THIS JUST IN

COMMENT: (1-4)

Millions suffer needless pain because the laws and those who enforce
them get between doctors and patients. Rarely some small belated
justice points out how serious the issue is. Few newspapers have
given coverage to the GAO report http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d071018.pdf

On the front page of the Wall Street Journal we find out that drug
cartels find ways to conduct business despite any laws. Finally,
almost every day Law Enforcement Against Prohibition speakers
confront the traditional arguments supporting the war on drugs.

(1) FULL PARDON BEGINS TO EASE MAN'S PAIN

Pubdate: Fri, 21 Sep 2007
Source: St. Petersburg Times (FL)
Copyright: 2007 St. Petersburg Times
Author: Jamal Thalji, Times Staff Writer

Governor and Cabinet Rule a Pain Patient Shouldn't Be in Prison.

TALLAHASSEE -- Richard Paey wanted to be a lawyer and then a cop, but
the searing pain in his legs robbed him of that. He settled for being
a son, husband and father.

Then the state said he was a drug trafficker. After a decade he was
convicted on the third try and sentenced to 25 years in prison. But
the drugs were for Paey's own chronic pain, the result of a car
crash, back surgery and multiple sclerosis.

Appeal after appeal fell through. He found sympathy, in the courts of
law and public opinion, but not relief.

Now, after more than three years in prison, Paey can call himself
something else:

A free man.

Paey, 48, was granted a full pardon Thursday by Gov. Charlie Crist
and the Florida Cabinet in Tallahassee.

"We aim to right a wrong," Crist said. "And to do it with grace."

Paey never dared dream of a full pardon. All he asked the clemency
board to do was commute his sentence to time served.

Then the governor stunned Paey's wife, Linda, and their three teenage children:

"I state he should be released today," Crist said.

Applause broke out in the Cabinet meeting room. The Paey family and
lawyer John Flannery II hugged. It was 9:40 a.m.

Nine hours later, Richard Paey came home to Hudson.

"In the immortal words of Dorothy," he said, pausing to kiss his
wife, "there's no place like home."

The reasons why Paey, who was convicted in 2004, ended up in prison
are still disputed.

[snip]

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(2) MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS MOVE NORTH

Pubdate: Thu, 20 Sep 2007
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2007 The Washington Post Company
Author: Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post Foreign Service

U.S. Effort to Battle Groups Is Flawed, GAO Report Says

MEXICO CITY -- Mexican drug cartels now operate in almost every
region of the United States and bring in as much as $23 billion a
year in revenue, according to a Government Accountability Office
report that will be released Thursday.

U.S. assistance has helped Mexico combat cartels, the report says,
but those efforts have been hampered by Mexican government corruption
and by the failure of key players in the United States, including the
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, to coordinate
better with Mexican law enforcement. The White House drug policy
office, the report says, has prepared a counter-narcotics plan but
has not discussed portions of the initiative that require Mexican
cooperation with authorities in Mexico.

"The Office of National Drug Control Policy has to stop dropping the
ball and doing sloppy work," Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who
requested the report, said in an e-mail Wednesday. "They had plenty
of time to forge a working relationship with the Mexican government,
but it appears that nothing has been accomplished."

The agency, Grassley added, "needs to realize that we're in this
fight together, and it's foolish to think we can implement an
effective plan to stop the flow of drugs from Mexico on our own."

Patrick Ward, assistant deputy director of the White House drug
office, said in an interview Wednesday that his office has had
extensive contact with Mexican authorities about counter-narcotics
plans since the GAO conducted its probe.

"Our cooperation with the Mexican government, especially in the last
eight to 10 months since President [Felipe] Calderon took office, has
been absolutely phenomenal," Ward said.

The report, an advance copy of which was obtained by The Washington
Post, is the starkest evidence yet of Mexico's emergence as the main
conduit of illegal drugs into the United States. The share of cocaine
arriving in the United States through Mexico, for instance, leapt
from 66 percent in 2000 to 90 percent in 2005. Other transshipment
points include Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Central America.

