The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue #121 - Jan. 15, 2000 A Publication of the Drug Reform Coordination Network -------- PLEASE COPY AND DISTRIBUTE -------- (To sign off this list, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the line signoff drc-natl in the body of the message, or mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] for assistance. To subscribe to this list, visit <http://www.drcnet.org/signup.html>.) This issue can be also be read on our web site at <http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html>. ================ 1. Drug Reform 2000: A Ballot Measure Overview http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html#initiatives 2. Clinton Administration Will Propose $1.2 Billion Aid Package to Colombia http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html#colombia 3. Some California Needle Exchange Programs Emerge from Shadows as New Law Takes Effect http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html#canep 4. Columbia, Missouri Initiative Would Lessen Impact of Higher Education Act Drug Provision http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html#hea 5. Scotland Unveils Drug Enforcement Agency http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html#sdea 6. News in Brief http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html#newsbriefs 7. Editorial: The Highest Office in the Land http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html#editorial ================ 1. Drug Reform 2000: A Ballot Measure Overview http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html#initiatives The initiative process has become an effective tool for drug policy reform, as evidenced by the medical marijuana initiative victories across the country in 1996, 1998, and most recently in Maine in 1999. This year a new set of initiatives on drug treatment diversion and civil asset forfeiture reform is being planned for California and Massachusetts by a new national group, Campaign for New Drug Policies (CNDP). Like Americans for Medical Rights, the group that sponsored medical marijuana initiatives in six states, CNDP has received funding from philanthropists George Soros, John Sperling, and Peter Lewis. The California initiative would offer drug treatment instead of incarceration for non-violent drug offenses -- and this treatment is more than just therapy. The services are to include literacy training, job training and family counseling. Like Arizona's drug diversion law, passed in 1996, campaigners expect this initiative to save the state a great deal in incarceration costs. While in Arizona the program has saved the state $2.5 million with 2,622 non-violent offenders participating, the California state Legislative Analyst's Office estimates that the measure would provide net savings to the state of between $100 million to $150 million per year with an additional $50 million net savings to the counties. By taking 25,000 people per year that would have served prison or jail time and putting them in treatment, the initiative may eliminate the construction of a new prison at a cost of $500 million. The initiative also goes beyond the Arizona law, in that treatment will be available to parolees caught with drugs, provided they have no violent felonies on their records. Campaign spokesman Dave Fratello said of the initiative, "This will help California end its dependence on punishment and prisons as our principal responses to drug abuse. In doing so, we can radically reduce spending on failed policies, and conserve jail and prison space for truly dangerous offenders." In Massachusetts, the Committee for Forfeiture Reform has qualified an initiative that not only calls for diverting money and property seized in drug busts away from the police and into drug treatment programs, but also protects property rights by requiring the government to prove that property was used to facilitate a drug crime. Finally, the measure expands the eligibility of drug offenders for drug treatment as an alternative to incarceration. The additional treatment costs will be paid for through asset forfeiture. Of great concern to the Massachusetts campaign is preventing the state's police from turning asset forfeiture cases over to federal authorities in order to redirect the proceeds to themselves. According to federal law, local and state police departments who transfer forfeiture cases to the federal government stand to see as much as 80% of the value of the assets returned to them. When the state of Missouri passed a law mandating that seized asset forfeiture money go to education, that pipeline of educational monies vanished when state police federalized many asset forfeiture cases. The Massachusetts initiative will impose criminal penalties, which could include up to a year in jail, upon police who launder money through federal asset forfeiture. The police and District Attorneys in Massachusetts have already expressed opposition to the measure because they feel it will rob them of needed funding. In Arizona, a sweeping marijuana