Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009
Subject: #406 A Syndicated Columnist Supports Legalization

A SYNDICATED COLUMNIST SUPPORTS LEGALIZATION

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

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #406 – Wednesday, 1 July 2009

You may not agree with everything syndicated columnist George Monbiot
wrote below. The point he makes that is worthy of this FOCUS Alert is
that decriminalization is not the answer – full legalization is.

The referenced reports are worth reading.

World Drug Report 2009 http://drugsense.org/url/dhSmEL2y

The WHO report http://www.tdpf.org.uk/WHOleaked.pdf

A Comparison of the Cost – effectiveness of the Prohibition and
Regulation of Drugs http://drugsense.org/url/l4lH1McU

It is possible that MAP’s Newshawks will find more newspapers that
print the syndicated column in the days ahead. If so they will appear
here http://www.mapinc.org/author/George+Monbiot

If you would like to help with newshawking please see both
http://www.mapinc.org/newshawk and http://www.mapinc.org/hawk.htm

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

Note: Also printed in the Canberra Times (Australia)
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n667/a12.html

Pubdate: Tue, 30 Jun 2009

Source: Guardian, The (UK)

Copyright: 2009 Guardian News and Media Limited

Author: George Monbiot

YES, ADDICTS NEED HELP. BUT ALL YOU CASUAL COCAINE USERS WANT LOCKING UP

I Know People Who Drink Fair-Trade Tea and Coffee, Shop Locally and
Snort Drugs at Parties. They Are Disgusting Hypocrites

It looked like the first drop of rain in the desert of drugs policy.
Last week Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN office
on drugs and crime, said what millions of liberal-minded people have
been waiting to hear. “Law enforcement should shift its focus from
drug users to drug traffickers … people who take drugs need medical
help, not criminal retribution.” Drug production should remain
illegal, possession and use should be decriminalised. Guardian readers
toasted him with bumpers of peppermint tea, and, perhaps, a
celebratory spliff.

I didn’t.

I believe that informed adults should be allowed to inflict whatever
suffering they wish on themselves. But we are not entitled to harm
other people.

I know people who drink fair-trade tea and coffee, shop locally and
take cocaine at parties.

They are revolting hypocrites.

Every year cocaine causes some 20,000 deaths in Colombia and displaces
several hundred thousand people from their homes.

Children are blown up by landmines; indigenous people are enslaved;
villagers are tortured and killed; rainforests are razed.

You’d cause less human suffering if instead of discreetly retiring to
the toilet at a media drinks party, you went into the street and
mugged someone.

But the counter-cultural association appears to insulate people from
ethical questions.

If commissioning murder, torture, slavery, civil war, corruption and
deforestation is not a crime, what is?

I am talking about elective drug use, not addiction.

I cannot find comparative figures for the United Kingdom, but in the
United States casual users of cocaine outnumber addicts by about 12 to
one. I agree that addicts should be helped, not prosecuted. I would
like to see a revival of the British programme that was killed by a
tabloid witch-hunt in 1971: until then all heroin addicts were
entitled to clean, legal supplies administered by doctors.

Cocaine addicts should be offered residential detox.

But, at the risk of alienating most of the readership of this
newspaper, I maintain that while cocaine remains illegal, casual users
should remain subject to criminal law. Decriminalisation of the
products of crime expands the market for this criminal trade.

We have a choice of two consistent policies.

The first is to sustain global prohibition, while helping addicts and
prosecuting casual users. This means that the drugs trade will remain
the preserve of criminal gangs.

It will keep spreading crime and instability around the world, and
ensure that narcotics are still cut with contaminants. As Nick Davies
argued during his investigation of drugs policy for the Guardian,
major seizures raise the price of drugs.

Demand among addicts is inelastic, so higher prices mean that they
must find more money to buy them. The more drugs the police capture
and destroy, the more robberies and muggings addicts will commit.

The other possible policy is to legalise and regulate the global
trade. This would undercut the criminal networks and guarantee
unadulterated supplies to consumers.

There might even be a market for certified fair-trade
cocaine.

Costa’s new report begins by rejecting this option.

If it did otherwise, he would no longer be executive director of the
UN office on drugs and crime.

The report argues that “any reduction in the cost of drug control …
will be offset by much higher expenditure on public health (due to the
surge of drug consumption)”. It admits that tobacco and alcohol kill
more people than illegal drugs, but claims that this is only because
fewer illegal drugs are consumed.

Strangely however, it fails to supply any evidence to support the
claim that narcotics are dangerous.

Nor does it distinguish between the effects of drugs themselves and
the effects of the adulteration and disease caused by their
prohibition.

Why not? Perhaps because the evidence would torpedo the rest of the
report. A couple of weeks ago, Ben Goldacre drew attention to the
largest study on cocaine ever undertaken, completed by the World
Health Organisation in 1995. I’ve just read it, and this is what it
says. “Health problems from the use of legal substances, particularly
alcohol and tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine
use. Few experts describe cocaine as invariably harmful to health.
Cocaine-related problems are widely perceived to be more common and
more severe for intensive, high-dosage users and very rare and much
less severe for occasional, low-dosage users … occasional cocaine
use does not typically lead to severe or even minor physical or social
problems.” This study was suppressed by the WHO after threats of an
economic embargo by the Clinton government. Drugs policy in most
nations is a matter of religion, not science.

The same goes for heroin.

The biggest study of opiate use ever conducted (at Philadelphia
general hospital) found that addicts suffered no physical harm, even
though some of them had been taking heroin for 20 years.

The devastating health effects of heroin use are caused by adulterants
and the lifestyles of people forced to live outside the law. Like
cocaine, heroin is addictive; but unlike cocaine, the only consequence
of its addiction appears to be … addiction.

Costa’s half-measure, in other words, gives us the worst of both
worlds: more murder, more destruction, more muggings, more
adulteration. Another way of putting it is this: you will, if Costa’s
proposal is adopted, be permitted without fear of prosecution to
inject yourself with heroin cut with drain cleaner and brick dust,
sold illegally and soaked in blood; but not with clean and legal supplies.

His report does raise one good argument, however.

At present the trade in class A drugs is concentrated in the rich
nations.

If it were legalised, we could cope. The use of drugs is likely to
rise, but governments could use the extra taxes to help people tackle
addiction. But because the wholesale price would collapse with
legalisation, these drugs would for the first time become widely
available in poorer nations, which are easier for companies to exploit
(as tobacco and alcohol firms have found) and which are less able to
regulate, raise taxes or pick up the pieces.

The widespread use of cocaine or heroin in the poor world could cause
serious social problems: I’ve seen, for example, how a weaker drug
khat seems to dominate life in Somali-speaking regions of Africa. “The
universal ban on illicit drugs,” the UN argues, “provides a great deal
of protection to developing countries”.

So Costa’s office has produced a study comparing the global costs of
prohibition with the global costs of legalisation, allowing us to see
whether the current policy (murder, corruption, war, adulteration)
causes less misery than the alternative (widespread addiction in
poorer nations)? The hell it has. Even to raise the possibility of
such research would be to invite the testerics in Congress to shut off
the UN’s funding.

The drug charity Transform has addressed this question, but only for
the UK, where the results are clear-cut: prohibition is the worse option.

As far as I can discover, no one has attempted a global
study.

Until that happens, Costa’s opinions on this issue are worth as much
as mine or anyone else’s: nothing at all.

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

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post copies of your letters to the sent letter list (
[email protected] ) if you are subscribed.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list will help you to review other sent
LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches.

To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see

http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form

Suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism
Center

http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides

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

Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

=.

Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009
Subject: #405 The Drug War Opinions In The Los Angeles Times

THE DRUG WAR OPINIONS IN THE LOS ANGELES TIMES

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

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #405 – Sunday, 7 June 2009

Today the Los Angeles Times printed the three OPEDs below which focus
on marijuana and the war on drugs. The Sunday edition of the Times has
a circulation of over a million copies, exceeded on Sunday only by the
New York Times. The Times’ home delivery area extends from Santa
Barbara to the Mexican border – a 45,000-square-mile area larger than
the state of Ohio.