Combined, Mexican drug cartels generate more revenue than at least 40
percent of Fortune 500 companies, and the U.S. government's highest
estimate of cartel revenue tops that of Merck, Deere and Halliburton.

[snip]

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(3) ATMS BECOME HANDY TOOL FOR LAUNDERING DIRTY CASH

Pubdate: Fri, 21 Sep 2007
Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Copyright: 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Author: Mark Schoofs

With Small Deposits, Couriers Outwit Banks; Bag of Money in Queens

At 8:50 a.m. on March 15, 2006, Luis Saavedra and Carlos Roca began
going from bank to bank in Queens, New York, depositing cash into
accounts held by a network of other people, according to
law-enforcement officials. Their deposits never exceeded $2,000. Most
ranged from $500 to $1,500.

Around lunchtime, they crossed into Manhattan and worked their way up
Third Avenue, then visited two banks on Madison Avenue. By 2:52 p.m.,
they had placed more than $111,000 into 112 accounts, say the
officials, who reconstructed their movements from seized deposit slips.

Confederates in Colombia used ATM cards to withdraw the money in
pesos, moving quickly from machine to machine in a withdrawal
whirlwind, the officials say. "The organization at its height was
moving about $2 million a month," estimates Bridget Brennan, Special
Narcotics Prosecutor for New York City.

Messrs. Saavedra and Roca were arrested in June and charged under
state money-laundering laws. Officials say they were moving money for
a Colombian drug-trafficking organization that sells cocaine and the
club-drug Ecstasy. Prosecutors say the two men engaged in a
laundering practice called "microstructuring," a scheme notable for
its simplicity. To evade suspicion by banks, they always made small
deposits. In Colombia, getting at that money was as easy as pushing
buttons on an ATM.

Microstructuring has emerged as a vexing challenge for
law-enforcement officials charged with stanching the illegal movement
of money by drug traffickers, terrorists and organized-crime rings.
The deposits and withdrawals are so small they can pass for ordinary
ATM transactions. It's an extreme variation of a practice sometimes
called "smurfing" -- the breaking down of large transactions into
many smaller ones to evade detection by financial regulators. That
activity was criminalized by Congress in 1986.

[snip]

The International Monetary Fund has estimated that between 2% and 5%
of the world's gross domestic product -- between $962 billion and
$2.4 trillion based on 2006 GDP data from the IMF -- is laundered
world-wide every year. Experts say much of it flows through the U.S.
financial system. Law enforcement has been hard pressed to keep up
with money-laundering schemes, which criminals use to make proceeds
from illegal activities appear legitimate. Authorities rely heavily
on banks, which are required to report all cash transactions larger
than $10,000 and to institute "know your customer" procedures to
ferret out money laundering and other suspicious activity.

Drug dealers, in particular, have lots of cash they want to slip
surreptitiously into the banking system. Colombian traffickers want
much of their money in Colombian pesos, so the cash they collect in
the U.S. and Europe has to be converted. Many money-laundering
schemes are complex, employing layers of transactions to move money
through multiple countries to obscure the trail.

[snip]

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(4) FORMER OFFICER'S MESSAGE RILES SOME

Pubdate: Fri, 21 Sep 2007
Source: Post-Star, The ( NY)
Copyright: 2007 Glens Falls Newspapers Inc.
Author: Nick Reisman, Staff Writer

Retired Drug Officer Says Legalization Is Best Choice For U.S.

GLENS FALLS -- Warren County District Attorney Kate Hogan and a
retired police captain got into a heated exchange Thursday over
whether the United States should legalize drugs like heroin and marijuana.

"These laws create crime and violence in our society that we wouldn't
have without prohibition (of drugs)," Peter Christ, a former
narcotics officer from western New York, told the Rotary Club of
Glens Falls at the Queensbury Hotel.

