In a DrugSense Weekly earlier this month we announced:
http://www.drugsense.org/dsw/1998/ds98.n71.html

This month the DrugSense NEWSHAWK OF THE MONTH Award is going to another of
our superb NewsHawks, who make the Media Awareness Project possible.
Martin Cooke has been a sterling example of our wide network of active
volunteers. Martin's input has been high quality and consistent for a long,
long time. Martin is one of our "foreign correspondents" and has been
instrumental in helping to keep on top of International developments,
articles, and events.

We subsequently interviewed Martin, and here is that interview:

MAP: How did you get into newshawking?

MARTIN: About two and a half years ago a few articles in Irish newspapers
and magazines made me realise that main cause of the problem lay not in
the drug itself but in the fact that it was illegal. Prior to this I had
never really thought about the legalisation of any drugs other than cannabis.

Around the same time I had connected to the Internet, and so started
trawling the usenet groups concerned with drug policy. It was a posting to
one of those groups that alerted me to a mailing list (the Legalize!
initiative : ( http://www.legalize.org ) which was being set up to discuss
ways of influencing drug policy makers. Through that list I met "shug"
(another of your newshawks). He sent in details about newshawking.

It grew from there.

MAP: What do you consider the most significant story/issue of the past
months from the UK and/or Ireland?

MARTIN: Difficult to say really.

I think the biggest issue in Ireland, to my mind, is the mad scramble by
the government to build extra prison places. We already imprison about four
and a half times as many of our citizens (on a per capita basis) as, for
example, the Netherlands (328 per 100,000 population - as opposed to the
Netherlands' 73 per 100,000). However, the encouraging side to this is that
individuals and organisations are beginning to publicly question this gross
waste of the country's money and youth.

In the UK, I would probably choose (having considered the imminent report
of the House of Lords on cannabis - and the fact that calls are now
starting to be made for the supply of heroin to registered addicts) the
recent setting up of Britain's first "official" (if still illegal) medical
cannabis initiative to supply cannabis to people who can prove they need it
for medical reasons, by Colin Davies in Stockport (my home town).

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v98.n973.a08.html

Colin was acquitted by Manchester Crown Court earlier this year after the
police had found him growing cannabis to relieve his own back pain (which
had resulted from an accident several years back).


I like to think that this (the medical cannabis initiative) is partly a
result of my own efforts (through family contacts) in finding Colin's
address for a member of ACT (Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics) who had
asked through another mailing list I am subscribed to.

As far as Europe as a whole is concerned the most exciting news *MUST* be
the DROLEG referendum due at the end of this month to legalise ALL drugs in
Switzerland. There is every chance this initiative will be passed. And if
it is it will be yet another nail in the coffin of prohibition.

[Today many hopes were dashed.]

MAP: What is your favorite website in the UK or Ireland.

MARTIN: I think I would have to choose 'Shug's War on Drugs Library'

When shug disappeared from sight for many months about a year back, I was
worried that something had happened to him. It turned out he was busy
putting this site together.

[The library has been moved to the UK Cannabis Information website.
http://www.ukcia.org "seems responsible" wrote the prestigious British
Medical Journal in their website review of 14 Nov 1998.]

MAP: I know you used to newshawk under a pen name. Have you had any
reactions as a result of going public (your name is known to thousands,
now, I am sure, just thru your newshawking efforts)?

None really, apart from the occasional email congratulating me on my
efforts, or asking me to keep an eye open for a letter that someone had
sent to an Irish or UK paper in response to one of the articles I had sent in.

I did once receive an envelope containing nothing more than a page from one
of the British Tabloid (aka 'Gutter Press') newspapers full of 'reefer
madness' type stories. The postmark was Cork (over 200 miles from me), but
there was no return address, so I was not able to find out what the sender
was trying to tell me.

More interesting is the fact that I now live in a very rural and
"conservative" area of the west of Ireland, where there isn't really an
'illegal' drug problem (I'll say nothing about the legal drug alcohol). I
have had various letters published in the national newspapers (several of
which have been mentioned on national and local radio) arguing for the
legalisation of drugs, criticising the gardai (police) for targeting
cannabis instead of heroin, and demanding a "just say know" approach
instead of a 'just say no' one. I had expected the people in the locality
to react against what I was writing, but they have been very supportive -
the only any way negative comment coming from a 70 year old grandmother who
simply said: "Everyone is entitled to an opinion". A local garda sergeant
even brought up the question of the legalisation of cannabis with me in the
local pub one day (he was drinking Guinness - I was drinking coffee), and
admitted that he had tried it and couldn't see what the fuss was about. And
when I asked him if during the course of his work he had ever been called
out to deal with a case of family violence that involved the use of
cannabis he just smiled and said: "No, it's usually this that's the cause,"
nodding in the direction of his pint.

Checked-by: Richard Lake