Your letters to the editor could focus on many points, but the letters
most likely to be printed will contain no more than two or three.
Printed letters typically run 150 words or less. You may send letters
to the newspaper by either using their webform at http://www.latimes.com/services/site/la-comment-oped-cf,0,86410.customform
or by e-mail to [email protected]

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

DECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA

The War on Drugs Has Caused Too Much Collateral Damage: Even the Ill
Face Stigmatization by Using an Alternative to Harsh Pharmaceuticals.

By Marie Myung-Ok Lee

I’m on the phone getting a recipe for hashish butter. Not from my
dealer but from Lester Grinspoon, a physician and emeritus professor
of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. And not for a party but for
my 9-year-old son, who has autism, anxiety and digestive problems, all
of which are helped by the analgesic and psychoactive properties of
marijuana. I wouldn’t be giving it to my child if I didn’t think it
was safe.

I came to marijuana while searching for a safer alternative to the
powerful antipsychotic drugs, such as Risperdal, that are typically
prescribed for children with autism and other behavioral disorders.
There have been few studies on the long-term effects of these drugs on
a growing child’s brain, and in particular autism, a disorder whose
biochemical mechanisms are poorly understood. But there is much
documentation of the risks, which has caused the Food and Drug
Administration to require the highest-level “black box” warnings of
possible side effects that include permanent Parkinson’s disease-like
tremors, metabolic disorders and death. A panel of federal drug
experts in 2008 urged physicians to use caution when prescribing these
medicines to children, as they are the most susceptible to side effects.

We live in Rhode Island, one of more than a dozen states — including
California — with medical marijuana laws. That makes giving our son
cannabis for a medical condition legal. But we are limited in its use.
We cannot take it on a plane on a visit to his grandmother in Minnesota.

Even though we are not breaking the law, I still wonder what my
neighbors would think if they knew we were giving our son what most
people only think of as an illegal “recreational” drug. Marijuana has
always carried that illicit tang of danger — “reefer madness” and
foreign drug cartels. But in 1988, Drug Enforcement Administration
Judge Francis L. Young, after two years of hearings, deemed marijuana
“one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. ..
In strict medical terms, marijuana is far safer than many foods we
commonly consume.”

Beyond helping people like my son, the reasons to legalize cannabis on
a federal level are manifold. Anecdotal evidence from patients already
attests to its pain-relieving properties, and the benefits in quelling
chemotherapy-induced nausea and wasting syndrome are well documented.
Future studies may find even more important medical uses.

Including marijuana in the war on drugs has only proved foolhardy —
and costly. By keeping marijuana illegal and prices high, illicit drug
money from the U.S. sustains the murderous narco-traffickers in Mexico
and elsewhere. In fact, after seeing how proximity to marijuana
growers affected the small Mexican village of Alamos, where my husband
spent much of his childhood, I was adamant about never entering into
that economy of violence.

Because Rhode Island has no California-like medical marijuana
dispensaries, the patient must apply for a medical marijuana license
and then find a way to procure the cannabis. We floundered on our own
until we finally connected with a local horticultural school graduate
who agreed to provide our son’s organic marijuana. But given the seedy
underbelly of the illegal drug trade, combined with the current
economic collapse, even our grower has to be mindful of not exposing
himself to robbery.

Legalizing marijuana not only removes the incentives for this
underground economy, it would allow for regulation and taxation of the
product, just like cigarettes and alcohol. The potential for abuse is
there, as it is with any substance, but toxicology studies have not
even been able to establish a lethal dose at typical-use levels. In
fact, in 1988, Young of the DEA further stated that “it is estimated
that … a smoker would theoretically have to consume … nearly 1,500
pounds of marijuana within about 15 minutes to induce a lethal
response.” Nor is it physically addicting, unlike your daily
Starbucks, as anyone who has suffered from a caffeine withdrawal
headache can attest.

Although it has been demonized for years, marijuana hasn’t been
illegal in the U.S. for that long. The cannabis plant became
criminalized on a federal level in 1937, largely because of the
efforts of one man, Harry Anslinger, commissioner of the then newly
formed Bureau of Narcotics, largely through sensationalistic stories
of murder and mayhem conducted supposedly under the influence of
cannabis. Cannabis was still listed in the U.S. Pharmacopeia, or USP,
until 1941 as a household drug useful for treating headaches,
depression, menstrual cramps and toothaches, and drug companies worked
to develop a stronger strain.

In 1938, a skeptical Fiorello LaGuardia, mayor of New York, appointed
a committee to conduct the first in-depth study of marijuana’s actual
effects. It found that, despite the government’s fervent claims,
marijuana did not cause insanity or act as a gateway drug. It also
found no scientific reason for its criminalization. In 1972, President
Nixon’s Shafer Commission similarly concluded that cannabis should be
re-legalized.

Both recommendations were ignored, and since then billions of dollars
have been spent enforcing the ban. Public policy analyst Jon Gettman,
author of the 2007 report, “Lost Revenues and Other Costs of Marijuana
Laws,” estimated marijuana-related annual costs of law enforcement at
$10.7 billion.

I was heartened to hear California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recent
call for the U.S. to at least look at other nations’ experiences with
legalizing marijuana — and to open a debate. And given the real
security threats the nation faces, U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder
Jr.’s announcement that the federal government would no longer conduct
raids on legal medicinal marijuana dispensaries was a prudent move.
Decriminalizing marijuana is the logical next step.

Marie Myung-Ok Lee teaches at Brown University and is working on a
novel about medical malpractice.

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

THE PRICE OF LEGALIZING POT IS TOO HIGH

Deterrence Is Preferable to Encouraging Marijuana Use, Which Would
Follow Alcohol and Tobacco in Soaring Costs to Society.

By Kevin A. Sabet

Last month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reignited a heated debate when
he called for a civilized discussion on the merits of marijuana
legalization. Indeed, the governor was responding to new public
opinion polls showing greater interest in the policy idea — and with
the mounting problems associated with the drug trade in Mexico and
here at home, it is hard to blame anyone for suggesting that we at
least consider all potential policy solutions.

One major justification for legalization remains tempting: the money.
Unfortunately, however, the financial costs of marijuana legalization
would never outweigh its benefits. Yes, the marijuana market seems
like an attractive target for taxation — Abt Associates, a research
firm, estimates that the industry is worth roughly $10 billion a year
— and California could certainly use a chunk of that cash to offset
its budget woes in the current economic climate.

What is rarely discussed, however, is that the likely increase in
marijuana prevalence resulting from legalization would probably
increase the already high costs of marijuana use in society. Accidents
would increase, healthcare costs would rise and productivity would
suffer. Legal alcohol serves as a good example: The $8 billion in tax
revenue generated from that widely used drug does little to offset the
nearly $200 billion in social costs attributed to its use.

In fact, both of our two already legal drugs — alcohol and tobacco —
offer chilling illustrations of how an open market fuels greater
harms. They are cheap and easy to obtain. Commercialization glamorizes
their use and furthers their social acceptance. High profits make
aggressive marketing worthwhile for sellers. Addiction is simply the
price of doing business.

Would marijuana use rise in a legal market for the drug? Admittedly,
marijuana is not very difficult to obtain currently, but a legal
market would make getting the drug that much easier. Tobacco and
alcohol are used regularly by 30% and 65% of the population,
respectively, while all illegal drugs combined are used by about 6% of
Americans. In the Netherlands, where marijuana is de facto legalized,
lifetime use “increased consistently and sharply” after this policy
shift triggered commercialization, tripling among young adults,
according to data analysis from the Rand Corp. We might expect a
similar or worse result here in America’s ad-driven culture.

