mindless. It’s heartening to see
more and more people come forward to try to stop the drug war
fascists. It’s clearer than ever that the marijuana user isn’t the bad
guy in this war, that role falls to our own government.

The article was probably written some time ago, so did not mention the
unfortunate death of author and medical marijuana activist Peter
McWilliams. Peter had been arrested on marijuana charges and was
forbidden to mention his illness, Aids and cancer, or the legality of
medical marijuana in his state at his trial. Left with no defense he
was forced to plead guilty. As a term of Peters bail he was required
to submit to urine tests for marijuana, the only drug that helped him
keep down his medication. His mother was told that she would lose her
house if he failed the test, so Peter obeyed his masters. On June 14th
Peter choked to death on his own vomit as a direct result of being
forbidden to use marijuana by Federal judge George King. We’ve lost
another good man to the will of petty dictators.

Jeff Flanagan

IMPORTANT: Always include your address and telephone
number

Please note: If you choose to use this letter as a model please modify it
at least somewhat so that the paper does not receive numerous copies of the
same letter and so that the original author receives credit for his/her work.
—————————————————————————-

ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing
efforts

3 Tips for Letter Writers http://www.mapinc.org/3tips.htm

Letter Writers Style Guide http://www.mapinc.org/style.htm

****************************************************************************

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Prepared by Stephen Young – http://home.att.net/~theyoungfamily Focus
Alert Specialist

Date: Thu, 22 Jun 2000
Subject: Peter McWilliams Becomes Drug War Fatality

Peter McWilliams Becomes Drug War Fatality

——-
PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE
——-

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #175 June, 22, 2000

Despite grave illness, legal troubles and financial problems, Peter
McWilliams always spread the word about the cruel folly of the drug
war. Peter was finally silenced last week thanks to the policies he
protested so eloquently. An AIDS and cancer patient who was denied
medical marijuana while waiting to be sentenced on drug charges, Peter
choked to death after vomiting. Considering that he used marijuana to
quell nausea from AIDS-fighting drugs, there is no question that
court-ordered restrictions of his medical marijuana use helped to kill
Peter.

There have been some observers who have noticed this, like William F.
Buckley (see below). Unfortunately, many obituaries written for Peter
simply said that he died after a long battle with AIDS and cancer.
Please write a letter to thank Buckley for exposing the real truth
behind Peter’s death and/or write a letter to any of the newspapers
that ran an obituary of Peter to let them know that Peter’s death and
many of his recent troubles were all the result of drug
prohibition.

WRITE A LETTER TODAY

It’s not what others do it’s what YOU do

***************************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OR TELL US WHAT YOU DID ( Letter,
Phone, fax etc.)

Please post a copy your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] Your letter will then
be forwarded to the list with so others can learn from your efforts
and be motivated to follow suit

This is VERY IMPORTANT as it is the only way we have of gauging our
impact and effectiveness.

**************************************************************************

CONTACT INFO

Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Contact: [email protected]

EXTRA CREDIT

The LA Times (and many other papers) ran obituaries that didn’t
mention the fact that Peter died from a symptom that medical marijuana
could have prevented. The LA Times obituary can be found here:
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n832/a10.html

Please write to the Times and other papers to let editors and readers
know what really happened.

Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Contact: [email protected]

To find other obituaries and commentary on Peter’s death, go to MAP’s
DrugNews archive at http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/ and click ‘”go” on
the Quick Link box that lists “Peter McWilliams” as a hot topic.

All of the following newspapers have printed versions of this story
with the same basic information. Please send a copy of you letter to
these papers, and your local newspaper as well.

***************************************************************************

ARTICLE

US: Column: Peter McWilliams, R.I.P.
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n849/a10.html
Newshawk: There is no justice in the war on drugs! http://www.november.org
Pubdate: Wed, 21 Jun 2000
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright: 2000 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: [email protected]
Address: P.O.Box 15779, Sacramento CA 95852
Feedback: http://www.sacbee.com/about_us/sacbeemail.html
Website: http://www.sacbee.com/
Forum: http://www.sacbee.com/voices/voices_forum.html
Author: William Buckley
Note: Write to William Buckley at Universal Press Syndicate, 4520 Main St.,
Kansas City, Mo. 64111. His column appears in many newspapers. Bookmark:
MAP’s link to Peter McWilliams items is
http://www.mapinc.org/mcwilliams.htm

PETER MCWILLIAMS, R.I.P. Peter McWilliams is dead. Age? Fifty.
Profession? Author, poet, publisher.

Particular focus of interest? The federal judge in California (George
King) would decide in a few weeks how long a sentence to hand down,
and whether to send McWilliams to prison or let him serve his sentence
at home.

What was his offense? He collaborated in growing marijuana
plants.

What was his defense? Well, the judge wouldn’t allow him to plead his
defense to the jury. If given a chance, the defense would have argued
that under Proposition 215, passed into California constitutional law
in 1996, infirm Californians who got medical relief from marijuana
were permitted to use it. The judge also forbade any mention that
McWilliams suffered from AIDS and cancer, and got relief from the marijuana.

What was he doing when he died? Vomiting. The vomiting hit him while
in his bathtub, and he choked to death.