Christ (rhymes with "wrist") is the founder of Law Enforcement
Against Prohibition, a Massachusetts-based group that includes judges
and police officers.

In his speech, he drew a parallel with current drug policy and the
national ban on alcohol that lasted from 1920 to 1933. The 18th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution outlawed production and
distribution of alcohol but was later repealed by the 21st
Amendment. During that time, gangsters like Al Capone capitalized on
the law by bootlegging.

"We are in another period of prohibition today," said Christ,
61. "There's gang violence on the streets. Children are seduced by
mobsters. Nothing has changed."

He added that the government should regulate hard drugs like it does
the lottery and tobacco.

[snip]

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WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW

Domestic News- Policy

COMMENT: (5-8)

American taxpayers, hold on to your wallets: More startlingly large
government contracts are being prepared to develop plans for battling
"narcoterrorism." Last week, this space noted a story out of Maryland
which lauded the big money suddenly available to an area contractor
for a high-tech attack on prohibited drugs. This week, a new story
out of the Washington Post shows that a select handful of firms from
around the country are set to split up about $15 billion over five
years. And we sometimes wonder why the drug war goes on. At least
some politicians have recognized the dead end of the drug war, as
demonstrated by a story about a city councilman who has seen the
light in Baltimore.

The Hawaiian public education system seems to be poised on the brink
of no-holds-barred drug crackdown. The State Board of Education is
pushing to widely broaden the opportunities for the searching of
student lockers, even without cause. And, as teachers in the state
prepare to be pulled out of class for random drug tests, the ACLU is
looking for educators who want to stand up against the new policy.

(5) 5 FIRMS TO JOIN ANTI-DRUG CAMPAIGN

Pubdate: Mon, 17 Sep 2007
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2007 The Washington Post Company
Author: Michael Hardy, Special to the Washington Post

The Defense Department has picked five companies, four of them from
the Washington area, for a contract to support the Pentagon's
counter-narcoterrorism activities. The government may spend as much
as $15 billion through the five-year contract.

The local companies are Arinc of Annapolis, Lockheed Martin of
Bethesda, Raytheon Technical Services of Reston and Northrop Grumman
Information Technology of McLean. The fifth company is Blackwater
USA of Moyock, N.C.

The companies will provide equipment, material and services to the
Defense Department's Counter-Narcoterrorism Technology Program Office
(CNTPO). The office's mission is to attack the narcotics trade and
the flow of money and support from drug traffickers to terrorist groups.

Drug trafficking provides money for terror organizations in various
ways. According to a 2002 report that the Library of Congress's
Federal Research Division prepared for the Defense Department, the
drug trade funds guerrilla groups in Latin America and Islamic
fundamentalist organizations -- including Al Qaeda -- around the
world. The funding comes directly, from proceeds of drug sales, and
indirectly, through use of drugs to bartering for weapons or other supplies.

The contract is broad in scope and could involve several divisions of
the winning companies, said Kerry Beresford, senior director of
advance aviation applications at Arinc. That unit, based in Oklahoma
City, is likely to handle many task orders that come through the
contract, but other Arinc divisions specializing in intelligence
gathering and other disciplines would be better suited for other
demands, he said.

[snip]

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(6) CITY COUNCILMAN PUSHES TO END WAR ON DRUGS

Pubdate: Fri, 14 Sep 2007
Source: Baltimore Examiner (MD)
Copyright: 2007 Baltimore Examiner
Author: Stephen Janis, The Examiner

Baltimore City Councilman Jack Young is taking his war against the
"war on drugs" one step farther.

On Monday, Young said he will introduce a resolution seeking a
hearing -- with testimony from the Baltimore Police Department and
the city Health Department -- to open a dialogue on what he said is a
failed strategy against illegal drugs.

"Like I've said before -- what we've done is not working," he said.

"We need to have a dialogue about taking the profit motive out of
drug dealing and ending the so-called war on drugs."

