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DrugSense Weekly,             Dec. 19, 2008                      #580
Read This Publication On-line at:Â http://www.drugsense.org/current.htm
READERS, PLEASE NOTE: DrugSense Weekly will mark the festive season
by taking next week off, but we will return with a new edition Jan.
2. The DrugSense staff wishes holiday happiness to all our readers
as well as the generous volunteers and contributors who make this
work possible.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS:
* This Just In
   (1) Marijuana Verdict May Set Precedent Throughout Maine Hempstock
   (2) Skid Row Settlement Orders Police to Undergo Civil Rights Training
   (3) Agony and Ecstasy
   (4) Fort Huachuca Restricts Travel To Mexico
* Weekly News in Review
Drug Policy-
   (5) Editorial: Wrong Kind Of Drug Czar
   (6) Column: Christmas Wish: Drug War Truce
   (7) Mexico Drug Cartels' Banners Escalate Attacks Against Calderon's Government
   (8) Two Drug Offenders Ordered To Write Essays
Law Enforcement & Prisons-
   (9) Deputy Given 2-Year Term
   (10) Woman Seeks $$ In Cop Invasion
   (11) She Really Is A Good 'Shot'
   (12) City Seeks To Settle Hoffman Wrongful-Death Claim
Cannabis & Hemp-
   (13) Moved By Patients, Committee Clears Medical Marijuana
   (14) Marijuana Law Comes With Challenges
   (15) What Drives Cop Shop
   (16) Court Ruling Could Alter The Rules
International News-
   (17) Canada Has Hand In Mexican Bloodshed
   (18) Fears Drug Campaign Cuts No Ice With Teens
   (19) Resources Needed To Keep Drug Problem Under Control
   (20) Oshiomhole, NDLEA Seek Solution On Cannabis Cultivation
* Hot Off The 'Net
   More 10th-Graders Are Smoking Marijuana Than Cigarettes / By Aaron Houston
   Could Obama's Pro-Marijuana Commerce Secretary Spell A Golden Era?
   California Cops To Dea - Help Us Undermine State Law / By Jacob Sullum
   Governor Paterson's Holiday Rescue Mission / By Anthony Papa
   Federal Drug Threat Assessment Finds Prohibition Greatest Drug-Related Menace
   Why Harm Reduction Makes Sense / By Stanton Peele
   Drug Truth Network
* What You Can Do This Week
   Support DrugSense And The Media Awareness Project
* Letter Of The Week
   Legalizing Drugs Might Be Good For Our Society / Calvin C. Acuff, M.D.
* Feature Article
   Drug Czar Of My Dreams / Matthew M. Elrod
* Quote of the Week
   Ralph Waldo Emerson
DrugSense needs your support to continue this newsletter and many
other important projects - see how you can help at
http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
***********************************************************************
THIS JUST IN
=======================================================================
(1) MARIJUANA VERDICT MAY SET PRECEDENT THROUGHOUT MAINE HEMPSTOCK
Pubdate: Fri, 19 Dec 2008
Source: Kennebec Journal (Augusta, ME)
Copyright: 2008 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc
Author: Doug Harlow
Organizer, Medical-Pot Backer Is Acquitted Using Affirmative Defense
SKOWHEGAN -- Longtime marijuana advocate Donald Christen was
acquitted Thursday in Superior Court on cultivation and furnishing
charges, convincing a jury that his pot is for medical purposes.
The verdict could have far-reaching effects on both sides of the
medical marijuana issue in Maine, his lawyer, Walter McKee of
Augusta, said.
"We had raised the affirmative defense that the marijuana being
cultivated or being furnished was medical marijuana," McKee said
Thursday afternoon. "Don acknowledged that he cultivated marijuana
and he acknowledged that he possessed it with the intent to furnish
it, but indicated that what he was cultivating and what he had
possessed with the intent to furnish was medical marijuana, for one
patient in particular."
Citing the state's medical marijuana law passed nearly a decade ago,
Justice William Anderson told jurors that Christen, organizer of the
annual Hempstock festivals and founder of Maine Vocals, met the
criteria for medical marijuana under the statute, McKee said.
 [snip]
Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1137/a10.html
===
(2) SKID ROW SETTLEMENT ORDERS POLICE TO UNDERGO CIVIL RIGHTS
TRAINING
Pubdate: Thu, 18 Dec 2008
Source: Los Angeles Daily News (CA)
Copyright: 2008 The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - Police officers patrolling the city's Skid Row area
must undergo special training and face new restrictions on how they
can search people and run parole status checks, under a settlement
with a civil rights group announced Thursday.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California initially
sued the Los Angeles Police Department in 2003, claiming officers in
Skid Row were unconstitutionally searching people or running
criminal checks after they had been stopped for trivial offenses
such as jaywalking or littering. The city's Skid Row area, spanning
about a square mile on the east side of downtown, is home to
thousands of homeless.
