DrugSense Weekly, Aug. 24, 2007, #513

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DRUGSENSE WEEKLY


TABLE OF CONTENTS:

* This Just In

(1) Coke Bust To Curb Street Crime?
(2) 'Community Urinalysis' Helps Trace The Spread Of Narcotics
(3) Pro-Marijuana Group Wants To Pull Initiative In Return For City Promise
(4) Editorial: The A,B,Cs Of Drug Abuse

* Weekly News in Review

Drug Policy-

(5) Prescription Pad Rules Leave Doctors With Questions
(6) OPED: Painful Drug War Victory
(7) The Bong Show
(8) Editorial: Police Double Talk
(9) Report: 4 in 5 High Schoolers See Criminal Activity at School

Law Enforcement & Prisons-

(10) Teens Recruited From Local High School To Smuggle
(11) Laredo Was a Battleground in Dope Cartels' War on Border
(12) Tight-Lipped 'Granny' Dies in Prison
(13) State, Federal Investigators Using More Wiretaps in Colorado

Cannabis & Hemp-

(14) Telltale Isotopes In Marijuana Are Nature's Tracking Devices
(15) Council Holds Nose, Puts Pot On Nov. Ballot
(16) Legislators To Consider Legalizing The Cultivation Of Hemp
(17) Hemp: The Versatile Fiber

International News-

(18) Drugs Fuel Crime Boom
(19) Police Identify Rise In Organized Crime
(20) Organized Crime Loves B.C.
(21) Concern Over Crime Has Reached A 30-Year Low, Poll Reveals
(22) Party Pill Law Would 'Breach Bill Of Rights'

* Hot Off The 'Net

The U.S., Mexico And The War On Drugs
Ethan Nadelmann To Appear On WNUR 89.3 Fm In Chicago On Saturday
Fox News Ponders Legalization
Cultural Baggage Radio Show
Pot Peace In Seattle As Another Hempfest Celebrates Cannabis Nation
Plan Colombia - Cashing In On The Drug War Failure
Come Out Of The Cannabis Closet - The Series

* What You Can Do This Week

Write A Letter

* Letter Of The Week

Bridges Fail While We Focus On Marijuana / Gary Storck

* Feature Article

The Lost War / Misha Glenny

* Quote of the Week

Adlai Stevenson

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

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THIS JUST IN
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(1) COKE BUST TO CURB STREET CRIME?

Pubdate: Fri, 24 Aug 2007
Source: Winnipeg Free Press (CN MB)
Copyright: 2007 Winnipeg Free Press
Author: Bruce Owen

Police Expect To See A Temporary Decrease

A weekend bust of almost a quarter million dollars worth of cocaine at
an alleged Portage Avenue drug lair will trigger a drop in street
crime, a police officer said Thursday.

Sgt. Rick Guyader of the Winnipeg Police Service's organized crime
unit said Sunday's seizure will reduce the amount of crack on the
street, meaning some users won't have anything to buy so they won't
pull gas bar robberies or break-ins to pay for a fix.

"It's a significant hit," Guyader said, adding police have noticed a
drop in crime before when they put a big drug cell out of business.

But he added that drop doesn't last long. Someone is always quick to
fill in that gap to supply what appears to be Winnipeg's insatiable
taste for cheap crack cocaine.

"These guys will be scrambling because they don't want to lose their
customers."

The seizure is just one of several over the past year in which police
have snagged alleged large-scale drug dealers in the process of
handling their wares.

Guyader said in this case the person behind the operation escaped
capture, but police haven't given up looking for him.

That person never touches the drugs -- he always has others do it for
him.

"They only lay their hands on the money," he said.

And it's big money.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n987.a09.html

===

(2) 'COMMUNITY URINALYSIS' HELPS TRACE THE SPREAD OF NARCOTICS

Pubdate: Wed, 22 Aug 2007
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Copyright: 2007 The Dallas Morning News
Author: Seth Borenstein, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Researchers have figured out how to give an entire
community a drug test using just a teaspoon of wastewater from a
city's sewer plant.

The test wouldn't be used to finger any single person as a drug user.
But it would help federal law enforcement and other agencies track the
spread of dangerous drugs, like methamphetamines, across the country.

Oregon State University scientists tested 10 unnamed American cities
for remnants of drugs, both legal and illegal, from wastewater
streams. They were able to show that they could get a good snapshot of
what people are taking.

"It's a community urinalysis," said Caleb Banta-Green, a University of
Washington drug abuse researcher who was part of the Oregon State
team. The scientists presented their results Tuesday at a meeting of
the American Chemical Society in Boston.

Two federal agencies have taken samples from U.S. waterways to see if
drug testing a whole city is doable, but they haven't gotten as far as
the Oregon researchers.

In the study presented Tuesday, one teaspoon of untreated sewage water
from each of the cities was tested for 15 drugs.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n984.a05.html

===

(3) PRO-MARIJUANA GROUP WANTS TO PULL INITIATIVE IN RETURN FOR CITY PROMISE

Pubdate: Fri, 24 Aug 2007
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2007 The Denver Post Corp
Author: George Merritt, Denver Post Staff Writer
Cited: http://saferdenver.saferchoice.org/

Too Late, a City Attorney Says, As the Issue Takes Another Twist in
Its Journey to the Ballot.

The marijuana interest group that was furious last week because the
Denver City Council did not like its initiative is now ticked off that
the city won't let the group kill it.

