Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999
Subject: Is Congress More Concerned With Posturing Than Democracy?

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #131 October13, 1999

Washington Post: Is Congress More Concerned With Posturing Than Democracy?

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——-
PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE
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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #131 October13, 1999

While it used to be easy for politicians to take a “zero tolerance”
stand on any illegal drug issue, now their constituents are making
such simple-minded moves much tougher. A recent report from the
Washington Post (below) indicates that many members of congress aren’t
sure whether to kill Washington D.C.’s medical marijuana initiative,
I-59. The measure was passed overwhelmingly by D.C. voters last year,
but the official results of the vote have only recently been
announced, thanks to congressional moves to keep the results a secret.

Now that the world knows how people in the District of Columbia voted,
some in the U.S. Congress want to nullify that vote. Please write a
letter to the Post to express amazement that any elected official
would favor a “tough-on-drugs” stance over supporting the will of the
people. Please also contact your own congressional representatives to
urge them not to kill I-59 by using the links below.

Thanks for your effort and support.

WRITE A LETTER TODAY

Just DO it!

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

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 MAPTalk
list 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: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm

NOTE: there is no direct Email address for sending your letter to the
Washington Post We recommend you compose your letter off-line and
paste it into the window provided at the URL above.

EXTRA CREDIT

Send a fax or email to your congressional representatives. Two
organizations are offering sample letters that can be faxed to your
congress persons via the Internet for free.

The Marijuana Policy Project’s version is at:

http://www.mpp.org/i59/

NORML’s version is at:

http://www.norml.org/laws/dc_initiative.shtml

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

Pubdate: Sun, 10 October 1999
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 1999 The Washington Post Company
Address: 1150 15th Street Northwest, Washington, DC 20071
Feedback: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/edit/letters/letterform.htm
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Author: Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post Staff Writer

NATIONAL AGENDAS COLOR D.C. MARIJUANA DEBATE

When 65 percent of Arizona’s voters passed a referendum in 1996
legalizing the medical use of marijuana, U.S. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.)
hit the stump. Over the next two years, the freshman senator argued to
state lawmakers, Congress and local reporters that undoing the state’s
drug laws would betray Arizona children and his own law-and-order values.

State legislators sent the measure back to the ballot last
November–where voters passed it again. Kyl and other opponents could
only console themselves that the margin of approval had narrowed to 57
percent.

Now, members of Congress who believe easing state laws on marijuana
would subvert the nation’s war on drugs have a new target: the
District of Columbia’s medical marijuana initiative. For them, this
is a chance to act on their conviction without riling constituents
back home–though some lawmakers seem to be keeping a low profile on
the issue.

Georgia Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R) and Ohio Sen. George V.
Voinovich (R) recently introduced legislation to overturn the D.C.
referendum, which won 69 percent of the vote last fall. Although
Congress has clear authority to oversee the District, members whose
states have passed similar initiatives appear wary of undoing a
decision endorsed by their own constituents.

Nevada Sens. Harry M. Reid (D) and Richard H. Bryan (D) are hedging
questions on the subject. Reid opposed a Nevada initiative passed
last fall, but his spokesman, asked how the lawmaker would vote on the
D.C. initiative, replied, “I’m not sure it’s so simple.” A spokesman
for Bryan responded, “I’m not sure he’s taken a position on that.”
Nevada voters will face the issue again this fall, since all
referendum proposals must be approved twice to become law.

Kyl, who faces a reelection bid next fall, said in 1996 that he was
“embarrassed” by the Arizona vote, but explained later that he was
talking about the margin of defeat, not voters’ judgment. His
spokesman declined to say how Kyl would vote on the District’s
initiative, saying, “It sounds like nothing is pressing until the D.C.
Council acts.”

The District’s Initiative 59 would change city drug laws to allow the
possession, use, cultivation and distribution of marijuana if
recommended by a physician for serious illness. Only six
states–Alaska, Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon and
Washington–have passed similar legislation, and most of their
congressional representatives have stayed out of the home-state fray,
letting governors and local lawmakers shoulder the debate.

If a vote is taken, it could force Democrats and Republicans to choose
between standing with the majority of their constituents back home or
ignoring similar sentiments by District voters in order to enforce
tough drug laws.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), for example, has opposed
California’s medical marijuana initiative, calling such measures
dangerous and ridden with loopholes. But Feinstein, who also faces a
reelection bid in 2000, said she is sensitive to the needs of
terminally ill patients and will examine the District’s measure before
making a decision.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) would not say how he would vote. He released
a statement explaining that despite his personal “reservations” about
Oregon’s medical marijuana law, “the people of my state have spoken,
and I intend to honor their will.”

The House voted 310 to 93 a year ago to approve a non-binding
resolution opposing state efforts to allow medical use of marijuana.
But Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.), who introduced a companion
resolution, also has not indicated how he will vote on the D.C.
measure, his spokeswoman said.

By law, Congress can negate the District initiative within 30 business
days, once the D.C. financial control board reviews and forwards it.
Congress could also kill the marijuana measure by denying funding.

“It’s a twofold rationale” in Congress for overturning the D.C.
initiative, said Marshall Wittman, director of congressional relations
for the conservative Heritage Foundation. “There is Congress’s clear,
constitutional prerogative over issues concerning the District, but
also many believe in Congress that the District should serve as a
model to the rest of the country.”

Supporters of medical marijuana laws say the drug can alleviate
symptoms of AIDS, cancer and other illnesses. Opponents, including
the White House’s national drug policy office, cite a lack of
conclusive findings about marijuana’s efficacy and current research
into treatment alternatives.

Those who back the D.C. measure decry congressional intervention,
claiming “hypocrisy” by members who protest federal intrusion in their
home states but interfere elsewhere.

“The Republicans, the party of states’ rights, are only for states’
rights when they agree with what a state or the District of Columbia
is doing,” said Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.), who has battled
congressional efforts to undo Oregon’s law permitting
physician-assisted suicide. To Congress, the District is a “sandbox.”

“They can use it for experiments and indulge in things they might want
to do to voters at home, but here they can do with impunity,” he said.

For now, the congressional fight against the D.C. measure is being
led by those whose constituents have not endorsed similar initiatives.
And even for past critics of D.C. statehood and management, the
issue is touchy.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), whose district strongly supported
California’s marijuana referendum, voted against the non-binding
resolution opposing medical marijuana. An aide hinted that his vote
on the D.C. measure would similarly factor in constituent views.

“If he’s faced with this vote on the House floor,” a spokesman said,
“he will look very closely at how conservative Orange County voted on
the California measure.”

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

SAMPLE LETTER (sent)

While drug war mentality seems to run deep in the U.S. Congress, the
idea that our representatives would simply overturn the will of the
people by voiding I-59, Washington D.C.’s medical marijuana
initiative, is astonishing (“National Agendas Color D.C. Marijuana
Debate,” Oct. 10). It was bad enough that Congress tried to hide the
results of the election, but now that we all know it passed
overwhelmingly, it is time for elected officials at the national level
to rake a moment to think about how they got where they are.

Instead of calculating political costs and benefits, I suggest that
each member of Congress dust off their copies of The Declaration of
Independence. “…Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed…” If I-59 was a radical
departure from sentiments of other voters around the nation, maybe
Georgia Rep. Robert L. Barr Jr. (R) and Ohio Sen. George V.
Voinovich (R) might be justified in their attempt to kill the measure.
But medical marijuana initiatives have passed easily in every state
where they have been introduced.

The voters of Washington D.C. are in touch with other voters around
the country. Barr and Voinovich are not. If their efforts to stamp out
democracy are supported by a majority of the Congress, maybe it’s time
for the people to take a cue from The Declaration of Independence,
since Barr, Voinovich and congressmen who share their contempt for
voters feel entitled enough to stand above the document.

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

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

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

Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999
Subject: DEA Tries To Kill North American Hemp Industry

DrugSense FOCUS Alert, #130, Fri, 08 Oct 1999

U.S. farmers have been prohibited from growing industrial hemp for
decades, ever since marijuana was outlawed. In that time Americans have
still used hemp products but they have been forced to import hemp from
other countries. One hemp product that has been imported is hemp seed,
which is used as bird food, and to produce other goods, like hemp seed
oil.

While the American government has been too dumb to see how American
farmers are being hurt by these polices, the Canadian government has
taken a more enlightened position by issuing permits to some farmers to
grow the crop. The Canadian farmers were just about to reap the
benefits and illustrate idiocy of the U.S. position, when, suddenly,
the DEA confiscated a huge shipment of Canadian hemp seed before it
crossed into the U.S.

This action is a crushing blow to the hemp industry, and it is a
blatant violation of the law. The hemp industry explains the situation
further at http://www.hempembargo.com

The issue has raised some media attention, like the article from the
New York Times below. Please write a letter to the Times and/or other
papers that have carried to story to protest this absurd and illegal
action.