Was there nothing he might have done to still the impulse to vomit?
Yes, he could have taken marijuana; but the judge’s bail terms forbade
him to do so, and he submitted to weekly urine tests to confirm that
he was living up to the terms of his bail.

Did anybody take note of the risk he was undergoing? He took Marinol –
— a proffered, legal substitute, but reported after using it that it
worked for him only about one-third of the time. When it didn’t work,
he vomited.

Was there no public protest against the judge’s ruling? Yes. On June
9, the television program “20/20” devoted a segment to the McWilliams
plight. Commentator John Stossel summarized:

“McWilliams is out of prison on the condition that he not smoke
marijuana, but it was the marijuana that kept him from vomiting up his
medication. I can understand that the federal drug police don’t agree
with what some states have decided to do about medical marijuana, but
does that give them the right to just end-run those laws and lock people up?”

Shortly after the trial last year, Charles Levendosky, writing in the
Ventura County (Calif.) Star, summarized: “The cancer treatment
resulted in complete remission.” But only the marijuana gave him
sustained relief from the vomiting that proved mortal.

Is it being said, in plain language, that the judge’s obstinacy
resulted in killing McWilliams? Yes. The Libertarian Party press
release has made exactly that charge. “McWilliams was prohibited from
using medical marijuna — and being denied access to the drug’s
anti-nausea properties almost certainly caused his death.”

Reflecting on the judge’s refusal to let the jury know that there was
understandable reason for McWilliams to believe he was acting legally,
I ended a column in this space in November by writing, “So, the fate
of Peter McWilliams is in the hands of Judge King. Perhaps the cool
thing for him to do is delay a ruling for a few months, and just let
Peter McWilliams die.” Well, that happened last week, on June 14.

The struggle against a fanatical imposition of federal laws on
marijuana will continue, as also on the question whether federal laws
can stifle state initiatives. Those who believe the marijuana laws are
insanely misdirected have a martyr.

Peter was a wry, mythogenic guy, humorous, affectionate, articulate,
shrewd, sassy. He courted anarchy at the moral level. His most recent
book (his final book) was called “Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do.”
We were old friends, and I owe my early conversion to word processing
to his guidebook on how to do it. Over the years we corresponded, and
he would amiably twit my conservative opinions. When I judged him to
have gone rampant on his own individualistic views in his book, I
wrote him to that effect. I cherish his reply — nice acerbic
deference, the supreme put-down.

“Please remember the Law of Relativity as applied to politics: In
order for you to be right, at least someone else must be wrong. Your
rightness is only shown in relation to the other’s wrongness.
Conversely, your rightness is necessary for people like me to look
truly wrong. Before Bach, people said of bad organ music, ‘That’s not
quite right.’ After Bach, people said flatly, ‘That’s wrong.’ This
allowed dedicated composers to grow, and cast the neophytes back to
writing how-to-be-happy music. So, thank me for my wrongness, as so
many reviews of my book will doubtless say, ‘People should read more
of a truly great political commentator: William F. Buckley Jr.'”

Imagine such a spirit ending its life at 50, just because they
wouldn’t let him have a toke. We have to console ourselves with the
comment of the two prosecutors. They said they were “saddened” by
Peter McWilliams’ death. Many of us are — by his death and the causes
of it.

******************************************************************************

SAMPLE LETTER

To the editor:

Supporters of marijuana prohibition sometimes say the war on weed is
worth all its drawbacks if it saves one child. But they never
acknowledge that marijuana prohibition is killing people, even though
no human being ever died from marijuana use. William F. Buckley was
completely correct to trace Peter McWilliam’s death to the federal war
on drugs and the bureaucrats who enforce it.

Before ever being convicted of anything, Peter’s property, including a
book in progress were seized. Then he was denied the right to use
effective medicine, despite state law that gave him that right. And
when he was tried he was not allowed to use a medical defense. When
Peter choked on his own vomit (a symptom he probably wouldn’t have
exhibited had he been allowed to use medical marijuana) it was last
blow in a vicious government assault against an enlightened individual
who embodied the injustice of the drug war. I hope Peter does rest in
peace, but I hope his death will help to agitate more citizens to
fight against the cruel policy that killed him.

Stephen Young

IMPORTANT: Always include your address and telephone
number

Please note: If you choose to use this letter as a model please modify it
at least somewhat so that the paper does not receive numerous copies of the
same letter and so that the original author receives credit for his/her work.
—————————————————————————-

ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing
efforts

3 Tips for Letter Writers http://www.mapinc.org/3tips.htm

Letter Writers Style Guide http://www.mapinc.org/style.htm

****************************************************************************

TO SUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP, OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL SEE

http://www.drugsense.org/hurry.htm

TO UNSUBSCRIBE SEE http://www.drugsense.org/unsub.htm

***************************************************************************

Prepared by Stephen Young – http://home.att.net/~theyoungfamily Focus
Alert Specialist

Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2000
Subject: Drug War Targets Minorities – Write A Letter Today

Drug War Targets Minorities

——-
PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE
——-

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #174 Friday June 9, 2000

The inherent racism of the drug war is obvious, but it was confirmed
again this week as Human Rights Watch released a report showing
African Americans are punished for drug charges at rates that are
astronomical compared with other groups. According to the Washington
Post, “In Maryland, for example, blacks make up 27 percent of the
population and 90 percent of those sent to prison on drug charges =AD
for a rate that is 28 times greater than whites.”