Citizens for a Safer Denver collected more than 10,000 signatures to
place an initiative on the November ballot asking voters to make
marijuana possession the "lowest law enforcement priority" in Denver.

But Thursday the group offered to spike the initiative if the city
would agree not to ticket people for marijuana possession during the
2008 Democratic National Convention and state that pot is less harmful
that booze.

So far, there are no takers.

"Absolutely not," Councilman Charlie Brown said. "I think it's a
publicity stunt."

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n987.a04.html

===

(4) EDITORIAL: THE A,B,CS OF DRUG ABUSE

Pubdate: Thu, 23 Aug 2007
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2007 The Ottawa Citizen

Health Minister Tony Clement's promise to educate young people about
drugs, if done properly, might be very useful.

The more information young people have, the better equipped they will
be to make good decisions. Among the many reasons for the decline in
youth smoking is, probably, the increase in public knowledge about the
effects of the habit. Teenagers today have seen images of diseased
lungs. If they take up smoking, it isn't out of ignorance of the
consequences.

It follows that 13-year-olds might be better able to navigate their
teenage years if they understood the health consequences of ecstasy,
crystal meth and crack cocaine -- and OxyContin, Percodan, and the
other prescription drugs that are now also street drugs.

To make young people understand the specific dangers of drugs,
however, it is also necessary to explain how drugs work, and to be
honest about the fact that not all drugs are the same. There are ill
effects associated with marijuana use, but the degree of harm is
relatively minor for moderate users, and it's a good bet that at least
some teachers in Canadian high schools had more than an academic
familiarity with the drug in their youth.

It would be dishonest and hypocritical for those teachers to stand up
in front of students and speak of marijuana and heroin as though they
were the same thing, differently packaged. They're not.

That seems to be the kind of education campaign Mr. Clement has in
mind, though. "We will discourage young people from thinking there are
safe amounts or that there are safe drugs," he said recently.

He also hopes to dispel any notions teenagers might have that
marijuana is legal in Canada. That would serve a useful function
because, sadly, smoking pot is still against the law.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n985.a03.html

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WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW
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Domestic News- Policy
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COMMENT: (5-9)

A newspaper out of North Carolina publicized a little noticed new
law that requires doctors to use tamper-proof prescription pads for
Medicaid patients. The only problem: There's no standard or model
for such pads. That will leave more people under-treated for pain in
the U.S., which is already a documented problem, according to our
second story.

Also last week, a very lengthy piece explores how the high-end glass
bong business is growing in spite of (or perhaps due to) cannabis
prohibition; editorialists in Los Angeles bust the police on
selective enforcement of federal laws; and Joe Califano and CASA
spout more nonsense, which the media reports as fact.

===

(5) PRESCRIPTION PAD RULES LEAVE DOCTORS WITH QUESTIONS

Pubdate: Wed, 15 Aug 2007
Source: Greensboro News & Record (NC)
Copyright: 2007 Greensboro News & Record, Inc.
Author: Lex Alexander

GREENSBORO -- An impending requirement that doctors use tamper-proof
prescription pads for some patients has them waiting for specifics
and wondering whether they'll be ready for the Oct. 1 deadline.

The requirement, inserted without debate into a larger bill on
defense spending, is intended to prevent fraudulent prescriptions.

It applies to prescriptions for people covered by Medicaid, a
federally funded program that, with some state money, provides
health insurance for some lower-income children and families.

A doctor's failure to use a tamper-proof pad could mean that the
pharmacy would not be paid by Medicaid for the prescription.

Steven C. Anderson, the president and CEO of the National
Association of Chain Drug Stores, has written Congress asking for a
delay in the start date so that doctors, pharmacists and Medicaid
itself can prepare.

[snip]

Earlier this month, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services, where Medicaid is administered at the federal level,
hadn't yet introduced written guidelines for states. A search of the
agency's Web site Tuesday turned up no new information, and attempts
to contact spokesmen for the agency were unsuccessful.

Jay Campbell, executive director of the N.C. Board of Pharmacy, says
the legislation doesn't define "tamper-proof" and appears to end
reimbursement for phone-in prescriptions, as well.

"An awful lot of Medicaid patients are not going to be able to get
their drugs, their prescription medications," he said, because the
new rules will make it too difficult for pharmacies to do the things
they need to get payments from Medicaid for prescriptions they fill.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n963/a06.html

===

(6) OPED: PAINFUL DRUG WAR VICTORY

Pubdate: Thu, 16 Aug 2007
Source: Washington Times (DC)
Copyright: 2007 News World Communications, Inc.
Author: Zachary David Skaggs

Since 2000, the Drug Enforcement Administration has embarked on a
muscular campaign against prescription painkiller abuse. It has
utilized undercover investigations, SWAT raids, asset forfeiture,
and high profile trials against "kingpin" doctors. These tactics
should be familiar to anyone who has studied the drug war, but the
results are a shocker. Prescription opioids have actually grown
scarce.

To put it bluntly, the DEA has finally found a drug war it can win.

"Opiophobia" is a term that describes doctors' increasing
unwillingness to prescribe opioid painkillers - a class of drugs
that includes Vicodin and OxyContin - and especially high-dose
opioids, to those in pain. This fear is rooted in the DEA's practice
of jailing those doctors it deems are prescribing outside
"legitimate medical standards."

