• Focus Alerts

    #424 2009 In Review

    Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2009
    Subject: #424 2009 In Review

    2009 In Review

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

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #424 – Friday, 1 January 2010

    The Media Awareness Project archived about 14,500 news clippings
    during 2009. Here is our annual list of the ones most frequently
    accessed by our users.

    http://mapinc.org/find?370 Asia

    http://mapinc.org/find?369 Australasia

    http://mapinc.org/find?366 Canada

    http://mapinc.org/find?368 South America

    http://mapinc.org/find?367 United Kingdom

    http://mapinc.org/find?365 United States

    2009 saw 2,294 pro reform letters to the editor published, our best
    year since 2005. See http://www.mapinc.org/lte/ The prohibitionists
    had 520 published.

    The top 10 Topical Shortcuts

    http://mapinc.org/find?999 Top 100

    http://mapinc.org/find?420 Cannabis – Popular

    http://mapinc.org/find?1042 Stories

    http://mapinc.org/find?134 Cannabis

    http://mapinc.org/find?102 Opinion

    http://mapinc.org/find?204 Cannabis – Medicinal

    http://mapinc.org/find?176 Cannabis – Canada

    http://mapinc.org/find?185 Decrim/Legalization

    http://mapinc.org/find?115 Cannabis – California

    http://mapinc.org/find?180 Cannabis – Medicinal – Canada

    The top 10 reform organization referring domains for 2009; i.e, the
    websites which most frequently send folks to the MAP website.

    http://norml.org/

    http://csdp.org/

    http://www.leap.cc/

    Students for Sensible Drug Policy

    http://november.org/

    http://hemp.org/

    Homepage

    http://cjpf.org/

    http://www.mpp.org/

    Home

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

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

    =.

  • Focus Alerts

    #423 War Without Borders

    Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009
    Subject: #423 War Without Borders

    WAR WITHOUT BORDERS

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

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #423 – Friday, 18 December 2009

    The Media Awareness Project has archived almost 14 hundred articles
    that mention Mexico so far this year.

    Today’s front page article, below, is one of them. Taking a page from
    the Los Angeles Times series ‘Mexico Under Siege’ the New York Times
    calls it’s series War Without Borders.

    It is that. No single issue of the drug war is costing more in lives
    and resources. None leads to more corruption. None better illustrates
    the costs of the prohibition of some drugs.

    News clippings referencing Mexico are found at http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Mexico

    Many may be appropriate targets for your letters to the
    editor.

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

    Page: A1, Front Page

    Source: New York Times (NY)

    Copyright: 2009 The New York Times Company

    Contact: [email protected]

    Author: Randal C. Archibold

    War Without Borders

    HIRED BY CUSTOMS, BUT WORKING FOR THE CARTELS

    SAN DIEGO — At first, Luis F. Alarid seemed well on his way to
    becoming a customs agency success story. He had risen from a childhood
    of poverty and foster homes, some of them abusive, earned praise and
    commendations while serving in the Army and the Marines, including two
    tours in Iraq, and returned to Southern California to fulfill a goal
    of serving in law enforcement.

    But, early last year, after just a few months as a customs inspector,
    he was waving in trucks from Mexico carrying loads of marijuana and
    illegal immigrants. He pocketed some $200,000 in cash that paid for,
    as far as the government could tell, a $15,000 motorcycle, flat-screen
    televisions, a laptop computer and more.

    Some investigators believe that Mr. Alarid, 32, who was paid off by a
    Mexican smuggling crew that included several members of his family,
    intended to work for smugglers all along. At one point, Mr. Alarid,
    who was sentenced to seven years in federal prison in February, told
    investigators that he had researched just how much prison time he
    might get for his crimes and believed, as investigators later
    reported, that he could do it “standing on his head.”

    Mr. Alarid’s case is not the only one that has law enforcement
    officials worried that Mexican traffickers — facing beefed-up
    security on the border that now includes miles of new fencing,
    floodlights, drones, motion sensors and cameras — have stepped up
    their efforts to corrupt the border police.

    They research potential targets, anticorruption investigators said,
    exploiting the cross-border clans and relationships that define the
    region, offering money, sex, whatever it takes. But, with the border
    police in the midst of a hiring boom, law enforcement officers believe
    that traffickers are pulling out the stops, even soliciting some of
    their own operatives to apply for jobs.

    “In some ways,” said Keith Slotter, the agent in charge of the
    F.B.I.’s San Diego office, “it’s like the old spy game between the old
    Soviet Union and the U.S. — trying to compromise each other’s spies.”

    James Tomsheck, the assistant commissioner for internal affairs at
    Customs and Border Protection, and other investigators said they had
    seen many signs that the drug organizations were making a concerted
    effort to infiltrate the ranks.

    “We are very concerned,” Mr. Tomsheck said. “There have been
    verifiable instances where people were directed to C.B.P. to apply for
    positions only for the purpose of enhancing the goals of criminal
    organizations. They had been selected because they had no criminal
    record; a background investigation would not develop derogatory
    information.”

    During a federal trial of a recently hired Border Patrol agent this
    year, one drug trafficker with ties to organized crime in Mexico
    described how he had enticed the agent, a close friend from high
    school in Del Rio, Tex., who was entering the training academy, to
    join his crew smuggling tons of marijuana into Texas.

    The agent, Raquel Esquivel, 25, was sentenced to 15 years in prison
    last week for tipping smugglers on where border guards were and
    suggesting how they could avoid getting caught.

    The smuggler, Diego Esquivel, who is not related to the agent, said he
    told her that her decision to enter the academy was a good career move
    and, he said, “I thought it was good for me, too.”

    Under the Bush administration, the United States has spent billions of
    dollars — $11 billion this year alone for Customs and Border
    Protection — to tighten the border between the United States and
    Mexico, building up physical barriers and going on a hiring spree to
    develop the nation’s largest law enforcement agency to patrol the area.