Every major newspaper has picked up on this story, offering an
opportunity to point out that the drug war has always been based on
racism. Please write a letter to the Washington Post, other large
circulation newspapers and your own local newspaper to explain that
the disparities are completely predictable consequence of the war on
drugs.

WRITE A LETTER TODAY

It’s not what others do it’s what YOU do

***************************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OR TELL US WHAT YOU DID ( Letter,
Phone, fax etc.)

Please post a copy your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] Your letter will then
be forwarded to the list with so others can learn from your efforts
and be motivated to follow suit

This is VERY IMPORTANT as it is the only way we have of gauging our
impact and effectiveness.

**************************************************************************

CONTACT INFO

Source: Washington Post
Contact: [email protected]

EXTRA CREDIT

All of the following newspapers have printed versions of this story
with the same basic information. Please send a copy of you letter to
these papers, and your local newspaper as well.

Title: US: STUDY: WAR ON DRUGS IS STACKED AGAINST BLACKS
Source: USA Today (US)
Contact: [email protected]

Title: Race Analysis Cites Disparity In Sentencing For Narcotics
Source: New York Times (NY)
Contact: [email protected]

Title: Blacks Unfairly Targeted In Fight On Drugs, Report Says
Source: Los Angeles Times
Contact: [email protected]

Title: RACE REPORT SINGLES OUT ILLINOIS FOR DRUG-CONVICTION DISPARITY
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Contact: [email protected]

Title: Drug War Targets Blacks, Report Says
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Contact: [email protected]

Title: State No 2 In Racial Gap In Drug Sentences
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)
Contact: [email protected]

Title: Drug Efforts Target Blacks, Study Finds
Source: The Baltimore Sun(MD)
Contact: [email protected]

Title: Nation’s War On Drugs Targets Blacks Unfairly, Study Finds
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Contact: [email protected]

***************************************************************************

ARTICLE

US: More Whites Use Drugs, More Blacks Imprisoned
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n771.a03.html
Newshawk: Jo-D and Tom-E
Pubdate: Thu, 08 Jun 2000
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2000 The Washington Post Company
Contact: [email protected]
Address: 1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
Feedback: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Author: Michael A. Fletcher, Washington Post Staff Writer

REPORT: MORE WHITES USE DRUGS, MORE BLACKS IMPRISONED

The nation’s war on drugs unfairly targets African Americans, who are
far more likely to be imprisoned for drug offenses than whites even
though far more whites use illegal drugs than blacks, according to a
new report by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch.

The report, to be released today, said that African Americans
accounted for 62 percent of the drug offenders sent to state prisons
nationwide in 1996, the most recent year for which statistics are
available, although they represent just 12 percent of the U.S.
population. Overall, black men are sent to state prisons on drug
charges at 13 times the rate of white men, according to the study,
which analyzes a wide range of Justice Department information for 37
states to come up with its findings.

These disparities exist even though data gathered by the Department of
Health and Human Services show that in 1991, 1992 and 1993, about five
times as many whites had used cocaine than blacks, the report said.
The report added that drug transactions among blacks often are easier
for police to target because they more often occur in public than do
drug transactions among whites.

“These racial disparities are a national scandal,” said Ken Roth,
executive director of Human Rights Watch, an international human
rights organization. “Black and white drug offenders get radically
different treatment in the American justice system. This is not only
profoundly unfair to blacks, it also corrodes the American ideal of
equal justice for all.”

The disparities are particularly striking in individual states, where
black men are sent to prison on drug charges at rates as much as 57
times greater than that of white men. In Maryland, for example, blacks
make up 27 percent of the population and 90 percent of those sent to
prison on drug charges =AD; for a rate that is 28 times greater than
whites.

In Virginia, meanwhile, blacks are 82 percent of those sent to prison
on drug charges and just 20 percent of the population. Overall, they
are sent to prison on drug charges at a rate 21 times greater than
whites.

“More blacks were sent to state prison nationwide on drug charges than
for crimes of violence,” Jamie Fellner, associate counsel for Human
Rights Watch, wrote in the report. “Only 27 percent of black
admissions to prison were for crimes of violence =AD; compared to 38
percent for drug offenses.”

The Human Rights Watch report adds to a growing array of studies
documenting racial disparities in the nation’s criminal justice
system. A report last month by the Leadership Conference on Civil
Rights found that African Americans and Hispanics are treated more
harshly than similarly situated whites at every level of the criminal
justice system. And that report came on the heels of a study by the
National Council on Crime and Delinquency showing that black and
Hispanic youth are more likely than whites to be arrested, prosecuted,
held in jail without bail and sentenced to long prison terms.

Remedies suggested in the Human Rights Watch report include the repeal
of mandatory sentencing laws for drug offenders, increasing drug
treatment and eliminating racial profiling as a police tactic.