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 MAPTalk
list 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: New York Times (NY)
Contact: [email protected]

EXTRA CREDIT

Write to other newspapers that have covered this story.

To find other stories on the issue go to:

http://www.mapinc.org/hemp.htm

EXTRA EXTRA CREDIT

Write to your elected representatives to protest. Sample letters can be
found at http://www.hempembargo.com

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

Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 1999 The New York Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Forum: http://www10.nytimes.com/comment/
Author: Christopher S. Wren
Related: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n1074.a07.html
MAP: Topical News Shortcut: http://www.mapinc.org/hemp.htm

BIRD FOOD IS A CASUALTY OF THE U.S. WAR ON DRUGS

What do 40,000 pounds of birdseed have in common with America’s war on
drugs? Nothing, says Jean Laprise, an Ontario farmer who shipped the
birdseed to his American customers only to have it seized when it
crossed the U.S.-Canadian border.

Everything, say the U.S. government and its critics, but for altogether
different reasons.

The birdseed, nearly 20 tons of it, has been locked in a Detroit
warehouse since Aug. 9, when it was impounded by the United States
Customs Service. The reason: the seed consists of sterilized seeds
processed from industrial hemp.

Laprise has found himself mired in one of the more bizarre episodes of
Washington’s campaign to curb illicit drug use. Hemp and marijuana are
different varieties of the same plant species, Cannabis sativa, though
the government rarely distinguishes between them.

“They say it’s a tractor trailer full of drugs,” Laprise said. “We say
it’s a tractor trailer full of birdseed.”

But while smoking marijuana delivers a psychoactive high, smoking hemp
gives only a headache. Tetrahydrocannabinol, known as THC, the
psychoactive component in marijuana, usually varies between 4 and 20
percent of a leaf. Industrial hemp has a THC below 1 percent.

The birdseed seized in Detroit had a THC content of barely .0014
percent, which wouldn’t give a bird a buzz.

John Roulac, the president of Nutiva, a company in Sebastapol, Calif.,
that buys hemp seeds from Laprise’s operation for food products, said
that seeds themselves have no THC, and whatever gets detected comes
from contact with leaves of the hemp plant.

Roulac said the amount of THC was “like an olive pit in a railroad
boxcar.”

Laprise, whose company, Kenex Ltd., grows and processes hemp with the
approval of the Canadian government, said that “all of our other
products have no detectable level of THC. The only shipment with any
detectable amount was the birdseed, and it was really nothing.”

Though the U.S. government today views hemp with suspicion, it was
historically an agricultural staple used in everything from ropes and
sails to clothing and the first American flag supposedly sewn by Betsy
Ross. It has been virtually illegal since 1937.

Last year, Canada declared hemp a legitimate crop and has granted
growers’ licenses for 35,000 acres. Britain, France and Germany also
have commercial hemp industries. Hawaii, North Dakota and Minnesota
passed laws approving hemp this year as a crop for hard-pressed farmers.

Kenex’s customers, who snap up Laprise’s hemp seeds and fibers for
everything from food for animals and people to beauty products and
horse bedding, have been outraged by the seizure in Detroit.

“What in the heck are they doing arresting birdseed?” said Anita
Roddick, the British founder of the Body Shop, whose organic hair- and
skin-care products have used hemp oil produced by Laprise.

“It’s so Monty Pythonesque,” Ms. Roddick said, alluding to the antic
comedians who mocked life’s absurdities. “They’re chasing around bloody
birdseed. It’s making the D.E.A. look stupid.”

Federal law enforcement officials defended the seizure. D.E.A.
spokesman Terry Parham said, “Our understanding is there is no legal
way for hemp seed to have come in that contains any quantity of THC.”
He explained that no product containing THC could be imported except by
a company registered with the D.E.A., and that no companies are
registered.

Drug-policy critics like Ethan Nadelmann, the president of the
Lindesmith Center, a New York group that advocates a more liberal drug
policy, reacted to the birdseed seizure with glee, contending that it
shows how dumb the war on drugs can get.

Laprise said the Customs Service also ordered him to recall his earlier
exports to the United States of hemp oil, horse bedding, animal feed
and granola bars, or face more than $500,000 in fines. He cannot
comply, he said, because the products have been used or consumed.

Meanwhile, a report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture assessing the
potential of hemp growing has made the rounds of the federal
government. The report’s beige cover is stamped “Classified.”

“I can’t figure out why they classified this,” said a government
official who let a reporter take a peek. The study said there was a
limited niche market for hemp products, like Laprise’s birdseed.

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

SAMPLE LETTER (sent)

Observing the absurdities of drug law enforcement can sometimes be
darkly amusing, like watching a cartoon filled with black humor. Of
course, it is tragic that real people are hurt, like the hemp
businesses on the verge of bankruptcy thanks to the whims of the Drug
Enforcement Agency (“Bird Food Is a Casualty of the U.S. War on Drugs,”
Oct. 3).

The DEA appears to be suffering from Wile E. Coyote Syndrome (the
uncontrollable desire to destroy innocent creatures through the use of
birdseed). I can only hope the officials responsible for this travesty
suddenly find their careers plummeting into a deep ravine, leaving no
trace but a small puff of dust.

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

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

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

Date: Fri, 01 Oct 1999
Subject: Medical MJ: Going After The Insurance Industry

DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 128 September 26, 1999

Medical MJ: Going after the Insurance Industry

TO SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP OR UPDATE YOUR
EMAIL ADDRESS PLEASE SEE THE INFORMATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS FOCUS
ALERT

——- PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE ——-

DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 128 September 26, 1999

Medical MJ: Going after the Insurance Industry

Here’s a great project that takes just minutes and will have a huge
impact on implementing medical marijuana laws and helping patients.

You don’t even have to address the email. Just hit the link below, and
tell all those decision making corporate executives at State Farm
Corporate Headquarters what you think about them standing behind the
valid policy claims of their clients for medical marijuana destroyed
by police:

–Tell them how unnecessary claims are going to increase because of
police misconduct.

–Tell them that the 5.3 million Californians who voted for medical
marijuana will be voting again on this issue when they buy insurance
and this time they’ll be voting with their checkbooks.

With YOUR help, the Insurance Industry will do what politicians have
failed to do and make sure that medical marijuana laws are followed by
police.

Right now, Steve Kubby is trying to get State Farm Insurance to pay on
his claim for a six month supply of medicine that was destroyed. You
can help Steve and pave the way for other patients by communicating
your thoughts about this issue directly to State Farm’s Corporate
Offices at: http://www.statefarm.com/email.htm.

A copy of Steve’s letter to State Farm is enclosed below. Thanks for
your effort and support.

SEND A MESSAGE 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 MAPTalk
list 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

E-mail: http://www.statefarm.com/email.htm

Phone: Public relations, Josh Youngrick 661-663-2771

Letters: Edward B. Rust Jr.
Chairman and CEO
State Farm Insurance
One State Farm Plaza
Bloomington, IL 61710

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

COPY OF STEVE KUBBY’S LETTER TO STATE FARM

September 22, 1999

Mark Morrison, Claim Representative
State Farm Insurance Company
P.O. Box 10199
Truckee, CA 96162

RE: Claim Number: 05-A683-370

Dear Mr. Morrison,

According to your letter of August 18, 1999, I am not entitled to
compensation for the medical marijuana that was stolen from me and
destroyed. However, on September 7, 1999, the San Francisco Examiner
published an article saying that insurance companies, including State
Farm ARE paying compensation in cases such as mine.

I am a legal medical marijuana patient who can provide medical
documentation that I have a life and death necessity for medical
marijuana, as documented by the University of Southern California
Medical Center.

I also meet the standards of a recent decision by the 9th Circuit
Court of Appeals, which found that patients who have exhausted all
other medical remedies should be legally immune from marijuana laws,
including federal laws.

Medical marijuana is now the law under the Compassionate Use Act of
1996 and the medical marijuana which was stolen from me and destroyed
was my legal property. Just because the local police failed to obey
California’s new Compassionate Use Act, is no excuse for you and State
Farm to evade your responsibilities to your policy holders, ESPECIALLY
if they are cancer patients, such as myself.

What happened to me is no different than if someone stole a patient’s
insulin and nearly killed them as a result. My life-saving medicine
was destroyed and I expect State Farm to compensate me.

Incidentally, the United States government provides each of its eight
medical marijuana patients with seven pounds per year. My 3.5 pounds
may seem excessive to you, but it represented a six month supply of
the only medicine that has kept me alive.

Although I had 200 plants destroyed, I am willing to make a quick
settlement for the total amount of medicine stolen at the time, 3.5
pounds, which I estimate to be worth $21,000. Otherwise, I will
expect $500 per plant or $100,000.