Because pain doesn't show up on an MRI, doctors work together with
their patients to achieve proper dosage. And, thanks to individual
chemistry, pain level, drug tolerance, or typically, all three,
patients vary tremendously in the number of milligrams they require.
But when the only thing doctors know for certain is that prescribing
large amounts of opioids endanger them, it is those suffering the
worst who go undermedicated.

Call it "opiophobia," call it a "chilling effect," or simply,
doctors behaving rationally, the result is the same: massive
underprescription of opioids and radical undertreatment of pain. A
Stanford study puts the number of undermedicated chronic pain
patients at about 50 percent. According to the American Pain
Society, fewer than 50 percent of cancer patients receive sufficient
pain relief.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n964/a02.html

===

(7) THE BONG SHOW

Pubdate: Thu, 16 Aug 2007
Source: Phoenix New Times (AZ)
Copyright: 2007 New Times, Inc.
Author: Ray Stern

Pay $1,200 for a Water Pipe? Are You High?

[snip]

Most of the bongs at the store are more practical -- they're
essentially glass versions of the plastic tube bongs from the '80s,
like the one Spicoli used in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Yet even
the midrange bongs are much fancier than their old-school
predecessors, employing the latest glass-working and coloring
techniques. Dozens of such bongs line the shelved walls, most with
price tags of more than $150. Sayegh points to a monster bong, a
nine-foot sectional glass tuber made in California, and brags that
he's sold two of that particular model in the past eight months, for
$1,200 each.

Those in the know say the market for nice glassware for stoners has
been growing since the mid-'90s, especially in California and the
Northwest, and for a host of reasons, has taken off in recent years
in the Valley. Not every smoker uses expensive paraphernalia, of
course, but the demand is enormous, judging from the number of
stores in metro Phoenix that sell the stuff.

In Tempe, a college town that has long been the area's ground zero
for head shops, competition among bong sellers has never been
higher. At least five new head shops have opened in the college town
in the past three years, with three specializing in high-end
merchandise. Veteran stores like Trails, Hippie Gypsy, the
Headquarters, and the Graffiti Shop, meanwhile, don't appear to be
hurting.

It's a business success story that's making aspiring artists like
Lynch -- not to mention fashionable, well-to-do stoners -- very
happy, indeed.

"Most people [in the business] would agree this is a genuine
American movement. It's a revolution," Lynch says. "We've created an
industry where there wasn't one before."

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n965/a02.html

===

(8) EDITORIAL: POLICE DOUBLE TALK

Pubdate: Fri, 17 Aug 2007
Source: Los Angeles Daily News (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Los Angeles Newspaper Group

LAPD Enforces Federal Law on Pot, but Not Immigration

WHEN federal agents busted down doors raiding medical marijuana
dispensaries in Los Angeles in July, Los Angeles Police Department
officers were their comrades in arms.

The department's assistance in the raids infuriated some City
Council members, who chastised them Wednesday for cooperating with
the Drug Enforcement Agency and for enforcing federal drug laws that
are in conflict with California's medical-marijuana law - and the
will of the public. They even threatened to forbid the LAPD from
cooperating with the DEA, but that would require the council to
actually take an unequivocal stand.

LAPD officials just brushed off the criticism, essentially telling
the council to get over it. The department will continue to help the
feds bust medical-marijuana dispensaries, they said, even though
Chief William Bratton has declared the department supports the state
law.

The explanation that officials offered was simple: The LAPD has a
policy of enforcing federal laws.

That would make sense if it were a policy that the department
actually followed. But the truth is that the LAPD only enforces the
federal laws that it feels like enforcing.

Despite pressure from federal authorities and many residents of Los
Angeles, the LAPD has refused to enforce immigration laws and
officers don't ask about citizenship status except in the rarest
instances.

The department has stuck to Special Order 40, which prohibits LAPD
officers from asking people about their citizenship status. So much
for working with the feds.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n967/a02.html

===

(9) REPORT: 4 IN 5 HIGH SCHOOLERS SEE CRIMINAL ACTIVITY AT SCHOOL

Pubdate: Thu, 16 Aug 2007
Source: Newsday (NY)
Copyright: 2007 Newsday Inc.

Millions of middle- and high-school students nationwide attend what
researchers characterized as "drug-infested" schools, according to a
study conducted at Columbia University.

A report, to be released Thursday by the university's National
Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, found that 80 percent of
high-schoolers and 44 percent of middle-schoolers interviewed by
researchers say they have witnessed illegal drug use, dealing or
possession at school, or have seen classmates drunk or high on
school grounds. Based on these interviews, researchers characterized
schools as drug-infested or not.

Joseph A. Califano Jr., chairman and president of the center, said
an estimated 16 million students who attend schools the researchers
characterized as drug infested.

"Unless we get the drugs out of these schools," he said, "we're
never going to get the kind of test scores and academic achievement
we need to compete."

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n968/a08.html

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Law Enforcement & Prisons
-------------------------

COMMENT: (10-13)

The drug war, always promoted as necessary to save the children, has
corrupted yet another group of children, this time high school
students in Texas who set up an multi-million dollar smuggling ring.
Also close to the border, hushed-up reports suggest the Mexican drug
war is seeping into the U.S.

In other news, a stoic grandmother is cruelly denied the presence of
her family at her deathbed because federal officials said the
86-year-old's crimes were too serious - while critics suggest the
feds punished her all the way until the end because she wouldn't
snitch on her family. And, the number of wiretaps in Colorado
quadruples.