Largely because of the huge disparity in imprisonment for drug
offenses, blacks are sent to prison at 8.2 times the rate of whites.
Overall, one in 20 black men over the age of 18 is in a state or
federal prison, compared to one in 180 white men.

“Prison is a legitimate criminal sanction,” the report said. “But it
should be used sensibly, justly, parsimoniously, and with due
consideration . . . and respect for human dignity required by
international human rights law. The incarceration of hundreds of
thousands of low-level, non-violent drug offenders betrays
indifference to such considerations.”

******************************************************************************

SAMPLE LETTER

To the editor:

For those who still promote drug prohibition as a cure for social
ills, a recent report by Human Rights Watch should be a ear-splitting
wake up call. The report, which documents the huge disparity in the
way different races are punished for drug crimes, shows that in some
states black men are sent to prison on drug charges at rates as much
as 57 times greater than that of white men, even though many more
whites than black use illegal drugs.

The report raises serious questions about the availability equal
justice in the U.S., but those of us who follow the drug war closely
aren’t surprised at all. The drug war was initially implemented to
maintain racial disparity. Drugs associated with particular ethnic
groups were outlawed in a conscious effort to control those groups.
Hamilton Wright, who helped to promote the first federal drug laws in
the early part of the twentieth century, used this reasoning to
support cocaine prohibition: “Cocaine is often the direct incentive to
the crime of rape by the Negroes…” Others like Wright used similar
language when they talked about opium use by Chinese or marijuana use
by Mexicans.

But, as the Human Rights Watch report has been issued in more
politically correct times, I suspect many supporters of drug
prohibition will say they abhor racial inequities in drug sentencing,
even though they also believe the drug war should be “mended, not
ended.” The sincerity of such statements will be at best questionable.
A look at the history of the drug war shows it is now smoothly
functioning just as its designers intended.

Stephen Young

IMPORTANT: Always include your address and telephone
number

Please note: If you choose to use this letter as a model please modify it
at least somewhat so that the paper does not receive numerous copies of the
same letter and so that the original author receives credit for his/her work.
—————————————————————————-

ADDITIONAL INFO to help you in your letter writing
efforts

3 Tips for Letter Writers http://www.mapinc.org/3tips.htm

Letter Writers Style Guide http://www.mapinc.org/style.htm

****************************************************************************

TO SUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP, OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL SEE

http://www.drugsense.org/hurry.htm

TO UNSUBSCRIBE SEE http://www.drugsense.org/unsub.htm

***************************************************************************

Prepared by Stephen Young – http://home.att.net/~theyoungfamily Focus
Alert Specialist

Date: Fri, 02 Jun 2000
Subject: Time Magazine Tempers Ecstasy Hysteria

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #173 June 3, 2000

Time Magazine Tempers Ecstasy Hysteria

——-
PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE
——-

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #173 June 3, 2000

Time Magazine isn’t always the place to look for the balanced
reporting of drug news, but this week seems to be a little different.
The magazine published a good piece on Ecstasy (below), giving equal
time to both adherents and opponents of the club drug.

The reporter acknowledges that Ecstasy is not as dangerous as the drug
warriors would like us to believe, and he also points out that the
crusaders’ willingness to demonize the drug may hurt their cause: “But
one reason ecstasy is so fascinating, and thus dangerous to antidrug
crusaders, is that it appears to be a safer drug than heroin and
cocaine, at least in the short run, and appears to have more
potentially therapeutic benefits.”

Please write a letter to Time to thank editors for presenting an
unusually fair article on an illegal drug, and to encourage them to
challenge the overkill of anti-drug crusaders again in the future.

Thanks for your effort and support.

WRITE A LETTER TODAY

It’s not what others do it’s what YOU do

***************************************************************************

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER OR TELL US WHAT YOU DID ( Letter,
Phone, fax etc.)

Please post a copy your letter or report your action to the sent
letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by
E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] Your letter will then
be forwarded to the list with so others can learn from your efforts
and be motivated to follow suit

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CONTACT INFO

Source: Time Magazine (US)
Contact: [email protected]

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ARTICLE

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n713/a04.html
Pubdate: Mon, 05 Jun 2000
Source: Time Magazine (US)
Copyright: 2000 Time Inc.
Page: 62
Contact: [email protected]
Address: Time Magazine Letters, Time & Life Bldg., Rockefeller Center, NY,
NY 10020
Fax: (212) 522-8949
Website: http://www.time.com/
Author: John Cloud
Note: With Reporting By Carole Buia/Miami, Greg Fulton/Atlanta, Alice
Park/New York, Elaine Shannon And Dick Thompson/Washington Cited:
http://ecstasy.org http://clubdrugs.org
Cited: Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies:

MAPS.org – Support Psychedelic Science

Cited: DanceSafe: http://www.dancesafe.org

Bookmark: For more on ecstasy click this link: http://www.mapinc.org/mdma.htm

THE LURE OF ECSTASY

The elixir best known for powering raves is an 80-year-old illegal
drug. But it’s showing up outside clubs too, and advocates claim it
even has therapeutic benefits. Just how dangerous is it?