    But the battle for survival among cartels in Mexico, in which
    thousands of people, mostly in the drug trade or fighting it, have
    been killed, has only led drug traffickers to redouble their efforts
    to get their drugs to market in the United States.

    Along the border, many residents have family members on both sides.
    Generations of residents have been accustomed to passing back and
    forth relatively freely, often daily, and exchanging goods, legal or
    not.

    Federal officials believe that drug traffickers are seeking to exploit
    those ties more than ever, urging family and friends on the American
    side to take advantage of the hiring rush for customs agents. The
    majority of agents and officers stay out of crime. But smuggling can
    be appealing. The average officer makes $70,000 a year, a sum that can
    be dwarfed by what smugglers pay to get just a few trucks full of
    drugs into the United States.

    Right now, only a fraction — 10 percent or so — of Customs and
    Border Protection recruits are given a polygraph screening that
    federal investigators say has proved effective in weeding out people
    with drug ties and other troublesome backgrounds. Officials say they
    do not have the money to test more recruits.

    In years past, new hires rarely served in the areas where they had
    grown up, but recently that practice has been relaxed somewhat to
    attract more recruits, said Thomas Frost, an assistant inspector
    general at the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Frost and other
    internal affairs veterans say that has made it easier for
    traffickers.

    Mr. Tomsheck said that several prospective hires had been turned away
    after investigators suspected that they had been directed to Customs
    and Border Enforcement by drug trafficking organizations, and that
    several recent hires were under investigation as well, though he
    declined to provide details.

    As one exasperated investigator at the border put it, “There is so
    much hiring; if you have a warm body and pulse, you have a job.”

    The F.B.I. is planning to add three multiagency corruption squads to
    the 10 already on the Southwest border, and the Department of Homeland
    Security’s inspector general, the department’s primary investigative
    arm, has also added agents. But such hiring has not kept up with the
    growth of the agency they are entrusted to keep watch over.

    Over all, arrests of Customs and Border Protection agents and officers
    have increased 40 percent in the last few years, outpacing the 24
    percent growth in the agency itself, according to the Department of
    Homeland Security inspector general’s office. The office has 400 open
    investigations, each often spanning a few years or more.

    Keith A. Byers, who supervises the F.B.I.’s border corruption units,
    said corruption posed a national security threat because guards seldom
    verify what is in the vehicles they have agreed to let pass, raising
    concerns “they could be letting something much more dangerous into the
    U.S.”

    Most corrupt officers gravitate to smuggling illegal immigrants,
    rationalizing that is less onerous than getting involved with drugs,
    investigators say.

    But Mr. Byers and others point to a string of drug-related cases that
    make them wonder if the conventional wisdom is holding.

    Margarita Crispin, a former customs inspector in El Paso, pleaded
    guilty in April 2008 and received a 20-year prison sentence in what
    the F.B.I. considers one of the more egregious corruption cases.

    Through a succession of boyfriends and other associates with ties to
    major drug trafficking organizations in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Ms.
    Crispin helped smuggle thousands of pounds of marijuana over three
    years, almost from the time she began working for the agency.

    She waved off drug-sniffing dogs in her lane, complaining she was
    afraid of them, although investigators later learned she had had dogs
    as pets.

    “She is someone who from the beginning said this would be a good job
    to help the people I am associated with,” Mr. Byers said.

    Just last month, Martha Garnica, a 12-year Customs and Border
    Protection employee near El Paso, was charged with bribery and
    marijuana smuggling in concert with traffickers in Ciudad Juarez.

    Ms. Garnica’s 21-year-old daughter had also sought a job with the
    Border Patrol, in what investigators deemed a suspicious move given
    her mother’s alleged involvement in the drug trade. The daughter,
    testifying in court last week, admitted she had lied on the
    application both about being a United States citizen and about owning
    property in Mexico. A spokesman for the United States Attorney’s
    Office in El Paso declined to comment.

    Mr. Alarid’s history in the military probably made him seem like a
    good candidate for the customs job. But he had a tangled family
    history. According to court papers, both his parents were drug addicts.

    Mr. Alarid was born in Tijuana, Mexico, but raised largely in foster
    homes in Southern California. He emerged from high school a track star
    and, over the next 10 years, did stints in the Marines and the Army,
    drawing praise from commanders for his dedication and service.

    “I would willingly trust Luis with my life,” Sgt. Maj. Michael W.
    Abbey of the Army wrote in a letter to the judge before Mr. Alarid was
    sentenced in February.

    Mr. Alarid began working at the border in San Diego in October 2007.
    In his guilty plea, he admitted that he had started smuggling in
    February 2008. He was arrested three months later.

    Mr. Alarid would wave in vehicles that should have raised suspicion,
    either because their license plates were partly covered or because the
    plates did not belong to the vehicle, something he would have seen on
    the computer screen in his inspection booth.

    Before reporting to his lane, he would go out to the employee parking
    lot to use his cellphone, which federal agents believe was his way of
    telling the smugglers which lane to approach.

    At his sentencing, all involved — the prosecutors, the judge, his
    lawyer — expressed bewilderment at the turn in Mr. Alarid’s life. But
    in an interview, a family member who was not part of the case said Mr.
    Alarid had mounting gambling debts and, despite it all, had always
    sought a bond with his biological mother.

    Still, Judge Janis L. Sammartino accepted the government’s argument
    that a deterrent message needed to be sent.

    “I do think that the public, for a while at least, needs to be assured
    that who we have at the border are 100 percent individuals of
    integrity,” she said. “I think you were at one time. I don’t know what
    went wrong for you, sir, and I hope that you attain that again.”

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

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

    =.

  • Focus Alerts

    #422 Californians To Vote To Legalize Marijuana

    Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009
    Subject: #422 Californians To Vote To Legalize Marijuana

    CALIFORNIANS TO VOTE TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

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

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #422 – Tuesday, 15 December 2009

    Today newspapers across California are printing articles about the
    initiative which will be on the November, 2010 ballot for voters to
    consider legalizing marijuana.