"( Officers ) didn't have probable cause," said attorney Carol
Sobel, who worked with the ACLU on the case. "They'd ask them for
their ID, if the person said, 'No,' they would take them into
custody."
The LAPD does not acknowledge any wrongdoing, city attorney
spokesman Nick Velasquez said.
Paul Weber, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League
union, said officers in Skid Row have always been "sensitive to the
special needs and conditions of the people who live in the
community."
 [snip]
Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1137/a05.html
===
(3) AGONY AND ECSTASY
Pubdate: Thu, 18 Dec 2008
Source: Economist, The (UK)
Copyright: 2008 The Economist Newspaper Limited
Author: Craig Ward
Ecstasy May Be Good for Those Who Can't Get Over Something Truly
Horrible
"I'VE been shot in the leg. I've been beat up. But that's pretty
minor," says a 41-year-old American security contractor who spent
four years in Iraq. "But when you get a vehicle blown out from under
you and ambushed by six or eight al-Qaedas, it does tend to affect
one a little bit."
With a broken back, two broken feet and neurological damage, the
man, who asked that his name not be used, spent the next three
months in hospitals in Iraq, Germany and America. But though he was
physically on the mend by the start of this year, he found himself
incapacitated. "I was having nightmares right off the bat," he
recalls. "I couldn't do anything. Mostly, I'd just retreat to a room
and not leave."
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is the persistence of
debilitating psychological symptoms. It can include flashbacks and
nightmares, increased arousal in the form of insomnia, anger and an
inability to concentrate, and impaired personal relationships.
Although lasting psychological damage from horrific experiences has
been recognised since time immemorial, it is only since 1980, when
veterans were still experiencing stress from the Vietnam war, that
PTSD has been a formal psychiatric diagnosis.
By 2005 72,000 American veterans were receiving disability payments
for PTSD. A study two years later estimated that 12% of American
veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from PTSD.
Thus far, 1.8m Americans have been deployed in those two theatres,
implying 216,000 eventual cases.
Yet most PTSD sufferers are not drawn from the ranks of those for
whom trauma is an occupational hazard: 5% of American men suffer
from PTSD at some period in their lives. For American women, the
rate is double that, mostly from exposure to such crimes as domestic
violence and sexual abuse. Two in five rape victims are diagnosable
with PTSD six months after the attack. "It can go on for ever", says
Kathleen Brady, a professor of psychiatry at the Medical University
of South Carolina who studies the disorder, "but even after 30
years, PTSD is treatable."
 [snip]
So the results of a clinical trial recently announced by Michael
Mithoefer, a psychiatrist in Charleston, South Carolina, are
encouraging. Twenty patients with PTSD who had resisted standard
treatments--including both Ms Westerfield and the security
contractor--were given an experimental drug in combination with
psychotherapy. After just two sessions all of them reported dramatic
improvement. The compound, methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA,
is not new. Known as Ecstasy, it is illegal nearly everywhere.
 [snip]
Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1138/a05.html
===
(4) FORT HUACHUCA RESTRICTS TRAVEL TO MEXICO
Pubdate: Fri, 19 Dec 2008
Source: Arizona Daily Star (Tucson, AZ)
Copyright: 2008 Arizona Daily Star
Author: Carol Ann Alaimo and Brady McCombs
Rising drug violence in Mexico's border region has prompted Southern
Arizona's largest military installation to issue new restrictions on
troop travel and a warning to military families and civilian
staffers to stay away. As of Tuesday, nearly 7,000 troops at Fort
Huachuca in Sierra Vista must get prior approval from the Army
post's top brass to cross the border.
Violators would be subject to military discipline. Another 11,000 or
so family members, civilian staffers and contractors at the fort are
"strongly urged" not to visit Mexican cities such as Naco, Agua
Prieta and Nogales, a popular shopping, dining and nightlife
destination. The Army can't legally stop family members and civilian
workers from visiting Mexico, but it is warning them not to do so
for their own safety, said Tanja Linton, a spokeswoman for Fort
Huachuca. The post is about 75 miles southeast of Tucson and less
than 20 miles from Mexico. "We are constantly monitoring this
situation in the interest of protecting our people," Linton said.
Fort Huachuca's travel restrictions are less severe than those at
Fort Hood in central Texas, the nation's largest Army post, where
soldiers are banned outright from traveling to numerous Mexican
border cities, including Nogales. Travel restrictions are set by
installation commanders and vary with local conditions, Linton said.
Fort Huachuca's new restrictions could be tightened further or eased
if warranted, she said. In May 2007, for example, Fort Huachuca
banned its soldiers from Mexico for a week after violence erupted in
the town of Cananea. More recently, the fort has allowed
cross-border travel with approval from lower-level commanders.