As someone who played a key role in the passage of the Compassionate
Use Act, I intend to see that State Farm provides full compensation to
documented patients when their medical marijuana is destroyed.

State Farm has a responsibility to honor the newly recognized legal
rights of medical marijuana patients. You can begin by immediately
honoring our claim for real losses which I have suffered and to which
I am entitled and that our claim for $21,000 be paid promptly.

My family and I deserve to be promptly and fully protected by the
policy we purchased from State Farm. I look forward to your
cooperation on this matter, but I will take further action if this
claim is not completely resolved by October 21, 1999.

Sincerely,

s/Steve Kubby

Mark Greer Executive Director DrugSense [email protected]
http://www.drugsense.org http://www.mapinc.org

= Please help us help reform. Send drug-related news to

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999
Subject: 60 Minutes: Secret Colombian Drug War Could Evolve Into New

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #128 September 27,1999

60 Minutes: Secret Colombian Drug War Could Evolve Into New Vietnam

TO SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL
ADDRESS PLEASE SEE THE INFORMATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS FOCUS ALERT

——-
PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE
——-

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #128 September 27,1999

It’s common to think of the “war on drugs” as more of a metaphor than
a real war, but for the people of Colombia it is terribly real.
Colombia has long been a major producer and exporter of cocaine. Now
many U.S. leaders say that fact should make Colombia a target for
military intervention.

Actually, as 60 Minutes II revealed last week, the U.S. has been
orchestrating a covert war in the country since 1992. Representatives
of the U.S. military and other agencies have advised Colombians during
hundreds of commando raids against what was once Colombia’s biggest
drug cartel. These American military leaders claim the raids were
successful since the head of the cartel was eventually killed. But
drugs continue to flow through Colombia unimpeded.

Now some in Washington want war on an even larger scale. About $1
billion in additional U.S. military aid has been proposed for
Colombia. Supporters of the plan present the situation in Colombia as
an easy-to-understand fight between “good” government forces and “bad”
rebels financed by drug money. However, a closer look at the country
shows something infinitely more complex: the Colombian Army has ties
to paramilitary squads that kill because of politics, not drugs; much
of the U.S. aid sent to fight drugs has been used to decimate enemies
of the government; and even the DEA questions how much involvement
major rebel groups have with drug cartels.

History should remind us that mixing heavy U.S. fire power into the
ambiguous motives and allegiances of a civil war fought in jungle
terrain is a recipe for disaster. Please write a letter to 60 Minutes
II to say that America could do much more to solve drug problems by
overhauling its own counterproductive policies at home than by adding
to the violence in Colombia.

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 MAPTalk
list 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: 60 Minutes II
Contact: [email protected]

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

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n1053.a08.html

Pubdate: Tue, 21 Sep 1999
Source: 60 Minutes II
Copyright: 1999 Burrelle’s Information Services CBS News Transcripts
Contact: [email protected]
Mail: [email protected]
Feedback: http://209.3.209.3/prd1/now/feedback?p_whonetwork
Note: Video from this is currently available at:
http://www.cbs.com/flat/story_187452.html

AMERICA’S SECRET WAR

United States Trains Commandos To Fight In The War On Drugs In Colombia

DAN RATHER, co-host: The United States is on the verge of a dramatic
escalation in a war that you probably know nothing about. The
proposal is to spend at least another $ 1 billion to fight an army of
old-line Marxist guerrillas in Colombia who now have gone into the
drug trade. The president of Colombia is in Washington this week to
push for the whole amount. This may sound like the start of a new
war, but it’s actually only the latest battle in a secret war America
has been fighting in Colombia for most of the ’90s, a war that was
started to take out Colombia’s drug lords and a war fought by secret
warriors trained by the United States.

(Footage of commandos; helicopter; Major Gil Macklin and commandos;
Rather exiting plane)

RATHER: (Voiceover) They’re called Copes commandos, a small US-trained
strike force of deadly warriors. Since 1992, they have been fighting
America’s secret war on drugs in the jungles of Colombia. And one of
the men who trained them in the art of killing is former US Marine
Major Gil Macklin. We met up with him in Colombia recently to meet
America’s secret allies and to learn details of a mission about which
he has never spoken publicly before.

When we say Copes, in brief, what are we talking about?

Maj. MACKLIN: The Copes are the–the direct action forces of the
Colombian National Police. They’re like the Delta Force. Their
skills are honed on a regular basis to go at a moment’s notice, to do
anything at any time.

(Footage of commandos; vintage footage of Pablo Escobar and others on
motorcycles; Escobar and others on boat; Escobar and others on beach;
assassination of presidential candidate; aftermath of bombed plane;
footage of Ambassador Morris Busby)

RATHER: (Voiceover) But to understand the significance of the Copes
today, we have to go back to the early ’90s, to when the United States
started backing them for one mission and one mission alone: to take
down the Colombian drug lords, wipe out the cartels. And chief among
their targets was this man, Pablo Escobar. It was widely reported
that he was killed in 1993, but details of how he was killed have
never been revealed. Escobar was a larger-than-life character,
colorful, ruthless and seemingly unstoppable. Eighty percent of the
cocaine consumed in America came from him. His assassins murdered
anyone who got in his way, even taking out a presidential candidate at
a nationally televised rally. But when he reportedly ordered the
bombing of this Avianca passenger plane with five Americans on board,
Escobar’s reign of terror suddenly hit home. Morris Busby was the US
ambassador to Colombia.

Now that bombing was an Escobar bombing to do what?

Ambassador MORRIS BUSBY (Colombia): As near as we were ever able to
piece together, it was a bombing to kill one particular individual on
the airplane.

RATHER: That Escobar wanted taken out?

Amb. BUSBY: Yes. And so they killed everybody else on the
airplane.

RATHER: But who would kill 120-some-odd people to get one
person?

Amb. BUSBY: A monster.

(Vintage footage of George Bush exiting plane; footage of Busby; US
Embassy; vintage footage of Macklin and commandos; Jesuit mission;
commandos)

RATHER: (Voiceover) President Bush was so outraged, he ordered the
beginning of a secret war to take Escobar down. And Ambassador Busby
was the man he chose to do it. A former Navy SEAL, Morris Busby, like
Major Macklin, has never spoken publicly about his role in the secret
war. It all began when he turned the US Embassy into a war command
and dispatched Macklin, among others, to start forming the small army
that is now known as the Copes commandos. Macklin and a team of
Marine trainers set up shop at this ancient Jesuit mission at the foot
of the Andes. Their job was to find a few good men, young,
uncorrupted and prepared to die for their country.

Maj. MACKLIN: At the tip of the spear were these young farm boys from
the valleys, the hills, the mountains and jungles of Colombia who came
from nothing.

(Footage of commandos training)

RATHER: (Voiceover) Once he assembled enough men, Macklin gave them a
crash course in the dark arts of killing–day and night, the kind of
training only Special Forces do, exercises like this one: shooting
live ammunition inches from each other’s heads.

Maj. MACKLIN: See this guy here? He’s very dead.

(Footage of commandos training)

RATHER: (Voiceover) Macklin taught them his philosophy, kill or be
killed, and he taught them how to fight, to take down the drug lords
by surprise, to take them at a time and a place when they would least
expect it.

Maj. MACKLIN: (Voiceover) These men kill without compunction and die
without complaint. There is–there is one solution, and their solution
is to accomplish the mission and come out in one piece.

RATHER: Marines are trained to kill people and break things. Is that
what you trained these Copes commandos to do?

Maj. MACKLIN: Yes.

(Footage of commandos; ambulance; fires; General Rosso Jose Serrano
and commandos)

RATHER: (Voiceover) It’s a chilling idea: Americans training killers
with ski masks. But that’s exactly what Gil Macklin set out to do.
And back in 1992, with Colombia being terrorized by the drug lords,
the stakes were never higher. Macklin trained them, and this
Colombian police commander was chosen to take them into battle. At a
time when thousands of cops were on cartel payrolls, General Rosso
Jose Serrano was considered to be incorruptible. And for him and his
120 commandos, all of them devout Catholics, the mission against the
drug lords was a moral crusade.

General ROSSO JOSE SERRANO: (Through Translator) We know that God is
going to protect us and help us. We with faith have been able to move
mountains.

(Footage of Serrano and commandos; Air Force airplane)

RATHER: (Voiceover) They may have relied on their faith that God was
watching over them, but they also believed in something else:
high-tech weaponry that Ambassador Busby delivered courtesy of the
most powerful war machine on Earth.

Amb. BUSBY: We spared nothing in trying to use all of the
intelligence we could find on a worldwide basis to pass to the
Colombians to try and find him.

RATHER: And your assets? DEA, CIA, FBI, Special Forces, Delta
Forces?

Amb. BUSBY: All of the above.