An honest debate on marijuana policy also carefully considers the
costs of our current approach. Arrest rates for marijuana are
relatively high, reaching about 800,000 last year. Though these
numbers are technically recorded under the category of “possession,”
the story that is seldom told is that hardly any of these possession
arrests result in jail time (that is why former New York City Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani made headlines when he aggressively arrested public
marijuana users and detained them for 12 to 24 hours in the 1990s).

One of the most astute minds in the field of drug policy, Carnegie
Mellon’s Jonathan Caulkins, formerly the co-director of Rand’s drug
policy research center, found that more than 85% of people in prison
for all drug-law violations were clearly involved in drug
distribution, and that the records of most of the remaining prisoners
had at least some suggestion of distribution involvement (many
prisoners plea down from more serious charges to possession in
exchange for information about the drug trade). Only about half a
percent of the total prison population was there for marijuana
possession, he found. He noted that this figure was consistent with
other mainstream estimates but not with estimates from the Marijuana
Policy Project (a legalization interest group), which, according to
Caulkins, “naively … assumes that all inmates convicted of
possession were not involved in trafficking.” Caulkins concluded that
“an implication of the new figure is that marijuana decriminalization
would have almost no impact on prison populations.” This is not meant
to imply that marijuana arrests do not have costs, but rather, that
these concerns have been highly exaggerated.

Finally, legalizing marijuana would in no way ensure that the most
vicious drug-related problems — violence, economic-related crime,
street gang activity — would disappear. Most of those problems stem
from the cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine markets. Marijuana’s
share of the black market is modest (the cocaine market is three times
larger), and the money that is spent on the drug is spread over so
many users and distributors that few are working with amounts that
motivate or encourage high levels of crime.

Moving beyond the simplistic and unrealistic option of legalization,
what can we do to reduce marijuana use and the costly harms it brings?
Increasing the ferocity of enforcement isn’t the answer, but
increasing its potential for effectiveness through deterrent methods
might be. Programs like Project HOPE in Hawaii, which perform regular,
random drug testing on probationers and others and implement reliable,
swift (but short) sanctions for positive screens, have shown
remarkable success. Innovative solutions, grounded in sound research
on prevention, treatment and enforcement, present the shortest route
out of marijuana-related costs. But an open market for the stuff? That
doesn’t pass the giggle test.

Kevin A. Sabet worked at the Office of National Drug Control Policy in
the Clinton and Bush administrations. He is currently a consultant in
private practice.

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

LAWYERS, GUNS AND MONEY: THREE REASONS TO END THE DRUG WAR

Legalizing Marijuana Would Add to State Coffers, Empty Prisons and
Reduce Violence.

By Brian O’Dea

In 1986 and 1987, I was one of the “masterminds” behind the
importation and sale of about 75 tons of pot from Southeast Asia in
the United States. It was the culmination of a 20-year career as a
drug smuggler, a deal that netted more than $180 million wholesale.

All that government saw, of course, was the sales tax when we spent
our illegally gotten gains. Oh sure, there were some forfeitures once
our organization was finally rounded up some years later. But had
rational minds prevailed over the last 70-plus years, government would
have reaped huge benefits — in direct sales taxes — from groups such
as ours. Rather than accept the fact that an estimated 30 million
pot-smoking Americans cannot possibly be criminals, our society has
seen fit to waste almost $1 trillion on its “war on drugs.” Not only
has that approach not worked, the entire situation has been
exacerbated by it.

A cascade of bad outcomes follows a policy of prohibition. The worst
may be the dangerous, bloody criminal activity it promotes. In my day,
guns weren’t automatically part of the picture, but they are now. The
illegal drug trade is the currency that funds and inspires a vast,
violent and well-armed gangster class.

You’ve heard the news from Mexico. Since the government there has
tried to rein in the drug cartels, 10,000 people have been killed.
Last month in the state of Michoacan, Mexican security forces arrested
27 elected officials who are under investigation for their ties to
narco-trafficking. In Toronto — where I live some months out of the
year — police in April arrested 125 people in a sweep that netted
AK-47s, sawed-off shotguns, 34 handguns and large quantities of
cocaine, marijuana and Ecstasy.

In April in Los Angeles County, 400 law enforcement personnel
conducted a “gang sweep” that officials said “dismantled” a dangerous
gang that sold methamphetamine, Vicodin, marijuana and cocaine. It
took a year of law enforcement’s time to put the cast together, and
the gang was responsible for at least one killing over the last year.

Take away the currency of illegal drugs and you take away the guns,
the violence and the associated corruption.

Columnist Steve Lopez wrote about a judge in this newspaper: “I’m
sitting in Costa Mesa with a silver-haired gent who once ran for
Congress as a Republican and used to lock up drug dealers as a federal
prosecutor, a man who served as an Orange County judge for 25 years.
And what are we talking about? He’s begging me to tell you we need to
legalize drugs in America.”

Another Republican, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said in early May that
he was willing to at least begin a debate on our policies about
marijuana. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) calculates that
taxing marijuana use alone would bring in $1 billion a year in
cash-strapped California.

Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper, in whose jurisdiction I was
sentenced to 10 years in prison, supports legalizing marijuana and
other illicit drugs. “It’s time to accept drug use as a right of adult
Americans, treat drug abuse as a public health problem and end the
madness of an unwinnable war,” he wrote in these pages in 2005.

Stamper is an advisory board member of LEAP — Law Enforcement Against
Prohibition.

According to LEAP, “After nearly four decades of fueling the U.S.
policy of a war on drugs with over a trillion tax dollars and 37
million arrests for nonviolent drug offenses, our confined population
has quadrupled, making building prisons the fastest-growing industry
in the United States.” More than 2.2 million of our citizens are
incarcerated on drug charges, and every year we arrest 1.9 million
more, guaranteeing those prisons will be busting at their seams. Every
year, the war on drugs cost U.S. taxpayers $69 billion.

It is time we stopped treating drug addiction, a medical condition,
with law enforcement. It’s time to repatriate the vast quantities of
money that are being hidden, removed from the country and going
untaxed, and it’s time we keep those same vast sums from funding
violent crime. It’s time to end modern prohibition. It didn’t work for
alcohol; it isn’t working for drugs.

Brian O’Dea, one of the biggest marijuana smugglers in U.S. history,
is also a reformed addict and a former drug counselor. He is now a
film and television producer and the author of the just-published
“High: Confessions of an International Drug Smuggler.”

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

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post copies of your letters to the sent letter list (
[email protected] ) if you are subscribed.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list will help you to review other sent
LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches.

To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see

http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form

Suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism
Center

http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides

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

Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

=.

Date: Sun, 31 May 2009
Subject: #404 Heroin In The Heartland

HEROIN IN THE HEARTLAND

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

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #404 – Sunday, 31 May 2009

For the New York Times to publish the major article below and leave
out so much that could have been included is a shame. The Sunday
edition of the New York Times is the most widely read Sunday newspaper
in the United States.

Your letters to the editor could focus on many points, but the letters
most likely to be printed will contain no more than two or three.

Just a few examples:

If the drug treatment industry, drug courts, and needle exchange
programs were encouraged – perhaps even required and provided with the
needed funding – to provide users with anti-overdose kits and teach
their use countless lives could be saved. The kits contain Naloxone.
Naloxone works to block the effects of morphine, codeine, heroin,
methadone, oxycontin, percocet, hydrocodone, fentanyl and
hydromorphone. People can’t overdose on Naloxone, the generic form of
the brand-name drug, Narcan. If it’s injected into someone who hasn’t
taken any opiates, it runs through the body as harmlessly as saline
solution.

The two immigrants are victims also. Draconian sentences as if they
were drug kingpins is just another example of a drug war gone wild.

If the DEA did not get between doctors and patients then pain
management would be more effective. Less patients would turn to street
drugs for relief.