    Details about the initiative may be found at the initiative website
    http://www.taxcannabis.org/

    Below is the article about the initiative from the state’s largest
    circulation newspaper.

    The San Francisco Chronicle’s article is at http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n1117.a05.html

    Additional articles about California and marijuana, now and in the
    months ahead, are found at http://www.mapinc.org/find?115

    Many may be appropriate targets for your letters to the
    editor.

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

    Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)

    Page: A12

    Copyright: 2009 Los Angeles Times

    Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/bc7El3Yo

    Author: John Hoeffel

    Cited: The Tax & Regulate Cannabis Initiative http://www.taxcannabis.org/
    Cited: California NORML http://www.canorml.org/
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis – California)
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Richard+Lee

    MEASURE TO LEGALIZE POT MAY BE ON NOV. BALLOT

    California voters could decide whether to legalize marijuana in
    November after supporters announced Monday that they have more than
    enough signatures to ensure that it qualifies for the ballot.

    The petition drive has collected more than 680,000 signatures, said
    Richard Lee, the measure’s main proponent, about 57% more than the
    433,971 needed.

    “It was so easy to get them,” Lee said. “People were so eager to
    sign.”

    The initiative would allow cities and counties to adopt laws to allow
    marijuana to be grown and sold, and to impose taxes on marijuana
    production and sales. It would make it legal for anyone who is at
    least 21 to possess an ounce of marijuana and grow plants in an area
    of no more than 25 square feet for personal use.

    Steve Smith, a political consultant who has run many California
    initiative campaigns, said that as a rule of thumb, supporters assume
    that about 30% of the signatures on petitions will be
    invalidated.

    “I’ll be very surprised if they don’t qualify,” he
    said.

    The measure, the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act, is one of
    four initiatives in circulation to legalize marijuana use, but it is
    the only one that appears to have the financial support to make the
    ballot.

    Lee’s firm, one of the state’s most successful marijuana businesses,
    has spent at least $1.1 million so far on the measure. Lee owns half a
    dozen businesses in Oakland, including Coffeeshop Blue Sky, a medical
    marijuana dispensary, and Oaksterdam University, which teaches about
    marijuana.

    Lee said he expected that the campaign will cost between $7 million
    and $20 million, but he hopes to raise the money from across the country.

    “We feel like we’ve done our part,” he said.

    Lee has hired consultants to run an Internet-based campaign that he
    said already has a mailing list of about 30,000.

    In a news release, the campaign announced that it had more than
    650,000 signatures, but Lee said that the firm he hired to collect
    signatures put the number at more than 680,000. Lee said volunteers
    would continue to gather signatures until the campaign turns in the
    petition early next year.

    Polls have shown support among California voters for legalization. A
    Field Poll taken in mid-April found that 56% of voters in the state
    and 60% in Los Angeles County want to make pot legal and tax it. A
    poll taken for the initiative’s proponents in August found that 51% of
    likely voters supported it when read language similar to what will be
    on the ballot, but that increased to 54% when they were read a less
    technical synopsis.

    Smith said those numbers suggest proponents face tough
    odds.

    “Generally, you are at your high point when you start,” he said. “The
    no side just has to come up with one good reason to vote no.”

    But Smith said that a lot will depend on how much money is spent by
    both sides and whether the electorate tilts toward left or right on
    election day.

    “I think it’ll probably be a very close vote,” he said.

    Law enforcement organizations are likely to oppose the measure, but
    several contacted Monday said they had not yet adopted an official
    position.

    Some marijuana advocates have criticized Lee for pushing his measure,
    arguing that they would have a better chance in 2012, a presidential
    election year when the electorate tends to be more liberal.

    “I think things have turned our way so much that we have a good chance
    of winning,” Lee said. “This is the time to bring up the issue and
    talk about it. Who knows what will be going on in 2012.”

    Dale Gieringer, the director of California NORML, was one of the
    skeptics, but he said his pro-legalization organization would endorse
    the ballot measure.

    “I’d like the initiative to pass,” he said, “but I’m not holding my
    breath necessarily for this to happen.”

    Lee said he believes that the increasing acceptance of medical
    marijuana has changed the dynamic. He said voters are aware that it is
    easy to obtain a doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana, but he said
    most believe that is “a good thing.”

    “Medical marijuana in California has been accepted as legalization in
    some ways by a lot of the population,” he said. “To me this is
    codifying what it happening.”

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

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

    =.

  • Focus Alerts

    #421 George Will’s Rocky Mountain Medical Marijuana High

    Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009
    Subject: #421 George Will’s Rocky Mountain Medical Marijuana High

    GEORGE WILL’S ROCKY MOUNTAIN MEDICAL MARIJUANA HIGH

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

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #421 – Sunday, 29 November 2009

    Today the Washington Post Writers Group syndicated columnist George
    Will’s column about Colorado’s medicinal marijuana law, below,
    appeared in many newspapers.

    The issues and the spin in the column should provide fodder for any
    letter to the editor writer.

    Below is a list of newspapers we know printed the column with the
    newspaper’s title, the article title used, the date printed if not
    today, and the contact for sending your letters.