RATHER: Has there been any other occasion which you know of in which
the United States said right from the top, ‘This is what we’re going
to do, and we’re going to commit whatever assets are necessary to do
it, and we’re going to have the determination and the staying power
that it takes to get it done’?

Amb. BUSBY: I can’t think of anything that–that we went into that we
stayed with the way we stayed with this. We never wavered.

(Vintage footage of commandos; dead soldiers; helicopter; gunners on
helicopter)

RATHER: (Voiceover) In the summer and fall of 1992, the mission began
and they moved systematically. To get to Escobar, the Copes had to
first eliminate each and every one of his lieutenants. These are the
pictures of what they left behind, dead and injured soldiers of the
drug cartels. The search for Escobar, spanning a period of a year and
a half, was one of the most intense manhunts ever mounted.

Amb. BUSBY: Well, the strategy that was followed was strip away his
lieutenants, strip away all of his money, go after his infrastructure,
take down everything that protects him. And that was done on a very
systematic and organized basis.

RATHER: Now we’re not talking about one or two or three raids here,
are we? Or are we?

Maj. MACKLIN: No. We’re talking about a whole series of raids that
were conducted to take out the–the central nervous system of the cartels.

RATHER: We’re talking about tens of raids, dozens of raids, hundreds
of raids?

Maj. MACKLIN: Hundreds.

RATHER: And what were they up against?

Maj. MACKLIN: The best that money could buy. Escobar reportedly
hired some of the best mercenaries in the world–British, Israeli,
Russian.

RATHER: Wait a minute, wait a minute. Working for Pablo Escobar were
some of the best special operations people who were British and Israeli?

Maj. MACKLIN: Exactly.

(Vintage footage of commandos in vehicles)

RATHER: (Voiceover) But the Copes gradually eliminated those
surrounding Escobar, nearly 100 lieutenants in his private army.

Maj. MACKLIN: (Voiceover) In the dead of night, they’d come like
darkness, and they’d bust through a door or a window or go through the
roof. And they’d capture these arrogant, narcissistic animals, the
drug lords, and they’d bring them to justice. And that’s what they
did.

(Vintage footage of funeral)

RATHER: (Voiceover) The Copes took heavy casualties themselves, many
of them killed by Escobar’s hit men.

Maj. MACKLIN: (Voiceover) The price they paid in flesh and blood is
tremendous; it’s enormous. If we lose two cops who get killed in the
US Capitol, like we did last summer, Washington ground to a halt.
They lose two cops before breakfast every morning.

(Vintage footage of commandos; footage of Rather and Busby at scene of
showdown)

RATHER: (Voiceover) It took two years from the time they began
training for American intelligence to finally corner Escobar. We went
with Ambassador Busby back to the scene of the final showdown.

BUSBY: In the final moments, what happened was that Pablo Escobar was
talking on a phone to his son, and he was standing at one of these
windows and the police van rolled up the street here; they–they were
monitoring the conversation. And he said to his son, ‘There’s
something wrong. I have to go.’

(Footage of roof of building; vintage footage of Escobar’s body;
footage of commandos throwing Macklin into pond)

RATHER: (Voiceover) Escobar tried to escape up the stairs. He got as
far as the roof. That’s where the commandos gunned him down. For Gil
Macklin and his Copes commandos, it will always be remembered as their
finest hour. But it was a triumph that could only be shared in
private. Of the 120 Copes he trained, half of them died in action.
As Macklin sees it, they died fighting America’s war.

Maj. MACKLIN: Copes!

RATHER: But the American public didn’t know about this.

Maj. MACKLIN: No.

RATHER: Have any second thoughts about that? Secret operation
overseas, training young men to break and enter and kill and…

Maj. MACKLIN: None whatsoever. Not now. I just wish we’d done
more.

RATHER: I think most Americans think we always lose in the drug wars.
In fact, the record shows that if we don’t always lose, we lose nearly
all the time.

Amb. BUSBY: But that’s not true. That’s not true. We scored a great
success here.

RATHER: But it’s hard to talk about success when today more drugs are
coming into America from Colombia than ever before. The sad truth
about the drug war is that getting rid of one enemy seems only to
bring on another even more menacing one. After Pablo Escobar came the
drug lords of the Cali cartel. And the man who led the Copes
commandos, General Serrano, became a national hero when he wiped them
out. But by the time we met up with him last month, he was facing yet
another enemy.

(Footage of Rather and Serrano in vehicle with security vehicles;
guerrillas)

RATHER: (Voiceover) When we travel with the general through Colombia
today, this is how he moves, escorted by an army of security. He is a
living symbol of the war against the drug trade in his own country and
a lot of people would like to see him dead, especially his new
enemies. They are armed guerrillas. Led by old-style Marxists, the
guerrillas began moving into the drug trade after the urban cartels
were taken out. And today drug money has transformed that guerrilla
army as it pursues its age-old war against the government of Colombia,
according to US drug czar General Barry McCaffrey.

General BARRY McCAFFREY (Drug Czar): These insurgent forces are fueled
by massive amounts of money that produce shiny new uniforms, planes,
helicopters and more automatic weapons in their battalions than in the
Colombian army.

Representative DAN BURTON (Republican, Indiana): A blind person could
have seen there’s a problem.

(Footage of Dan Burton at House of Representatives; McCaffrey;
guerrillas)

RATHER: (Voiceover) For two years now, Republican congressmen like Dan
Burton have been accusing McCaffrey and the Clinton administration of
ignoring the mounting threat posed by Colombia’s narcoguerrillas.
Last month the drug czar joined this chorus, saying that he, too, is
alarmed and now wants the US to intervene with $ 1 billion to counter
this new and growing enemy in America’s war on drugs.

What’s the single most important thing for Americans to
know?

Gen. McCAFFREY: The Colombians are involved in a situation of
incredible violence. The situation’s veering out of control, and we
need to step in and stand with the forces of democracy in Colombia.

(Footage of Capitol; guerrillas; commandos)

RATHER: (Voiceover) The $ 1 billion McCaffrey wants would inevitably
put the United States into the position of taking on a full-scale
guerrilla army, and that’s an escalation many in Washington don’t
want. Whether we choose to ante up or not, the Copes commandos have
already started to move in on key guerrilla positions. For them, the
war on drugs never ends.

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

SAMPLE LETTER (sent)

The report on the secret war in Colombia (Sept. 21) was quite
disturbing. The fact that the Cali cartel was destroyed but the drug
trade remains active should indicate escalating violence in the region
isn’t going to stop any drugs from coming to the United States.

Recent history shows how drug traffickers thrive on the chaos of civil
war. Further U.S. intervention might put some current traffickers out
of business, but they would quickly be replaced by more traffickers,
leaving an increasingly fragmented drug trade that would even be
harder to fight. As the battle intensifies, drug-running just becomes
more profitable and more attractive to desperate people.

And when increased military aid fails to stem the flow of drugs or
bring more order to Colombia, U.S. troops can’t be far behind. And
there’s no reason to believe those troops will be any more successful
at eradicating drugs. Increased militarization won’t make the drug
trade die, but many Colombian citizens and American soldiers can
expect to lose their lives in the fight.

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

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

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

Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999
Subject: Veteran Cop Explains How Drug War Causes Police Corruption

DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 127 September 23, 1999

LA Times: Veteran Cop Explains How Drug War Causes Police Corruption

TO SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL
ADDRESS PLEASE SEE THE INFORMATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS FOCUS ALERT

——-
PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE
——-

DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 127 September 23, 1999

LA Times: Veteran Cop Explains How Drug War Causes Police Corruption

While drug policy reformers sometimes blame law enforcement for drug
war damage, it is important to remember that the drug war is bad for
police as well. In the wake of a huge corruption scandal in the Los
Angeles Police Department, former police chief Joseph McNamara
explained why this week in an excellent column for the Los Angeles
Times. After researching the connection between the drug war and cops
gone bad, McNamara came to a disturbing conclusion.

“Studying the nation’s police forces, I was stunned to discover that
the old-type corruption uncovered when cops occasionally were caught
taking payoffs from gangsters had been replaced by something
considerably more ominous. Throughout the country, small groups of
cops were the gangsters,” McNamara writes in the piece.

This is bad for the public, or course, but it’s also bad for the
majority of cops who haven’t been corrupted. The good cops lose their
credibility with citizens. They may also become demoralized. Please
write a letter to the LA Times to thank McNamara for demonstrating how
the country is reaping another bitter harvest sown with seeds from the
drug war.

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

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

Pubdate: Tue, 21 Sep 1999
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 1999 Los Angeles Times.
Contact: [email protected]
Fax: (213) 237-4712
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Forum: http://www.latimes.com/home/discuss/
Author: Joseph D. McNamara
Note: Retired Police Chief of San Jose, Joe McNamara is a Research Fellow
at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His Forthcoming Book Is
“Gangster Cops: the Hidden Cost of America’s War on Drugs.”