===

(10) TEENS RECRUITED FROM LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL TO SMUGGLE

Pubdate: Sat, 18 Aug 2007
Source: El Paso Times (TX)
Copyright: 2007 El Paso Times
Author: Daniel Borunda, El Paso Times

HORIZON CITY -- The halls of Horizon High School are spotless and
shine with new paint that comes with being one of the newest high
schools in the El Paso region.

But the pristine campus decorated with its scorpion mascot --
according to a federal agents -- was the recruiting ground for a
student-led drug trafficking ring suspected of smuggling 14 tons of
marijuana between JuA!rez and Oklahoma City last school year.

Recent Horizon High graduate Rene Humberto Perez, alias "Jetta," is
accused of hiring fellow students to drive marijuana-filled vehicles
destined for an Oklahoma City connection identified only as "El Tio"
( the uncle ), a federal criminal complaint affidavit stated.

The allegations of a student drug smuggling ring based out of the
high school was met with mix of surprise and uneasiness in the
fast-growing community east of El Paso.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n972/a07.html

===

(11) LAREDO WAS A BATTLEGROUND IN DOPE CARTELS' WAR ON BORDER

Pubdate: Sun, 19 Aug 2007
Source: San Antonio Express-News (TX)
Copyright: 2007 San Antonio Express-News
Author: Mariano Castillo, Express-News Border Bureau

LAREDO -- When police investigators realized the hit men they had
under surveillance were about to attack a local dentist driving a
Hummer, they issued a hurried order to a patrol car.

Pull the Hummer over, right now.

A few frantic moments later, the dentist was parked, the police
cruiser behind him, lights flashing. The hit men kept driving,
thrown off by an apparent routine traffic stop.

They had almost killed the wrong man -- again.

But police were only days away from stopping them for good.

At its ferocious peak in 2005 and 2006, a war between Mexico's two
biggest drug cartels for control of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, made
international headlines. But only recently have details emerged on
how part of it was fought in the United States, in the streets of
Laredo.

Court testimony and documents, police investigative reports and
interviews with law enforcement officers show the Gulf Cartel
organized three cells of gunmen to operate in Laredo as it defended
its turf against the Sinaloa Cartel.

They killed five people in about a year before the Laredo cops
brought them down.

Before and since, both cartels have sent individual assassins on
U.S. missions, officials say, although most of their warfare has
been confined to their own country.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n975/a04.html

===

(12) TIGHT-LIPPED 'GRANNY' DIES IN PRISON

Pubdate: Fri, 17 Aug 2007
Source: News & Observer (Raleigh, NC)
Copyright: 2007 The News and Observer Publishing Company
Author: Mandy Locke

CLAYTON - Thirteen years after Alva Mae "Granny" Groves was locked
up for conspiring to trade crack cocaine for food stamps, she's
finally home.

It took death to free her. Federal prosecutors wanted the ailing
great-grandmother behind bars for at least another decade as
punishment for her role in the family scheme.

Groves will be buried today among generations of kin in Johnston
County. She died last week at a federal prison hospital in Texas
after being refused the privilege of dying at home under the watch
of her children. She was 86.

"It's a relief she's dead, but it's a hurt, a real hurt we weren't
with her," said daughter Everline Johnson of Red Springs. "What
could she have hurt?"

Prison officials wouldn't comment on Groves' case, citing privacy
concerns. In a brief letter that was mailed to Groves on her death
bed, prison officials advised her that her crime was too grave to
allow her to be turned loose.

Groves was tending her garden the day investigators stormed her
double-wide mobile home and hauled her to jail. Within a year, she
was sentenced to federal prison for 24 years after pleading guilty
to conspiracy to possess with intent to sell and distribute cocaine
and aiding and abetting the trading of crack cocaine for food
stamps. She was 74.

Groves' family says prosecutors came down hard on her mostly because
she wouldn't help investigators build a case that could have locked
up her children for life.

"My real crime ... was refusing to testify against my sons, children
of my womb, that were conceived, birthed and raised with love,"
Groves wrote in a 2001 letter to November Coalition, a non-profit
organization rallying support to free her and others sentenced to
prison for long stretches on drug offenses.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n968/a05.html

===

(13) STATE, FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS USING MORE WIRETAPS IN COLORADO

Pubdate: Mon, 20 Aug 2007
Source: Summit Daily News (CO)
Copyright: 2007 Summit Daily News
Author: The Associated Press

DENVER - Court-approved wiretaps are rising dramatically in
Colorado, resulting in more drug arrests but raising privacy
concerns.

Federal prosecutors used 108 wiretaps in Colorado during U.S.
Attorney Troy Eid's first year, a fourfold increase over the
previous 12 months, the Rocky Mountain News reported Monday, citing
data from Eid's office.

State prosecutors used 43 court-authorized wiretaps in 2006, about 3
1-2 times more than in 2005, according to figures from the
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.

Eid's office said the increase in wiretaps has led to more drug
seizures. Since Eid took office in August 2006, federal agents have
sized 1,151 kilograms of marijuana and 126 kilograms of cocaine,
compared with 122 kilograms of pot and 13 kilograms of cocaine in
the previous 12 months.

Defense attorneys worry that it's too easy to get court approval for
a wiretap, and that judges hear only prosecutors' side before
deciding whether to approve them.