    Norman Transcript (OK) Printed Sat, 28 Nov 2009

    Rocky Mountain Medical High

    [email protected]

    Columbia Daily Tribune (MO) Printed Sat, 28 Nov 2009

    Legal ‘Medical’ Pot A Dangerous Farce

    [email protected]

    Abilene Reporter-News (TX)

    Rocky Mountain Medical High

    [email protected]

    Houston Chronicle (TX)

    Medical Marijuana Mocks The Idea Of Lawful Behavior

    [email protected]

    Sarasota Herald-Tribune (FL)

    A Dubious Medical High

    http://www.heraldtribune.com/section/opinion04

    State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)

    Pitfalls of Legalizing Medical Marijuana

    http://service.sj-r.com/forms/letters.asp

    Post-Star, The (Glens Falls, NY)

    The Leaf Offers False Hopes

    http://www.poststar.com/app/contact/?form=letter

    Dayton Daily News (OH) Printed Sat, 28 Nov 2009

    Are Medical Marijuana’s Customers Really Sick?

    http://www.daytondailynews.com/opinion/send-a-letter-to-the-editor-65916.html

    Tribune Review (Pittsburgh, PA)

    Rocky Mountain Medical High

    http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/letters/send/

    Washington Post (DC)

    Rocky Mountain High

    [email protected]

    San Angelo Standard-Times (TX)

    The Rocky Mountain Medical High

    http://www.gosanangelo.com/forms/lettertoeditor/

    Grand Forks Herald (ND)

    Drop ‘Medical’ From Medical Pot Laws

    http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/contactForm/email_id/2/

    If MAP’s Newshawks find additional newspapers that printed this column
    they will appear here http://www.mapinc.org/author/George+Will

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

    DENVER — Inside the green neon sign, which is shaped like a marijuana
    leaf, is a red cross. The cross serves the fiction that most
    transactions in the store — which is what it really is — involve
    medicine.

    The U.S. Justice Department recently announced that federal laws
    against marijuana would not be enforced for possession of marijuana
    that conforms to states’ laws. In 2000, Colorado legalized medical
    marijuana. Since Justice’s decision, the average age of the 400
    persons a day seeking “prescriptions” at Colorado’s multiplying
    medical marijuana dispensaries has fallen precipitously. Many new
    customers are college students.

    Customers — this, not patients, is what most really are — tell
    doctors at the dispensaries that they suffer from insomnia, anxiety,
    headaches, premenstrual syndrome, “chronic pain,” whatever, and pay
    nominal fees for “prescriptions.” Most really just want to smoke pot.

    So says Colorado’s attorney general, John Suthers, an honest and
    thoughtful man trying to save his state from institutionalizing such
    hypocrisy. His dilemma is becoming commonplace: 13 states have, and
    15 more are considering, laws permitting medical use of marijuana.

    Realizing they could not pass legalization of marijuana, some people
    who favor that campaigned to amend Colorado’s Constitution to legalize
    sales for medicinal purposes. Marijuana has medical uses — e.g., to
    control nausea caused by chemotherapy — but the helpful ingredients
    can be conveyed with other medicines. Medical marijuana was legalized
    but, Suthers says, no serious regime was then developed to regulate
    who could buy — or grow — it. ( Caregivers? For how many patients?
    And in what quantities, and for what “medical uses.” )

    Today, Colorado communities can use zoning to restrict dispensaries,
    or can ban them because, even if federal policy regarding medical
    marijuana is passivity, selling marijuana remains against federal law.
    But Colorado’s probable future has unfolded in California, which in
    1996 legalized sales of marijuana to persons with doctors’
    “prescriptions.”

    Fifty-six percent of Californians support legalization, and Roger
    Parloff reports (“How Marijuana Became Legal” in the Sept. 28
    Fortune) that they essentially have this. He notes that many
    California “patients” arrive at dispensaries “on bicycles, roller
    skates or skateboards.” A Los Angeles city councilman estimates that
    there are about 600 dispensaries in the city. If so, they outnumber
    the Starbucks stores there period.

    The councilman wants to close dispensaries whose intent is profit
    rather than “compassionate” distribution of medicine. Good luck with
    that: Privacy considerations will shield doctors from investigations
    of their lucrative 15-minute transactions with “patients.”

    Colorado’s medical marijuana dispensaries have hired lobbyists to seek
    taxation and regulation, for the same reason Nevada’s brothel industry
    wants to be taxed and regulated by the state: The Nevada Brothel
    Association regards taxation as legitimation and insurance against
    prohibition as the booming state’s frontier mentality recedes.

    State governments, misunderstanding markets and ravenous for revenues,
    exaggerate the potential windfall from taxing legalized marijuana.
    California thinks it might reap $1.4 billion. But Rosalie Pacula, a
    RAND Corporation economist, estimates that prohibition raises
    marijuana production costs at least 400 percent, so legalization would
    cause prices to fall much more than the 50 percent the $1.4 billion
    estimate assumes.

    Furthermore, marijuana is a normal good in that demand for it varies
    with price. Legalization, by drastically lowering price, will
    increase marijuana’s public health costs, including mental and
    respiratory problems and motor vehicle accidents.

    States attempting to use high taxes to keep marijuana prices
    artificially high would leave a large market for much cheaper illegal
    – — unregulated and untaxed — marijuana. So revenues ( and law
    enforcement savings ) would depend on the price falling close to the
    cost of production. In the 1990s, a mere $2 per pack difference
    between U.S. and Canadian cigarette prices created such a smuggling
    problem that Canada repealed a cigarette tax increase.

    Suthers has multiple drug-related worries. Colorado ranks sixth in
    the nation in identity theft, two-thirds of which is driven by the
    state’s $1.4 billion annual methamphetamine addiction. He is loath to
    see complete legalization of marijuana at a moment when new methods of
    cultivation are producing plants in which the active ingredient, THC,
    is “seven, eight times as concentrated” as it used to be.
    Furthermore, he was pleasantly surprised when a survey of nonusing
    young people revealed that health concerns did not explain nonuse.
    The main explanation was the law: “We underestimate the number of
    people who care that something is illegal.”

    But they will care less as law itself loses its dignity. By mocking
    the idea of lawful behavior, legalization of medical marijuana may be
    more socially destructive than full legalization.

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

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

    =.

  • Focus Alerts

    #420 Please Help Reform Marijuana Laws

    Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009
    Subject: #420 Please Help Reform Marijuana Laws

    PLEASE HELP REFORM MARIJUANA LAWS

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

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #420 – Monday, 23 November 2009

    Today the Washington Post printed a short summary of the current
    status of marijuana law reform efforts in the United States.

