The Week Online with DRCNet, Issue #101 - July 30, 1999 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/101.html>. ================ TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. House Reinstates "Social Riders" in District of Colombia Appropriations Bill http://www.drcnet.org/wol/101.html#riderspass 2. New Mexico Republicans Stop Short of Repudiating Governor http://www.drcnet.org/wol/101.html#nmrepublicans 3. Jamaica: Lawmakers Consider Decriminalization of Marijuana, Medical Marijuana Research Facility http://www.drcnet.org/wol/101.html#jamaica 4. Clinton Administration Proposes Changes to Methadone Regulations http://www.drcnet.org/wol/101.html#methadoneregs 5. Army Spy Plane Disappears Over Colombia, Speculation of Coming US Intervention Abounds http://www.drcnet.org/wol/101.html#planecrashes 6. Australian State to Open Legal Heroin Injecting Room http://www.drcnet.org/wol/101.html#newsouthwales 7. DEA Chief Acknowledges Agency's Ineffectiveness http://www.drcnet.org/wol/101.html#deachief 8. Newsbriefs http://www.drcnet.org/wol/101.html#newsbriefs 9. Senate Considering Raising Methamphetamine Penalties http://www.drcnet.org/wol/101.html#methpenalties 10. EDITORIAL: Body Bags http://www.drcnet.org/wol/101.html#editorial ================ 1. House Reinstates "Social Riders" in District of Colombia Appropriations Bill Taylor West, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Celebrations over last week's victories in the House Appropriations Committee disintegrated Thursday as riders to ban the use of local funds for needle exchange and for a medical marijuana initiative were tacked on to the District of Columbia spending bill during debate on the House floor. Both of these riders were removed last week in the House Appropriations Committee through amendments offered by Representative James P. Moran (D-VA). However, each was reentered into debate on the House floor Thursday. Representative Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) sponsored the amendment to ban all public funding of needle exchange in the District; it passed by a vote of 241-187. Perennial Drug War hawk Bob Barr (R-GA) continued his crusade against DC's 1998 public referendum on medical marijuana, sponsoring an amendment to disallow the implementation of medical marijuana measures, should such measures be accepted by the will of the DC voters. The votes themselves have as yet to be counted, having been impounded by a Barr amendment to last year's DC budget. Barr's amendment to this year's budget passed Thursday by a voice vote, meaning individual Congresspersons' votes were not recorded. The Tiahrt amendment underwent a full hour of debate on the floor before an inconclusive voice vote was taken. The roll call vote was postponed until later in the afternoon. When that vote was taken, 201 Republicans and 40 Democrats elected to deny DC the right to use its own funds to finance a needle exchange in the city. (See how your rep voted at <http://clerkweb.house.gov/cgi- bin/vote.exe?year=1999&rollnumber=344>.) This year's Barr amendment took a slightly different approach than the one added to the DC budget last year. Last year, the budget forbade the use of any funds to count and certify the initiative. The ballots have been impounded since the referendum took place in November. This year's amendment allows the votes to be counted, but immediately overturns any result in favor of decriminalizing the medical use of marijuana. Under normal circumstances, if the initiative passed, the House, the Senate, and the Presidential administration would have 30 days in which to legislatively block it. If any one of those three bodies did not sign on, the initiative would become law. Barr's amendment supplants that review process by creating an automatic block. It passed by an uncounted voice vote after approximately 20 minutes of debate. DC Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) expressed dismay at the attachment of these riders, both on the floor during debate and in a press release following the votes. Addressing the Tiahrt amendment in the press statement, she remarked, "The prohibition on using our own funds to save the lives of our own people was unconscionable. We can't live with that result because kids and adults won't live if we do." On the floor, she praised DC Mayor Anthony Williams and the DC City Council for creating a responsible, balanced budget that included "prudent investments" in human services. "Their work should not be undermined by the imposition of the personal preferences of Members [of Congress] on a local jurisdiction when Members are not accountable to local voters." The struggle over DC's spending rights will continue as a conference committee attempts to resolve the differences between House and Senate versions of the bill. The Senate included neither of these social riders in the draft that they passed. A final resort lies in the possibility for a presidential veto. The Clinton administration supports the right of localities to operate needle exchanges and has