In August, Young floated the idea of decriminalizing drugs at a City
Council meeting, but has now decided to formalize his proposal after
receiving a commitment to testify at the hearing from an organization
called Law Enforcement Officers Against prohibition.

[snip]

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(7) HAWAII BOE MAY OK SCHOOL LOCKER SEARCHES

Pubdate: Wed, 12 Sep 2007
Source: Honolulu Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2007 The Honolulu Advertiser, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Author: Loren Moreno

State Board of Education officials expect to encounter vocal
opposition next month when they take up a proposal to allow locker
searches and the use of drug-sniffing dogs on school campuses statewide.

But even as the American Civil Liberties Union, legal experts, some
principals and students express concern over the proposed revisions
to the schools' disciplinary code, board members say they expect the
proposal will pass when taken up by the full board at a
yet-to-be-scheduled meeting.

At the request of the state attorney general's office, the board is
considering searches "with or without cause" and the use of drug
detection canines on public school campuses, said board member Mary
Cochran, whose committee on Monday gave preliminary approval to the
Chapter 19 disciplinary code changes.

Previously, the panel backed away from "without cause" searches. But
following an executive session discussion with the attorney general's
office, the committee decided in a majority vote to reinstate the language.

Four members of the 11-member panel voted against the change.

"While I don't necessarily have a problem with the dogs being on
campus, when you say we can search a locker without cause, I just
have some concern about that phrase and what it could imply," said
Karen Knudsen, chairwoman of the state BOE.

[snip]

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(8) ACLU SEEKS PARTICIPANTS FOR SCHOOL DRUG-TEST SUIT

Pubdate: Sat, 15 Sep 2007
Source: Honolulu Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2007 The Honolulu Advertiser, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

The American Civil Liberties Union plans a legal challenge to a new
contract that allows random drug testing of Hawai'i public school
employees and is actively seeking people who want to be part of the
lawsuit, the group announced yesterday.

ACLU leaders will begin touring the state later this month to meet
with unionized public school employees who are subject to the tests
under the terms of their new collective bargaining agreement.

The group is looking for teachers and others who want to be
plaintiffs in the lawsuit that will challenge the testing program,
said Lois Perrin, legal director of the ACLU of Hawai'i.

"Our education system is failing students by resorting to dragnet
searches that do little to protect anyone while violating the rights
of everyone," Perrin said.

The Hawai'i State Teachers Association and the state earlier this
year agreed to a contract that would allow random drug testing of
teachers, librarians and administrative workers in the public school system.

Union members narrowly approved the contract with the state. The
policy is the first of its kind in the nation, the ACLU said.

[snip]

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Law Enforcement & Prisons

COMMENT: (9-13)

In Wisconsin, police were shocked by a judge's ruling that they
actually have to get a warrant in order for a informant wearing a
wire during an alleged drug deal. The legislature has tried to make
it easier for police, but they are still complaining about being
handcuffed. More corruption this week, but with a couple of twists.
In Florida, a school resource officer allegedly planned to rip off
drug dealers, while in Virginia, a sheriff is sentenced to eight
months over corruption charges, though some supporters say he was
framed by an informant.

No more bake sales to save a drug task force in Texas, the task force
has officially died from a lack of funding, like others in the
state. And in Ohio, one woman was released from prison and many
other cases are now in question worked by a federal agent involved in the case.

(9) NEW LEGISLATION MEANS RESTRICTIONS FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT

Pubdate: Wed, 12 Sep 2007
Source: State Journal, The (WV)
Copyright: 2007 The State Journal
Author: J. Turchetta

Agencies Must Not Obtain A Warrant Before Putting A Wire On An Informant.

BUCKHANNON -- The State Supreme Court earlier this year ruled that
law enforcement agencies would have to obtain a warrant before
placing a wire on informants.

After a recent special legislative session, Governor Joe Manchin
signed a bill that eased some of those restrictions but it is still
keeping many departments hand-cuffed when it comes to surveillance.