To focus on the drug cartels is simply blame shifting.

Our drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, has called for “a complete
public-health model for dealing with addiction.” If that is to happen
your support for the change from past policies is needed, not only
through your letters but also by your contacts with our elected
representatives.

Some of the links to MAP archived articles now and in the future
related to this topic include the following:

http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Naloxone

http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

http://www.mapinc.org/find?132 (Heroin Overdose)

http://www.mapinc.org/find?131 (Heroin Maintenance)

http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites)

http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange)

http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)

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

Pubdate: Sun, 31 May 2009

Source: New York Times (NY)

Page: A1, Front Page

Copyright: 2009 The New York Times Company

Contact: [email protected]

Author: Randal C. Archibold

IN HEARTLAND DEATH, TRACES OF HEROIN’S SPREAD

GROVE CITY, Ohio — For five hours, Dana Smith huddled stunned and
bewildered in her suburban living room while the body of her son
Arthur Eisel IV, 31, lay slumped in an upstairs bathroom, next to a
hypodermic needle.

Family and friends streamed in. Detectives scurried about. For Mrs.
Smith, the cold realization set in that her oldest son Artie — quiet,
shy, car enthusiast, football and softball fanatic — was dead of a
heroin overdose.

The death was the end of a particular horror for Mrs. Smith, whose two
other children, Mr. Eisel’s younger brothers, also fell into heroin
addiction “like dominoes,” she said, and still struggle with it.

To the federal government, which prosecuted the heroin dealers for Mr.
Eisel’s death, it was a stark illustration of how Mexican drug cartels
have pushed heroin sales beyond major cities into America’s suburban
and rural byways, some of which had seen little heroin before.

In Ohio, for instance, heroin-related deaths spread into 18 new
counties from 2004 to 2007, the latest year for which statistics are
available. Their numbers rose to 546 in that period, from 376 for 2000
to 2003.

Federal officials now consider the cartels the greatest organized
crime threat to the United States. Officials say the groups are taking
over heroin distribution from Colombians and Dominicans and making new
inroads across the country, pushing a powerful form of heroin grown
and processed in Mexico known as “black tar” for its dark color and
sticky texture.

Their operations often piggyback on a growing and struggling Mexican
immigrant population. In a case that provides a window into how this
works, two illegal immigrant dealers pleaded guilty to manslaughter
last year in Mr. Eisel’s death, in a rare federal manslaughter
prosecution from a drug overdose.

Investigators determined that the two immigrants, Jose Manuel
Cazeras-Contreras, 30, and Victor Delgadillo Parra, 23, began
distributing heroin when they were unable to find jobs. Mr. Parra, in
an interview from prison, where he was sentenced to spend 16 1/2
years, said he was afraid of being arrested at first, but took the job
to support his wife and son, as well as relatives in Mexico.

“I was living a hard life here in the United States,” Mr. Parra said.
“And I didn’t have any other job I was going to go to.”

Another man in the drug ring, who was not directly connected to the
death and therefore not charged with manslaughter, was recruited off
the streets of Mexico and smuggled into the country expressly to
peddle drugs in Ohio, the government said.

Fat on profits made largely in the United States, drug traffickers in
Mexico are engaged there in a bloody war among themselves and with the
government, which began a crackdown on them three years ago. Since
then the violence, including assaults on the police and the army, has
left more than 10,000 people dead.

But on this side of the border, the traffickers continue to expand
their reach.

Drug Enforcement Administration officials say that Ohio is of
particular concern because of the crisscrossing network of freeways
here that make it well suited as a transshipment point. Anthony C.
Marotta, who heads the agency’s Columbus office, said heroin tied to
the Columbus-area dealers had been cropping up in nearby states like
Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia and as far away as the Baltimore
area.

The case of Arthur Eisel and the men arrested for selling him heroin
shows how the traffickers pushed their product and how in Mr. Eisel,
already addicted to expensive pain killers because of a back injury,
they found a ready customer for heroin, which was cheaper.

Investigators say that Arthur Eisel was not alone in switching from a
prescription painkiller to heroin. It gives a similar, euphoric high
at a fraction of the cost, $10 to $20 for a “balloon” — one dose,
usually a gram or less — as opposed to upwards of $60 for a typical
prescription pill dose on the street.

The traffickers found a ripe market in Grove City, a suburb of
Columbus, as they have elsewhere in the nation. Drug seizures ebb and
flow over the years, but the amount of heroin confiscated nationwide
has been arcing up since the mid-90s, going from 370 kilograms in 1998
nationwide to about 600 kilograms — roughly $150 million worth of
heroin — last year, though officials believe it is a small fraction
of what is available on the street.

The share of heroin-related prosecutions among federal drug cases in
this region has also been climbing, reaching 15 percent of cases last
year compared with 4 percent a decade ago.

The numbers here are small in comparison with other populous states
like New York, California or Texas, which have always been centers of
drug use. But the growth here has prompted much soul-searching.

Mr. Marotta said he had been alarmed recently to see dealing in the
parking lot of a supermarket in Dublin, a quiet, upscale suburb of
Columbus, where he was shopping.

Paul Coleman, the director of Maryhaven, the largest rehabilitation
center in the region, said the percentage of patients reporting
opiates, principally heroin, as their preferred drug — whether it is
smoked, inhaled or injected — grew to 68 percent last year from 38
percent in 2002.

Mr. Coleman said he believed that the trend reflected an increased
supply of heroin.

Mike G., who is undergoing treatment at Maryhaven and asked that his
last name be withheld for fear enemies on the street would find him
there, said, “In some places it is like going to pick up beer.”

A Fatal Link

The group linked to the Mexican cartel that sold Arthur Eisel his
fatal dose was just one of at least 10 trafficking organizations,
known by the authorities as cells, operating in central Ohio, said Tim
Reagan, a D.E.A. agent who investigated the case as part of the
Southwest Border Task Force, a group of Ohio law enforcement officials
focused on drugs coming from Mexico.

Each cell consists of a handful of people who distribute the drug
after it is smuggled across the Southwest border, 1,500 miles away.
Many cell members, like Mr. Parra and Mr. Contreras, have roots in
Nayarit, a state on the Pacific Coast of Mexico.

Mexican authorities say that growers in Nayarit are using a highly
productive form of the poppy from Colombia and processing the heroin
in laboratories scattered around Tepic, Nayarit’s capital, despite
efforts to kill the plants through fumigation.

The cells take orders over disposable mobile phones, making it hard
for the police to trace them or their calls. They use a system of
“dispatchers” and “runners” to take orders and deliver the drug.
Members of the cells typically stay in an area for only four or five
months before replacements arrive. The drugs are sold at rendezvous
points, usually in shopping center parking lots, in an effort to blend
in with the bustle.

The men convicted in the Eisel case told the authorities similar
stories. Mr. Contreras, the dispatcher in the case, told federal
authorities that he had crossed the border illegally and lived in
Oregon for several years before moving to Columbus in 2007 on the
promise of a job as an auto mechanic. But that job never materialized.
In a letter to The New York Times, he said he had worked a variety of
other jobs but had hit an unemployment streak that left him without a
car or a house for his wife and two young children.

Desperate for work, he said he found an acquaintance in Columbus who
promised him easy money for distributing heroin.

“Since I spoke English and Spanish, they proposed that I answer the
phone only,” Mr. Contreras wrote. “I didn’t touch the drug or see it.
I was only answering the phone. I was with them for three months, and
that was when they caught me.”

He said he never imagined that anyone could die from the heroin,
“since I have used the drug and nothing ever happened to me.”

Mr. Parra said he illegally crossed the border in 2005 and settled in
California, working in the kitchen of a seafood restaurant for several
months. When that work and other jobs dried up, friends suggested he
come to Ohio for work. But when he arrived, Mr. Parra said, he learned
that the work would be helping to distribute heroin.