stated its displeasure at the DC budget riders. ================ 2. New Mexico Republicans Stop Short of Repudiating Governor Republican officials in New Mexico have gone out of their way in recent weeks to distance themselves from Governor Gary Johnson's statements regarding the need to reassess the drug war, but they stopped short of endorsing a platform plank against the decriminalization of currently illicit drugs. Instead, the party has decided to send a letter to the governor outlining the official Republican position on drugs. State party chair Brian Dendahl argued against the resolution, writing a letter to all forty members of the committee urging them to hold off on the resolution for fear of signaling a split in their ranks. "As I write this I worry that the resolution would be perceived as a direct slap of Governor Johnson by our committee," he wrote. Johnson's recent statements, including his repeated assertion that he does not believe that smoking marijuana ought to be considered a crime, have gotten wide play in New Mexico, both in the media and in the political arena. Johnson's fellow Republicans, in particular, have gone out of their way to publicly disagree with their governor. Johnson, however, has told the media that the mail he has received on the issue is running "10 to 1" in favor of his proposal to study the situation. All 112 seats of the New Mexico legislature are up for grabs next year. Steve Bunch, director of the New Mexico Drug Policy Foundation and coordinator of the New Mexico Alliance for Drug Policy Reform, told The Week Online that he is encouraged by the surge in interest that the governor's statements have brought to the issue, but that there is a lot of work to be done before real change can be foreseen. "Right now there is a tremendous opportunity to educate people in the state as to the damage being done by current policies. We're certainly not at the point where we're looking for legislative initiatives, but we also know that when people become aware of the real impact of the drug war, the expense, the civil liberties issues, and especially the fact that this policy is egregiously failing our kids, they tend to get very interested in discussing alternative strategies. It's up to us to get the message out, to educate potential allies and to make it as politically dangerous to ignore the problem as it is now to face the problem." ================ 3. Jamaica: Lawmakers Consider Decriminalization of Marijuana, Medical Marijuana Research Facility (courtesy NORML Foundation, http://www.norml.org) July 29, 1999, Kingston, Jamaica: The Jamaican Senate is considering legislation that would make the possession of small amounts of marijuana a non-criminal offense and establish a research center to study the drug's medical potential. "It cannot be right and it cannot be just to continue to criticize Jamaicans for private, personal use [of marijuana], while more toxic substances, namely alcohol and cigarettes, used in public in excessive quantities attract no criminal sanction," said Sen. Trevor Munroe (Independent), who is backing both measures. A Joint Select Committee of Parliament first recommended Jamaica decriminalize marijuana in 1977. That committee also endorsed allowing doctors to legally prescribe marijuana. Parliament failed to enact either recommendation. Senator Munroe's motion would establish a similar government committee to study the marijuana issue. ================ 4. Clinton Administration Proposes Changes to Methadone Regulations The US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) this week proposed new regulations for methadone treatment, including a federally supervised accreditation system for all methadone clinics that is intended to improve standards of care nationwide. Currently, some 800 methadone clinics, serving 180,000 patients, operate around the country under widely varying state regulations. Since 1972, federal oversight for methadone programs has been the responsibility of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which focused more on making sure methadone was not diverted from clinics to the street than upon the quality of care patients received. Under the new proposal, that responsibility would shift to the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA), which would manage the accreditation process. Methadone, widely acknowledged to be the most effective medical treatment for heroin addiction, has long been the most regulated drug in the US pharmacopoeia. Even patients who have remained successfully in treatment for years are required to submit to frequent drug tests, and are allowed no more than a six day supply of the drug without a special dispensation from the FDA. The proposal suggests options that could offer clinics and users greater flexibility, based upon individual circumstances, and opens the door to physicians being allowed to prescribe methadone in private practice. The proposed changes were hailed as "a major step forward" by White House drug policy chief General Barry McCaffrey, who