PERSPECTIVE ON POLICE

When Cops Become the Gangsters

The war on drugs has spawned an ominous form of corruption: protector
becoming the criminal.

It may not be much comfort to Police Chief Bernard C. Parks and the
people of Los Angeles during the current corruption scandal, but the
pattern of small gangs of cops committing predatory crimes has
occurred in almost every large city in the nation and in a great many
less populated areas as well.

Six years after retiring from 35 years in policing, I began research
for a book on police administration. Studying the nation’s police
forces, I was stunned to discover that the old-type corruption
uncovered when cops occasionally were caught taking payoffs from
gangsters had been replaced by something considerably more ominous.
Throughout the country, small groups of cops were the gangsters.

The lure of fortunes to be made in illegal drugs has led to thousands
of police felonies: armed robbery, kidnapping, stealing drugs, selling
drugs, perjury, framing people and even some murders. These police
crimes were committed on duty, often while the cop gangsters were
wearing their uniforms, the symbol of safety to the people they were
supposed to be protecting.

Of course, only a small percentage of American police officers are
recidivist felons. Sadly, however, these predatory criminals are
protected by a code of silence. Otherwise honest officers who knew or
suspected what was going on did not report the crooks, and at times
even lied rather than testify against other cops.

A code of silence is not unique to police. It exists in the White
House, among students, doctors, lawyers, business executives and other
groups. Indeed, even as children, our parents and peers admonish us
not to tattle. Basic human characteristics of loyalty, trust and
security are involved. These motivations are even more intense in
police work. If cops make an error of judgment, they or someone else
may be killed, or they can be sent to jail for using too much force.
And even the most ethical officers fear being falsely accused of
brutality or other crimes and of being railroaded to prison because
their chiefs or mayors will not support them in politically volatile
cases.

Furthermore, the code of silence is strengthened because many cops
chafe under the pressure from superiors to make petty arrests for
drugs. State and local police made approximately 1.4 million drug
possession arrests last year. Very few took place with search
warrants, although the 4th Amendment, with few exceptions, requires
the police to obtain a judicial warrant to search people or their
homes. It is so common for police to lie about how they obtained drug
evidence that the term “testilying” has replaced “testifying” in
police jargon. Ambitious politicians and police brass calling for
more arrests condemn the code of silence while ignoring widespread
police perjury in drug cases. It is not surprising that many cops
feel that the only one they can really trust is another cop.

Nevertheless, it is perverse when those sworn to enforce the law
instead shelter predatory criminals who happen to carry a badge.
Minorities tend to be the victims of the most grievous police crimes.
The current Los Angeles police shooting scandal, like the thousands of
cop crimes elsewhere, does immeasurable damage to the credibility of
the criminal justice system. Mayors and police chiefs usually assure
their citizens that there are only a few rotten apples when these
scandals are publicized. Yet the number and similarity of police
gangster crimes nationally indicate a crisis in American policing.

Official corruption will be a major problem as long as we cling to the
present drug policies. The code of silence cannot be totally
eliminated. But the harm to good cops and to society can be reduced if
politicians abandon their demagogic calls for a police war against
drugs. Police officers who are true partners with the community in
reducing crime will be far more likely to report thugs on the force
than cops who think they’re part of a warring occupation army.

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

SAMPLE LETTER (sent)

Thanks to Joseph McNamara for explaining how the drug war causes
police corruption (“Perspective on Police,” Sept. 21). Others may say
that there will always be a few bad apples in any large group. It’s
impossible to deny that police, like members of any other profession,
are subject to corruption even under the best circumstances. Likewise,
there are police who are immune from corruption under the worst
circumstances. But, it is grossly myopic to say that the incidents
recently uncovered in Los Angeles are just about a handful of bad cops.

There is a common thread running through these incidents, and others
around the nation: the obscene profits made possible by drug
prohibition. That is the invitation to corruption, just as it was
during alcohol prohibition during the 1920s. No matter how many honest
cops there are, drug prohibition offers the lure of easy money to
those teetering on the edge. Add that to the despair of knowing that
efforts against illegal drug sellers will never really put a dent in
the trade and you’ve got a recipe to make more bad cops.

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

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

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

Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999
Subject: LA Times Prints A Great Introduction To Reform By Ethan

DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 126 September 20, 1999

LA Times Prints A Great Introduction to Reform by Ethan
Nadelmann

TO SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL
ADDRESS PLEASE SEE THE INFORMATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS FOCUS ALERT

*****

PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE
*****

LA Times Prints A Great Introduction to Reform by Ethan
Nadelmann

The problems created by drug prohibition are intertwined in such a
complex way that it is sometimes difficult to look at the whole
situation without getting caught up in the details. With the
cooperation of the Los Angeles Times, prominent drug policy reform
advocate Ethan Nadelmann presented a nice overview of the need for
reform this week.

Nadelmann’s points are convincing in themselves, but they have added
power in the LA Times now as the newspaper uncovers a huge scandal in
the LA Police Department. Allegations of corruption in the department
are at least partly related to drug policy. To read more about the
scandal see:

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n1021.a02.html

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n1018.a08.html

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n1021.a01.html

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n1019.a01.html

Please write a letter to the Times thanking them for printing
Nadelmann’s oped, and also to remind editors that they don’t have to
dig too deep into many societal problems to find a connection between
the problems and counterproductive drug policy.

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

Note: The LA Times circulation is 1.5 million.
A published LTE in the Times that is five column inches long (about 200 words)
represents an advertising value of $3,000 on behalf of reform.

Ethan’s article below had an ad value of $29,592 See
http://www.mapinc.org/lte/value.htm for an explanation of how to
calculate the ad value of your published letters.

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

Pubdate: Sun, 19 Sep 1999
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 1999 Los Angeles Times.
Contact: [email protected]
Fax: (213) 237-4712
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Forum: http://www.latimes.com/home/discuss/
Author: Ethan A. Nadelmann
Note: Ethan A. Nadelmann Is Director of the Lindesmith Center, a Drug
Policy Institute With Offices in New York and San Francisco
http://www.lindesmith.org/

PERSPECTIVE ON LEGALIZING DRUGS

Don’t Get Carried Away

There Must Be A New Approach That Is Grounded Not In Ignorance Or Fear But
In Common Sense.

“So you want to legalize drugs, right?” That’s the first question I’m
typically asked when I start talking about drug policy reform. My
short answer is, marijuana, maybe. But I’m not suggesting we make
heroin, cocaine or methamphetamine available the way we do alcohol and
cigarettes.

What am I recommending? Here’s the long answer:

Drop the “zero tolerance” rhetoric and policies and the illusory goal
of a drug-free society. Accept that drug use is here to stay, and
that we have no choice but to learn to live with drugs so they cause
the least possible harm and the greatest possible benefit.

More specifically, I’m recommending:

* that responsible doctors be allowed and encouraged to prescribe
whatever drugs work best, notwithstanding the feared and demonized
status of some drugs in the eyes of the ignorant and the law;

* that people not be incarcerated for possessing small amounts of any
drug for personal use. But also that people who put their fellow
citizens at risk by driving while impaired be treated strictly and
punished accordingly;

* that employers reject drug-testing programs that reveal little about
whether people are impaired in the workplace but much about what they
may have consumed over the weekend;

* that those who sell drugs to other adults not be treated by our
criminal laws as the moral equivalents of violent and other predatory
criminals;

* that marijuana be decriminalized, taxed and regulated, even as we
step up our efforts to provide honest and effective drug education
rather than feel-good programs like DARE;

* that top priority be given to public health policies proved to
reduce the death, disease, crime and suffering associated with
injection drug use and heroin addiction–in other words, expanded
methadone maintenance treatment, heroin maintenance trials, ready
access to sterile syringes and other harm-reduction policies that have
proved effective abroad and that can work just as well here.

These beliefs, these statements of principles and objectives,
represent a call for a fundamentally different drug policy. It’s not
legalization, but it’s also not simply a matter of spending more on
treatment and prevention and less on interdiction and
enforcement.

Some call it “harm reduction”–an approach that aims to reduce the
negative consequences of both drug use and drug prohibition,
acknowledging that both will likely persist for the foreseeable future.

Most “drug legalizers” aren’t really drug legalizers at all. A
legalizer, as most Americans apparently understand the term, is
someone who believes that heroin, cocaine and most or all other drugs
should be available over the counter, like alcohol or cigarettes.

That’s not what I’m fighting for, nor is it the ultimate aim of
philanthropist and financier George Soros, who has played a leading
role in funding drug policy reform efforts. Nor is it the aim of the
great majority of people who devote their time, money and energies to
ending the drug war.