decriminalization initiative has been sponsored by The People Have Spoken, another Sperling, Soros and Lewis-backed group that successfully passed an initiative last year safeguarding the state's 1996 drug policy reform initiative. The new initiative proposes changes in asset forfeiture laws, as well as marijuana decriminalization, and codifies a prescription and distribution system for medical marijuana. Under the initiative, the penalty for possession of less than two ounces of marijuana would be reduced from a misdemeanor to a maximum $500 dollar fine. Police would no longer arrest marijuana smokers, but would instead issue citations. Also, property forfeited from drug dealers would go to drug treatment and gang prevention programs rather than the police department. Police found violating this provision would be liable for civil penalties up to three times the amount seized. To improve access to medical marijuana, Arizona doctors would be allowed to prescribe it through a program supervised by the Arizona Attorney General. Under the new rules, the Attorney General's office would keep a registry of qualified patients and deliver marijuana to patients from the Federal Compassionate Use program or tested, confiscated marijuana. Preliminary polling in Maricopa County, which includes the city of Phoenix, found 70 percent supported the initiative with only 21 percent opposed. Meanwhile, Americans for Medical Rights will manage campaigns for two medical marijuana initiatives begun in 1998. Nevada law requires that voters in that state, who approved a medical marijuana initiative in 1998, must vote again in 2000 to ratify the constitutional amendment proposed in that measure. And in Colorado, a judge has declared that the state must place a medical marijuana initiative on the 2000 ballot after it was wrongly disqualified in 1998. Exit polls conducted during the '98 vote, when it appeared on the ballot but was not officially tallied, indicated the initiative would have passed by 60%. Other possible drug policy reform initiatives on the 2000 ballot, which are not backed by Soros, Sperling and Lewis, include marijuana legalization and drug decriminalization in Alaska, a medical marijuana initiative in Arkansas that will allow patients to use up to six pounds of the drug each year, and a marijuana legalization initiative in Michigan (http://www.ballot2000.net). ================ 2. Clinton Administration Will Propose $1.2 Billion Aid Package to Colombia http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html#colombia As stories of a broken cease-fire between government and rebel forces filtered out of Bogota this week, U.S. newspapers reported that the Clinton Administration is moving ahead with plans for a $1.2 billion "anti-drug" military aid package to Colombia. The amount is a fourfold increase from what the country received last year, when it was the third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid behind Egypt and Israel. The aid package has been championed for months by retired General Barry McCaffrey, former chief of U.S. military operations in Latin America but now better known as Clinton's "Drug Czar." McCaffrey has argued that the extensive military aid in the form of weaponry, equipment and both combat and intelligence training is necessary to fight the drug war in that country. But will the plan only hasten the U.S. descent into a Vietnam War-style military quagmire in Colombia? Although the Pentagon has reportedly insisted that it can make sure U.S. aid is used only on the drug war front, it has lobbied to ensure that the aid goes only to the Colombian military, and not to civilian police agencies. This is in line with McCaffrey's contention that the vast increases in coca production in Colombia in recent years have occurred mainly in areas held by rebel forces of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) -- a fact disputed by U.N. officials assigned to oversee coca eradication in FARC-held territories -- but raises concerns among human rights advocates who cite a long record of abuses by the military. Sanho Tree, director of the Washington based Institute for Policy Studies' Drug Policy Project, was not convinced by reassurances from Pentagon and Clinton Administration officials that U.S. oversight will prevent further human rights abuses in Colombia. "They say they're going to monitor the human rights situation and purge violators from the army," Tree told The Week Online. "But there are no jobs, so when these people leave the army, they join the paramilitaries," where abuses continue unchecked. Moreover, Tree explained, the interdiction and eradication programs which the aid package is supposed to fund are widely acknowledged to be the least effective strategies for reducing illicit drug use in the United States. According to a 1999 report from the Government Accounting Office, more than one half billion U.S. dollars spent on interdiction and eradication of Colombian coca products in the past decade, including record seizures and lab destructions in 1998, had no