At turns repentant and defiant, Mr. Parra said he felt sorry for the
family of Mr. Eisel but did not fully accept responsibility for his
death and wondered aloud if the government was making an example of
him.

“It was never my intention for someone to die,” Mr. Parra said, “but
neither did I put a syringe or something in somebody so that they
could inject the drug,” adding, “I am serving as an example” to
discourage other dealers.

Jose Garcia Morales, a third man who was arrested in the case but was
not prosecuted for the death of Mr. Eisel, was recruited off the
streets of Nayarit’s capital, according to a memorandum his lawyer
prepared for the court in urging a lenient sentence.

The document describes how the ring arranged for the payment of a
“coyote,” or human smuggler, to bring Mr. Morales across the border.
Then, he piled into the back of a Ryder truck, was driven to Columbus
and, over a two-week training period, was taught to deliver heroin by
other drug traffickers already established there.

“Mr. Morales was promised that he would make a lot of money,” the
document said. “In reality, when he was paid, if it all, he generally
received between $400 and $500 a week, a place to sleep, and
occasionally some food. As expected, Mr. Morales sent much of the
money he earned back to his family in Mexico.”

Connecting the distribution rings to the cartel leadership in Mexico
has proved difficult. Those arrested here typically say they fear for
the safety of their families in Mexico if word gets back that they
have been too cooperative.

“If they are caught, they are terrified what will happen to their
families, and for good reason,” said David M. DeVillers, a federal
prosecutor here who has handled several drug cases. “They want to do
the prison time.”

The authorities say that local arrests rarely make a difference. New
dealers pop up within weeks.

“It’s like sweeping sunshine off the roof,” Mr. Marotta of the D.E.A.
said.

Shared Addictions

Standing before a federal judge last summer as he faced the prospect
of 20 years in prison on manslaughter charges in Mr. Eisel’s death,
Mr. Contreras begged for forgiveness.

“I truly did not intend to do any damage to their family,” said Mr.
Contreras, 30, before the judge handed down a 15-year sentence. “I
have two children, and I would not like something like this to happen
to my sons.”

Dana Smith listened, horrified. At home, her two younger sons were
still struggling with addiction.

Arthur had been, in her eyes, a typical suburban child, shy around
girls, a devotee of the radio host Howard Stern, a member of a local
softball league, popular with the children of friends.

He eventually found work as a bank clerk and rented an apartment with
one of his brothers, Robby. Robby Eisel, who is undergoing treatment
at a residential center in Columbus, said the progression from
prescription medicine to heroin was easy “because the heroin is
everywhere around here.”

When Arthur Eisel injured his back in a car accident in 2005, he
started taking prescription medication, Percocet and OxyContin, for
chronic pain, under a doctor’s supervision.

Robby Eisel said he had been taking similar medications after he broke
his arm on the job as a maintenance worker at a golf course. Soon, all
three brothers were acquiring OxyContin illegally and sharing it. When
supplies dried up and their dealer suggested heroin, they tried it and
quickly developed an addiction.

Mrs. Smith said she struggled to comprehend what took hold of her
sons. She works as a clerk at a courthouse and had seen the regular
parade of drug addicts and offenders come through. But one day in
2007, she heard the name of two of her boys, Arthur and Robby,
announced in arraignment court. They had broken into a store.

“It was devastating,” she said.

More horrors came. She would find needles in pillow cases, in coats,
under living room chairs. She watched her sons writhe in agony from
head and bone pain and diarrhea as they experienced withdrawal trying
to beat the addiction at home.

Mrs. Smith said she sometimes feels pangs of guilt and wonders if she
could have done more to help Arthur break the addiction. She concedes
that she gave him food, a place to stay and sometimes even money when
his stupor made clear what he was up to.

“I was an enabler,” she said quietly. “I was his mother.”

At one point, she called a private rehabilitation facility in Florida,
hoping to get all of her sons in treatment. But she was told the
facility did not accept siblings.

“Which one has it the worst?” she recalled a counselor there
asking.

The question still gnaws at her.

“How do you choose which one of your children to save?” Mrs. Smith
asks now. She decided at the time that she could not choose and sent
none of them to Florida.

Regret and Resolve

Arthur Eisel went through a revolving door of treatment centers in the
Columbus area in the months before his death. He would get free of the
drug, seemingly set on a positive path only to relapse and fall into
it again. But, his family said, he did not appear to be using heavily
in the weeks before his death.

The night before he died, he and his brother Ryan paid their mother a
visit, watching television there until late in the evening.

At work the next morning, Mrs. Smith got the kind of call parents
dread. She remembers hearing Ryan say, “His lips are blue.” Mrs. Smith
spent the next months in a state of shock. She said she does not
remember much.

As it turned out, investigators had already been trailing the ring
that sold Arthur his fatal dose. That work, in addition to
confidential informants whose testimony would have allowed
investigators to trace Mr. Eisel’s dose to Mr. Parra and Mr.
Contreras, emboldened prosecutors to charge them with manslaughter and
other crimes.

Prosecutors asked Mrs. Smith to go to the sentencing hearings and make
a statement. She stood feet from the men accused of killing her son
and listened to their words of regret.

“Part of my heart goes out to their families,” she said in a recent
interview. “But something has got to be done to stop this.”

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

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post copies of your letters to the sent letter list (
[email protected] ) if you are subscribed.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list will help you to review other sent
LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches.

To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see

http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form

Suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism
Center

http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides

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

Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

=.

Date: Thu, 14 May 2009
Subject: #403 White House Czar Calls For End To ‘War On Drugs’

WHITE HOUSE CZAR CALLS FOR END TO ‘WAR ON DRUGS’

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

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #403 – Thursday, 14 May 2009

Readers of The Wall Street Journal today will find a headline and
article which would have seemed unlikely last year even after the election.

The Wall Street Journal competes with USA today for the top U.S.
circulation spot with a circulation of over two million copies. The
newspaper reaches an audience which is more influential. Articles and
opinion items which question the war on drugs appear to be increasing
as may be seen at http://www.mapinc.org/source/Wall+Street+Journal

News items about our new drug czar are found at http://www.mapinc.org/people/Kerlikowske

Both are worthy targets for your letters to the editor.

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

Page: A3

Copyright: 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

Contact: [email protected]

Author: Gary Fields

WHITE HOUSE CZAR CALLS FOR END TO ‘WAR ON DRUGS’

Kerlikowske Says Analogy Is Counterproductive; Shift Aligns With
Administration Preference for Treatment Over Incarceration

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he wants
to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting “a war on drugs,” a move
that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in
trying to reduce illicit drug use.

In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House
Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday
the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation’s drug
issues.

“Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’
or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them,” he said.
“We’re not at war with people in this country.”

Mr. Kerlikowske’s comments are a signal that the Obama administration
is set to follow a more moderate — and likely more controversial —
stance on the nation’s drug problems. Prior administrations talked
about pushing treatment and reducing demand while continuing to focus
primarily on a tough criminal-justice approach.

The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of
public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment’s
role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said.

Already, the administration has called for an end to the disparity in
how crimes involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine are dealt with.
Critics of the law say it unfairly targeted African-American
communities, where crack is more prevalent.

The administration also said federal authorities would no longer raid
medical-marijuana dispensaries in the 13 states where voters have made
medical marijuana legal. Agents had previously done so under federal
law, which doesn’t provide for any exceptions to its marijuana
prohibition.

During the presidential campaign, President Barack Obama also talked
about ending the federal ban on funding for needle-exchange programs,
which are used to stem the spread of HIV among intravenous-drug users.

The drug czar doesn’t have the power to enforce any of these changes
himself, but Mr. Kerlikowske plans to work with Congress and other
agencies to alter current policies. He said he hasn’t yet focused on
U.S. policy toward fighting drug-related crime in other countries.