When the court made its ruling, it said that if you wanted to place a
wire on an informant and send him into a suspect's home, you first
had to get a warrant to do so. But only five circuit court judges in
the state were authorized to grant those warrants.

The bill signed by the Governor allows any circuit judge or
magistrate to sign those warrants. But many departments, including
the Upshur County Sheriff's Department, said it still is a major road block.

If a department has a tip that a drug deal is going down, they would
first have to get their warrant approved before allowing their
informant to enter into a buy.

[snip]

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(10) VOLUSIA DEPUTY CHARGED IN ROBBERY CONSPIRACY

Pubdate: Wed, 12 Sep 2007
Source: Daytona Beach News-Journal (FL)
Copyright: 2007 News-Journal Corporation
Author: Patricio G. Balona, Staff Writer

DELAND -- The plan was to make a traffic stop on the outskirts of
Daytona Beach and with the help of an accomplice rob a street-level
drug dealer of money.

But the Volusia County sheriff's deputy accused of plotting the
robbery did not carry out his plan as agents from the Florida
Department of Law Enforcement arrested him Tuesday afternoon.

Eugene Walton, a school resource deputy at Campbell Middle School in
Daytona Beach, was charged with one count of unlawful compensation
and one count of conspiracy to commit robbery, said Susie Murphy,
FDLE spokeswoman.

[snip]

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(11) FRIENDS RALLY FOR CASSELL

Pubdate: Wed, 12 Sep 2007
Source: Martinsville Bulletin (VA)
Copyright: 2007 Martinsville Bulletin
Author: Amanda Buck, Bulletin, Staff Writer

ROANOKE -- About a dozen family members and at least 40 friends,
neighbors and church members packed into a crowded courtroom here
Tuesday to show their support for former Henry County sheriff H. Frank Cassell.

After U.S. District Judge James C. Turk sentenced Cassell to eight
months in prison and a $15,000 fine for making a false statement to a
federal agent, supporters crowded around him and his wife Margaret,
offering hugs and handshakes. Outside the courtroom, several wiped
away tears as they discussed the judge's decision.

Olaf Hurd of Ridgeway, who has known Cassell since the 1960s, said
the sentence, which fell within the government's guidelines, would
have been more lenient if Turk knew the Cassell he knows.

"The judge didn't know Frank," Hurd said. "His men let him down. The
only thing he's guilty of is being too good to his men."

It was a statement that echoed what Cassell's attorney, John
Lichtenstein, said in court. He depicted Cassell, 69, as a
compassionate man who was all but trapped by James Vaught, a former
deputy who came to him for help. Vaught, who was working as a
government informant, persuaded Cassell to help him secure a loan so
Vaught could launder thousands of dollars in what he said was drug
money, Lichtenstein said.

Cassell later lied to an FBI agent when he denied knowing how Vaught
got the money.

Although what Cassell did was wrong, he did it not for personal gain
but because he wanted to help a man who had fallen on hard times,
Lichtenstein argued.

[snip]

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(12) LACK OF FUNDS SPELLS END FOR TASK FORCE

Pubdate: Thu, 13 Sep 2007
Source: Times Record News (Wichita Falls, TX)
Copyright: 2007 The E.W. Scripps Co.
Author: Jessica Langdon, Times Record News

Wichita Falls City Manager Darron Leiker went into the budget process
for 2007-08 knowing that part of the undertaking would have to
include salaries to fold six employees into the Wichita Falls Police
Department.

Those six had been part of the North Texas Regional Drug Enforcement
Task Force, which appears set to shut down at the end of September as
the interagency agreement funding it ends.

The reality started to sink in several months ago as the Texas
Legislature wrapped up its session without bolstering the task force,
Leiker said. The city and surrounding areas had hoped some dollars
would come through.

The task force has been operating for the past year and a half on
funds scraped together through forfeitures and contributions from the
entities that use the task force's services.

That's been putting a Band-Aid on the situation for a while to keep
it going, and the goal was to work with the state toward new funding,
Leiker said.