Cobb County, GA., May 11, 2000. It’s a Thursday morning, and
18-year-old “Karen” and five friends decide to go for it. They skip
first period and sneak into the woods near their upscale high school.
One of them takes out six rolls–six ecstasy pills–and they each
swallow one. Then back to school, flying on a drug they once used
only on weekends. Now they smile stupid gelatinous smiles at one
another, even as high school passes them by. That night they will all
go out and drop more ecstasy, rolling into the early hours of another
school day. It’s rare that anyone would take ecstasy so often–it’s
not physically addictive–but teenagers everywhere have begun
experimenting with it. “The cliques are pretty big in my school,”
Karen says, “and every clique does it.”

Grand Rapids, Mich., May 1997. Sue and Shane Stevens have sent the
three kids away for the weekend. They have locked the doors and
hidden the car so no one will bug them. Tonight they hope to talk
about Shane’s cancer, a topic they have mostly avoided for years. It
has eaten away at their marriage just as it corrodes his kidney. A
friend has recommended that they take ecstasy, except he calls it MDMA
and says therapists used it 20 years ago to get people to discuss
difficult topics. And, in fact, after tonight, Sue and Shane will
open up, and Sue will come to believe MDMA is prolonging her
marriage–and perhaps Shane’s life.

So we know that ecstasy is versatile. Actually, that’s one of the
first things we knew about it. Alexander Shulgin, 74, the biochemist
who in 1978 published the first scientific article about the drug’s
effect on humans, noticed this panacea quality back then. The drug
“could be all things to all people,” he recalled later, a cure for one
student’s speech impediment and for one’s bad LSD trip, and a way for
Shulgin to have fun at cocktail parties without martinis.

The ready availability of ecstasy, from Cobb County to Grand Rapids,
is a newer phenomenon. Ecstasy–or “e”–enjoyed a brief spurt of
mainstream use in the ’80s, before the government outlawed it in 1985.
Until recently, it remained common only on the margins of society–in
clubland, in gay America, in lower Manhattan. But in the past year or
so, ecstasy has returned to the heartland. Established drug dealers
and mobsters have taken over the trade, and they are meeting the
astonishing demand in places like Flagstaff, Ariz., where “Katrina,” a
student at Northern Arizona University who first took it last summer,
can now buy it easily; or San Marcos, Texas, a town of 39,000 where
authorities found 500 pills last month; or Richmond, Va., where a
police investigation led to the arrest this year of a man thought to
have sold tens of thousands of hits of e. On May 12, authorities
seized half a million pills at San Francisco’s airport–the biggest e
bust ever. Each pill costs pennies to make but sells for between $20
and $40, so someone missed a big payday.

Ecstasy remains a niche drug. The number of people who use it once a
month remains so small–less than 1% of the population–that ecstasy
use doesn’t register in the government’s drug survey. (By comparison,
5% of Americans older than 12 say they use marijuana once a month, and
1.8% use cocaine.) But ecstasy use is growing. Eight percent of U.S.
high school seniors say they have tried it at least once, up from 5.8%
in 1997; teen use of most other drugs declined in the late ’90s.
Nationwide, customs officers have already seized more ecstasy this
fiscal year, more than 5.4 million hits, than in all of last year. In
1998 they seized just 750,000 hits.

The drug’s appeal has never been limited to ravers. Today it can be
found for sale on Bourbon Street in New Orleans along with the 24-hour
booze; a group of lawyers in Little Rock, Ark., takes it occasionally,
as does a cheer leading captain at a Miami high school. The drug is
also showing up in hip-hop circles. Bone Thugs-N-Harmony raps a paean
to it on its latest album: “Oh, man, I don’t even f___ with the weed
no more.”

Indeed, much of the ecstasy taking–and the law enforcement under way
to end it–has been accompanied by breathlessness. “It appears that
the ecstasy problem will eclipse the crack-cocaine problem we
experienced in the late 1980s,” a cop told the Richmond
Times-Dispatch. In April, 60 Minutes II prominently featured an
Orlando, Fla., detective dolorously noting that “ecstasy is no
different from crack, heroin.” On the other side of the spectrum, at
http://ecstasy.org , you can find equally bloated praise of the drug.
“We sing, we laugh, we share/ and most of all, we care,” gushes an
awful poem on the site, which also includes testimonials from folks
who say ecstasy can treat schizophrenia and help you make “contact
with dead relatives.”

Ecstasy is popular because it appears to have few negative
consequences. But “these are not just benign, fun drugs,” says Alan
Leshner, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “They
carry serious short-term and long-term dangers.” Those like Leshner
who fight the war on drugs overstate these dangers occasionally–and
users usually understate them. But one reason ecstasy is so
fascinating, and thus dangerous to antidrug crusaders, is that it
appears to be a safer drug than heroin and cocaine, at least in the
short run, and appears to have more potentially therapeutic benefits.

Even so, the Federal Government has launched a major p.r. effort to
fight ecstasy based on the Internet at http://clubdrugs.org . Last
week two Senators, Bob Graham of Florida and Charles Grassley of Iowa,
introduced an ecstasy anti proliferation bill, which would stiffen
penalties for trafficking in the drug. Under the new law, someone
caught selling about 100 hits of ecstasy could be charged as a drug
trafficker; current law sets the threshold at about 300,000 pills. “I
think this is the time to take a forceful set of initiatives to try to
reverse the tide,” says Graham.