impact on the availability of Colombian cocaine in the U.S. Nor are such strategies cost effective -- a 1994 study by the RAND Corporation found that providing treatment to cocaine users in the U.S. is 10 times more effective than interdiction, and 23 times more effective than eradication. Given that eradication and interdiction are largely ineffective, and the likelihood that the U.S. is being drawn deeper into Colombia's civil war, why would the U.S. consider a massive increase in funding for just these policies? Tree said that SOUTHCOM, the U.S. military's Latin American operation and McCaffrey's former command post, depends mightily upon the drug war for its subsistence. "Without the drug war, SOUTHCOM would be a coast guard," Tree said. "It's one of the few areas in the military that really wants to fight the drug war. It's their bread and butter." Tree said it's unlikely the proposed aid package will encounter much resistance in Congress, and compared it to the passage of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in 1964, which sealed the U.S. entrance into the Vietnam War. "Back then, all the Congressmen were afraid of looking soft on Communism. Now they're afraid of looking soft on drugs. Most know it's a failed policy, but they're afraid to take a stand." What will it take to impel them to take a stand? "Body bags, filled with U.S. soldiers," Tree said. The Institute for Policy Studies is on the web at <http://www.ips-dc.org>. Read more about the militarization of the drug war in Latin America at the Lindesmith Center web site: http://www.lindesmith.org/library/international_index2.html ================ 3. Some California Needle Exchange Programs Emerge from Shadows as New Law Takes Effect http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html#canep The dawn of 2000 brought a glimmer of hope to California's 24 syringe exchange programs and a wait-and-see attitude from several veterans of one of drug policy reform's highest-stakes battlegrounds. As of January 1st, a new law protects syringe exchange practitioners in the state from prosecution -- if the locality they serve declares a public-health emergency and re-declares the emergency every two weeks. The statute is a weaker version of a bill that California Governor Gray Davis had threatened to veto last year. The original bill would have acknowledged the effectiveness of syringe exchange programs in combating the spread of hepatitis C and HIV, and would have allowed such programs to operate without a public-emergency declaration. Davis signed the weaker bill last October. To date, the cities of Los Angeles and Berkeley, as well as Marin, Alameda, San Francisco, Contra Costa, Santa Cruz and San Mateo counties, have declared public health emergencies. "It's tough to know the exact implications," says Alex Kral, an epidemiologist at the University of California-San Francisco who studies drug use, HIV/AIDS and needle exchange. "The law probably helps the most in places where the political environment supports needle exchange but where they haven't yet declared an emergency." By contrast, Kral says the new law does nothing in places where public health and elected officials are hostile to needle exchange. An example is Fresno, where the San Joaquin Valley Needle Exchange has had several people arrested. "It could be everything and it could be nothing," says Heather Edney-Meschery, executive director of the Santa Cruz Needle Exchange (SCNE). "My sense is that we'll be less vulnerable, and so far the level of harassment has gone down." SCNE has worked for almost a decade with local government officials, police and the health department. "We're agents of the Health Department, and we contract with the county," Meschery reports. "That's how we get some of our funding. Ultimately, making these programs work requires both the right policy and enough funding." Meschery believes the new law might make the private sector more open to supporting syringe exchange. DRCNet board member Joey Tranchina, who operates the nonprofit AIDS Prevention Action Network in Redwood City, about 25 miles south of San Francisco, believes needle exchange "should have been made legal by national fiat long ago." Tranchina has been a pioneer in needle exchange since 1990 and has had numerous run-ins with local law enforcement. "It's far from an ideal law," he said of the new statute. "It's sort of the minimum you could do in terms of changing the law, but I think we have a better chance when local communities can declare an emergency. We're simply not coming to terms with the hepatitis C epidemic right now -- that's my focus." According to the San Francisco Chronicle, health officials in San Mateo County, Tranchina's home base, estimated in December that 13,000 residents may be infected with hepatitis C, a leading cause of chronic liver disease. That figure is 10 times the number of county residents who are infected with HIV. Rich Gordon, a member of San Mateo County's Board of Supervisors, told the Menlo Park Almanac that the supervisors "believe this gives him [Tranchina] greater opportunities to secure funding for his operation. The bottom line of what Joey's doing is saving lives." Dr. Denis Israelski, chief of infectious diseases and AIDS medicine at the county's Health Center, told the Almanac that not providing clean needles to injection drug users "has been a terrible failure of public health policy. It's cheap, it's easy, it's effective. It doesn't lead to increased needle use." ================ 4. Columbia, Missouri Initiative Would Lessen Impact of Higher Education Act Drug Provision http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html#hea A provision of the Higher Education Act of 1998, which will go into effect in July of 2000, will deny eligibility for federal education loans, grants or work-study to anyone convicted in state or federal courts of the possession or sale of any illegal substance. Students and other concerned citizens in the college town Columbia, Missouri, home of the oldest and largest campus of the University of Missouri system, have undertaken an effort to place before voters, through the initiative process, an ordinance which would reduce the impact of the new law. The proposal would require that most misdemeanor marijuana and marijuana paraphernalia cases be handled in the Municipal Court. Since the law specifies that only convictions in state or federal courts will disqualify a person for federal education aid, cases which are referred to the municipal court should have no impact on eligibility. An added incentive for the passage of the ordinance is that students would avoid a permanent criminal record, as conviction in municipal court is a non-criminal violation of a city ordinance. For more information about the Columbia initiative, or to find out how you can help get it passed, contact attorney Dan Viets at (573) 433-6866. RAISE YOUR VOICE! Visit http://www.raiseyourvoice.com to learn more about the Higher Education Act drug provision and sign our petition to Congress. ================ 5. Scotland Unveils Drug Enforcement Agency http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html#sdea Kerie Sprenger for DRCNet, [EMAIL PROTECTED] With the aims of reducing the availability of drugs in Scotland, smashing organized drug rings, and arresting drug traffickers and suppliers, plans for the new Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency were unveiled by Deputy Justice Minister Angus MacKay in Paisley last month. In a press release issued by John Booth of the Information Directorate, it was revealed that the SDEA will appoint a Director, hire 200 new officers for the fledgling organization, and begin mapping the agency's strategies and tactics in February. The SDEA will have a o10 million budget for its first two years, and thereafter their budget will be confirmed annually by Parliament, as are all police agency budgets in Scotland. The overriding concept of the SDEA, according to Scottish Executive Spokesman Richard Bailey, is to enhance the passage of communication between agencies such as the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) and HM Customs and Excise (HMCE), so that the network of agencies is capable of everything from identifying, tracking and proving a drug crime, to the arrest of suspects. The SDEA will encourage cooperation and allow agencies to operate at the correct time in an investigation, as well as help prevent overlaps of investigational jurisdiction. The SDEA has existed as an informal agency for over a year. Its unveiling in an official capacity is intended to formalize its working procedures and give government backing to an existing program. When asked whether the SDEA would resemble the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency in its procedures and the scope of its power, a seemingly startled Mr. Bailey told the Week Online, "The SDEA will have to act within existing law. It might be able to highlight areas where the law is weak and perhaps stimulate change by bringing it to the attention of policy makers, but it will have no ability to make its own laws... Parliament will remain in control of the law." "Ultimately," he added, "the operating procedures of the SDEA will be self-regulated, though the actual methods will have to fit within existing law." Mr. Bailey further said that operating procedures dealing with internal policy will be changeable by the organization in a bid to keep it flexible. The Scottish government intends to monitor the SDEA carefully to avoid mistakes made by similar agencies in other parts of the world. "Of course, every country offers its own complexity to the problem," he said. ================ 6. News in Brief http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html#newsbriefs Guards Plead Guilty in Beating Death Two guards at the Nassau County Jail in New York pled guilty this week in the fatal beating death of Thomas Pizzuto last January. Pizzuto, a recovering heroin addict serving 90 days for traffic violations, had repeatedly called out for his methadone. Guard Edward Velazquez admitted this week that he and