Drug-cartel-fueled violence has reached unprecedented levels this
year in the state of Sonora and specifically in Nogales, where
official government figures show homicides have tripled in recent
years.
Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1139/a09.html
***********************************************************************
WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW
=======================================================================
Domestic News- Policy
----------------------------------
COMMENT: (5-8)
 While the new federal drug czar hasn't been chosen yet, one of the
 names being bandied about is getting more criticism, even from the
 mainstream press. In one Mexico border town, an anonymous email
 pleads for a few peaceful days around Christmas; meanwhile as the
 narco-war intensifies in Mexico, some cartels may prove to be better
 propagandists than the government. And in New Jersey, more than a
 little irony from a judge ruling in a cannabis case.
===
(5) EDITORIAL: WRONG KIND OF DRUG CZAR
Pubdate: Sat, 13 Dec 2008
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2008 Globe Newspaper Company
Representative Jim Ramstad, a Republican from Minnesota, is said to
be a candidate for drug czar in the Obama administration. This would
take bipartisanship one step too far, at the expense of public
health.
Ramstad, who is retiring after 18 years in office, gets high marks
for working with a Democratic colleague, Patrick Kennedy of Rhode
Island, to require insurers to cover mental health and addiction
treatment ( the two men are alcohol recovery partners ). But Ramstad
has also voted repeatedly against federal funding for needle
exchange programs for drug users to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Washington's paralysis on this issue goes back to when President
Clinton let his drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, sabotage funding efforts
by Donna Shalala, then secretary of Health and Human Services.
McCaffrey hyperbolically called clean-needle programs "magnets for
all social ills." In 2002, Clinton admitted that "I was wrong" not
to lift the funding ban.
A study this fall in The Lancet found that only 1.5 percent of
injecting drug users in Australia have HIV, compared with 16 percent
in the United States. "That's largely because we acted very quickly
in the 1980s to implement methadone programs and needle exchange
programs when other countries like the U.S. were dragging their
heels," study author Bradley Mathers of Australia's National Drug
and Alcohol Research Center told the Associated Press. Anthony
Fauci, director for infectious disease at the National Institutes of
Health, flatly says, "needle exchange programs work. There's no
doubt about that."
 [snip]
Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1121/a03.html
===
(6) COLUMN: CHRISTMAS WISH: DRUG WAR TRUCE
Pubdate: Sat, 13 Dec 2008
Source: Las Cruces Sun-News (NM)
Copyright: 2008 El Paso Times
Author: Daniel Borunda
EL PASO - It is a simple Christmas wish.
Peace for three days in Juarez, Dec. 24-26.
No shootings. No killings. No executions.
In a bloody year in which Juarez was submerged in a war between drug
cartels and a crime wave with more than 1,500 homicides, an
anonymous e-mail floating in the borderland is asking for "a truce
for Christmas in Juarez."
The e-mail in Spanish is addressed to "narcos, capos, agents, hit
men, the press, those affected by violence, friends and others," and
narrates a conversation between a young boy and his uncle. The boy
wishes Santa Claus and el ninito Jesus to end the violence after the
boy witnesses his father's death.
"Don't let what happened to my nephew happen to any other children.
. If you are involved in this, I ask you, I beg you ... think of a
child you love and do it for them," the letter requests.
Whether the Christmas spirit will quell the killings is anyone's
guess. Threats, rumors and urban legends related to Juarez have
spread frequently this year through the anonymity of the Internet.
 [snip]
Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1121/a05.html
===
(7) MEXICO DRUG CARTELS' BANNERS ESCALATE ATTACKS AGAINST CALDERON'S
GOVERNMENT
Pubdate: Sat, 13 Dec 2008
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2008 The Dallas Morning News, Inc.
Author: Laurence Iliff, Staff Writer
A Roman Catholic cathedral in the border state of Nuevo Leon was the
backdrop this week for the drug cartels' latest salvo in a drug war
that is looking more like a conventional war, complete with
increasingly sophisticated propaganda.
Hanging from the church fence in Monterrey was a banner more than a
dozen feet high addressed to President Felipe Calderon, accusing the
government of favoring some cartel groups over others -- a charge
the government denies -- and appealing for a more balanced approach.
"We urge you to put neutral commanders in these jobs and not allow
the narco police to stay," it read in neat black block letters.
At least two dozen similar banners in 14 cities and six states
appeared Monday in public places. The Monterrey church is in front
of City Hall.
The sudden proliferation of "narco-banners" across Mexican cities,
including tourist zones like Cancan, shows that the cartels are
prepared to ratchet up a fight that has taken more than 5,000 lives
this year, analysts said.