What’s the appeal of ecstasy? As a user put it, it’s “a six-hour
orgasm.” About half an hour after you swallow a hit of e, you begin to
feel peaceful, empathetic and energetic–not edgy, just clear. Pot
relaxes but sometimes confuses; LSD stupefies; cocaine wires. Ecstasy
has none of those immediate down sides. “Jack,” 29, an Indiana native
who has taken ecstasy about 40 times, said the only time he felt as
good as he does on e was when he found out he had won a Rhodes
scholarship. He enjoys feeling logorrheic: ecstasy users often talk
endlessly, maybe about a silly song that’s playing or maybe about a
terrible burden on them. E allows the mind to wander, but not into
hallucinations. Users retain control. Jack can allow his social
defenses to crumble on ecstasy, and he finds he can get close to
people from different backgrounds. “People I would never have talked
to, because I’m mostly in the Manhattan business world, I talk to on
ecstasy. I’ve made some friends I never would have had.”

All this marveling should raise suspicions, however. It’s probably
not a good idea to try to duplicate the best moment of one’s life 40
times, if only because it will cheapen the truly good times. And even
as they help open the mind to new experiences, drugs also can distort
the reality to which users ineluctably return. Is ecstasy snake oil?
And how harmful is it?

This is what we know:

An ecstasy pill most probably won’t kill you or cure you. It is also
unlike pretty much every other illicit drug. Ecstasy pills are (or at
least they are supposed to be) made of a compound called
methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA. It’s an old drug: Germany
issued the patent for it in 1914 to the German company E. Merck.
Contrary to ecstasy lore, and there’s tons of it, Merck wasn’t trying
to develop a diet drug when it synthesized MDMA. Instead, its
chemists simply thought it could be a promising intermediary substance
that might be used to help develop more advanced therapeutic drugs.
There’s also no evidence that any living creature took it at the
time–not Merck employees and certainly not Nazi soldiers, another
common myth. (They wouldn’t have made very aggressive killers.)

Yet MDMA all but disappeared until 1953. That’s when the U.S. Army
funded a secret University of Michigan animal study of eight drugs,
including MDMA. The cold war was on, and for years its combatants had
been researching scores of substances as potential weapons. The
Michigan study found that none of the compounds under review was
particularly toxic–which means there will be no war machines armed
with ecstasy-filled bombs. It also means that although MDMA is more
toxic than, say, the cactus-based psychedelic mescaline, it would take
a big dose of e, something like 14 of today’s purest pills ingested at
once, to kill you.

It doesn’t mean ecstasy is harmless. Broadly speaking, there are two
dangers: first, a pill you assume to be MDMA could actually contain
something else. Anecdotal evidence suggests that most serious
short-term medical problems that arise from “ecstasy” are actually
caused by pills adulterated with other, more harmful substances (more
on this later). Second, and more controversially, MDMA itself might do
harm.

There’s a long-standing debate about MDMA’s dangers, which will take
much more research to resolve. The theory is that MDMA’s perils
spring from the same neurochemical reaction that causes its pleasures.
After MDMA enters the bloodstream, it aims with laser-like precision
at the brain cells that release serotonin, a chemical that is the
body’s primary regulator of mood. MDMA causes these cells to disgorge
their contents and flood the brain with serotonin.

But forcibly catapulting serotonin levels could be risky. Of course,
millions of Americans manipulate serotonin when they take Prozac. But
ecstasy actually shoves serotonin from its storage sites, according to
Dr. John Morgan, a professor of pharmacology at the City University of
New York (cuny). Prozac just prevents the serotonin that’s already
been naturally secreted from being taken back up into brain cells.

Normally, serotonin levels are exquisitely maintained, which is
crucial because the chemical helps manage not only mood but also body
temperature. In fact, overheating is MDMA’s worst short-term danger.
Flushing the system with serotonin, particularly when users take
several pills over the course of one night, can short-circuit the
body’s ability to control its temperature. Dancing in close quarters
doesn’t help, and because some novice users don’t know to drink water,
e users’ temperatures can climb as high as 110[degrees]. At such
extremes, the blood starts to coagulate. In the past two decades,
dozens of users around the world have died this way.

There are long-term dangers too. By forcing serotonin out, MDMA
resculpts the brain cells that release the chemical. The changes to
these cells could be permanent. Johns Hopkins neurotoxicologist
George Ricaurte has shown that serotonin levels are significantly
lower in animals that have been given about the same amount of MDMA as
you would find in just one ecstasy pill.

In November, Ricaurte recorded for the first time the effects of
ecstasy on the human brain. He gave memory tests to people who said
they had last used ecstasy two weeks before, and he compared their
results with those of a control group of people who said they had
never taken e. The ecstasy users fared worse on the tests. Computer
images that give detailed snapshots of brain activity also showed that
e users have fewer serotonin receptors in their brains than nonusers,
even two weeks after their last exposure. On the strength of these
studies as well as a large number of animal studies, Ricaurte has
hypothesized that the damage is irreversible.