This is not to say there is no such thing as a “legalizer.” Milton
Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, and Thomas Szasz, the
famed libertarian psychiatrist, have argued that total drug
legalization is the only rational and ethical way to deal with drugs
in our society. Most libertarians and many others agree with them.
Szasz and others have even opposed the medical marijuana ballot
initiatives, arguing that they retard the repeal of drug
prohibition.

Friedman, Szasz and I agree on many points, among them that U.S. drug
prohibition, like alcohol Prohibition decades ago, generates
extraordinary harms. It, not drugs per se, is responsible for
creating vast underground markets, criminalizing millions of otherwise
law-abiding citizens, corrupting both governments and societies at
large, empowering organized criminals, increasing predatory crime,
spreading disease, curtailing personal freedom, disparaging science
and honest inquiry and legitimizing public policies that are both
extraordinary and insidious in their racially disproportionate
consequences.

But I’m not ready to advocate for over-the-counter sale of heroin and
cocaine, and not just because that’s not a politically palatable
argument in 1999. I’m not convinced that outright legalization is the
optimal alternative.

The fact is, there is no drug legalization movement in America. What
there is a nascent political and social movement for drug policy
reform. It consists of the growing number of citizens who have been
victimized, in one way or another, by the drug war, and who now
believe that our current drug policies are doing more harm than good.

Most members of this “movement” barely perceive themselves as such, in
part because their horizons only extend to one or two domains in which
the harms of the drug war are readily apparent to them.

It might be the judge who is required by inflexible, mandatory minimum
sentencing laws to send a drug addict, or small-time dealer, or
dealer’s girlfriend, or Third World drug courier, to prison for longer
than many rapists and murderers serve. Or it might be the corrections
officer who recalls the days when prisons housed “real” criminals, not
the petty, nonviolent offenders who fill jails and prisons these days.
Or the addict in recovery–employed, law-abiding, a worthy citizen in
every respect–who must travel 50 or 100 miles each day to pick up her
methadone, i.e., her medicine, because current laws do not allow
methadone prescriptions to be filled at a local pharmacy.

Or the nurse in the oncology or AIDS unit obliged to look the other
way while a patient wracked with pain or nausea smokes her forbidden
medicine. Both know, from their own experience, that smoked marijuana
works better than anything else for many sick people.

Or the teacher or counselor warned by school authorities not to speak
so frankly about drug use with his students lest he violate federal
regulations prohibiting anything other than “just say no” bromides.

Or the doctor who fears to prescribe medically appropriate doses of
opiate analgesics to a patient in pain because any variations from the
norm bring unfriendly scrutiny from government agents and state
medical boards.

Or the employee with an outstanding record who fails a drug test on
Monday morning because she shared a joint with her husband over the
weekend–and is fired. Or the struggling farmer in North Dakota who
wonders why farmers in Canada and dozens of other countries can plant
hemp, but he cannot. Or the political conservative who abhors the
extraordinary powers of police and prosecutors to seize private
property from citizens who have not been convicted of violating any
laws and who worries about the corruption inherent in letting law
enforcement agencies keep what they seize.

Or the African American citizen repeatedly stopped by police for
“driving while black” or even “walking while black,” never mind
“running while black.”

Some are victims of the drug war, and some are drug policy reformers,
but most of them don’t know it yet. The ones who know they’re drug
policy reformers are the ones who connect the dots–the ones who see
and understand the panoply of ways in which our prohibitionist
policies are doing more harm than good.

We may not agree on which aspect of prohibition is most
pernicious–the generation of crime, the corruption, the underground
market, the spread of disease, the loss of freedom, the burgeoning
prisons or the lies and hypocrisies, and we certainly don’t agree on
the optimal solutions, but we all regard our current policy of
punitive drug prohibition as a fundamental evil both within our
borders and beyond.

Most drug policy reformers I know don’t want crack or methamphetamine
sold in 7-Elevens–to quote one of the more pernicious accusations
hurled by federal drug czar Barry McCaffrey. What we’re talking about
is a new approach grounded not in the fear, ignorance, prejudice and
vested pecuniary and institutional interests that drive current
policies, but rather one grounded in common sense, science, public
health and human rights.

That’s true drug policy reform.

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

SAMPLE LETTER (sent)

Bravo to the Times for printing Ethan Nadelmann’s fine Op-Ed (Sunday,
19 September) “Perspective On Legalizing Drugs.”

As other more prominent headlines point to police corruption, I hope
readers see the connection between the LAPD scandal and Nadelmann’s
insights. It is, after all, drug money that fuels the gangs, and the
drug war that corrupts the police. Los Angeles is far from the first
city to have such a scandal.

But the last great corruption scandal for the LA police was in 1933,
during that prohibition. By 1931 it was an accepted fact that the
upper and middle classes were drinking in large numbers in quite frank
disregard of the declared policy of the Volstead Act. Have we learned
nothing from history?

Just as then, today a growing number of citizens are recognizing the
errors of the current enforcement based prohibition – and the damage
being done. As then, today the people are well ahead of the our
elected officials in saying “There must be a better way.”

Politicians shouting “legalizer” does not make it so.

Richard Lake

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

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

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

Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999
Subject: “The Nation” Magazine Devotes Issue To Drug Policy Reform

DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 125 September 15, 1999

“The Nation” Magazine Devotes Issue to Drug Policy
Reform

TO SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL
ADDRESS PLEASE SEE THE INFORMATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS FOCUS ALERT

*********************PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE*************************

DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 125 September 15, 1999

“The Nation” Magazine Devotes Issue to Drug Policy
Reform

This week’s issue of The Nation features a number of articles on drug
policy reform. Activists will find many ideas to support, while they
may also find a few ideas they would like to challenge. Either way we
need to let editors at the publication know that we appreciate the
broad coverage offered on these important issues.

Several of the articles are now available at the MAP archives. Use the
links below to read some or all of the articles. Then please write a
letter to The Nation generally thanking them for shining a spotlight
on reform issues. Feel free to praise any articles you found
particularly good, or to criticize any articles you feel were off base.

Thanks for your effort and support.

WRITE A LETTER TODAY

Don’t Think About it – Just DO It! You CAN Make a
Difference

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

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 MAPTalk
list 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: Nation, The (US)

Contact: [email protected]

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

Pubdate: 20 Sep 1999
Source: Nation, The (US)
Copyright: 1999, The Nation Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.thenation.com/
Note: This list should make finding the articles in our archives easier.
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n963.a03.html

THE NATION – SPECIAL ISSUE “BEYOND LEGALIZATION – NEW IDEAS FOR ENDING THE
DRUG WAR”

Editorial: Beyond the Drug War

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n954.a12.html
——-

It’s Time for Realism Michael Massing

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n957.a01.html
——–

Life of a Scandal Peter Kornbluh

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n958.a04.html
——-

Perils of Prohibition Mike Gray

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n958.a03.html
——-

Yes, Treatment, But…
Elliott Currie

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n955.a03.html

——-

Michael Massing Responds

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n955.a02.html

——

An Old City Seeks A New Model –
Baltimore Moves Toward “Medicalization”
Joshua Wolf Shenk

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n957.a02.html
——-

Does Europe Do It Better? Lessons From Holland, Britain and
Switzerland Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n955.a01.html

—–

George Soros’s Long Strange Trip A Philanthropist Defies Drug War
Orthodoxy Russ Baker (posted in two parts)

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n959.a11.html

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n962.a06.html

——

Marijuana Made Easy Armies of Experts Sell a Little White Pill Cynthia
Cotts

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n962.a05.html

——

The Road to Reform Activists Need Fresh Strategies to Win Carol A.
Bergman

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v99.n958.a05.html

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

SAMPLE LETTER (sent)

Dear Editor,

Hearty congratulations for your in depth coverage of the debate on our
failed drug war. An open dialogue on alternatives to this wretched
policy is precisely what is needed to move us back in the direction of
a sane drug policy.

I was very surprised, however, that your articles completely missed
mentioning two of the deepest, most popular, and most informative web
sites on drug policy available on the web.

http://www.drugsense.org/

The DrugSense web site, offers a vast array of information and what
may be the most informative weekly newsletter and news synopsis on
drug policy developments in the world.

http://www.mapinc.org/

The Media Awareness Project (MAP) web site also offers a huge
information database including more than 25,000 news articles on drug
policy from all over the world all completely searchable on any
subject in seconds. It also offers an archive of more than 2,000
published letters to the editor and opeds on drug policy.

Missing these sites when writing about drug policy was tantamount to
writing about book sales on the Internet and not mentioning Amazon.com

Mark Greer
Executive Director
DrugSense (MAP Inc.)