 [snip]
Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1120/a09.html
===
(8) TWO DRUG OFFENDERS ORDERED TO WRITE ESSAYS
Pubdate: Sat, 13 Dec 2008
Source: Daily Record, The (Parsippany, NJ)
Copyright: 2008 The Daily Record
Author: Peggy Wright, Daily Record
Men Spared Prison; Long Valley Roommate Was Growing Marijuana
Two former Long Valley residents who were charged in February, along
with a third roommate, with running a marijuana harvesting operation
in their attic were spared prison sentences Friday by a judge who
gave them probation, community service and ordered them to write
essays.
Superior Court Judge Thomas V. Manahan ordered John Coates III of
Great Meadows and John A. O'Connell of Succasunna, both 24, to read
"Judgment at Nuremberg," a 1957 play by Abby Mann that was adapted
into the Academy Award-winning 1961 film about Nazi war criminals
brought to justice for their crimes against humanity.
The significance of the assignment is that the war criminals claimed
to just be following orders, just as Coates and O'Connell said they
went along with the marijuana-growing plan of roommate Zachary
Toomey, 27.
Toomey pleaded guilty in November to conspiracy to maintain or
operate a drug production facility in February from the rented
Fairmount Road home in Washington Township and to an unrelated
aggravated assault charge. The Morris County Prosecutor's Office has
recommended that Toomey be sentenced in January to seven years in
prison and more than $2,000 in fines.
 [snip]
Continues: : http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1121/a08.html
=======================================================================
Law Enforcement & Prisons
-------------------------
COMMENT: (9-12)
 Another corruption conviction leads off the news, and then two
 stories about all the things that can go wrong when police
 recklessly bust down doors looking for drugs. And, another drug war
 tragedy may be getting closer to settlement, with more
 acknowledgement by officials that something went wrong.
===
(9) DEPUTY GIVEN 2-YEAR TERM
Pubdate: Sat, 13 Dec 2008
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 2008 The Tribune Co.
Author: Elaine Silvestrini
TAMPAÂ -Â AÂ former Pasco County sheriff's deputy was sentenced Friday
to two years in federal prison for participating in a drug ring by
using his patrol car and service weapon to rob a man he thought was
a drug courier.
Don Riggans, 35, tearfully apologized to the court, prosecutors, the
community and his family for not only breaking the law, but going
against everything he said he stood for.
He told U.S. District Judge Richard Lazzara he did it to get money
so he could pay off debts and purchase a dream house for his wife
and young daughters. The hardest thing he ever had to do, Riggans
said in an emotion-choked voice, was look his daughters in the eye
and explain his crime.
Riggans' wife, Kimberly, also a Pasco sheriff's deputy, tearfully
pleaded for mercy, saying one horrible mistake should not define who
her husband is as a person.
 [snip]
Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1120/a03.html
===
(10) WOMAN SEEKS $$ IN COP 'INVASION
Pubdate: Mon, 15 Dec 2008
Source: Boston Herald (MA)
Copyright: 2008 The Boston Herald, Inc
Author: Jessica Van Sack
A Roxbury woman who says firefighters and police busted down her
door last summer, ignoring her when she said they were at the wrong
house, will air her concerns at a City Council hearing today.
Shirley A. Hunter, 56, a professor of international accounting at
Tufts University, was in the shower Aug. 9 when she heard her front
door and exterior iron gate being pried open. She said she leaned
out the window and told authorities, "You have the wrong house."
A city council order for the hearing states that cops received a
call from a woman on Forbes Avenue stating she had overdosed on
drugs, but were dispatched to Hunter's house on Fort Avenue in
Roxbury. It could not be confirmed yesterday that police were
dispatched to the wrong house.
After a firefighter forced open her door, two cops charged up her
stairs, guns drawn, Hunter said. She said when cops realized they
had the wrong house, "They were about to leave, and I said, 'Wait
guys, what about my front door' "
"It was traumatic," she said. "They were pretty pumped up. It was as
if they were angry they didn't find something."
Hunter said she's spent more than $4,000 on repairs to her door and
had to suspend her consulting business for over a month because she
couldn't leave her home for long periods of time until a repairman
finally secured her iron gate in October.
 [snip]
Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1125/a06.html
===
(11) SHE REALLY IS A GOOD 'SHOT'
Pubdate: Wed, 17 Dec 2008
Source: News Leader, The (VA)
Copyright: 2008 News Leader
Author: Gregory Trotter
Alyssa Kaye Smith's bedroom is filled with saddles, fishing poles, a
gurgling fish tank with an albino frog inside, some books and, yes,
normally, a shotgun under the bed.The Smiths don't deny they have
guns at their home in the Bolivar countryside and aren't shy about
expressing their rights to use them for hunting, trap-shooting and
self-defense.
"She really is a good shot," said David Smith, Alyssa's father,
proudly holding up a target practice sheet Tuesday that was riddled
with holes in the middle.