The court administrative office reported that no state or federal
judge turned down a request for a wiretap last year, and only five
requests were turned down over the past decade, out of more than
15,000 sought.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n980/a04.html

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Cannabis & Hemp-
---------------------------

COMMENT: (14-17)

Out of all the dumb, wasteful war on pot ideas tried over the past
several decades, a new one seems to especially please the U.S.
Office of National Drug Control Policy. The plan calls for isolating
and identifying isotopes in order to help the ONDCP "decide where to
concentrate its resources." As if the ONDCP doesn't automatically
train its resources on cannabis no matter how much scientific
research is involved.

In Denver, the City Council has agreed to place a ballot initiative
asking whether marijuana should be the lowest enforcement priority.
And, industrial hemp continues to gain support around the country,
despite the feds studied ignorance on the issue.

===

(14) TELLTALE ISOTOPES IN MARIJUANA ARE NATURE'S TRACKING DEVICES

Pubdate: Tue, 21 Aug 2007
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2007 The New York Times Company
Author: Hillary Rosner

Every so often, a package of marijuana arrives in Jason B. West's
mail at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. While Dr. West may
not be the only one on campus receiving deliveries of illegal drugs,
he is probably the only one getting them compliments of the federal
government.

Dr. West's marijuana supply is decidedly not for consumption. It is
meticulously cataloged and managed, repeatedly weighed to make sure
none disappears, and returned to the sender (a laboratory at the
University of Mississippi) or destroyed when he is done with it.

With financing from the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Dr.
West, 34, is creating a model that can identify the geographic
origin of cannabis plants based on certain chemical calling cards.
The agency hopes to use the research to help decide where to
concentrate its resources.

The research, the Marijuana Signature Project, relies on stable
isotopes, which are forms of an element like nitrogen or oxygen,
that have distinct atomic masses. Long employed in ecological
research, stable isotopes are increasingly used for forensic
purposes, including investigations into blood doping, arson and
trafficking in contraband like drugs and endangered species.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n979/a09.html

===

(15) COUNCIL HOLDS NOSE, PUTS POT ON NOV. BALLOT

Pubdate: Tue, 21 Aug 2007
Source: Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
Copyright: 2007 Denver Publishing Co.
Author: Stuart Steers, Rocky Mountain News

Plan Would Make Small Amounts the 'Lowest' Priority

Voters will decide this fall on a ballot initiative that would make
possession of small amounts of marijuana the "lowest law enforcement
priority" of Denver police, the City Council decided Monday night.

Most council members oppose the measure, but a pro-marijuana group
forced their hand after gathering enough signatures to put it to a
vote.

"A number of us will be voting to put something on the ballot we
won't be supporting ourselves," said Councilwoman Jeanne Robb.

Earlier this month the council considered enacting the ordinance,
rather than referring it to voters, as part of a legal maneuver to
get it thrown out by the courts. Council members decided not to do
that, but they say the initiative, if approved by voters, still
could be overturned by a judge.

The group SAFER, sponsors of the ballot initiative, also authored a
successful 2005 ballot initiative that legalized the possession of
small amounts of marijuana by adults in Denver. State law, however,
still prohibits marijuana use, and Denver police continue to arrest
people for possession.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n980/a07.html

===

(16) LEGISLATORS TO CONSIDER LEGALIZING THE CULTIVATION OF HEMP

Pubdate: Mon, 20 Aug 2007
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Hearst Communications Inc.
Author: Haley Davies, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer

State legislators are expected to consider a measure this week that
would allow hemp to be grown in California, rekindling the debate
over whether such a move would increase cultivation of illegal
marijuana and conflict with federal laws regulating the drug.

A committee of the state Senate is scheduled today to review
legislation to permit California farmers to grow industrial hemp.
The bill - AB684 - would establish a five-year pilot program in
several California counties and define "industrial hemp" as separate
from "marijuana" under the state's Health and Safety Code.

Last year, a similar bill reached the desk of Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger, but he vetoed it, saying he was "very concerned that
this bill would give legitimate growers a false sense of security
and a belief that production of 'industrial hemp' is somehow a legal
activity under federal law."

The new bill was co-authored by Assemblymen Mark Leno, D-San
Francisco, and Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine (Orange County), the same
lawmakers who pushed last year's hemp legislation.

"It's such an incredible crop," said Leno, referring to the
versatility of hemp.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n978/a08.html

===

(17) HEMP: THE VERSATILE FIBER

Pubdate: Sat, 18 Aug 2007
Source: Ashland Daily Tidings (OR)
Copyright: 2007 Ashland Daily Tidings
Author: Robert Plain, Ashland Daily Tidings

Many know Ashland resident Andy Kerr as an ardent environmental
activist, but he is also on the board of directors for the North
American Industrial Hemp Council.

"Most of my career I've dealt with the supply side of the timber
economy," said the former executive director of the Oregon Natural
Resources Council, who was active in the so-called timber wars of
the 1980s. "I tried to constrict supply so we wouldn't be cutting
down old growth forests. This is dealing with the demand side of the
forest conservation equation."

In April, Kerr testified before the state Senate's committee on
Environment and Natural Resource Committee about the possibility of
using hemp to replace wood as a building material.

"Hemp has great potential because it has a very long fiber that can
be mixed with agricultural waste to make paper and construction
products that are stronger than wood," he said. "Is it a miracle
fiber. Well, 'miracle' is overused, but it is superior in many
cases."

He is also a proponent of a bill that has died several times in the
state legislature to legalize growing hemp.

"Under the law it is legal to possess and you can import it," he
said. "There is a customs code, but you can't grow it. The DEA (Drug
Enforcement Agency) thinks it is marijuana."