Mr. Kerlikowske was most recently the police chief in Seattle, a city
known for experimenting with drug programs. In 2003, voters there
passed an initiative making the enforcement of simple marijuana
violations a low priority. The city has long had a needle-exchange
program and hosts Hempfest, which draws tens of thousands of hemp and
marijuana advocates.

Seattle currently is considering setting up a project that would
divert drug defendants to treatment programs.

Mr. Kerlikowske said he opposed the city’s 2003 initiative on police
priorities. His officers, however, say drug enforcement — especially
for pot crimes — took a back seat, according to Sgt. Richard O’Neill,
president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild. One result was an
open-air drug market in the downtown business district, Mr. O’Neill
said.

“The average rank-and-file officer is saying, ‘He can’t control two
blocks of Seattle, how is he going to control the nation?’ ” Mr.
O’Neill said.

Sen. Tom Coburn, the lone senator to vote against Mr. Kerlikowske, was
concerned about the permissive attitude toward marijuana enforcement,
a spokesman for the conservative Oklahoma Republican said. [drug war]

Others said they are pleased by the way Seattle police balanced the
available options. “I think he believes there is a place for using the
criminal sanctions to address the drug-abuse problem, but he’s more
open to giving a hard look to solutions that look at the demand side
of the equation,” said Alison Holcomb, drug-policy director with the
Washington state American Civil Liberties Union.

Mr. Kerlikowske said the issue was one of limited police resources,
adding that he doesn’t support efforts to legalize drugs. He also said
he supports needle-exchange programs, calling them “part of a complete
public-health model for dealing with addiction.”

Mr. Kerlikowske’s career began in St. Petersburg, Fla. He recalled one
incident as a Florida undercover officer during the 1970s that spurred
his thinking that arrests alone wouldn’t fix matters.

“While we were sitting there, the guy we’re buying from is smoking pot
and his toddler comes over and he blows smoke in the toddler’s face,”
Mr. Kerlikowske said. “You go home at night, and you think of your own
kids and your own family and you realize” the depth of the problem.

Since then, he has run four police departments, as well as the Justice
Department’s Office of Community Policing during the Clinton
administration.

Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that supports
legalization of medical marijuana, said he is “cautiously optimistic”
about Mr. Kerlikowske. “The analogy we have is this is like turning
around an ocean liner,” he said. “What’s important is the damn thing
is beginning to turn.”

James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the
nation’s largest law-enforcement labor organization, said that while
he holds Mr. Kerlikowske in high regard, police officers are wary.

“While I don’t necessarily disagree with Gil’s focus on treatment and
demand reduction, I don’t want to see it at the expense of law
enforcement. People need to understand that when they violate the law
there are consequences.”

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

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post copies of your letters to the sent letter list (
[email protected] ) if you are subscribed.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list will help you to review other sent
LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches.

To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see

http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form

Suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism
Center

http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides

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

Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

=.

Date: Mon, 11 May 2009
Subject: #402 Governor Asks: What If Pot’s Legal And Taxed?

GOVERNOR ASKS: WHAT IF POT’S LEGAL AND TAXED?

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

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #402 – Monday, 11 May 2009

Last Wednesday morning the readers of the The Sacramento Bee were
treated to the front page article, below.

Since then the press articles and editorial page content have been
slowly increasing. The items can be accessed at http://www.mapinc.org/people/Schwarzenegger

The news clippings are worthy of letters to the editor.

As this is sent the largest California newspaper, the Los Angeles
Times, has not mentioned Governor Schwarzenegger’ comments. Thus a
message to the newspaper may also be appropriate. See
http://drugsense.org/url/bc7El3Yo for contact details.

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

GOVERNOR ASKS: WHAT IF POT’S LEGAL AND TAXED?

As California struggles to find cash, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said
Tuesday it’s time to study whether to legalize and tax marijuana for
recreational use.

The Republican governor did not support legalization – and the federal
government still bans marijuana use – but advocates hailed the fact
that Schwarzenegger endorsed studying a once-taboo political subject.

“Well, I think it’s not time for ( legalization ), but I think it’s
time for a debate,” Schwarzenegger said. “I think all of those ideas
of creating extra revenues, I’m always for an open debate on it. And
I think we ought to study very carefully what other countries are
doing that have legalized marijuana and other drugs, what effect did
it have on those countries?”

Schwarzenegger was at a fire safety event in Davis when he answered a
question about a recent Field Poll showing 56 percent of registered
voters support legalizing and taxing marijuana to raise revenue for
cash-strapped California. Voters in 1996 authorized marijuana for
medical purposes.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, has written legislation to
allow the legal sale of marijuana to adults 21 years and older for
recreational use. His Assembly Bill 390 would charge cannibis
wholesalers initial and annual flat fees, while retailers would pay
$50 per ounce to the state.

The proposal would ban cannibis near schools and prohibit smoking
marijuana in public places.

Marijuana legalization would raise an estimated $1.34 billion annually
in tax revenue, according to a February estimate by the Board of
Equalization. That amount could be offset by a reduction in cigarette
or alcohol sales if consumers use marijuana as a substitute.

Besides raising additional tax revenue, the state could save money on
law enforcement costs, Ammiano believes. But he shelved the bill
until next year because it remains controversial in the Capitol,
according to his spokesman, Quintin Mecke.

“We’re certainly in full agreement with the governor,” Mecke said. “I
think it’s a great opportunity. I think he’s also being very
realistic about understanding sort of the overall context, not only
economically but otherwise.”

Schwarzenegger previously has shown a casual attitude toward
marijuana. He was filmed smoking a joint in the 1977 film, “Pumping
Iron.” And he told the British version of GQ in 2007, “That is not a
drug. It’s a leaf.” Spokesman Aaron McLear downplayed the governor’s
comment as a joke at the time.

Even if California were to legalize marijuana, the state would hit a
roadblock with the federal government, which prohibits its use.
Ammiano hopes for a shift in federal policy, but President Barack
Obama said in March he doesn’t think legalization is a good strategy.

Any study would find plenty of arguments, judging by responses
Tuesday.

Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine, said he’s open to a study, but he
remains opposed to legalization. He warned that society could bear
significant burdens. He downplayed enforcement and incarceration
savings because he believes drug courts are already effective in
removing low-level offenders from the system.

“Studies have shown there is impairment with marijuana use,” DeVore
said. “People can get paranoid, can lose some of their initiative to
work, and we don’t live in some idealized libertarian society where
every person is responsible completely to himself. We live in a
society where the cost of your poor decisions are borne by your fellow
taxpayers.”

But Bruce Merkin of the Marijuana Policy Project said studies show
alcohol has worse effects on users than marijuana in terms of
addiction and long-term effects. His group believes marijuana should
be regulated and taxed just like alcoholic beverages.

“There are reams of scientific data that show marijuana is less
harmful than alcohol,” Merkin said. “Just look at the brain of an
alcoholic. In an autopsy, you wouldn’t need a microscope to see the
damage. Marijuana doesn’t do anything like that.”

Schwarzenegger said he would like to see results from Europe as part
of a study.

The Austrian parliament last year authorized cultivation of medical
marijuana. But Schwarzenegger talked with a police officer in his
hometown of Graz and found the liberalization was not fully supported,
McLear said.

“It could very well be that everyone is happy with that decision and
then we could move to that,” Schwarzenegger said. “If not, we
shouldn’t do it. But just because of raising revenues … we have to
be careful not to make mistakes at the same time.”

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

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post copies of your letters to the sent letter list (
[email protected] ) if you are subscribed.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list will help you to review other sent
LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches.

To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see

http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form

Suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism
Center

http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides

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

Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

=.

Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009
Subject: #401 Canada’s Justice Minister Advocates Reefer Madness

CANADA’S JUSTICE MINISTER ADVOCATES REEFER MADNESS

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

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #401 – Thursday, 23 April 2009

Today Canadian newspapers are reporting that “Canada’s justice
minister says people who sell or grow marijuana belong in jail because
pot is used as a “currency” to bring harder drugs into the country.
“This lubricates the business and that makes me nervous,” Rob
Nicholson told the Commons justice committee yesterday as he faced
tough questions about a controversial bill to impose automatic prison
sentences for drug crimes, including growing as little as one pot
plant. “Marijuana is the currency that is used to bring other more
serious drugs into the country,” the minister said.”

Links to some of the newspaper articles are http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n454.a09.html
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n455.a01.html http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n455.a02.html
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n455.a04.html http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n455.a05.html
and http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n455.a06.html

News about marijuana from Canada may always be accessed at
http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm

Letter to the editor writers from the United States should note that
Canadian newspapers print your letters frequently.

For all the information about the bill, C-15, to include the text and
major speeches in Parliament see http://drugsense.org/url/hwWsxW6O

Canadians who which to contact your Member of Parliament about this
bill by using your Postal Code to obtain contact information see
http://drugsense.org/url/nMP9kfsJ

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

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post copies of your letters to the sent letter list (
[email protected] ) if you are subscribed.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list will help you to review other sent
LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches.

To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see

http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form

Suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism
Center

http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides

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

Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

=.

Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009
Subject: #400 We Tried A War Like This Once Before

WE TRIED A WAR LIKE THIS ONCE BEFORE

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

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #400 – Saturday, 11 April 2009

Easter Sunday readers of the Washington Post will be treated to the
OPED below by Mike Gray of Common Sense for Drug Policy
http://www.csdp.org/

We hope that the federal elected officials, their staffs, and other
federal bureaucrats read the OPED. Perhaps you may help by sending
them copies of the OPED.

Your letters to the editor of the Washington Post send a signal to the
newspaper that this issue is important to you, their readers.

Perhaps sensing that change is possible the number of published
letters on reform’s side has spiked so far this year as shown at
http://www.mapinc.org/lte/ Thank You for your letter writing efforts!

Some links to articles as they are archived by The Media Awareness
Project which touch on the issues of this OPED are:

http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Mexico

http://mapinc.org/find?258 (Holder, Eric)

http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana)

http://www.mapinc.org/topic/dispensaries

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

Pubdate: Sun, 12 Apr 2009

Source: Washington Post (DC)

Page: B04

Copyright: 2009 The Washington Post Company

Contact: [email protected]

WE TRIED A WAR LIKE THIS ONCE BEFORE

By Mike Gray

In 1932, Alphonse Capone, an influential businessman then living in
Chicago, used to drive through the city in a caravan of armor-plated
limos built to his specifications by General Motors.
Submachine-gun-toting associates led the motorcade and brought up the
rear. It is a measure of how thoroughly the mob mentality had
permeated everyday life that this was considered normal.

Capone and his boys were agents of misguided policy. Ninety years ago,
the United States tried to cure the national thirst for alcohol, and
it led to an explosion of violence unlike anything we’d ever seen.
Today, it’s hard to ignore the echoes of Prohibition in the
drug-related mayhem along our southern border. Over the past 15
months, there have been 7,200 drug-war deaths in Mexico alone, as the
government there battles an army of killers that would scare the pants
off Al Capone.

Now U.S. officials are warning that the vandals may be headed in this
direction. Too late: They’re already here. And they’re in a good
position to take over organized crime in this country as well.

After decades of trying to stem the influx of illegal narcotics into
the United States, it’s clear that the drug war, like Prohibition, has
led us into a gruesome blind alley. Drugs are cheaper than ever before
and you can buy them anywhere. As Mexico’s cash-starved government
struggles to keep up the good fight, the drug barons rake in more than
enough to buy political protection and military power while still
maintaining profit margins beyond imagining. And what’s driving this
desperate struggle may be the ubiquitous weed: Southwestern lawmen say
that marijuana accounts for two-thirds of the cartels’ income.

At last, the spectacular violence in Mexico has captured everybody’s
attention, and in an eerie replay of the end of alcohol prohibition,
we may at last be witnessing the final act in the war on drugs.

One hint of a shifting wind came in February, when a state legislator
from San Francisco introduced a bill to tax, regulate and legalize
adult use of cannabis. This sort of grandstanding is always met with
derision, and this was no exception. But then something strange
happened: California’s chief tax collector said that the measure would
bring in $1.3 billion a year and save another $1 billion on
enforcement and incarceration. In a state facing an $18 billion
deficit, suddenly nobody was laughing.

Four days later Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, who’s no
legalizer, said that he, too, thinks we should take another look at
marijuana prohibition. “The most effective way to establish a virtual
barrier against the criminal activities is to take the profit out of
it,” he told a U.S. Senate subcommittee.

The next day, U.S. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced a
minor policy shift with enormous implications: The federal government
would no longer go after groups that supply medical marijuana in the
13 states where it is legal. The Drug Enforcement Administration had
been raiding dispensaries routinely, and dozens of patients and
growers are behind bars today despite their legal status in
California’s eyes. Now that threat has vanished for those who comply
with state law. For California, this amounts to de facto
legalization.

At his recent cyberspace town hall meeting, President Obama fielded a
question about whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy.
“No,” he replied as the audience giggled. But that answer sheds no
light on his actual thinking. Obama has already called the drug war an
“utter failure.” And since he himself is an admitted ex-toker, it’s
hard to believe that he’d cancel some kid’s college education over a
crime he got away with.

Of course, resistance to marijuana legalization remains rock solid in
Washington among those who can’t face the failure of prohibition. But
that has more to do with politics than science. The Department of
Health and Human Services says that there are 32 million drug abusers
in the country, but that includes 25 million marijuana smokers. If you
strike them from the list, how do you justify spending $60 billion a
year in this economy trying to stop 2 percent of the population from
being self-destructive? It would be dramatically cheaper to follow the
Swiss example: Provide treatment for all who want it, and supply the
rest with pure drugs under medical supervision.

When we erected an artificial barrier between alcohol producers and
consumers in 1920, we created a bonanza more lucrative than the Gold
Rush. The staggering profits from illegal booze gave mobsters the
financial power to take over legitimate businesses and expand into
casinos, loan sharking, labor racketeering and extortion. Thus we
created the major crime syndicates — and the U.S. murder rate jumped
tenfold.

Fortunately, the Roaring ’20s were interrupted by the Crash of ’29,
and when the money ran out, the battle against booze was a luxury we
could no longer afford. Prohibition was repealed in 1933, and over the
next decade the U.S. murder rate was cut in half.

Today it’s back up where it was at the peak of Prohibition — 10 per
100,000 — a jump clearly connected to the war on drugs. And anyone
who’s watching what’s going on south of the border can see that we’re
headed for an era of mayhem that would make Meyer Lansky and Frank
Costello weak in the knees.

Profits from the Mexican drug trade are estimated at about $35 billion
a year. And since the cartels spend half to two-thirds of their income
on bribery, that would be around $20 billion going into the pockets of
police officers, army generals, judges, prosecutors and politicians.
Last fall, Mexico’s attorney general announced that his former top
drug enforcer, chief prosecutor Noe Ramirez Mandujano, was getting
$450,000 a month under the table from the Sinaloa cartel. The cartel
can of course afford to be generous — Sinaloa chief Joaquin Guzman
recently made the Forbes List of Billionaires.

The depth of Guzman’s penetration into the United States was revealed
a few weeks ago, when the DEA proudly announced hundreds of arrests
all over the country in a major operation against the “dangerously
powerful” Sinaloa cartel. One jarring detail was the admission that
Mexican cartels are now operating in 230 cities inside the United States.

