BUZZ KILL

Club-Drug Publishers Could Face Prison Terms

When Congress tries to burn the Bill of Rights, its motto is "If at first
you don't succeed, strike another match." With the Methamphetamine
Anti-Proliferation Act of 1999 bogged down in the House Judiciary
Committee, lawmakers have introduced a similar new bill in both houses. The
Ecstasy Anti-Proliferation Act takes aim at other drugs but keeps its
predecessor's free-speech-destroying measures. Several senators from each
party, led by Democrat Bob Graham of Florida, apparently had their aides do
a find-and-replace on the Meth Act, changing each occurrence of
methamphetamine to Ecstasy or GHB.

In addition to providing another $5 million for the War on Drugs and
calling for stiffer penalties for anyone who makes or sells the substances
in question, the resulting bill would outlaw the distribution of a wide
range of drug info.

"If citizens didn't already distrust the government's statements concerning
certain drugs, it should now become crystal-clear that the government is
engaged in a true wartime propaganda campaign," says Richard Glen Boire,
the attorney who recently prepared a legislative analysis of the bill for
the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics. "Along with the other civil
liberties that have been blown to bits in the war, we can now add the First
Amendment's guarantee of free speech." Boire and others are upset mainly
over the section of the bill that makes it a felony to "distribute by any
means information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture,
acquisition, or use of a controlled substance"--if the distributor should
have known someone would use the information to commit a crime. Each
offense could net a huge fine and 10 years in the slammer.

So what counts as an offense? With such a broad, vague law, that's anyone's
guess, but it surely won't be safe to put up a Web site telling how to use
pot for medicinal purposes. Posting safety guidelines for people who plan
to drop Ecstasy could land you behind bars. And publishing books about how
to make speed or grow magic mushrooms? Not advisable. Michael Hoy, whose
company, Loompanics, publishes such material, says the law would prompt him
to pull his drug books off the market. "This is insane," he says. "You
can't solve problems by throwing people in prison for talking."

Too bad nobody told that to the United Nations. The Ecstasy Act is the
logical outgrowth of a call-to-censorship issued by the UN. In
alittle-noticed 1997 report, the UN's International Narcotics Control Board
urged member nations to criminalize speech that doesn't toe the antidrug
line. The report urges countries to punish citizens who use "any type of
media"--including the Net and books--to challenge drug laws or to incite
people to use illicit drugs.

Despite the UN's reputation for Milquetoast efforts, the Narcotics Control
Board shows signs of gearing up to take action. At a New York press
conference in June, the board's head, Pino Arlacchi, announced that the
group was trying to establish "universal jurisdiction" in order to bust not
just the global drug trade but also people who use the Internet to
"disseminate information about drugs." The UN's top narc explained, "These
views are spreading, and we are now thinking about some instrument to at
least stop the expansion of this flow of information."

If those in power have their way, publishing information about drugs will
be a felony, and running a Web site calling for drug legalization will be a
violation of international law, alongside genocide and other war
atrocities. "This is precisely what one would expect from a policy that
prides itself on zero tolerance and employs metaphors of war," Boire says.
"Rather than intolerance and war, it's time to try a drug policy of respect
and true education. Until we rethink our policy toward drugs, we will see
only mounting casualties of human freedom, civil rights, and the environment."

Somebody arrest that man!