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n979/a03.html

=======================================================================

International News
---------------------------

COMMENT: (18-22)

The MAPInc archives give you a perspective on how the media frames
drug policy issues, a perspective that you'd be hard pressed to get
elsewhere. Take some of last week's drug policy news from Canada as
an example. A government report (penned by government police) was
clear: Canadians must stoke their fears of crime and drugs. We can
see from the archives, headlines screaming, all across Canada, in
unison: crime is on the rise.

It must be true, yes I know: for the papers (quoting police) say
it's so. From the Calgary Herald, we learn of a (police claimed)
"crime boom". Of course, this "crime boom" is because of "drugs",
reveal police. Similarly, the Ottawa Citizen newspaper informed
citizens what police tell them to say, also: "organized crime" is on
the "rise". It was the same in western Canada, as the Vancouver
Province similarly repeated the police mantra: drugs, crime, boom.
"Extremely addictive, deadly drugs such as crystal meth, heroin and
crack cocaine damage individuals, their families and society,"
pounded in police.

But wait, what's this we find in a different Ottawa Citizen piece
this week? "There's a fairly clean argument that people don't think
crime is as serious as it was 30 years ago," says leading Canadian
sociologist researcher Reginald Bibby in a report, released last
week also. But surely, it is just the uninformed and unwashed masses
who believe that crime isn't really so bad as we are told it is? Yet
it turns out, the Canadian people's "concern over crime" is right on
target. Canada's "overall reported crime rate sank to its lowest
point in 25 years in 2006," reported Statistics Canada.

So which is it? Is Canada really in the clutches of a drug-fueled
organized crime boom, as police assert, or is crime at a 25-year
low, as statisticians say?

And from New Zealand, a fly appeared in the prohibitionist ointment
this week as government efforts to jail people for using
benzylpiperazine (BZP) hit a legal snag. Parliament, re-writing
"Misuse of Drugs" laws were turned back by the top government
lawyer. Why? Automatically assuming users are dealers -- simply
because they might have a handful of BZP "party" pills -- violates
the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. "The bill reverses the onus of
proof for those accused of supplying BZP from being presumed
innocent to being presumed guilty."

===

(18) DRUGS FUEL CRIME BOOM

Pubdate: Sat, 18 Aug 2007
Source: Calgary Herald (CN AB)
Copyright: 2007 Calgary Herald
Author: Gwendolyn Richards

Gangs Growing In Canada

Organized crime and gangs involved in the drug trade are flourishing
in Canada, with nearly 150 new groups added to the national list of
about 800, according to a new report compiled by Canada's law
enforcement agencies.

[snip]

The report by Criminal Intelligence Service Canada shows that about
80 per cent of all Canadian crime groups -- about 950 -- are
involved with drugs.

[snip]

Friday's national report showed most large-scale marijuana grow ops
are found in B.C., Ontario and Quebec. Those provinces also serve as
distribution hubs for cocaine.

Ecstasy is generally carried from Canada to the U.S., as well as
Australia and Japan.

And drugs are at the heart of more criminal activity than anything
else. Fights over territory have led to property crimes, assaults
and homicides, the report says.

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n973.a01.html

===

(19) POLICE IDENTIFY RISE IN ORGANIZED CRIME

Pubdate: Sat, 18 Aug 2007
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2007 The Ottawa Citizen
Author: Meagan Fitzpatrick, The Ottawa Citizen

Number of Gangs Operating in Canada Jumps to 950: RCMP

Canadian police are tackling more organized crime this year than
last, statistics released yesterday reveal.

[snip]

The illegal drug trade still makes up the bulk of organized crime
activity in Canada, with about 80 per cent of all gangs involved in
it. The majority are growing, distributing and transporting
marijuana and much of the activity is in British Columbia, Ontario
and Quebec. Those provinces are also hubs for cocaine distribution
to the rest of the country once it enters Canada.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n979.a10.html

===

(20) ORGANIZED CRIME LOVES B.C.

Pubdate: Sun, 19 Aug 2007
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2007 The Province
Author: Glenda Luymes

Federal Report Says We Are Hub For Drug Production, Distribution

[snip]

The report identifies B.C. as a "hub" for organized crime group
activity, such as drug production and distribution.

Many of Canada's large-scale marijuana grow-ops are located in B.C.,
Ontario and Quebec, where pot is sometimes exported to the U.S. in
exchange for cocaine.

B.C. also produces much of the country's ecstasy, which is exported
all over the world, and the province is also one of the top
suppliers in Canada's domestic methamphetamine market.

The report quotes Vancouver's new police chief, who emphasizes the
negative impacts of the drug trade.

"Extremely addictive, deadly drugs such as crystal meth, heroin and
crack cocaine damage individuals, their families and society," said
Chief Jim Chu.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n974.a05.html

===

(21) CONCERN OVER CRIME HAS REACHED A 30-YEAR LOW, POLL REVEALS

Pubdate: Thu, 23 Aug 2007
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2007 The Ottawa Citizen
Author: Misty Harris

Grim though the headlines are most days, national concern over crime
is at its lowest level in three decades, a leading Canadian
sociologist has found.

In 1975, nearly six in 10 Canadians felt crime was a "very serious"
problem. By contrast, the proportion of people who feel that way now
has declined to just a third of the population, according to a
report released today by University of Lethbridge researcher
Reginald Bibby.

[snip]

The research, based on a nationwide sample of 1,600 people, is
consistent with a recent Statistics Canada finding that the
country's overall reported crime rate sank to its lowest point in 25
years in 2006.