This disaster has been slowly unfolding since the early 1980s, when
Vice President George H.W. Bush shut down the Caribbean cocaine
pipeline between Colombia and Miami. The Colombians switched to the
land route and began hiring Mexicans to deliver the goods across the
U.S. border. But when the Mexicans got a glimpse of the truckloads of
cash headed south, they decided that they didn’t need the Colombians
at all. Today the Mexican cartels are full-service commercial
organizations with their own suppliers, refineries and a distribution
network that covers all of North America.

As we awaken to the threat spilling over our southern border, the
reactions are predictable. In addition to walling off the border,
Congress wants to send helicopters, military hardware and unmanned
reconnaissance drones into the fray — and it wants the Pentagon to
train Mexican troops in counterinsurgency tactics.

Our anti-drug warriors have apparently learned nothing from the past
two decades. A few years ago we trained several units of the Mexican
army in counterinsurgency warfare. They studied their lessons, then
promptly deserted to form the Zetas, a thoroughly professional narco
hit squad for the Gulf cartel, which offered considerably better pay.
Over the past eight years, the Mexican army has had more than 100,000
deserters.

The president of Mexico rightly points out that U.S. policy is at the
root of this nightmare. Not only did we invent the war on drugs, but
we are the primary consumers.

The obvious solution is cutting the demand for drugs in the United
States. Clearly, it would be the death of the cartels if we could
simply dry up the market. Unfortunately, every effort to do this has
met with resounding failure. But now that the Roaring ’00s have hit
the Crash of ’09, the money has vanished once again, and we can no
longer ignore the collateral damage of Prohibition II.

Writing last month in the Wall Street Journal, three former Latin
American presidents — Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Cesar
Gaviria of Colombia and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico — declared the war
on drugs a failure. Responding to a situation they say is “urgent in
light of the rising levels of violence and corruption,” they are
demanding a reexamination of U.S.-inspired drug policies.

Two weeks ago, a conservative former superior court judge in Orange
County told the Los Angeles Times that legalization was the only
answer, and of 4,400 readers who responded immediately, the Times
reported that “a staggering 94 percent” agreed with him.

This is another pivotal moment in U.S. history, strangely resonant
with 1933. The war on drugs has been a riveting drama: It has given us
great television, filled our prisons and employed hundreds of
thousands as guards, police, prosecutors and probation officers. But
the party’s over.

Here is a glimpse of what lies ahead if we fail to end our second
attempt to control the personal habits of private citizens. Listen to
Enrique Gomez Hurtado, a former high court judge from Colombia who
still has shrapnel in his leg from a bomb sent to kill him by the
infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar. In 1993, his country was a
free-fire zone not unlike Mexico today, and Gomez issued this
chilling — and prescient — warning to an international drug policy
conference in Baltimore:

“The income of the drug barons is greater than the American defense
budget. With this financial power they can suborn the institutions of
the State, and if the State resists . . . they can purchase the
firepower to outgun it. We are threatened with a return to the Dark
Ages.”

Ending prohibition won’t solve our drug problem. But it will save us
from something far worse. And it will put drug addiction back in the
hands of the medical profession, where it was being dealt with
successfully — until we called in the cops.

Mike Gray, the chairman of Common Sense for Drug Policy, is the
author of “Drug Crazy: How We Got Into This Mess and How We Can Get Out.”

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

PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post copies of your letters to the sent letter list (
[email protected] ) if you are subscribed.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list will help you to review other sent
LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches.

To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see

http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form

Suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism
Center

http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides

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

Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

=.

Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009
Subject: #399 Medicinal Marijuana Is Legal In Michigan

MEDICINAL MARIJUANA IS LEGAL IN MICHIGAN

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

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #399 – Monday, 6 April 2009

Today over a million folks living in Michigan became eligible to apply
for permission to use medicinal marijuana. It is the first day that
the state Bureau of Health Professions at the Michigan Department of
Community Health will accept applications.

Michigan becomes the second largest state and the first in the
heartland to have a medicinal marijuana program.

Called the Michigan Medical Marihuana Program (MMMP) by the state,
application forms and details are on line at http://www.michigan.gov/mdch/0,1607,7-132-27417_51869—,00.html

In a vote last November, 63 percent of the state’s voters said yes to
medical marijuana. The initiative won in every single county in the
state.

Many police in the state are not happy. George Basar, president of the
Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police http://www.michiganpolicechiefs.org/
, predicts the law will ignite widespread marijuana abuse as stated in
this article http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n353/a02.html

Others are accepting the new reality. For example, the Genesee County
Prosecutor David Leyton met Friday with advocates as shown in this
article http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n388/a04.html

We are starting to see calls for improvements in the law like this
editorial calling for better ways for patients to obtain their
medicine http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n385/a02.html

The Constitution of Michigan states that “no law adopted by the people
at the polls under the initiative provisions of this section shall be
amended or repealed, except by a vote of the electors unless otherwise
provided in the initiative measure or by three-fourths of the members
elected to and serving in each house of the legislature.” The law
does not provide for change by the state legislature. Perhaps in the
future the three-fourths needed will vote to improved the law as the
above editorial asks. Any change which would undermine the law is not
likely.

Michigan’s law sends a strong message to elected and appointed
officials at all levels of government that marijuana is medicine – a
message you may help send, also.

Most news clippings about the law and the various issues involved may
be accessed at http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Michigan+Medical+Marijuana

In Michigan the people have spoken.

It will be interesting to see how the press covers the issue in
Michigan in the months ahead just as it is in the other states with
medicinal marijuana laws.

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

Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009
Subject: #398 Is Medicinal Marijuana Legal Yet?

IS MEDICINAL MARIJUANA LEGAL YET?

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

DrugSense FOCUS Alert #398 – Saturday, 28 February 2009

Wednesday a reporter pointed out that after the inauguration, the Drug
Enforcement Administration conducted several raids in California
despite President Barack Obama’s promises, and asked U.S. Attorney
General Eric Holder if those raids were a reflection of the
government’s policy going forward. “No,” Holder said in response.
“What the president said during the campaign, you’ll be surprised to
know, will be consistent with what we’ll be doing in law enforcement.
He was my boss during the campaign. He is formally and technically and
by law my boss now. What he said during the campaign is now American
policy.”

Video of the statement is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjZeW2fcQHM

Among the first headlines in the press was ‘Medical Pot Supporters
Cheer End of DEA Raids’ http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n230/a05.html
No doubt the announcement is a step forward at the federal level.

But local reaction varies, as reporters writing articles found
out.

In a Bakersfield Californian article http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n236/a06.html
we read “Sheriff Donny Youngblood said he hadn’t heard Holder’s
statement. He did say, however, that the attorney general doesn’t
write the law and that unless the U.S. Supreme Court or Congress
changes the law he’s not sure what impact Holder’s statement will
have.” and “District Attorney Ed Jagels said his office has
periodically prosecuted people who have had such large amounts of
marijuana that it couldn’t possibly have been for medical use. If
what Holder said is actually going to happen, it wouldn’t impact the
prosecutor’s office because they target people who aren’t obeying
state law, he said. They do not prosecute federal crimes. “I haven’t
seen these comments, but if what you’re saying is accurate then it
sounds like the Obama administration is saying they won’t do their
duty and enforce federal law,” Jagels said. “Given the constituency
that elected Obama, I’m not surprised.””

In The Oregonian we read http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n235/a02.html
“Because Oregon does not have state-regulated dispensaries such as
those in California, Oregon was at less risk of being raided by
federal agents. Individual patients and growers, however, have been
targeted by law enforcement at the local and federal level, said Jim
Klahr of medical marijuana education group Oregon Green Free.”

So is medicinal marijuana is not legal yet.

Your letters to the editor are still needed. Articles about
dispensaries are posted at http://www.mapinc.org/topic/dispensaries
and about medicinal marijuana at http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm

Attorney General Eric Holder’s statement may be a useful to use as you
confront elected officials from the local to federal level – along
with all the other evidence supporting medicinal marijuana use.

What you do does make a difference.

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

Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

=.