Ricaurte’s work has received much attention, owing largely to the
government’s well-intentioned efforts to warn kids away from ecstasy.
But his work isn’t conclusive. The major problem is that his research
subjects had used all kinds of drugs, not just ecstasy. (And there
was no way to tell that the ecstasy they had taken was pure MDMA.) And
critics say even if MDMA does cause the changes to the brain that
Ricaurte has documented, those changes may carry no functional
consequences. “None of the subjects that Ricaurte studied had any
evidence of brain or psychological dysfunction,” says cuny’s Morgan.
“His findings should not be dismissed, but they may simply mean that
we have a whole lot of plasticity–that we can do without serotonin
and be O.K. We have a lot of unanswered questions.”

Ricaurte told TIME that “the vast majority of people who have
experimented with MDMA appear normal, and there’s no obvious
indication that something is amiss.” Ricaurte says we may discover in
10 or 20 years that those appearances are horribly wrong, but others
are more sanguine about MDMA’s risks, given its benefits. For more
than 15 years, Rick Doblin, founder of the Multidisciplinary
Association for Psychedelic Studies, has been the world’s most
enthusiastic proponent of therapeutic MDMA use. He believes that the
compound has a special ability to help people make sense of themselves
and the world, that taking MDMA can lead people to inner truths.
Independently wealthy, he uses his organization to promote his views
and to “study ways to take drugs to open the unconscious.”

Doblin first tried MDMA in 1982, when it was still legal and when the
phrase “open the unconscious” didn’t sound quite so gooey. At that
time, MDMA had a small following among avant-garde psychotherapists,
who gave it to blindfolded patients in quiet offices and then asked
them to discuss traumas. Many of the therapists had heard about MDMA
from the published work of former Dow chemist Shulgin. According to
Shulgin (who is often wrongly credited with discovering MDMA), another
therapist to whom he gave the drug in turn named it Adam and
introduced it to more than 4,000 people.

Among these patients were a few entrepreneurs, folks who thought MDMA
felt too good to be confined to a doctor’s office. One who was based
in Texas (and who has kept his identity a secret) hired a chemist,
opened an MDMA lab and promptly renamed the drug ecstasy, a more
marketable term than Adam or “empathy” (his first choice, since it
better describes the effects). He began selling it to fashionable
bars and clubs in Dallas, where bartenders sold it along with
cocktails; patrons charged the $20 pills, plus $1.33 tax, on their
American Express cards.

Manufacturers at the time flaunted the legality of the drug, promoting
it as lacking the hallucinatory effects of LSD and the addictive
properties of coke and heroin. The U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration was caught by surprise by the new drug not long after
it had been embarrassed by the spread of crack. The administration
quickly used new discretionary powers to outlaw MDMA, pointing to the
private labs and club use as evidence of abuse. dea officials also
cited rudimentary studies showing that ecstasy users had vomited and
experienced blood-pressure fluctuations.

Most therapeutic use quickly stopped. But Doblin’s group has funded
important MDMA studies, including Ricaurte’s first work on the drug.
Sue Stevens, the woman who took it in 1997 with her husband Shane–he
has since died of kidney cancer–learned about the drug from a mutual
friend of hers and Doblin’s. She believes e helped Shane find the
right attitude to fight his illness, and she helps Doblin advocate for
limited legal use. Soon his association will help fund the first
approved study of MDMA in psychotherapy, involving 30 victims of rape
in Spain diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. In this
country, the FDA has approved only one study. In 1995 Dr. Charles
Grob, a ucla psychiatrist, used it as a pain reliever for end-stage
cancer patients. In the first phase of the study, he concluded the
drug is safe if used in controlled situations under careful
monitoring. The body is much less likely to overheat in such a
setting. Grob believes MDMA’s changes to brain cells are accelerated
and perhaps triggered entirely by overheating.

In 1998, emergency rooms participating in the Drug Abuse Warning
Network reported receiving 1,135 mentions of ecstasy during
admissions, compared with just 626 in 1997. If ecstasy is so benign,
what’s happening to these people? The two most common short-term side
effects of MDMA–both of which remain rare in the aggregate–are
overheating and something even harder to quantify, psychological trauma.

A few users have mentally broken down on ecstasy, unprepared for its
powerful psychological effects. A schoolteacher in the Bay Area who
had taken ecstasy in the past and loved it says she took it again a
year ago and began to recall, in horrible detail, an episode of sexual
abuse. She became severely depressed for three months and had to seek
psychiatric treatment. She will never take ecstasy again.

Ecstasy’s aftermath can also include a depressive hangover, a down day
that users sometimes call Terrible Tuesdays. “You know the black mood
is chemical, related to the serotonin,” says “Adrienne,” 26, a
fashion-company executive who has used ecstasy almost weekly for the
past five years. “But the world still seems bleak.” Some users,
especially kids trying to avoid the pressures of growing up, begin to
use ecstasy too often–every day in rare cases. In one extreme case,
“Cara,” an 18-year-old Miami woman who attends Narcotics Anonymous,
says she lost 50 lbs. after constantly taking ecstasy. She began to
steal and deal e to pay for rolls.