"There's a fairly clean argument that people don't think crime is as
serious as it was 30 years ago," Mr. Bibby says.

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n984.a07.html

===

(22) PARTY PILL LAW WOULD 'BREACH BILL OF RIGHTS'

Pubdate: Thu, 23 Aug 2007
Source: Dominion Post, The (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2007 The Dominion Post

A bill to criminalise party pills has hit a snag before making it to
Parliament, with legal advice suggesting supply limits could be too
low to secure a conviction.

The Misuse of Drugs (Classification of BZP) Amendment Bill was
introduced to Parliament yesterday, and seeks to elevate products
containing benzylpiperazine, the most common active ingredient in
party pills, to the same status as cannabis.

But in an evaluation of the bill, Attorney-General Michael Cullen -
using Crown Law advice - said it breached the Bill of Rights Act.

Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton announced the planned bill in
June, saying he hoped to have legislation passed by Christmas. The
proposed law change was scheduled to take effect on December 18, but
could be delayed if changes are needed.

[snip]

But Dr. Cullen said the amount of BZP set out in the bill deemed to
be for supply - five grams, about enough for 100 party pills, and
the same amount relating to supplying methamphetamine - is "not
sufficiently high that it is safe to conclude that there is a high
probability that the purpose of possession of the drug is supply".

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n986.a02.html

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

HOT OFF THE 'NET
-------------------------------

THE U.S., MEXICO AND THE WAR ON DRUGS

"To the Point," KCRW, Public Radio International

President Bush and Congress may be willing to spend a billion
American dollars to help Mexico's President Calderon control drug
traffic, official corruption and brutal violence. Will US aid come
with strings attached? Will it work? Is it time to re-think
prohibition as the basis of the "war on drugs?"

http://www.kcrw.com/news/programs/tp/tp070822the_us_mexico_and_th

===

ETHAN NADELMANN TO APPEAR ON WNUR 89.3 FM IN CHICAGO ON SATURDAY

DPA's executive director, Ethan Nadelmann, will appear on Chicago's
WNUR radio station this Saturday, August 25th, at 10:20 AM EST to
discuss his recent cover story "Think Again: Drugs", published in
Foreign Policy magazine. The program will be broadcast live over-the-
air and commercial free. Feel free to listen live online at the WNUR
89.3 FM website!, http://www.wnur.org/

===

FOX NEWS PONDERS LEGALIZATION

Ethan Nadelmann makes a splash. His cover article: Think Again: Drugs
in Foreign Policy is garnering a lot of attention, including this
story on FOX news that actually wonders whether legalizing drugs might
be better than prohibition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMAs6o9sCy4

===

CULTURAL BAGGAGE RADIO SHOW

Last: 08/17/07 - LEAP members: Charles Rowland & Tim Datig plus Pat
McCann on jail "virtual visits" and Willie Nelson Joins LEAP!

http://drugtruth.net/007DTNaudio/FDBCB_081707.mp3

Listen Live Fridays 8:00 PM, ET, 7:00 CT, 6:00 MT & 5:00 PT at
http://www.kpft.org/

Century of Lies for 08/17/07

Canadian Reports from Marc Emery & Matt Elrod + Ron Pauls Sec. Jesse
Benton

Audio: http://www.drugtruth.net/007DTNaudio/COL_081707.mp3

===

POT PEACE IN SEATTLE AS ANOTHER HEMPFEST CELEBRATES CANNABIS NATION

from Drug War Chronicle, Issue #499, 8/24/07

Cannabis Nation was on the march in Seattle last weekend. An estimated
150,000 people showed up Saturday and Sunday at Myrtle Edwards Park on
Elliot Bay just north of downtown to celebrate the 16th annual Seattle
Hempfest and call for marijuana legalization.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/499/seattle_hempfest_pot_peace

Audio: http://hempfest.org/drupal/?q=node/41

===

PLAN COLOMBIA - CASHING IN ON THE DRUG WAR FAILURE

Filmmakers Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brohey take a look at the
government's efforts to quash trading with Colombia, and find some
surprisingly lax activities taking place.

http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-5156867575587094100

===

COME OUT OF THE CANNABIS CLOSET - THE SERIES

Just posted on the Cannabis Closet now, our most recent issue is out!

Come join us with our good friend Howard Dover from Green Therapy
http://www.greentherapy.com on the Cannabis Closet this week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm56pZ51qbg

Love and stuff,

Alison Myrden
The Cannabis Closet
http://www.thecannabiscloset.com

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

WHAT YOU CAN DO THIS WEEK
--------------------------------------------------

WRITE A LETTER

Washington Newspapers Print Two Important OPEDS - A DrugSense Focus
Alert

http://www.mapinc.org/alert/0353.html

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

LETTER OF THE WEEK
------------------------------------

BRIDGES FAIL WHILE WE FOCUS ON MARIJUANA

By Gary Storck

News reports say nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars is needed to
fix structurally deficient U.S. bridges and highways but that states
and the federal government have been unable or unwilling to come up
with the money.

While ensuring the safety of our nation's infrastructure has become
a luxury we can't afford, there is always more money to pour down
the bottomless pit of marijuana prohibition. Even cancer and
multiple sclerosis patients are fair game.

Thursday, Aug. 2, marked the 70th anniversary of the date President
Franklin Roosevelt signed the Marijuana Tax Act into law. Ruled
unconstitutional in 1969, marijuana prohibition was continued under
the 1971 Controlled Substances Act.

