THE YEAR IN POT

Twelve Months in the Life of Marijuana Prohibition

One of the problems that the marijuana reform movement consistently faces
is that everyone wants to talk about what marijuana does, but no one ever
wants to look at what marijuana prohibition does. Marijuana never kicks
down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick
and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in
bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the
prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm
to far more people than marijuana ever could. --Richard Cowan, former head
of NORML, now editor of Marijuana News. http://www.marijuananews.com/

Estimated U.S. deaths in 2000 attributed to:

tobacco: 400,000 alcohol: 110,000 prescription drugs: 100,000 suicide:
30,000 murder: 15,000 aspirin and related over-the-counter painkillers:
7600 marijuana: 0

Number of americans arrested since 1965 on marijuana-related charges: over
11 million

February 9: Arizona--Deborah Lynn Quinn, 39, born with no arms or legs, is
sentenced to one year in Arizona prison for marijuana possession after
violating probation on a previous drug offense--attempted sale of 4 grams
of marijuana to a police informant for $20. Quinn will require
around-the-clock care for feeding, bathing, and hygiene.

February 15: The United States' prison and jail population surpasses 2
million people. Prisons are one of the fastest-growing expenses of
government. It costs about $100,000 to build a single prison cell and about
$24,000 per year to house an individual prisoner. Some 1.3 million U.S.
inmates are currently serving time for nonviolent offenses. One-quarter of
the world's prisoners are now incarcerated in the "land of the free."

February 18: Atlanta--Louis E. Covar Jr., 51, a quadriplegic, paralyzed
from the neck down in a diving accident on July 4, 1967, who says he uses
marijuana to relieve the pain from muscle spasms in his neck, is sentenced
to seven years in prison after being accused of selling marijuana out of
his home. Covar denies the charge, insisting the small amount seized (one
and a quarter ounces) was for his personal medicinal use. According to the
Georgia Department of Corrections, the special care Covar needs will cost
$258.33 a day--or more than 660,000 if he serves his full seven years. A
typical prisoner costs taxpayers $47.63 per day.

February 23: The Hawaii Medical Association comes out against the pending
state medical marijuana initiative. Heidi Singh, HMA's director of
legislative and government affairs, says more studies should be done, and
that "physicians cannot in good faith recommend a drug therapy without
clinical evidence to back it up."

February 28: Madrid, Spain--The chemical in marijuana that produces a high
shows promise as a weapon against deadly brain tumors, according to Spanish
scientists. In a study on rats, a team from Complutense University and
Autonoma University in Madrid found that one of marijuana's active
ingredients, THC, eliminated tumor cells in advanced cases of glioma, a
quick-killing cancer for which there is currently no effective treatment.
The researchers found that pumping THC into the tumors cleared the cancer
in more than a third of the test rats. The drug prolonged the life of
another third by up to 40 days, but was ineffective in the rest. The cancer
did not recur in any of the survivors.

March 2: Marijuana-like compounds ease tremors in mice with a condition
similar to multiple sclerosis, researchers say in a study, published in the
British journal Nature, that appears to corroborate patients' claims that
pot helps them deal with the disease.

March 13: Mondovi, Wisconsin--Police raid the home of Jacki Rickert at 3:30
a.m. and seize a small amount of marijuana. Rickert, 49, who is
wheelchair-bound and weighs 90 pounds, suffers from Ehlers-Danos syndrome
and reflexive sympathetic dystrophy, bone and muscle diseases respectively.
She smokes marijuana to ease her pain and strengthen her appetite. Rickert
was promised but later denied entrance to the federal Investigative New
Drug program, which distributes a tin of 300 pre-rolled marijuana
cigarettes to eight legally protected American citizens each month.

Rickert's daughter, Tammy, claims the police raid has left her mother a
wreck. "She's tiny, frail," Tammy said. "She's not out to hurt anybody.
She's trying to maintain some semblance of a quality of life. The
marijuana, which the government pretty much told her she could use, helps a
little. This whole thing is unbelievable."

March 16: New York City--An unarmed black security guard, Patrick
Dorismond, is shot dead by undercover New York City police officers
conducting a marijuana "buy-and-bust." Two plainclothes detectives approach
Dorismond, asking if he will sell them "some weed." Dorismond rebuffs the
men, a scuffle ensues, and a third officer, Anthony Vasquez, fires a single
bullet into Dorismond's chest. No drugs or other contraband is found on
Dorismond's body. The shooting is the third time in 13 months plainclothes
New York City police officers kill an unarmed black man.

Under Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, marijuana arrests have risen from 720 in 1992
to 59,945 in the first 11 months of 2000.

April 1: Canada's premier national newspaper, The National Post,
editorializes in favor of an eventual legalization of marijuana: "Canada's
police, judges, and prosecutors have better things to do with their time
than track down those who produce and consume a substance no more dangerous
than alcohol and tobacco. We should begin the decriminalization of
marijuana by immediately reducing the punishments that can be imposed for
its possession to modest fines--and start thinking about how to regulate
its use."

April 25: The Hawaii State Senate passes medical marijuana legislation,
joining California, Oregon, Washington, Maine, Alaska, Arizona, and the
District of Columbia in shielding medical marijuana patients from criminal
prosecution.

June 9: Human Rights Watch releases a study showing that Illinois has the
worst racial disparity among jailed drug offenders of any state in the
nation. Black men in Illinois are 57 times more likely than white men to be
sent to prison on drug charges, and blacks make up 90 percent of all
drug-related prison admissions. Though federal studies show that nationwide
white drug users outnumber black drug users 5 to 1, blacks make up about 62
percent of prisoners incarcerated on drug charges, compared with 36 percent
for whites.