[snip]

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(13) U.S. DISMISSES CHARGES VS. GENEVA FRANCE IN BOTCHED DRUG PROBE

Pubdate: Tue, 11 Sep 2007
Source: Plain Dealer, The (Cleveland, OH)
Copyright: 2007 The Plain Dealer
Author: John Caniglia

Federal prosecutors on Monday dismissed their charges against a woman
who served 16 months in prison after being snared in a botched drug
investigation.

Prosecutors said the allegations against Geneva France, a Mansfield
mother of three, would have been impossible to prove and cited an
informant who recanted his testimony against her.

It marks the first time prosecutors tossed out a conviction in the
case that snagged 26 people and accused them of peddling cocaine and
marijuana in Mansfield. Twenty people were convicted, and four were
acquitted. One had charges dropped after spending months in jail.

France's case is a focus of a Justice Department task force that is
examining the work of Lee Lucas, the federal drug agent who handled
the case, and Lucas' informant, Jerrell Bray. The unit will meet with
more attorneys and witnesses in Cleveland this week.

Defense attorneys said the task force, headed by Assistant U.S.
Attorney Bruce Teitelbaum from Pittsburgh, also is looking at other
cases that Lucas worked.

[snip]

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Cannabis & Hemp

COMMENT: (14-17)

Two veterans of the cannabis community were among those detained at
the annual Boston Freedom Rally. As Keith Stroup, attorney and
founder of NORML explained, "We forgot that it is still illegal;
that's my defense and I'm sticking with it!"

Speaking of memory loss, DSW readers may recall former Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales anointing Marc Emery "the number one drug
trafficking kingpin in Canada, one of the 51 top kingpins in the
world." Now Canada's "Prince of Pot" can add "Cowboy of Cannabis" to
his list of titles, or should it be "Good Guy of Ganja?"

Last week marked the 10th anniversary of the "Journey for Justice," a
210-mile wheel-chair trip across Wisconsin to the state capital,
organized by IMMLY, or "Is My Medicine Legal Yet?" Ten years later,
the sad answer is still "no," but Jacki Rickert won't take "no" for an answer.

The Independent on Sunday has been seduced by the dark side since
they eloquently editorialized in favour of cannabis law reform a few
years ago, now putting one of the many costs of prohibition on the
wrong side of the ledger, in addition to citing potential health
risks as cause to keep the British market unregulated.

(14) HEMP ACTIVISTS GET THE JOINT JUMPING

Pubdate: Sun, 16 Sep 2007
Source: Boston Herald (MA)
Copyright: 2007 The Boston Herald, Inc
Author: O'Ryan Johnson
Cited: Boston Freedom Rally http://www.masscann.org/freedomrally01.shtml

Two of the nation's leading advocates for legalized marijuana were
arrested on Boston Common yesterday for lighting up a joint during
the Boston Freedom Rally, a pro-hemp event that promotes
decriminalizing the drug.

R. Keith Stroup, 63, founder of the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws, and Rick Cusick, 53, an editor at High
Times magazine, were charged with possession of marijuana, a
misdemeanor. "We were smoking a joint behind the booth here," Stroup
said. "I'm sure the police would rather be chasing real criminals.
We're both productive, hard-working taxpayers."

High Times and NORML are co-sponsors of the annual rally that
celebrates pot culture and traditionally results in dozens of arrests
of addle-brained youths who mistakenly believe it is legal to toke up
for just that day.

"A lot of them said they thought it was an amnesty," said one of the
cops at the makeshift booking area where plainclothes police led the
shame-faced youths who were caught smoking reefer. The 60-plus
arrested found it was not only not legal for that day but would cost
them a day in court.

[snip]

Stroup, who was arrested once before 24 years ago, said he and Cusick
were relaxing and smoking a joint in the park, an activity he said
was no harm to anyone.

Both men said police treated them well and professionally during the
booking process.