The family vehemently denies, however, that Alyssa knew the
intruders in her house were a Missouri Highway Patrol SWAT team when
she fired her 12-gauge shotgun through her closed bedroom door
during a marijuana raid last weekend.
Alyssa Smith, 19, was charged with assault on a law enforcement
officer and armed criminal action. She faces a minimum of 10 years
in jail -- and a maximum sentence of 30 years to life -- if
convicted of the crimes.
Though no one was injured, the prosecutor's complaint charges that
she knew there was an officer behind the door and attempted to kill
or seriously injure him.
Standing in their daughter's bedroom Tuesday, David and Barbara
Smith painted a very different picture of what transpired during the
dark morning hours Saturday.
 [snip]
Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1132/a05.html
===
(12) CITY SEEKS TO SETTLE HOFFMAN WRONGFUL-DEATH CLAIM
Pubdate: Wed, 17 Dec 2008
Source: Tallahassee Democrat (FL)
Copyright: 2008 Tallahassee Democrat
Author: Jennifer Portman, Democrat Senior Writer
The city of Tallahassee hopes to avoid a wrongful-death lawsuit by
working out a settlement with the parents of Rachel Hoffman, who was
killed in May during a botched drug sting.
In a letter sent to the family's attorney this week, City Attorney
Jim English requested that the two sides jointly initiate voluntary
pre-lawsuit mediation.
"It's really been very helpful in settling a lot of cases," English
said. "I wouldn't even begin to predict this one."
On June 30, attorney Lance Block put the city on required six-month
notice that the family intends to file a wrongful-death claim for
the Tallahassee Police Department's role in the 23-year-old's death.
The family contends -- and a Leon County jury concurred -- that
police were negligent in Hoffman's death.
 [snip]
Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1134/a03.html
=======================================================================
Cannabis & Hemp-
---------------------------
COMMENT: (13-16)
 New Jersey is one step closer to joining other states that have
 regulated medicinal cannabis.
 Law enforcement authorities in Massachusetts are still finding
 fault with their new civil penalty regime in an effort to stall
 its implementation.
 Marking the 75th anniversary of repeal, an amusing column on
 the stark contrasts between stereotypical alcohol and cannabis
 consumers.
 The Ohio state senate heard testimony from doctors who support
 medicinal cannabis regulation Bill SB 343.
=======================================================================
International News
---------------------------
COMMENT: (17-20)
 It has been said that American politicians are addicted to the war on
 drugs. If this is true, then Canada is the "enabler" of U.S.
 prohibition worldwide. Carried in several Canadian papers this week,
 columnist Dan Gardner shows how -- at an international policy level
 -- Canada cheers and enables U.S. drug war pipe dreams, predictably
 reaping bloodshed and failure as a result. "And so," says Gardner,
 "the misery will continue, thanks in part to the complicity of
 Canadian politicians and officials too foolish or cowardly to admit
 that drug prohibition is a catastrophic mistake."
 University of Western Australia clinical psychology researcher David
 Erceg-Hurn called for Australia to dump anti-meth "shock" ads after
 they were shown to actually encourage drug use, rather than prevent
 it. While shock meth ads -- ads graphically depicting open sores,
 vomit, drug injection, teenage prostitution, and violence -- are
 ostensibly designed to shock teens into abstemious, drug-free lives,
 they appear to be having the exact opposite effect. Following studies
 with similar results, research recently reviewed in the journal
 "Prevention Science" indicates such ads "made the illicit drug more
 appealing to teenagers... making the drug appear less risky."
 And finally this week, two governments, two distant places on the map,
 two different police forces, yet the same incessant plea: give us more
 money, or your kids will end up on dope. In Nanaimo, Canada, police
 are angling for ways to transfer public unease with visible
 homelessness and hard drug addiction, into approval for going after an
 extensive domestic cannabis trade. Homelessness? Addiction? All can
 be solved with the hammer of "harsher penalties for convicted drug
 traffickers," say Nanaimo police. "It takes an entire community to
 raise a child, it takes an entire community to recognize youth with
 substance abuse issues," added another bureaucrat.
 Similarly, in Nigeria this week, Executive Governor of Edo State,
 Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshomole and the Nigerian DEA Chief Ahmadu Giade
 decried the existence of cannabis in communities in the "the South
 South region [who are] neck-deep in cannabis cultivation and
 trafficking... We shall trace them to their cannabis plantations as we
 have always done. We shall also trace them to their secret warehouses
 and take the battle to their living rooms," thundered Ahmadu. Why go
 after adults involved with cannabis? Because drugs are "a danger to
 our youths who are the future hope of the country."
===
(17) CANADA HAS HAND IN MEXICAN BLOODSHED
Pubdate: Tue, 16 Dec 2008
Source: Windsor Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2008 The Windsor Star
Author: Dan Gardner
 [snip]
Last Monday, Mexico's attorney general told reporters the record-high
rate of drug-related murders in 2007 had doubled in 2008. As of Dec.