    The article is not perfect as the statement “Anti-drug advocates
    counter with surveys showing high school students nationwide already
    are more likely to smoke marijuana than tobacco — and that the five
    states with the highest rate of adolescent pot use permit medical
    marijuana.” is less than accurate. The government’s own studies show
    that adolescent marijuana use actually decreased after the passage of
    many of the state medicinal marijuana initiatives. See
    http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/adolescents

    The International Drug Reform Conference received a prominent
    mention. Many hundreds of supporters of DrugSense and it’s Media
    Awareness Project were there. Mary Jane Borden, the Business Manager
    for DrugSense and MAP, participated in a very well attended training
    session ‘Making the News: How to Get the Media to Cover Your Issue.’

    As a service organization for the drug policy reform community
    DrugSense is keenly interested in the reform of marijuana laws. We
    host 136 websites for reform organizations, supply over 200 email
    lists and discussion forums, and provide news feeds to over 200 reform
    websites. Our volunteers make the Media Awareness Project possible.

    But in these hard economic times we, like all reform organizations,
    are in need of financial support to keep all of our activities going.
    Please consider donating. Please visit our Why Donate to DrugSense
    webpage http://drugsense.org/why_donate.htm

    And please do what you can to support the efforts of all the
    organizations working to reform our marijuana laws. Remember, it’s not
    what others do, it’s what YOU do.

    Please forward this alert to others who may be interested.

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

    Copyright: 2009 The Washington Post Company

    Contact: [email protected]

    Author: Karl Vick, Washington Post Staff Writer

    SUPPORT FOR LEGALIZING MARIJUANA GROWS RAPIDLY AROUND U.S.

    Approval for Medical Use Expands Alongside Criticism of
    Prohibition

    The same day they rejected a gay marriage ballot measure, residents of
    Maine voted overwhelmingly to allow the sale of medical marijuana over
    the counter at state-licensed dispensaries.

    Later in the month, the American Medical Association reversed a
    longtime position and urged the federal government to remove marijuana
    from Schedule One of the Controlled Substances Act, which equates it
    with heroin and cocaine.

    A few days later, advocates for easing marijuana laws left their
    biannual strategy conference with plans to press ahead on all fronts
    — state law, ballot measures, and court — in a movement that for the
    first time in decades appeared to be gaining ground.

    “This issue is breaking out in a remarkably rapid way now,” said Ethan
    Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “Public
    opinion is changing very, very rapidly.”

    The shift is widely described as generational. A Gallup poll in
    October found 44 percent of Americans favor full legalization of
    marijuana — a rise of 13 points since 2000. Gallup said that if
    public support continues growing at a rate of 1 to 2 percent per year,
    “the majority of Americans could favor legalization of the drug in as
    little as four years.”

    A 53 percent majority already does so in the West, according to the
    survey. The finding heartens advocates collecting signatures to put
    the question of legalization before California voters in a 2010 initiative.

    At last week’s International Drug Reform Conference, activists gamed
    specific proposals for taxing and regulating pot along the lines of
    cigarettes and alcohol, as a bill pending in the California
    Legislature would do. The measure is not expected to pass, but in
    urging its serious debate, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) gave
    credence to a potential revenue source that the state’s tax chief said
    could raise $1.3 billion in the recession, which advocates describe as
    a boon.

    There were also tips on lobbying state legislatures, where measures
    decriminalizing possession of small amounts have passed in 14 states.
    Activists predict half of states will have laws allowing possession
    for medical purposes in the near future.

    Interest in medical marijuana and easing other marijuana laws picked
    up markedly about 18 months ago, but advocates say the biggest surge
    came with the election of Barack Obama, the third straight president
    to acknowledge having smoked marijuana, and the first to regard it
    with anything like nonchalance.

    “As a kid, I inhaled,” Barack Obama famously said on the campaign.
    “That was the whole point.”

    In office, Obama made good on a promise to halt federal prosecutions
    of medical marijuana use where permitted by state law. That has
    recalibrated the federal attitude, which had been consistently hostile
    to marijuana since the early 1970s, when President Richard Nixon cast
    aside the recommendations of a presidential commission arguing against
    lumping pot with hard drugs.

    Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization
    for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said he was astonished recently to
    be invited to contribute thoughts to the Office of National Drug
    Control Policy. Obama’s drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, was police chief
    in Seattle, where voters officially made enforcement of marijuana laws
    the lowest priority.

    “I’ve been thrown out of the ONDCP many times,” St. Pierre said.
    “Never invited to actually participate.”

    Anti-drug advocates counter with surveys showing high school students
    nationwide already are more likely to smoke marijuana than tobacco —
    and that the five states with the highest rate of adolescent pot use
    permit medical marijuana.

    “We are in the prevention business,” said Arthur Dean, chairman of the
    Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America. “Kids are getting the
    message tobacco’s harmful, and they’re not getting the message
    marijuana is.”

    In Los Angeles, city officials are dealing with elements of public
    backlash after more than 1,000 medical marijuana dispensaries opened,
    some employing in-house physicians to dispense legal permission to
    virtually all comers. The boom town atmosphere brought complaints from
    some neighbors, but little of the crime associated with underground
    drug-dealing.

    Advocates cite the latter as evidence that, as with alcohol, violence
    associated with the marijuana trade flows from its
    prohibition.

    “Seriously,” said Bruce Merkin, communications director for the
    Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group based in the District,
    “there is a reason you don’t have Mexican beer cartels planting fields
    of hops in the California forests.”

    But the controversy over the dispensaries also has put pressure on
    advocates who specifically champion access for ailing patients, not
    just those who champion easing marijuana laws.

    “I don’t want to say we keep arm’s length from the other groups. You
    end up with all of us in the same room,” said Joe Elford, counsel for
    Americans for Safe Access, which has led the court battle for medical
    marijuana and is squaring off with the Los Angeles City Council. “It’s
    a very broad-based movement.”