said they represent "a fundamental shift in the way we approach drug abuse treatment in our nation." McCaffrey, who has vociferously opposed HIV-prevention measures such as needle exchange, has nevertheless been an outspoken supporter of methadone maintenance. Last year, he went to bat on the issue against New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who wanted to shut down that city's methadone programs. But not all methadone advocates are as enthusiastic about the proposed changes as McCaffrey. DRCNet spoke with Dr. Robert Newman, president of Continuum Health Partners, which operates the country's largest and oldest methadone program at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. "To the extent that the goal is to expand treatment capacity, it's not clear to me how this proposal will be effective," Newman said. "It basically replaces one regulatory process with another, and the new process seems more complicated, and is certainly, according to DHHS, twice as expensive. I don't see any way that general practicing physicians will be able to accommodate the requirements, especially such unprecedented requirements as developing a plan to prevent diversion of the medication." DHHS estimates that once the new regulations are in place, reporting requirements for an accredited clinic or practitioner will take at least 1,300 hours per year -- fewer than under the current rules, but still a terrific burden for a general practitioner. Still another obstacle to greater access to methadone is state regulations, which in many cases are more restrictive than the current federal laws. Eight states ban methadone altogether, forcing some addicts who want treatment to drive long distances as often as several times a week. While states will have to cede their certification powers to the federal accreditation program, the new federal regulations would not prevent states from imposing further restrictions, including banning the drug. Nevertheless, many methadone advocates are hopeful that the proposal is a step in the right direction. "I'm hoping that one of the main things this will do is bring methadone into mainstream medicine," said Joycelyn Woods, executive vice president of the National Alliance of Methadone Advocates. Woods said she was encouraged that patients were included in the process of developing the new regulations, and that SAMHSA was better equipped to address patient concerns than the FDA. "They've put a lot of thought into inviting everybody into this, and trying to make it work by creating a system that is more open and responsive than what it was. And I think if you've got that, you've taken your first baby steps," she said. The proposed regulations will be open to public comment until November 19, 1999, after which they will undergo a formal review by DHHS. The final rules are expected next year. The full text of the proposal is online via the SAMHSA web site, at <http://www.samhsa.gov/990722link.htm>. To learn more, visit the web site of the National Alliance of Methadone Advocates at <http://www.methadone.org>, and the Lindesmith Center methadone "focal point" at <http://www.lindesmith.org/library/focal3.html>. Also see http://www.drcnet.org/methadone for "Prescribing Methadone, Pursuing Abstinence" by Dr. Robert Newman, as well as DRCNet's interview with Dr. Newman from issue #51 of the Week Online, <http://www.drcnet.org/wol/051.html#newman>. ================ 5. Army Spy Plane Disappears Over Colombia, Speculations of Coming US Intervention Abound A US Army spy plane disappeared over Colombian rebel territory last Friday, days before an official five day tour of the region by US drug czar Barry McCaffrey. McCaffrey told a news conference in Bogota on Monday that "[T]he evidence so far would indicate that the five brave American aviators and two Colombian air force officers have probably lost their lives in a fatal accident." Searchers on Wednesday confirmed that the plane had slammed into the side of a Colombia mountain, and that they had pulled four bodies out of the wreckage. The crash has draw attention to the issue of growing US military involvement in Colombia. According to the Los Angeles Times, (7/28), 160 service personnel and 30 civilian Department of Defense employees are stationed in Colombia, on missions including drug crop eradication, the installation and use of spying equipment, the operation of reconnaissance planes like the one that crashed, and the training of Colombian anti-narcotics battalions. US military activity in Colombia first became significant in 1993, taking the form of humanitarian work such as road building and other infrastructure and health work. Last year, American personnel traveled to Colombia to participate in seven special joint training projects of 30 to 40 people each. The plane's disappearance, the growing US support to the Colombian military, and frequent visits to Bogota by high- ranking US officials, have fueled speculation among Colombians about possible US intervention, according to the Associated Press on 7/26. The