guard Patrick Regnier went to the cell to "quiet him down and use unreasonable force if necessary. The pleas come a week after a third guard, Ivano Bavaro, admitted to being a lookout, pleading guilty to witness tampering and conspiracy. Scott Family to Get $5 Million Settlement for Shooting Death An agreement has been reached between the state of California, the county of Los Angeles and the family of Donald P. Scott that will give Scott's family $5 million in compensation for his death at the hands of police. Scott, a 61 year-old millionaire, was shot dead in his home by agents of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office as they executed a no-knock warrant looking for marijuana. No drugs were ever found on the property, and a subsequent investigation by Ventura County District Attorney Michael Bradbury concluded that the warrant was secured with false information. "Clearly one of the primary purposes was a land grab by the Sheriff's Department," he told reporters. ================ 7. Editorial: The Highest Office in the Land http://www.drcnet.org/wol/121.html#editorial Adam J. Smith, Associate Director, [EMAIL PROTECTED] On your marks... Get set... Next week, the campaign for the U.S. Presidency gets underway in earnest, with the Iowa Caucus and the New Hampshire Primary kicking off a frantic period of condensed primaries for both major parties. And while drug policy reform has not been a major issue for any of the four contenders, the drug issue, in the form of questions about past use and its relationship to current federal policies, is sure to rear its head once again. On the Republican side, George W. Bush has denied, sort of, using cocaine, at least since 1982, or 1974, depending upon how one decodes his series of responses to questions posed late last year. While Bush has been at least partially successful in quieting the issue, in the absence of credible witnesses or other hard evidence, his inability to give a straight answer to the question -- have you or haven't you - - leads one to believe that somewhere out there, there are people who can substantiate the rumors. If that is the case, it is likely that such accusations will surface, given the visibility of a presidential campaign and all that is at stake. On the Democratic side, both Bradley and Gore have admitted to "experimenting" with marijuana, though both have denied ever using cocaine. Bradley has said that his drug use happened during his NBA days, while Gore claims to have imbibed during his college years. As to Gore, rumors abound in Washington that his drug use stretched long beyond college graduation. If anyone does come forward to substantiate these, it would surely be a major story. Senator John McCain, a Republican, is thus the only major contender to have credibly denied ever using an illegal intoxicant. This would seem to fit with McCain's upbringing, as a child in a military family, who joined the service at a young age. The issue of "did they or didn't they, and, if so, what, when and how much," has relevance beyond its prurient value. That is, how would a man justify overseeing a budget that is likely to approach or surpass $20 billion, the lion's share of which will be spent to find, prosecute and incarcerate drug users, when "there but for the grace of God" (or perhaps daddy's money) went he? How can he stand, straight- faced and tell the American people that nearly 700,000 marijuana arrests (85% for simple possession), the incarceration of more than one million non-violent offenders, the creation of the world's most lucrative black market, and the diminution of constitutional protections is the way that the nation should deal with people such as himself? The President of the United States? The next three months will determine who, among these four, will carry the banners of the two major parties into the race for the highest office in the land. If it turns out that one or both nominees would have qualified for the very prisons that the President, ultimately, holds the responsibility of filling, then there will certainly be some explaining to do. Especially to the families and loved ones of those non-violent drug offenders who will never have the luxury of claiming that their "youthful indiscretions" ought not disqualify them from making the most of the rest of their adult lives. ----------------------------------------------------------- DRCNet needs your support! Donations can be sent to 2000 P St., NW, Suite 210, Washington, DC 20036, or made by credit card at <http://www.drcnet.org/drcreg.html>. Donations to the Drug Reform Coordination Network are not tax-deductible. Deductible contributions supporting our educational work can be made by check to the DRCNet Foundation, a 501(c)(3) tax- exempt organization, same address. PERMISSION to reprint or redistribute any or all of the contents of The Week Online is hereby granted. We ask that any use of these materials include proper credit and, where appropriate, a link to one or more of our web sites. 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