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

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

    =.

  • Focus Alerts

    #419 Congress Is Set To Stick It To Clean-Syringe Programs

    Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009
    Subject: #419 Congress Is Set To Stick It To Clean-Syringe Programs

    CONGRESS IS SET TO STICK IT TO CLEAN-SYRINGE PROGRAMS

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

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #419 – Tuesday, 10 November 2009

    Today the Washington Post printed the editorial below.

    Yesterday the New York Times printed an in-depth article “Bill Would
    Limit Needle Exchanges” http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n1009/a05.html

    Please contact your Senators about this legislation.

    The Harm Reduction Coalition has set up a Take Action page “Needle Ban
    Fight Moves to Senate!” at http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1627/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27789
    which may also be accessed via this shortcut http://drugsense.org/url/yvrS3vTu

    Please forward this alert to others who may be interested.

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

    Source: Washington Post (DC)

    Copyright: 2009 The Washington Post Company

    Contact: [email protected]

    BLUNTED NEEDLES

    Congress Is Set to Stick It to Clean-Syringe Programs

    PROGRAMS THAT allow drug addicts to swap their dirty needles for
    sterile syringes are effective in reducing the transmission of HIV,
    the virus that causes AIDS. A 2008 report from the Centers for Disease
    Control and Prevention notes that an 80 percent reduction in the
    incidence of HIV in intravenous drug users over the past 20 years can
    be attributed in part to such programs funded by private organizations
    and localities. But Congress appears intent on gumming up the works.

    At first glance, the congressional goings-on seem promising: The
    promise is to lift a 21-year-old ban on federal funding of
    needle-exchange programs. But the small print makes this promise all
    but worthless, because Congress would prohibit those programs from
    operating within 1,000 feet of a school, library, park, college, video
    arcade or any place where children might be present. In other words,
    just about anywhere.

    Pending legislation is particularly punitive to the District. Just
    last year, Congress finally allowed the District the spend its own
    money on clean-needle programs. Now a bill would apply the same
    1,000-foot restrictions to District programs both with federal money
    and with its own. This would effectively shut down the District’s four
    needle-exchange programs.

    Thank Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) for hobbling this city’s efforts.
    He’s “concerned for the safety of schoolchildren and the negative
    impact of sending them mixed messages when it comes to drug
    prevention,” his spokesman told us. Mr. Kingston’s concern doesn’t
    jibe with the facts. The CDC, the American Medical Association, the
    National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization concur
    that needle-exchange programs reduce the spread of HIV without
    increasing drug use.

    The bills have already passed the House. It’s now up to the Senate to
    strip the restrictions from the legislation. We urge it to do so.
    Cities need every resource at their disposal to fight the HIV/AIDS
    epidemic.

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

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

    =.

  • Focus Alerts

    #418 Science Clashes With Politics In The United Kingdom

    Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009
    Subject: #418 Science Clashes With Politics In The United Kingdom

    SCIENCE CLASHES WITH POLITICS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

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

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #418 – Tuesday, 3 November 2009

    The British government faces a revolt of its scientific advisers after
    it fired the chair of its independent Advisory Council on the Misuse
    of Drugs (ACMD) last week. At least two members of the ACMD have
    already resigned in protest.

    The ACMD is an independent expert body that advises on drug-related
    issues including recommendations on classification under the 1971
    Misuse of Drugs Act. It’s website is at http://drugs.homeoffice.gov.uk/drugs-laws/acmd/

    Home Secretary Alan Johnson demanded the resignation of Professor
    David Nutt on Friday. Professor Nutt’s views which resulted in his
    firing resulted from the release of this report http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/opus1714/Estimating_drug_harms.pdf

    You may follow the scandal at this link http://www.mapinc.org/people/David+Nutt
    Please let the British press know what you think by sending letters
    to the newspapers.

    Monday The Times published Professor Nutt’s OPED, below, presenting
    his view.

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

    Source: Times, The (UK)

    Copyright: 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd

    Contact: [email protected]

    Author: David Nutt

    PENALTIES FOR DRUG USE MUST REFLECT HARM

    How Can True Scientists Advise This or Any Other Government?

    In July this year I gave a lecture on the assessment of drug harms and
    how these relate to the legislation controlling drugs. According to
    Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, some contents of this lecture meant
    I had crossed the line from science to policy and so he sacked me. I
    do not know which comments were beyond the line or, indeed, where the
    line was, but the Government has lost its major expert on drugs and
    drug harms and may indeed lose the rest of its scientific advisers in
    the field.

    All drugs are potentially harmful and many of the harms can be
    measured. We can use scientific methods to estimate these and produce
    a ranking, and compare our scores with their location in the Misuse of
    Drugs Act. Heroin and cocaine appear to be in the correct place
    (Class A), whereas Ecstasy (Class A) and cannabis do not (Class B).

    The reason for making drugs illegal is to let society reduce harms by
    punishing their sale and use. The purpose of having the ABC classes
    is to scale penalties according to relative harms. Possession of a
    class A drug for personal use can lead to seven years in prison, for
    class B, it is five years and for class C, two years.

    The classes are also important in educating the public about the
    relative harms of drugs. So it is imperative that the classification
    of drugs truly reflects their harms, otherwise injustices may occur
    and the educational message be undermined. Scientific inquiry into
    drug harms must also be honest and accurate so that the best quality
    evidence is available to the experts and government. Legal drugs such
    as alcohol and tobacco are as harmful as many illegal drugs and
    currently score highly on our ranking list.

    What are appropriate penalties for drug use? This question has moral
    and practical aspects, but the penalties must reflect the real and
    relative harms of drugs.