Colombian paper El Espectador ran an editorial the same day discussing intervention (http://www.elespectador.com/9907/26/opnotici.htm). While US officials continue to insist that they are interested in counternarcotics (fighting drugs), not in counterinsurgency (fighting the rebels), they also admit that the distinction between the two types of operations has become blurred. According to a Reuters story on 7/26, McCaffrey told reporters before leaving Miami on Sunday that the line between counternarcotics and counterinsurgency no longer existed. McCaffrey has asked Congress to approve a $1 billion increase in counternarcotics spending in Latin America, with $570 billion specified for Colombia. Stan Goff, a former member of the US Special Forces, wrote in The (Raleigh, NC) News and Observer, that "When I was training Colombian Special Forces in Tolemaida [Colombia] in 1992, my team was there allegedly to aid the counternarcotics effort. Narcotics were the cover story for a similar trip to Peru in 1991. In both cases we were giving military forces training in infantry counterinsurgency doctrine" The rhetorical focus by US officials on Colombia's civil war and rebel forces represents a marked shift from the focus on individual "drug lords" and cartels that dominated the discussion during the 80's and most of this decade. Headlines screamed out the evil-doings and fates of a steady stream of "archenemies of the day," as each drug kingpin and trafficking organization gave way to the next, for example: 1988: Mexican police arrest drug lord Angel Felix Gallardo; 1/93: Colombian kingpin Ivan Urdinola gets 17 years; 6/93: Mexican police kill top cocaine trafficker Emilio Quintero Payan; 12/93: Medellin cartel chief Pablo Escobar killed by Colombian police and military; 1995: Cali leader Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela and other Cali Cartel leaders arrested; 2/96: Mexican kingpin Juan Garcia-Abrego arrested; 3/96: Escaped Cali Cartel leader Jose Santacruz Londono killed; 7/97: Mexican kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes dies during plastic surgery intended to conceal his identity. The demise of individual drug lords and trafficking organizations, however, has not had a long-term impact on the availability of cocaine. According to the DEA's STRIDE report, the average purity-adjusted US street price of cocaine has dropped more than 50 percent, from $379 per pure gram in 1981 to $179 in 1997, while the dealer-level price has dropped 75 percent, from $191 to $46. A report released last month by the US General Accounting Office stated that the Medellin and Cali cartels had been replaced by "hundreds of smaller and more decentralized organizations" capable of producing a "black cocaine" that is extremely difficult to detect. The Wisconsin-based Columbia Support Network (http://www.igc.org/csn/) issued a statement yesterday urging President Clinton and Congress to reject McCaffrey's proposal, calling instead for the US to support the peace process and nonviolent grassroots community organizations, such as the Peace Community in Urab and civilian organizations in the Middle Magdalena region. Cecilia Zarate of CSN told the Week Online, "Colombia has been in the middle of a civil war for most of this century, and the civil war is caused by deep structural characteristics of Colombian society, mainly that the country is not very wealthy, and most of the wealth is concentrated in a few hands. And the country, although formally a political democracy, is really not one in practice. It's a society that excludes people politically, economically and socially. This situation generated a movement that has been active since the beginning of the century, basically at the beginning for issues of land." Zarate continued, "I am not apologizing for the rebels. They make money from charging taxes on peasants that produce coca. But the conflict is more profound, because why do the peasants have to produce coca? Because they have been expelled from the countryside. The drug lords are buying and buying land and expelling the peasants, and using private armies like the paramilitaries. So, if the United States uses drugs as an excuse to give money to Colombia, because the rebels are involved in getting money from drugs, they also should look at the Colombian army itself, and they should look at the paramilitary leaders, because most of them who are very linked to the Colombian army are drug dealers." Paramilitary organizations are thought to be responsible for most of the 30,000 political murders committed over the past ten years. Rear Admiral Eugene J. Carroll, Jr. (US Navy, retired), Deputy Director of the Center for Defense Information (http://www.cdi.org), believes that military approaches to the drug problem are doomed to failure. Carroll told the Week Online, "The problem is, you can't do a war on drugs. Drugs are an existing problem and have dimensions that extend all the way from the streets of the major cities of the United States, right down into the jungle, and it's