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

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

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

Date: Wed, 08 Sep 1999
Subject: Florida Plan Gives Money To Drug Warriors And Takes Rights From Citizens

DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 124 September 8, 1999

Florida Plan Gives Money to Drug Warriors and Takes Rights from Citizens

TO SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL
ADDRESS PLEASE SEE THE INFORMATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS FOCUS ALERT

*PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE*

DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 124 September 8, 1999

Florida Plan Gives Money to Drug Warriors and Takes Rights from Citizens

Despite the refreshing voice of New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson,
other state governors remain unwilling to retreat at all on the drug
war. In Florida, a major escalation appears to be in the works. That’s
right, from the same people who can’t understand why mutant
dope-killing fungus is a risky proposition comes a plan to spend half
a billion dollars on drug control in the state next year.

The windfall will be divided among the special interest groups that
tend to benefit most from the drug war. According to the Miami Herald
: “The crusade will include a massive increase in drug-treatment beds,
more specialized drug courts, more prosecutors, better security at
airports and seaports and a renewed emphasis on the need for parents
to talk to their kids about the dangers of drugs.”

While the profiteers dance in the street, the people of Florida have
much to fear from this plan. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is proposing to
take away the right of defendants in drug cases to depose police
officers before trial. Defense lawyers in the state worry this will
bring more weak cases to trial. Please write a letter to the Miami
Herald or other Florida newspapers to suggest that the “drug experts”
who are embracing this plan need to look beyond their own desires, and
that Florida residents need to stand up for themselves before another
one of their basic rights disappears.

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 MAPTalk
list 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: Miami Herald (FL)
Contact: [email protected]

Extra credit

Write to other Florida newspapers to protest this plan

To find other Email addresses for other Florida newspapers search
at:

http://www.mapinc.org/resource/email.htm

***

Pubdate: Thu, 2 Sep 1999
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 1999 The Miami Herald
Page: 1 – Front Page
Contact: [email protected]
Address: One Herald Plaza, Miami FL 33132-1693
Fax: (305) 376-8950
Website: http://www.herald.com/
Forum: http://krwebx.infi.net/webxmulti/cgi-bin/WebX?mherald
Author: Steve Bousquet, Capital Bureau Chief

Bush vows new assault on drugs

Ambitious Florida goals revealed

TALLAHASSEE — Saying drugs ”poison our community,” Gov. Jeb Bush
promised Wednesday to spend a half-billion dollars next year with the
goal of reducing drug use by 50 percent over five years in Florida —
an ambitious goal in a place known worldwide as a magnet for illegal
drugs.

Speaking to a statewide conference of alcohol and drug abuse experts
in Orlando, Bush said the state will embark on a two-part strategy of
punishment and treatment, while streamlining the state’s cannibalized
and disconnected anti-drug efforts.

The crusade will include a massive increase in drug-treatment beds,
more specialized drug courts, more prosecutors, better security at
airports and seaports and a renewed emphasis on the need for parents
to talk to their kids about the dangers of drugs. The Bush plan would
attack drug use in all its guises — from pot plants growing in the
Keys to cocaine being smuggled through Miami International Airport
cargo holds to suburban teens snorting it.

”When people sell drugs and poison our community, they should be
punished, but we also need to expand treatment,” Bush said before his
speech to the Florida Alcohol & Drug Abuse Association. ”We’ve kind
of gone back and forth on one side or the other, but it’s clear we
need to do both.”

Jim McDonough, Bush’s drug policy coordinator, who worked in the White
House drug control office before joining the state administration,
said he would also push for more U.S. Customs agents in South Florida.

”We have to bring down the demand and bring down the supply,” he
said.

McDonough cited recent revelations of rampant drug trafficking at
Miami International Airport as the latest example of the ”cavalier,
casual” attitude toward illegal drugs in Florida.

”It’s atrocious. It’s a wink and a nod, and here come the drugs,”
McDonough said. ”That’s the kind of stuff that kills people.”

Florida’s rate of drug use — about 8 percent of the population — is
much higher than the national average of 6.2 percent, McDonough said.
Nearly two-thirds of all cocaine seized in the U.S. last year came to
Florida, a year in which the state also experienced a 51 percent
increase in heroin-related deaths.

He called it a troubling result of the state’s mobile, transient
population and laid-back atmosphere.

Bush will formally unveil his anti-drug strategy on Sept. 10. An
estimated $360 million in the first year of the program will come from
the state, with the rest coming from the federal government — though
none of it is new money.

The state is coordinating anti-drug programs now scattered through
various state agencies — like health and corrections departments and
the Department of Law Enforcement. But even that step is a novel
approach, officials say.

About 60 percent of the money would be spent on education and
prevention, said Tim Bottcher, spokesman for the six-person drug
policy office, a branch of the governor’s office. The rest, he said,
will go to law enforcement.

Expert approves

A Miami-Dade drug treatment expert welcomes Bush’s promise to add more
than 9,000 new drug-treatment beds.

”There is a tremendous shortage of beds,” said Dr. Moraima Trujillo,
chief of general psychiatry at Veterans Administrators Hospital, who
specializes in substance abuse and serves as the medical director at
several Miami-Dade rehab and detox centers. ”Outpatient treatment is
not the answer. Patients need to be removed from their environment in
order to truly be helped. It’s a major problem. At the centers where I
work, patients are constantly being pushed out the door. There are
never enough beds to keep them.”

”If the governor is able to pull this off, I think it would be a
tremendous help to the community,” Trujillo said. ”If you eliminate
the bottom of the pyramid, which are the users, you will be
eliminating the market for the pushers. And it’s the community at
large that’s suffering. They are the ones being hit by drunk or
drugged drivers.”

Controversial point

One aspect of Bush’s anti-drug program is sure to be controversial
among civil libertarians and some legal experts: The governor is
proposing to take away the right of defendants in drug cases to depose
police officers before trial. Bush said that would stop police from
spending ”All their time in depositions when they’re trying to
apprehend the major drug dealers.”

Miami defense lawyer Chris Mancini said eliminating pretrial
depositions is ”a terrible idea,” because the investigative legwork
turns up examples of sloppy police work that save prosecutors from
taking weak cases to trial.

”Anybody who’s been in the system for a long time, other than a
politician like Jeb Bush, understands depositions actually work to
everyone’s benefit,” Mancini said. ”I don’t know who they’re
pandering to.”

Bush also proposes tax breaks for companies that submit their
employees to random drug testing.

In renewing the war on drugs, Bush also is confronting the post-baby
boom culture that generally takes a so-what attitude toward alcohol
and marijuana.

Questionable goals

Dr. Andres Fernandez, medical director at Center Intake Unit, a Miami
drug rehab center, said Bush’s goals were admirable — but
questionable.

”I think that if the government increased the number of beds and at
the same time increased the amount of drug education given to young
people, and if we controled the drugs coming into Florida, the
governor could do it in five years. But that’s a whole lot of ifs,”
Fernandez said.

Even some drug experts who heard Bush’s talk were skeptical of his
lofty goals.

Asia Eichmiller, a drug counselor at Brevard Correctional Institution,
said reducing drug use by 50 percent is unrealistic. ”It’s very
entrenched in our culture,” Eichmiller said.

But Kerry Wilensky, a drug treatment expert in Clermont, applauded the
shift in focus away from purely punishment to prevention.

”Traditionally, we’ve had too much emphasis on interdiction instead
of prevention,” Wilensky said. ”As long as there is no demand, there
is no supply.”

Police applaud

Some local law enforcement experts applauded Bush’s commitment to
fighting drug abuse.

Danny Wright of the Broward Sheriff’s Office, who serves as chief of
the Pompano Beach police, called Bush’s target of a 50 percent
reduction in drug use ”a reachable goal.” He cited two key factors:
constant drug-abuse awareness efforts in public schools and pressing
apartment owners to write leases threatening immediate eviction for
drug-dealing tenants.

”At one time, we were only doing enforcement. The education and
prevention mechanisms were missing. But it’s changing,” said Wright,
who is organizing a drug summit Oct. 16 at Ely High School in Pompano
Beach.

SAMPLE LETTER (sent)

Governor Bush’s “ambitious” plan to cut drug use by 50 percent over
five years could be laughed off if it didn’t present such a terrible
threat to the people of Florida. It’s funny because every couple years
federal legislators have mandated similar reductions with great
fanfare, fanfare that is nowhere to be found when the plans fail
miserably to meet stated goals. But, the latest plan is also deadly
serious. Like the idea to test plant-killing fungus within the
Sunshine State, the new plan shows Florida officials are so eager to
display their intolerance of drugs they are willing to risk the safety
of residents in the process.

This time anti-drug bureaucrats want the people of Florida to give up
their right to depose police officers before trial should they be
accused of a drug crime. Defense lawyers have said this will mean more
weak cases will go to trial, instead of being thrown out before trial.
People who stay away from illegal drugs probably feel they have
nothing to fear from this provision. However, with more money being
spread around the state for more drug law enforcement, every citizen
has a great deal to fear. State anti-drug officials will want to see
results from increased law enforcement budgets, which means more
arrests. So when the police are having a slow day, they are more
likely to make questionable arrests. Floridians caught in this trap
will no longer have the protection provided by pre-trial depositions.
But again, the courts and the cops look like they’re working hard,
because more cases will be flowing through the system.