June 14: Los Angeles--Bestselling author, cancer and AIDS patient, and
high-profile medical marijuana activist Peter McWilliams is found dead in
his home. McWilliams, barred by a federal court order from using marijuana
to counteract the extreme nausea caused by his AIDS drugs, is found slumped
on his bathroom floor, choked to death on vomit. His federal prosecutors
say they are "saddened by his death."

McWilliams's books include How to Heal Depression; Getting Over the Loss of
a Love; Life 101; and Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do: The Absurdity of
Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country.

July 31: Ontario, Canada--Ontario's top court rules unanimously (3-0) that
Canada's law making marijuana possession a crime is unconstitutional,
because it does not take into account the needs of medical marijuana
patients. The judges allow the current law to remain in effect for another
12 months, to permit Parliament to rewrite it. However, if the Canadian
government fails to set up a medical marijuana distribution program by July
31, 2001, all marijuana laws in Canada will be struck down.

August 16: Los Angeles--The American Medical Marijuana Association reports
that medical marijuana patient, grower, and author of How to Grow Medical
Marijuana Todd McCormick, confined to federal prison while appealing his
case, has been sent to solitary confinement. Todd has severe spinal
problems that have caused him "unbearable" pain, according to his mother,
Ann McCormick. She says Todd went to the medical office and requested the
synthetic form of marijuana, Marinol, produced by Unimed Pharmaceuticals,
which he had been taking before his incarceration. One day after Todd asked
for the easily prescribed drug, the feds ordered he be drug tested. When
the results came back positive for marijuana, Todd was placed in solitary
confinement.

August 20: Seattle--A crowd estimated at 100,000 gathers at Myrtle Edwards
Park for Hempfest 2000, calling for the legalization of marijuana for
personal and medical use, as well as legalization of hemp for
environmentally sustainable industrial uses. The event is the largest of
its kind in the world, with no arrests reported.

September 8: Santa Fe--Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader joins
New Mexico's Republican governor, Gary Johnson, in criticizing the nation's
war on drugs, calling for marijuana legalization and reform of what Nader
calls "self-defeating and antiquated" drug laws. Rehabilitation gives a far
better payoff than "criminalizing and militarizing the situation," Nader
says at a news conference. "Study after study has shown that, and yet
somehow it doesn't get through to federal policy."

October 16: The FBI releases its 1999 Uniform Crime Report. There was a
record total of 704,812 U.S. marijuana arrests in 1999, or one every 45
seconds. Of those arrests, 620,541 (88 percent) were for simple marijuana
possession, and 84,271 (12 percent) were for sales or cultivation. Through
1999, there were 4,175,357 marijuana arrests under the Clinton
administration, a record for any U.S. presidency.

November 7, election day: Voters across the United States pass sweeping
drug law reform initiatives. In California, despite united opposition from
Governor Gray Davis, Attorney General Bill Lockyer, Senator Dianne
Feinstein, statewide police associations, and prison guard unions, citizens
vote 61 percent to 39 percent to pass Proposition 36, diverting nonviolent
drug offenders into treatment rather than prison for first and second
offenses. Proponents claim the move will save the state $150 million
annually and eliminate the need for a new state prison. Mendocino County
voters approve Measure G by a 58-42 margin, decriminalizing personal use
and the growing of up to 25 marijuana plants.

Nevadans vote 65 percent to 35 percent to pass Question 9, allowing
qualified patients to possess marijuana for medicinal purposes. In
response, a self-appointed task force of state health care officials, the
Nevada Medical Marijuana Initiative Work Group, moves to limit use of the
drug to research studies, adding months if not years to approval time.

By a 53-47 margin, Colorado voters pass Amendment 20, allowing qualified
patients to possess up to two ounces of marijuana and grow up to six
plants. Tom Strickland, U.S. attorney for Colorado, says that his office
will continue to "aggressively enforce federal drug laws, including the
prohibition of marijuana, regardless of the passage of this ballot initiative."

Utahans, by a margin of 69-31, pass Initiative B, denying government
agencies the right to seize property from individuals before they are
convicted of a crime.

Oregonians pass a similar property-seizure reform initiative, Measure
3--the Oregon Property Protection Act--by a margin of 67-33. Measure 3
diverts drug forfeiture proceeds from police treasuries into drug treatment
programs.

November 27: In U.S. v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, 00-151, the
Supreme Court takes on the issue of whether "medical necessity" is an
acceptable defense against the federal law that makes marijuana
distribution a crime. A decision is expected by June 2001.

December 6: Brussels, Belgium--Liberal prime minister Guy Verhofstadt and a
coalition of Liberals, Socialists, and Greens vote to end marijuana
prohibition. As of January 1, 2001, Belgium, joining Holland in embracing
tolerance, will "exempt from punishment possession, consumption, and trade
of up to five grams hashish or marijuana." Belgium is the seat of the
European Union.

December 6: In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine released today,
President Bill Clinton is asked if he thinks "people should go to jail for
using or even selling small amounts of marijuana." Clinton replies, "I
think that most small amounts of marijuana have been decriminalized in some
places, and should be." Clinton adds, "We really need a reexamination of
our entire policy on imprisonment. A lot of people are in prison because
they have drug problems or alcohol problems and too many of them are
getting out--particularly out of state systems--without treatment, without
education, without skills, without serious efforts at job placement."