    My sacking has cast a huge shadow over the relationship of science to
    policy. Several of the science experts from the Advisory Council on
    the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) have resigned in protest and it seems
    likely that many others will follow suit. This means the Home Office
    no longer has a functioning advisory group, which is very unfortunate
    given the ever-increasing problems of drugs and the emergence of new
    ones. Also it seems unlikely that any “true” scientist – one who can
    only speak the truth – will be able to work for this, or future, Home
    Secretaries.

    Others have suggested a way forward: create a truly independent
    advisory council. This is the only realistic way out of the current
    mess.

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

    PLEASE SEND US COPIES OF YOUR LETTERS

    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

    =.

  • Focus Alerts

    #417 Los Angeles Prepares For Clash Over Marijuana

    Date: Sun, 18 Oct 2009
    Subject: #417 Los Angeles Prepares For Clash Over Marijuana

    LOS ANGELES PREPARES FOR CLASH OVER MARIJUANA

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

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #417 – Sunday, 18 October 2009

    Today the New York Times focused on the issue of medicinal marijuana
    dispensaries in Los Angeles but also covered the growing battle over
    the dispensaries across the state.

    As stated in the article State Attorney General Jerry Brown’s
    guidelines, which you may read at http://drugsense.org/url/kKMJR2lu ,
    do “allow for nonprofit sales of medical marijuana” by cooperatives or
    collectives properly established in accordance with the state’s laws.

    Letter writing activists may find targets for their efforts both in
    California and other states at http://www.mapinc.org/topic/dispensaries
    and articles about California marijuana issues at http://www.mapinc.org/find?115

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

    Source: New York Times (NY)

    Copyright: 2009 The New York Times Company

    Contact: [email protected]

    Author: Solomon Moore

    LOS ANGELES PREPARES FOR CLASH OVER MARIJUANA

    LOS ANGELES — There are more marijuana stores here than public
    schools. Signs emblazoned with cannabis plants or green crosses sit
    next to dry cleaners, gas stations and restaurants.

    The dispensaries range from Hollywood-day-spa fabulous to
    shoddy-looking storefronts with hand-painted billboards. Absolute
    Herbal Pain Solutions, Grateful Meds, Farmacopeia Organica.

    Cannabis advocates claim that more than 800 dispensaries have sprouted
    here since 2002; some law enforcement officials say it is closer to
    1,000. Whatever the real number, everyone agrees it is too high.

    And so this, too, is taken for granted: Crackdowns on cannabis clubs
    will soon come in this city, which has more dispensaries than any other.

    For the first time, law enforcement officials in Los Angeles have
    vowed to prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries that turn a profit,
    with police officials saying they expect to conduct raids. Their
    efforts are widely seen as a campaign to sway the City Council into
    adopting strict regulations after two years of debate.

    It appears to be working. Carmen A. Trutanich, the newly elected city
    attorney, recently persuaded the Council to put aside a proposed
    ordinance negotiated with medical marijuana supporters for one drafted
    by his office. The new proposal calls for dispensaries to have
    renewable permits, submit to criminal record checks, register the
    names of members with the police and operate on a nonprofit basis. If
    enacted, it is likely to result in the closing of hundreds of
    marijuana dispensaries.

    Mr. Trutanich argued that state law permits the exchange of marijuana
    between growers and patients on a nonprofit and noncash basis only.
    Marijuana advocates say that interpretation would regulate
    dispensaries out of existence and thwart the will of voters who
    approved medical cannabis in 1996.

    Whatever happens here will be closely watched by law enforcement
    officials and marijuana advocates across the country who are threading
    their way through federal laws that still treat marijuana as an
    illegal drug and state laws that are increasingly allowing medicinal
    use. Thirteen states have laws supporting medical marijuana, and
    others are considering new legislation.

    No state has gone further than California, often described by drug
    enforcement agents as a “source nation” because of the vast quantities
    of marijuana grown here. And no city in the state has gone further
    than Los Angeles. This has alarmed local officials, who say that
    dispensary owners here took unfair advantage of vague state laws
    intended to create exceptions to marijuana prohibitions for a limited
    number of ill people.

    “About 100 percent of dispensaries in Los Angeles County and the city
    are operating illegally,” said Steve Cooley, the Los Angeles County
    district attorney, who is up for re-election next year. “The time is
    right to deal with this problem.”

    Mr. Cooley, speaking last week at a training luncheon for regional
    narcotics officers titled “The Eradication of Medical Marijuana
    Dispensaries in the City of Los Angeles and Los Angeles County,” said
    that state law did not allow dispensaries to be for-profit
    enterprises.

    Mr. Trutanich, the city attorney, went further, saying dispensaries
    were prohibited from accepting cash even to reimburse growers for
    labor and supplies. He said that a recent California Supreme Court
    decision, People v. Mentch, banned all over-the-counter sales of
    marijuana; other officials and marijuana advocates disagree.

    So far, prosecutions of marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles have
    been limited to about a dozen in the last year, said Sandi Gibbons, a
    spokeswoman for Mr. Cooley. But Police Department officials said they
    were expecting to be called on soon to raid collectives.

    “I don’t think this is a law that we’ll have to enforce 800 times,”
    said one police official, who declined to speak on the record before
    the marijuana ordinance was completed. “This is just like anything
    else. You don’t have to arrest everyone who is speeding to make people
    slow down.”

    Don Duncan, a spokesman for Americans for Safe Access, a leader in the
    medical marijuana movement, said that over-the-counter cash purchases
    should be permitted but that dispensaries should be nonprofit
    organizations. He also said marijuana collectives needed more
    regulation and a “thinning of the herd.”

    “I am under no illusions that everyone out there is following the
    rules,” said Mr. Duncan, who runs his own dispensary in West
    Hollywood. “But just because you accept money to reimburse collectives
    does not mean you’re making profits.”

    For marijuana advocates, Los Angeles represents a critical juncture —
    a symbol of the movement’s greatest success, but also its
    vulnerability.