almost impossible to win a war against drugs. So if you think that you're going to increase the level of your effort by simply adding more money and more planes and struggling more directly with the problem, I think you're deluding yourself. The drug problem is an enduring and sustained problem that we're going to have to manage over time, and attack the root causes of the problem, not simply pour more money into military operations." Carroll continued, "I believe that the data show that money spent in direct involvement in the military side, trying to act against the source of supply and the routes of transportation, is doomed to failure, and you get very little return on your money. The only potential for making progress in your management is to address the causes of the narcotics problem, and that essentially lies in the demand for the product in the United States. You've got to deal with the demand, because you can't solve the supply problem militarily." (See our report on the Colombia situation and the McCaffrey funding proposal in last week's issue of the Week Online, <http://www.drcnet.org/wol/100.html#fuelfire>.) ================ 6. Australian State to Open Legal Heroin Injecting Room Taylor West, [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Australian state of New South Wales furthered its commitment to harm reduction for its heroin addicts by announcing an intention to set up Australia's first legal heroin injecting room. The facility will offer a medically supervised environment in which addicts can both inject their drugs and get information about treatment, rehabilitation, medical services, and safe injecting practices. The safe injecting room will be operated by the Sisters of Charity Healthcare Services through the drug and alcohol unit of St. Vincent's Hospital. Dr. Alex Wodak, the director of that unit, says that overdose deaths in Australia occurred at a rate of approximately 71.5 per million people in 1997, a figure nearly double that of the United States. By attempting to bring heroin users off the streets and into a medical facility, New South Wales officials hope to greatly reduce those deaths while simultaneously giving addicts greater access to treatment and an atmosphere where they can face the demons of their addiction. The facility itself will be modeled after similar injecting rooms that have been legal in Switzerland for several years. These include a laundry and shower area, where those coming off the street can wash up, a small cafeteria with inexpensive food and drinks, a common area with tables and chairs, and a stark, well-lit, minimally furnished room that serves as the actual injection area. Each area is staffed with medical professionals as well as volunteers, social workers, and drug counselors. Sterile needles are provided, and clients are encouraged to stay in the common area for at least 20 minutes after injecting. During that time, volunteers and counselors may strike up conversations that can lead to treatment and rehabilitation or simply educate the user about health risks and safer practices. Government approval for the injection room is a significant step, even for a country in which harm-minimization has been the offical drug policy since 1985. The Kings Cross injecting room is being billed as a scientific trial, and four top researchers in the fields of drug treatment, criminology, health economics, and epidemiology have been recruited to evaluate the effort. Dr. Wodak told the Week Online that the government has made no permanent commitment to safe injection rooms. "This proposal... has been extensively discussed and carefully considered, " he commented. "It is a trial rather than the establishment of a permanent facility." Drug policy issues have experienced high visibility in New South Wales since the state held a parliamentary Drug Summit in late May. The summit produced 172 recommendations -- the safe injection room among them -- to be considered for implementation and funding by New South Wales Premier Bob Carr. While the Australian federal government has voiced opposition to the injection room trial, the issue is fully within the state's jurisdiction. "This is a state matter," Dr. Wodak explained. "The Prime Minister has acknowledged this and expressed his disapproval. He has indicated that he will not stop this proceeding." Within the state, support and community approval are relatively strong. Dr. Wodak estimates published opinions and letters to the editor are running at about half-and-half in regional newspapers. "There has been impressive support from some very influential leaders in the community." Meanwhile, the nuns of the Sisters of Charity, who will be running the facility, have been quiet but firm in their decision to be involved. In a statement that is the only press access the nuns have granted, the order declared, "The Congregation of the Sisters of Charity believes that compassion and respect for the dignity of human persons compels us to move beyond deliberation to positive action which redresses this most