While alcohol prohibition only lasted 14 years, marijuana
prohibition is 70 and going strong. Seventy years of ceaseless
reefer madness propaganda has so demonized cannabis that most
elected officials stipulate to this absurd ideology without
question, when taxing and regulating marijuana could solve numerous
problems while generating revenue instead of wasting it.

Seventy years of lying about marijuana is too long, and it has made
a mockery of American values like personal freedom and privacy, and
encouraged disrespect for the law. The government should make no
laws that tell us what we can or cannot put in our own bodies.
Taxing and regulating marijuana is the only sensible option.

Gary Storck, co-founder
Madison NORML

Pubdate: Thu, 09 Aug 2007
Author: Gary Storck
Source: Wisconsin State Journal (WI)

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

FEATURE ARTICLE
-------------------------------

THE LOST WAR

By Misha Glenny

We've Spent 36 Years and Billions of Dollars Fighting It, but the
Drug Trade Keeps Growing

Poppies were the first thing that British army Capt. Leo Docherty
noticed when he arrived in Afghanistan's turbulent Helmand province
in April 2006. "They were growing right outside the gate of our
Forward Operating Base," he told me. Within two weeks of his
deployment to the remote town of Sangin, he realized that "poppy is
the economic mainstay and everyone is involved right up to the
higher echelons of the local government."

Poppy, of course, is the plant from which opium -- and heroin -- are
derived.

Docherty was quick to realize that the military push into northern
Helmand province was going to run into serious trouble. The rumor
was "that we were there to eradicate the poppy," he said. "The
Taliban aren't stupid and so they said, 'These guys are here to
destroy your livelihood, so let's take up arms against them.' And
it's been a downward spiral since then."

Despite the presence of 35,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, the drug
trade there is going gangbusters. According to the U.N. Office on
Drugs and Crime ( UNODC ), Afghan opium production in 2006 rose a
staggering 57 percent over the previous year. Next month, the United
Nations is expected to release a report showing an additional 15
percent jump in opium production this year while highlighting the
sobering fact that Afghanistan now accounts for 95 percent of the
world's poppy crop. But the success of the illegal narcotics
industry isn't confined to Afghanistan. Business is booming in South
America, the Middle East, Africa and across the United States.

Thirty-six years and hundreds of billions of dollars after President
Richard M. Nixon launched the war on drugs, consumers worldwide are
taking more narcotics and criminals are making fatter profits than
ever before. The syndicates that control narcotics production and
distribution reap the profits from an annual turnover of $400
billion to $500 billion. And terrorist organizations such as the
Taliban are using this money to expand their operations and buy ever
more sophisticated weapons, threatening Western security.

In the past two years, the drug war has become the Taliban's most
effective recruiter in Afghanistan. Afghanistan's Muslim extremists
have reinvigorated themselves by supporting and taxing the countless
peasants who are dependent one way or another on the opium trade,
their only reliable source of income. The Taliban is becoming richer
and stronger by the day, especially in the east and south of the
country. The "War on Drugs" is defeating the "war on terror."

* * *

For the past three years, I have been traveling the world
researching a book on the jaw-dropping rise of transnational
organized crime since the collapse of communism and the advent of
globalization. I have witnessed how a ferocious drug gang mounted an
assault on Sao Paolo, closing the city for three days as citizens
cowered at home. I have watched Bedouins shift hundreds of kilos of
cocaine across the Egyptian-Israeli border on the backs of camels,
and observed how South Africa and West Africa have become an
international narcotics distribution hub.

The trade in illegal narcotics begets violence, poverty and tragedy.
And wherever I went around the world, gangsters, cops, victims,
academics and politicians delivered the same message: The war on
drugs is the underlying cause of the misery. Everywhere, that is,
except Washington, where a powerful bipartisan consensus has turned
the issue into a political third rail.

The problem starts with prohibition, the basis of the war on drugs.
The theory is that if you hurt the producers and consumers of drugs
badly enough, they'll stop doing what they're doing. But instead,
the trade goes underground, which means that the state's only
contact with it is through law enforcement, i.e. busting those
involved, whether producers, distributors or users. So vast is the
demand for drugs in the United States, the European Union and the
Far East that nobody has anything approaching the ability to police
the trade.

Prohibition gives narcotics huge added value as a commodity. Once
traffickers get around the business risks -- getting busted or being
shot by competitors -- they stand to make vast profits. A
confidential strategy report prepared in 2005 for British Prime
Minister Tony Blair's cabinet and later leaked to the media offered
one of the most damning indictments of the efficacy of the drug war.
Law enforcement agencies seize less than 20 percent of the 700 tons
of cocaine and 550 tons of heroin produced annually. According to
the report, they would have to seize 60 to 80 percent to make the
industry unprofitable for the traffickers.

Supply is so plentiful that the price of a gram of heroin is
plummeting in Europe, especially in the United Kingdom. According to
the UNODC, the street price of a gram of cocaine in the United
States is now less than $70, compared with $184 in 1990. Adjusted
for inflation, that's a threefold drop.

Continues At: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07/n969/a02.html

Pubdate: Sun, 19 Aug 2007
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Page: B01
Copyright: 2007 The Washington Post Company
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Misha Glenny

Note: Misha Glenny is a former BBC correspondent and the author of
"McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Underworld," to be published
next year.

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

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
------------------------------------

"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be
unpopular." - Adlai Stevenson

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

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===

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