2, it stood at 5,376.
Canadians will be dimly aware that drug-related violence is soaring in
Mexico. We read the occasional story and see a picture now and then of
a sheet drawn over a corpse that was somebody's son. But there's
little analysis or concern here. Why would there be? To us, this is
just more bloodshed far away. It has nothing to do with us.
Or so we think. In truth, the government of Canada is at least partly
responsible for the tragedy unfolding in Mexico.
 [snip]
In fact, it has everything to do with Canada because, on the
international level, Canada is very much a soldier in the War on
Drugs.
In 1988, the American government drafted a new international
convention on drug prohibition and took it to the United Nations.
Canada saluted and signed.
In 1998, American officials dominated a United Nations special
assembly that produced new commitments on drug policy. Canada saluted
and signed.
When American officials asked other governments to contribute money to
Plan Colombia, Canada saluted and kicked in.
The Canadian military is involved in drug interdiction. Canadian
police and other officials stationed around the world fight the War on
Drugs every day. Very simply, this country has never done anything but
aid and abet the drug policies issuing from Washington D.C.
 [snip]
And so the misery will continue, thanks in part to the complicity of
Canadian politicians and officials too foolish or cowardly to admit
that drug prohibition is a catastrophic mistake.
Dan Gardner is an Ottawa Citizen columnist.
Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08.n1130.a04.html
===
(18) FEARS DRUG CAMPAIGN CUTS NO ICE WITH TEENS
Pubdate: Mon, 15 Dec 2008
Source: Age, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2008 The Age Company Ltd
Author: Cathy O'Leary
A University of Western Australia researcher has called for the
scrapping of a multimillion-dollar anti-methamphetamine campaign by
the Federal Government, after finding that graphic advertisements
actually made the illicit drug more appealing to teenagers.
AÂ study by clinical psychology researcher David Erceg-Hurn found that
a similar American campaign warning of violent behaviour and self-harm
associated with crystal methamphetamine had the opposite effect to
what was intended, making the drug appear less risky to young people.
The review, published in the international journal Prevention Science,
found that after six months of exposure to an expensive anti-ice
advertising campaign in the American state of Montana, three times as
many teenagers believed using ice was not risky.
[snip]
Mr Erceg-Hurn said the campaign was very similar to that used in the
third phase of Australia's National Drugs Campaign, which was launched
last year and based on the slogan "Don't let ice destroy you".
He said the results from his study suggested that the shock
advertisements could be making the drug seem more acceptable and less
harmful.
Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08.n1125.a01.html
===
(19) RESOURCES NEEDED TO KEEP DRUG PROBLEM UNDER CONTROL
Pubdate: Fri, 12 Dec 2008
Source: Nanaimo News Bulletin (CN BC)
Copyright: 2008, BC Newspaper Group
Author: Jenn Marshall
Nanaimo's drug problem is serious and will continue to get worse
unless more resources are committed, say community stakeholders.
"I think Nanaimo's problem isn't out of control yet, but if we don't
start adding resources, it will get there," said Marg Fraser, the
Vancouver Island Health Authority's manager of mental health and
addiction services.
 [snip]
Const. Gary O'Brien, Nanaimo RCMP spokesman, said an increased police
presence downtown and collaboration with downtown business and bar
owners has displaced some of the drug activity there.
"Many times that's the sad reality of police work," he said. "You have
to find other means other than displacement. We have to think more out
of the box."
O'Brien said looking at harsher penalties for convicted drug
traffickers and more intensive rehabilitation opportunities for
addicts, who are often responsible for committing petty crimes around
the city, is needed.
He said the recent decision of the federal arm of the RCMP's E-
Division law enforcement operations to centralize in Nanaimo will
improve the city's ability to combat the import and export of illegal
drugs.
 [snip]
"It takes an entire community to raise a child, it takes an entire
community to recognize youth with substance abuse issues," she said
Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08.n1121.a01.html
===
(20) OSHIOMHOLE, NDLEA SEEK SOLUTION ON CANNABIS CULTIVATION
Pubdate: Mon, 15 Dec 2008
Source: Leadership Nigeria (Nigeria)
Copyright: 2008 Leadership Newspapers Group Limited
Author: Joshua Uma
Worried by the high rate of cannabis cultivation in the country
particularly in the South South geo-political area, the Executive
Governor of Edo State, Comrade Adams Aliyu Oshomole and the Honourable
Chairman/Chief Executive of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency
(NDLEA), Ahmadu Giade have strongly advocated for youth empowerment in
the country, as the only option to end cannabis cultivation and
narcotics problem in the state.