significant health and social issue for our nation." ================ 7. DEA Chief Acknowledges Agency's Ineffectiveness Tyler Green, Drug Policy Foundation, [EMAIL PROTECTED] At a rare Drug Enforcement Administration oversight hearing, acting DEA administrator Donnie Marshall admitted that DEA's techniques would not lower drug use over the long-term. Under questioning from Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), Marshall admitted that no matter how much money DEA spent on supply reduction, prices for cocaine and heroin would never go so high, nor would supply be so low, that the supply of drugs would be cut off. Scott said that he believed that investment in rehabilitation programs, prevention and education would have a better long-term effect on the nation's drug problem. "Good point," Marshall replied, adding that he supported increased budgeting for DEA in the short term to deal with current crime problems. The admission by Marshall at the hearing, which was held by the House Judiciary's Subcommittee on Crime, came days after DEA had admitted to the General Accounting Office that drug arrests often make no impact on local drug trades. "DEA noted that the effectiveness of [certain] deployments in removing a specific, targeted violent drug gang, for example, cannot by itself eliminate a community's drug trafficking problems because DEA cannot continue to control deployment areas to prevent other drug dealers from filling the void that a MET deployment might have created," GAO reported. (The GAO report is entitled "DEA's Strategies and Operations in the 1990s," and has number GAO/GGD-99-108. It can be read online at <http://www.gao.gov/new.items/gg99108.pdf>.) ================ 8. Newsbriefs Jane Tseng, [EMAIL PROTECTED] A New York City police officer has been reinstated to his job despite failing a drug test in which traces of THC, the psychoactive component in marijuana, were detected. The officer, Russel Kain, successfully argued that it was his use of legal hemp oil, and not marijuana, that led to the positive test result. While reinstating Kain, the New York City police department has also changed its policy and will now forbid the use by any officer of any product -- legal or not -- which contains THC. Bruce Farr, dismissed last year from his post as associate warden at Corcoran State Prison by the California Department of Corrections, was named this week as associate warden of High Desert State Prison, a new, maximum security prison in the California State system. Farr was fired from his post at Corcoran for condoning the use of excessive force, incompetence, and inexcusable neglect of duty. Farr appealed his firing and had his punishment reduced to a year's suspension. ================ 9. Senate Considering Raising Methamphetamine Penalties Ted Bridges, Drug Policy Foundation, [EMAIL PROTECTED] On July 28 the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing called "Combating Methamphetamine Proliferation in America." The hearing was prompted by three recently proposed bills on the issue: Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) introduced S. 1428, "The Methamphetamine AntiProliferation Act of 1999" ( 9 cosponsors as of July 29); John Ashcroft (R-MO) introduced S. 486, the "Defeat Meth Act" (7 cosponsors); and Charles Grassley (R-IA) introduced S. 1220, the "Rural Methamphetamine Use Response Act of 1999" (4 cosponsors). "We need to act before meth becomes the next 'crack' cocaine," said Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI). "I hope we can take the best aspects of all three 'meth' measures, pass them, and promptly enact them into law." Typical of the proposed legislation is Senator Hatch's bill, S. 1428. The bill authorizes the hiring of new DEA agents, funds additional training for DEA agents for dealing with toxic chemicals produced by meth laboratories, bans the dissemination of drug "recipes" via such media as the Internet, and imposes a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence on meth manufacturers and traffickers. The only Senator urging caution on Wednesday was Russell Feingold (D-WI), who stressed that law enforcement must be balanced with education and treatment. He also expressed the need to be aware of inefficiencies in mandatory minimum sentences and urged "sensible legislation" on the methamphetamine issue. One of the lead witnesses was Donnie R. Marshall, the acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Marshall warned that methamphetamine trafficking and use has increased exponentially over the last five years. Marshall said that, in 1993, the DEA seized a total of 218 methamphetamine labs, whereas, in 1998, the DEA seized over 1,600. However, he maintains that the DEA is making progress in its fight against the drug as evidenced by an overall decrease in the purity of the drug. According to the DEA, nationally the average purity for methamphetamine has dropped from 60.5 percent in 1995 to 27.2 percent in 1999. Other ideas discussed at the hearing included forcing convicted manufacturers to pay