Another downside: because users feel empathetic, ecstasy can lower
sexual inhibitions. Men generally cannot get erections when high on
e, but they are often ferociously randy when its effects begin to
fade. Dr. Robert Klitzman, a psychiatrist at Columbia University,
has found that men in New York City who use ecstasy are 2.8 times more
likely to have unprotected sex.

Still, the majority of people who end up in the e.r. after taking
ecstasy are almost certainly not taking MDMA but something
masquerading under its name. No one knows for sure what they’re
taking, since emergency rooms don’t always test blood to confirm the
drug identified by users. But one group that does test e for purity
is DanceSafe, a prorave organization based in Berkeley, Calif., and
largely funded by a software millionaire, Bob Wallace (Microsoft’s
employee No. 9). DanceSafe sets up tables at raves, where users can
get information about drugs and also have ecstasy pills tested. (The
organization works with police so that ravers who produce pills for
testing won’t be arrested.) A DanceSafe worker shaves off a sliver of
the tablet and drops a solution onto it; if it doesn’t turn black
quickly, it’s not MDMA.

The organization has found that as much as 20% of the so-called
ecstasy sold at raves contains something other than MDMA. DanceSafe
also tests pills for anonymous users who send in samples from around
the nation; it has found that 40% of those pills are fake. Last fall,
DanceSafe workers attended a “massive”–more than 5,000 people–rave
in Oakland, Calif. Nine people were taken from the rave in
ambulances, but DanceSafe confirmed that eight of the nine had taken
pills that weren’t MDMA.

The most common adulterants in such pills are aspirin, caffeine and
other over-the-counters. (Contrary to lore, fake e virtually never
contains heroin, which is not cost-effective in oral form.) But the
most insidious adulterant–what all eight of the Oakland ravers
took–is DXM (dextromethorphan), a cheap cough suppressant that causes
hallucinations in the 130-mg dose usually found in fake e (13 times
the amount in a dose of Robitussin). Because DXM inhibits sweating,
it easily causes heatstroke. Another dangerous adulterant is PMA
(paramethoxyamphetamine), an illegal drug that in May killed two
Chicago-area teenagers who took it thinking they were dropping e. PMA
is a vastly more potent hallucinogenic and hyperthermic drug than MDMA.

Most users don’t have access to DanceSafe, which operates in only
eight cities. But as demand has grown, the incentive to manufacture
fake e has also escalated, especially for one-time raves full of teens
who won’t see the dealer again. Established dealers, by contrast,
operate under the opposite incentive. A Miami dealer who goes by the
name “Top Dog” told TIME he obtains MDMA test kits from a connection
on the police force. “If [the pills] are no good,” he says, customers
“won’t want to buy from you anymore.” It’s business sense: Top Dog can
earn $300,000 a year on e sales.

As writer Joshua Wolf Shenk has pointed out, we tend to have opposing
views about drugs: they can kill or cure; the addiction will enslave
you, or the new perceptions will free you. Aldous Huxley typified
this duality with his two most famous books, Brave New World–about a
people in thrall to a drug called soma–and The Doors of
Perception–an autobiographical work in which Huxley begins to see the
world in a brilliant new light after taking mescaline.

Ecstasy can occasionally enslave and occasionally offer transcendence.
Usually, it does neither. For Adrienne, the Midwestern woman who has
been a frequent user for the past five years, ecstasy is a key part of
life. “E makes shirtless, disgusting men, a club with broken
bathrooms, a deejay that plays crap and vomiting into a trash can the
best night of your life,” she says with a laugh. “It has done two
things in my life,” she reflects. “I had always been aloof or insecure
or snobby, however you want to put it. And I took it and realized,
you know what, we’re all here; we’re all dancing; we’re not so
different. I allowed myself to get closer to people. Everything was
more positive. But my life also became, quickly, all about the next
time I would do it…You feel at ease with yourself and right with the
world, and that’s a feeling you want to duplicate–every single week.”

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SAMPLE LETTER

To the editor of Time:

Thank you for presenting an even-handed look at Ecstasy and the
controversy surrounding it. Too many reports on illegal drugs take the
drug warriors’ words as Gospel truth, even though they are naturally
biased with motivations other than the distribution of accurate
information.

The crusading politicians who are calling for a harsher crackdown on
Ecstasy are somewhat akin to medieval doctors. When those primitive
physicians noticed their patients becoming weaker and more pale, they
doubled the number of leeches they were using as treatment. In a
similar way, drug warriors refuse to realize that getting tougher
cannot cure the symptoms caused by getting tough in the first place.
Problems linked to Ecstasy, like deadly adulterants and more dangerous
substitute drugs passed off as the real thing, are the result of
prohibition. More stringent prohibition will not solve the problems.
Instead, harsher laws will mean higher profit margins and a higher
incentive for dealers to sell anything that uninformed users will
believe is Ecstasy. To paraphrase a famous observation about
misconceptions: It’s the black market economy, stupid.

Stephen Young

IMPORTANT: Always include your address and telephone
number

Please note: If you choose to use this letter as a model please modify it
at least somewhat so that the paper does not receive numerous copies of the
same letter and so that the original author receives credit for his/her work.
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