This was disclosed at a workshop organised by the anti-narcotics
Agency in Benin City Edo State at the weekend. In which Oshiomhole
identified lack of adequate planning for youths in the country as one
of the factors responsible for the involvement in illicit drug
activities. He noted that "in the past the nation planned for the
youth but in today Nigeria , the situation is not the same. At the
University of Benin some years back, before graduation as a 400 level
student, there are various employers of labour as well as various
public authorities coming to conduct interviews in order to identify
potential employees but the situation today has also changed".
 [snip]
The honourable Chairman/Chief Executive of the NDLEA, Ahmadu Giade in
his welcome address said that the choice of Edo State as the host of
the South South campaign was because the State has the highest seizure
of cannabis in the country. He lamented that illicit drug activities
are not only becoming a threat to the image of the country but also a
danger to our youths who are the future hope of the country.
According to Giade whose address was presented by the Director General
of the Agency, Otunba Lanre Ipinmisho, "the South South region is
neck-deep in cannabis cultivation and trafficking. The situation is
very bad. In the course of our discreet covert operations we have
uncovered very many illicit cannabis plantations in the South South
than in any other region of the country. We have equally found to our
chagrin that most of the young men and women being used as labourers
on these clandestine farm locations are school age children".
 [snip]
"We are determined more than ever before to smash these cartels. We
are not going to spare anyone hiding under any cover to perpetrate
criminal act. Any attempt to aid and abet or obstruct our
determination to sanitise this geo-political area and the country of
illicit drugs will be vehemently resisted. The Agency will continue to
investigate and trace drug barons to their hideouts. We shall trace
them to their cannabis plantations as we have always done. We shall
also trace them to their secret warehouses and take the battle to
their living rooms. There will be no hiding place for them" Giade
warned.
 [snip]
Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08.n1126.a03.html
***********************************************************************
HOT OFF THE 'NET
-------------------------------
MORE 10TH-GRADERS ARE SMOKING MARIJUANA THAN CIGARETTES
By Aaron Houston, AlterNet
A new survey reveals 13% of 10th-graders reported smoking marijuana in
the past 30 days, while just 12.3 smoked cigarettes.
http://drugsense.org/url/thHLC7GO
===
COULD OBAMA'S PRO-MARIJUANA COMMERCE SECRETARY SPELL A GOLDEN ERA FOR POT REFORM?
By Scott Thill, AlterNet. Posted December 18, 2008.
Bill Richardson believes we need to "rethink and decriminalize" our
cannabis laws. Now that he's in office, he has the chance to achieve it.
http://drugsense.org/url/YJouW4au
===
CALIFORNIA COPS TO DEA - HELP US UNDERMINE STATE LAW
By Jacob Sullum
Perusing material submitted by the DEA in response to a query from
House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, marijuana reform
activist Dale Gieringer catches the California Police Chiefs
Association actively subverting state law.
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/130638.html
===
GOVERNOR PATERSON'S HOLIDAY RESCUE MISSION
By Anthony Papa
Just about this time last year I wrote to Governor Elliot Spitzer
asking him to go on a personal rescue mission and grant clemency to a
large number of Rockefeller Drug Law offenders who have fully
rehabilitated themselves and already served enormous amounts of time
behind bars under the draconian provisions of mandatory-minimum
sentencing.
http://drugsense.org/url/ltUsxOzK
===
FEDERAL DRUG THREAT ASSESSMENT FINDS PROHIBITION GREATEST DRUG-RELATED MENACE
Well, not in so many words. But anyone reading between the lines of
the National Drug Intelligence Center's National Drug Threat
Assessment 2009 could easily come to that conclusion.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/565/national_drug_threat_assessment_2009
===
WHY HARM REDUCTION MAKES SENSE
By Stanton Peele
These Three Things I Know are True
http://drugsense.org/url/4rvHwykL
===
DRUG TRUTH NETWORK
Cultural Baggage Radio Show - 12/17/08 - Neill Franklin
Neill Franklin, working Baltimore cop with more than 32 years
experience and a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition
http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/?q=node/2177
Century of Lies - 12/16/08 - Vikki Hankins
Vikki Hankins who served 18 years behind bars for crack cocaine + Neal Peirce
of the Washington Post
http://www.drugtruth.net/cms/?q=node/2176
===
CALLSÂ FORÂ DRUG LAW REFORM TOP OBAMA TRANSITION WEBSITE AT CHANGE.GOV
By Amy Long
President-elect Barack Obama offered Americans a unique opportunity to
directly relay their concerns to the incoming administration when his
change.gov website unveiled its "Open for Questions" tool late last
week. The result of that tool's first round of voting may have
surprised Obama and his staff: two of the top ten questions -including
the highest ranking question - concerned marijuana policy and
questions that challenged the drug war in general took 16 of the top
50 spots.
http://blog.aclu.org/author/along/
***********************************************************************
WHAT YOU CAN DO THIS WEEK
--------------------------------------------------
SUPPORT DRUGSENSE AND THE MEDIA AWARENESS PROJECT
With only a two weeks left in 2008, please make your year-end donation
to DrugSense RIGHT NOW! Tax rules may well change with the new
Congress, so don't forget that your contribution to DrugSense is tax
deductible today.
http://drugsense.org/donate/
***********************************************************************
LETTER OF THE WEEK
------------------------------------
LEGALIZING DRUGS MIGHT BE GOOD FOR OUR SOCIETY
By Calvin C. Acuff, M.D.