for the cleanup of their laboratories, monitoring more closely the purchase of over- the-counter drugs that contain precursor chemicals (such as Sudafed), and taking measures against those who steal precursor chemicals from farmers in rural areas. The Drug Policy Foundation recommends writing members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to urge them not to enact harsher penalties, especially without having seen the results of previous legislation. Congress only just increased penalties for methamphetamine offenses last October when it approved the "Speed Trafficking Life in Prison Act." That law mandates minimum sentences similar to those for crack cocaine offenses: a mandatory five years for meth offenses involving five grams of the drug, and 10 years for offenses involving 50+ grams. Members of the Judiciary Committee who attended the hearing: Republicans: Orrin Hatch (Utah), committee chair, John Ashcroft (Missouri), Jeff Sessions (Alabama), Charles Grassley (Iowa), Jon Kyl (Arizona) Democrats: Dianne Feinstein (California), Joseph Biden (Delaware), Herb Kohl (Wisconsin), Russell Feingold (Wisconsin) ================ 10. EDITORIAL: Body Bags Adam J. Smith, Associate Director, [EMAIL PROTECTED] This week, a US reconnaissance aircraft, officially on an anti-narcotics mission, crashed in the war-torn jungles of Colombia. Seven people, including five US servicemen and women, were killed. This tragedy comes in the wake of a request by Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey for more than $1 billion in additional military aid for Latin America, mostly Colombia, for the ostensible purpose of anti-drug operations. For years, the American government has held to the line that our support of the Colombian military is necessary in order to fight the "narco-guerrilla" insurgency. Barry McCaffrey, former commander of US forces in Latin America, has been particularly disingenuous in portraying the thirty-five year-old Colombian civil war as a battle between an insurgency financed by the drug trade and a democratically elected government eager to end that trade. The truth, as nearly every credible Colombia expert is quick to point out, is far more complex. The Colombian military has one of the worst human rights records in the world. Add to that the fact that the military is closely aligned with various right-wing paramilitary death squads, and that elements of both are deeply involved in the drug trade. In fact, thanks largely to American prohibition, there is scarcely a part of the Colombian economy or ruling structure that has not been perversely impacted and wholly corrupted by that nation's most valuable export. The State Department continues to insist that US military aid, of which Colombia is the third-largest recipient, is not being used for counterinsurgency operations, but high ranking members of the Colombian military, as well as numerous outside experts, have repeatedly stated that there is no distinction between the two. The deaths of five US servicemen and women ought to jar the American public into a far closer examination of our role in Colombia. In addition to our military forces, the DEA, the CIA and other federal agencies have personnel on the ground. Putting another billion or so into the region in the form of military aid will do nothing to reduce our involvement in the conflict. We are not in Colombia in an effort to stem the tide of drugs across our borders. If our interest is connected to the drug trade at all, it is only to insure that the profits from the lucrative trade are flowing into the right hands. We are there to secure other interests, some obvious, like profits for the American defense industry, and some that will likely remain hidden. Politics and money have always been far more important, in the real world, than the tonnage of illicit drugs on America's streets. Go ask Oliver North. How many more Americans will die in the jungles of Colombia? How many more tax dollars will be spent to escalate the violence that has been that nation's legacy for nearly four decades? How many more "advisors" will we send into a country whose people see our forces there not as defenders of democracy but as uninvited interlopers and destroyers of national sovereignty? How many more Colombian civilians will be massacred at the hands of the paramilitaries who are distinct in name only from the military that we are so eager to finance? How much longer until we find ourselves, for the second time in as many generations, fighting a war that is not our business, for reasons that have little to do with the ones being mouthed by our elected leaders, in a dispute in which there are no moral distinctions, in the interests of a shadowy few? Judging by the events of the past week, it is likely that we are about to find out. ---------------------------------------------------------- DRCNet needs your support! Donations can be sent to 2000 P St., NW, Suite 615, 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. 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