But even when that happens, illegal drugs will also continue to flow
through the state. And after a while, some other politician will
suggest it’s time to get really tough before he snatches another right
from the people.

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

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

Date: Tue, 31 Aug 1999
Subject: LA Times: Marijuana Can’t Kill, But Marijuana Prohibition Can

DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 123 August 31,1999
LA Times: Marijuana Can’t Kill, but Marijuana Prohibition Can

TO SUBSCRIBE, UNSUBSCRIBE, DONATE, VOLUNTEER TO HELP OR UPDATE YOUR EMAIL
ADDRESS PLEASE SEE THE INFORMATION AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS FOCUS ALERT

*PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE*

DrugSense FOCUS Alert # 123 August 31,1999
LA Times: Marijuana Can’t Kill, but Marijuana Prohibition Can

Most drug policy reform supporters are aware marijuana has no lethal
dose. Marijuana prohibition, on the other hand, can be quite deadly. A
heartbreaking reminder came last week as the Los Angeles Times
reported on a late night “drug raid” that killed a grandfather who had
nothing to do with drugs. The police shot 65-year-old Mario Paz to
death in front of his wife. Showing great compassion for the family’s
loss, police confiscated Paz’s life savings and dragged family members
to the police station for hours of interrogation.

If there was ever a story that embodied all the horror the drug war
can unleash on innocent people, this is it. Please write a letter to
the Los Angeles Times thanking them for covering this important story,
and urging the paper’s continued pursuit of the harsh truth about drug
war injustice.

Thanks for your effort and support.

WRITE A LETTER TODAY

Don’t Think About it Just DO It!

*

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 MAPTalk
list 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: Los Angeles Times (CA)

Contact: [email protected]

*

Please note: At this time, the following is the most recent coverage
in the LA Times. For other stories with different details, search
http://www.mapinc.org/search/index.htm using “Paz” as a key word.

Pubdate: Sat, 28 Aug 1999
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 1999 Los Angeles Times.
Contact: [email protected]
Fax: (213) 237-4712
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Forum: http://www.latimes.com/home/discuss/
Author: Anne-Marie O’Connor, Times Staff Writer
Note: Times staff writers Peter Y. Hong and Tina Daunt contributed to this
story.

NO DRUG LINK TO FAMILY IN FATAL RAID, POLICE SAY

The El Monte Police Department has no evidence that anyone in the
family of Mario Paz–a 65-year-old man fatally shot in the back by an
El Monte officer during a search of his home Aug. 9–was involved in
drug trafficking, nor did officers when they shot their way into the
house in the nighttime raid, a senior police official said.

El Monte Assistant Police Chief Bill Ankeny said he was unsure if his
department’s narcotics unit even knew whether the family was living at
the Compton home when it was raided by the SWAT team. He said the
team of up to 20 officers–who shot the front and back doors open as
the family slept–was looking for evidence that could be used in a
case against Chino drug suspect Marcos Beltran Lizarraga, who had been
released on bail the morning of the raid.

“We didn’t have information of the Paz family being involved in
narcotics trafficking,” Ankeny said in an interview Thursday. “To my
knowledge, right now, we don’t have any information that the Paz
family was dealing in narcotics. To our knowledge they were not.”

Ankeny said El Monte police asked for the warrant to search the home
after some phone bills, Department of Motor Vehicles records and other
mail bearing the family’s address was found among Beltran’s
possessions. The family says Beltran lived next door in the 1980s and
persuaded Paz, a father of six and grandfather of 14, to let him
receive mail at the Paz home.

Paz was shot to death in the back in full view of his wife, Maria
Luisa, by an officer who entered their bedroom during the raid.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which is investigating
the killing as an officer-involved shooting, has provided three
different explanations for why Paz was shot, though sheriff’s
investigators interviewed the family and the SWAT officers intensively
after the shooting.

The first explanation, given in a statement read to the news media
until as recently as Monday, was that El Monte officers believed Paz
to be armed. The second, offered Wednesday by sheriff’s homicide
investigator Lt. Marilyn Baker, was that the officer who shot Paz
thought he saw him reaching for his gun–a suggestion hotly disputed
by the family. The current explanation, in a statement dated Thursday
at 1:30 p.m., is that Paz was shot when he began to reach for a nearby
drawer where police say they found guns.

Baker was not available Friday and could not be reached to clarify the
changes in the explanations.

Sheriff’s spokesman David Halm said he was not familiar with the
details of the probe, but “sometimes as an investigation progresses,
things are learned that differ slightly from the original
information.”

El Monte police reported finding three pistols–two of them, they say,
in a drawer on the floor near Paz–and a .22-caliber rifle in the
home. The weapons were seized as evidence. The rifle and the third
pistol were found in the corner of the bedroom, the Sheriff’s
Department bulletin said Thursday.

“I personally think that four weapons are a lot for one person to have
next to the bed,” Baker said. “If you had one, would you keep it next
to your bed? Probably. But four?”

The family said Mario Paz, who came to the United States as part of
the bracero agricultural labor program in the 1950s, kept firearms
safely stored away in a dresser drawer to protect the family in the
high-crime neighborhood. They adamantly rejected the suggestion that
he would have turned a gun on a police officer–or that their family
is anything but hard-working and law-abiding.

“My father’s name means peace, and he stood for that,” said Maria
Derain, who works for a lithographer, during a news conference at the
Paz home Friday. She said the shooting has “taken someone who was
dearest to me.”

Brian Dunn, an attorney for Johnnie L. Cochran Jr.’s firm who is
representing the family in a planned lawsuit against El Monte police,
criticized the agency for linking the family to a suspected drug trafficker.

“What the El Monte Police Department has not told you,” he said at the
news conference, “is that Mario Paz has never been suspected of
committing a criminal act.”

El Monte Assistant Chief Ankeny said the officers believed there might
be armed people at the Paz address because they had found three
high-powered rifles in a search of another home linked to Beltran.
The warrant said officers also found $75,000 and 400 pounds of
marijuana at two other homes linked to Beltran.

Ankeny said police went to the Paz home–where no drugs were
found–“in furtherance of their narcotics investigation case” against
Beltran.

“I don’t know whether they expected to find the Paz family living
there or not,” Ankeny said. “I don’t even know if they expected to
contact the family when they went in. I don’t know if [the Pazes]
were owning or renting. [The officers] were looking for evidence of
narcotics trafficking–drugs, or money from sales. But when we
search, we don’t always find what we expect.”

Ankeny said he “can’t say absolutely that the [Pazes] were not
involved in narcotics trafficking. To our knowledge they were not.
But all that has to come out with the continuing investigation.”

El Monte police also seized $10,000 in cash at the Paz home, which the
sheriff’s investigators say was taken as evidence. El Monte officers
initially said they would try to have the cash forfeited in a civil
procedure as ill-gotten gains, but Ankeny backed off from that
position late Thursday. The family has described the money as their
life savings.

“That’s usually the way it goes–[authorities] would file a civil
action to try to have the money forfeited,” Ankeny said. But “if they
can’t develop information that the proceeds of the money was [from]
narcotics trafficking, it will be given back to the family.
[Authorities are] not going to proceed unless they have evidence.”

Ankeny said he had “the greatest sympathy for the family and their
loss. Loss of life is a tragedy.”

Another officer probing the shooting, sheriff’s homicide investigator
Susan Coleman, said that the El Monte police warrant to search the
Compton home had been legally obtained and that police “made the
proper commands and announcements. It’s not out of the ordinary. You
don’t know all of the reasons they went into that house.”

SAMPLE LETTER (sent)

Reading the excellent reporting done by the Los Angeles Times on the
killing of Mario Paz has been a very disturbing experience. That a man
should lose his life because police want to rid world of nontoxic
plant is obscene. The circumstances surrounding this incident should
be a wake-up call to every American, even if they (like Paz) have
nothing to do with illegal drugs.

If anyone but a gang of police shot the locks off the door of a
private home, burst in, terrorized a family with paramilitary tactics,
shot the patriarch to death, took the family’s life savings, abducted
the remaining family members and held them against their will, it
would certainly be national news. Imagine the non-stop coverage and
breast-beating if high school students had committed an act half as
brutal. Legislators would be tripping over themselves to punish someone.

But, in terms of the drug war, Paz’s death and his family’s terror are
just bit more collateral damage.

If more citizens don’t express outrage over this tragedy and the whole
devastating war on drugs, they can’t expect much reaction when the
anti-drug squad kicks in their door some dark night. As the Paz story
illustrates, being innocent is no protection in such a situation.

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

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