I was a youngster when Franklin Roosevelt ran for president
promising, among other things, to repeal Prohibition. My parents
didn't want alcohol to be legalized. However, since then I have
realized Prohibition was a tremendous idea, but one that didn't work
because people were determined to drink and they got liquor from
bootleggers, moonshiners or imported by Joe Kennedy ( making him
fabulously wealthy ). Today alcohol is freely available and is
controlled fairly well and taxed.
I notice that people who want to smoke pot, drink alcohol and use
other drugs are going to get them one way or another. The drug
dealers are the ones benefitting by keeping them illegal while the
government could tax these drugs and the dealers would lose their
source of income.
We have spent multiple billions on the drug war and we are no closer
to winning than we were 20 years ago. There is the saying that to
repeat the same action over and over and expect a different result
is a sure sign of stupidity. If we learned something from how we
dealt with alcohol, why not apply it to other drugs?
One of the immediate benefits we would see is that overcrowding of
prisons would end or at least greatly decrease. Lest anyone think
I'm advocating the use of alcohol and other drugs, let me explain.
During my 40 years of medical practice, I saw many people ruin their
lives and destroy their brains. I have never seen one person who was
better in any way from using alcohol and other drugs. Even one drink
impairs one's judgment and functional ability. I have never smoked,
tasted alcohol or used any illegal drug because there is not one
benefit in any of them.
I believe the only solution is to legalize and control drugs as we
have alcohol. People who are determined to use drugs will get them
one way or another.
Calvin C. Acuff, M.D.
Pubdate: Thu, 11 Dec 2008
Source: Morganton News Herald, The (NC)
***********************************************************************
FEATURE ARTICLE
-------------------------------
Drug Czar of My Dreams
By Matthew M. Elrod
For over 35 years America's war at home, the Drug War, has been
raging. Owing in large part to drug war excesses, the United States
now locks up more of its citizens than any nation on earth -- more
than 2.3 million, with half a million of them behind bars for
nonviolent drug offenses alone. That is more than Western Europe,
with a much higher population, incarcerates for all crimes combined.
The historic election of Barack Obama signals a unique opportunity
to begin to heal one of America's worst open sores and end the drug
war, but that is not going to happen unless President-elect Obama
nominates someone exceptional to the position of drug czar, or
director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.
The appointment of "moderate" will not be sufficient, particularly
when President-elect Obama's stated goals are to repeal the harshest
drug sentences, remove federal bans on syringe-exchange funding to
reduce HIV/AIDS, allow medical cannabis research, and support
treatment alternatives for low-level drug offenders.
The Christian Science Monitor recently opined, "In his selection of
a 'drug czar,' President-elect Obama needs to place more emphasis on
addiction as a health problem," Christian Science Monitor, December
3, 2008. Columnist Maia Szalavitz, who covers addiction and
treatment issues, perhaps put it best, "We need someone who knows
the science, recognizes that there are many paths to recovery -- and
understands that dead addicts can't recover," "Obama Drug Czar Pick:
No Recovery from War on Drugs?", Huffington Post, November 21, 2008.
A significant reallocation of scarce resources from criminal justice
to public health solutions is long overdue, but drug policy is
multi-disciplinary and international in scope. We have had cops,
doctors and soldiers. Call me crazy, but I think our drug czar
should be an experienced drug policy expert who comprehends the full
breadth, depth and importance of this issue on day one.
I have seen Reps. Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul, and Judge Jim P.
Gray suggested in comments appended to articles and blog posts on
the topic, but I think Dr. Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of
the Drug Policy Alliance, personifies the consummate drug policy
expert, in both domestic and international affairs, that I would
like to see directing the drug czar's office.
To this end, I started a petition called, "Drug Czar of My Dreams,"
http://www.drugczarofmydreams.com/
Perhaps Nadelmann for drug czar is too much to hope for but, with
any luck, this petition will at least encourage President-elect
Obama to think twice about his choice of drug czar. In addition to
your signature and feedback, I would appreciate your help with
promoting this petition.
Matthew M. Elrod is co-founder and webmaster of DrugSense/MAP.
***********************************************************************
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
------------------------------------
"Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
***********************************************************************
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