    More than 300,000 doctors’ referrals for medical cannabis are on file,
    the bulk of them from Los Angeles, according to Americans for Safe
    Access. The movement has had a string of successes in the Legislature
    and at the ballot box. In the city of Garden Grove, marijuana
    advocates forced the Highway Patrol to return six grams of marijuana
    it had confiscated from an eligible user. About 40 cities and counties
    have medical marijuana ordinances.

    But there have also been setbacks. In June, a federal judge sentenced
    Charles C. Lynch, a dispensary owner north of Santa Barbara, to one
    year in prison for selling marijuana to a 17-year-old boy whose father
    had testified that they sought out medical marijuana for his son’s
    chronic pain. The mayor and the chief of police testified on behalf of
    Mr. Lynch, who was released on bail pending appeal.

    And last month, San Diego police officers and sheriff’s deputies,
    along with agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, raided 14
    marijuana dispensaries and arrested 31 people. In an interview, Bonnie
    Dumanis, the district attorney for San Diego County, said that state
    laws governing medical marijuana were unclear and that the city had
    not yet instituted new regulations.

    Ms. Dumanis said that she approved of medical marijuana clubs where
    patients grow and use their own marijuana, but that none of the 60 or
    so dispensaries in the county operated that way.

    “These guys are drug dealers,” she said of the 14 that were raided. “I
    said publicly, if anyone thinks we’re casting too big a net and we get
    a legitimate patient or a lawful collective, then show us your taxes,
    your business license, your incorporation papers, your filings with
    the Department of Corporations.”

    “If they had these things, we wouldn’t prosecute,” she
    said.

    Marijuana supporters worry that San Diego may provide a glimpse of the
    near future for Los Angeles if raids here become a reality. But many
    look to Harborside Health Center in Oakland as a model for how
    dispensaries could work.

    “Our No. 1 task is to show that we are worthy of the public’s trust in
    asking to distribute medical cannabis in a safe and secure manner,”
    said Steve DeAngelo, the pig-tailed proprietor of Harborside, which
    has been in business for three years.

    Harborside is one of four licensed dispensaries in Oakland run as
    nonprofit organizations. It is the largest, with 74 employees and
    revenues of about $20 million. Last summer, the Oakland City Council
    passed an ordinance to collect taxes from the sale of marijuana, a
    measure that Mr. DeAngelo supported.

    Mr. DeAngelo designed Harborside to exude legitimacy, security and
    comfort. Visitors to the low-slung building are greeted by security
    guards who check the required physicians’ recommendations. Inside, the
    dispensary looks like a bank, except that the floor is covered with
    hemp carpeting and the eight tellers stand behind identical displays
    of marijuana and hashish.

    There is a laboratory where technicians determine the potency of the
    marijuana and label it accordingly. (Harborside says it rejects 80
    percent of the marijuana that arrives at its door for insufficient
    quality.) There is even a bank vault where the day’s cash is stored
    along with reserves of premium cannabis. An armored truck picks up
    deposits every evening. City officials routinely audit the
    dispensary’s books. Surplus cash is rolled back into the center to pay
    for free counseling sessions and yoga for patients. “Oakland issued
    licenses and regulations, and Los Angeles did nothing and they are
    still unregulated,” Mr. DeAngelo said. “Cannabis is being distributed
    by inappropriate people.”

    But even Oakland’s regulations fall short of Mr. Trutanich’s proposal
    that Los Angeles ban all cash sales.

    “I don’t know of any collective that operates in the way that is
    envisioned by this ordinance,” said Mr. Duncan, of Americans for Safe
    Access.

    Christine Gasparac, a spokeswoman for State Attorney General Jerry
    Brown, said that after Mr. Trutanich’s comments in Los Angeles, law
    enforcement officials and advocates from around the state had called
    seeking clarity on medical marijuana laws.

    Mr. Brown has issued legal guidelines that allow for nonprofit sales
    of medical marijuana, she said. But, she added, with laws being
    interpreted differently, “the final answer will eventually come from
    the courts.”

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

    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

    =.

  • Focus Alerts

    #416 Writing Letters To The Editor Works!

    Date: Wed, 7 Oct 2009
    Subject: #416 Writing Letters To The Editor Works!

    WRITING LETTERS TO THE EDITOR WORKS!

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

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #416 – Wednesday, 7 October 2009

    September ended with 1,805 letters published in support of drug policy
    reform. If the trend continues this will be the largest number of
    published letters since 2005. Please click this link to see the counts
    http://www.mapinc.org/lte/ as shown in our published letters archive.

    Please check out the Published Letters Awards page
    http://www.mapinc.org/lteaward.htm and the letter of writers
    recognized for the best letter of the week at http://www.mapinc.org/lte_awards/weekly.php

    We will leave it up to you to speculate as to why there is a surge in
    LTE writing this year.

    Most drug policy reform organizations encourage writing LTEs, for
    example:

    How To Mount An Effective Letter Writing Campaign http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3464

    Letters to the Editors http://ssdp.org/resources/media.php

    Letters to the Editor How-To http://www.safeaccessnow.org/article.php?id=310

    How to Write Letters to the Editor http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/activist/howlte.htm

    Tips from MAP’s most successful letter writers include How to Write a
    Letter to the Editor http://www.mapinc.org/resource/how2lte.htm and
    Tips for Getting Letters to the Editor Published http://www.mapinc.org/resource/tips.htm

    As suggested by MAP’s top letter writers recent newspaper opinion
    items make the best targets for your letters. These may be found at
    http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm Other recent articles which could
    be letter writing targets may be accessed from the MAP home page
    www.mapinc.org

    Since you are reading this you have the best tool to write LTEs
    already – internet access. Please help sustain the activism
    represented by all the reform oriented letters published so far this
    year.

    Your letters to the editor are always helpful. Even if a newspaper
    does not publish your letter you have let that newspaper know that the
    issue you write about is important to you.

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

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

    =.