"I've been waiting 33 years to get arrested," said Cusick,
chuckling. "When it happened I was calm, like a monk. I told them
I'd call my lawyer, but he got arrested with me."

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(15) B.C. POT CRUSADER WHITE-HATTED

Pubdate: Sun, 16 Sep 2007
Source: Calgary Herald (CN AB)
Copyright: 2007 Calgary Herald
Author: Paula Beauchamp and Colette Derworitz

Canada's "Prince of Pot" has joined the ranks of Dolly Parton, Prince
Philip and Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean.

Arriving at the Calgary airport for a two-day visit Saturday,
Canada's best-known marijuana activist, Marc Emery, was white-hatted
by the Calgary airport's official White Hat Volunteers.

"I'm the Prince of Pot," he said.

"That's a royalty, a monarchy of sorts, so I guess it fits."

Saturday's warm welcome, arranged by Emery's supporters, comes in
stark contrast to his visit to Calgary in 2003 when Emery was
arrested for marijuana possession.

Emery is in Calgary to show his support for medical marijuana
crusader Grant Krieger, and to raise both awareness of his
extradition proceedings and money for looming court battles.

Emery has been arrested 22 times on marijuana-related offences, and
jailed 17 times.

He now faces a U.S. extradition hearing on Nov. 5. for selling
thousands of marijuana seeds to Americans through his Internet business.

Emery's business partners, Gregory Keith Williams and Michelle
Rainey- Fenkarek, were also charged.

[snip]

"He truly deserves that hat. He is a freedom fighter," Krieger said.

[snip]

Lorn Sheehan, chairman of the board of directors of Calgary Tourism,
said Calgary should show hospitality to a broad range of people.

"If you white-hat absolutely terrible people, it could devalue (the
practice)," he said.

"But if this man is walking the streets, he can't be that terrible."

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(16) MEDICAL CANNABIS SUPPORTERS UNITE

Pubdate: Wed, 19 Sep 2007
Source: Badger Herald (U of WI, Madison, WI Edu)
Copyright: 2007 Badger Herald
Author: Cara Harshman
Cited: Is My Medicine Legal Yet? http://www.immly.org

Is your medicine legal?

Jacki Rickert's isn't. The Wisconsin mother suffers from several
incurable medical conditions and says the only effective treatment is
marijuana.

Rickert joined two state legislators and other medical marijuana
supporters Tuesday for a press conference to announce the
introduction of new medical marijuana legislation.

Tuesday was a symbolic day for Rickert, as it marks the 10-year
anniversary of the "Journey-for-Justice," a 210-mile trek across the
state Rickert and an entourage of medical marijuana supporters made
in their wheelchairs that ended at the Capitol.

In honor of Rickert, Rep. Frank Boyle, D-Superior, and Rep. Mark
Pocan, D-Madison, named the new legislation the "Jacki Rickert
Medical Marijuana Act".

"I'm real proud that for the first time we are giving the bill a real
name," Boyle said. "This bill will forever be known as the Jacki
Rickert Bill."

[snip]

"Please, we have to make this legal," Rickert said. "I beg all of you."

[snip]

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(17) EDITORIAL: OUR CRIMINAL IGNORANCE OF CANNABIS

Pubdate: Sun, 16 Sep 2007
Source: Independent on Sunday (UK)
Copyright: Independent Newspapers Ltd.

When The Independent on Sunday campaigned for the decriminalisation
of cannabis, we reflected the common view among informed opinion that
the drug was less dangerous than either tobacco or alcohol. So
widespread did that view become that our editorial line was followed
within a few years by The Daily Telegraph. No wonder people were confused.

Now that confusion, which was perhaps inevitable as changes in public
opinion, government policy and scientific research interacted, has
become a real problem.

The Government responded slowly to the liberalisation of attitudes,
in which our campaign played a part. In 2001 David Blunkett, then
Home Secretary, asked the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs
whether cannabis should be downgraded from class B to the least
serious category of illegal drugs, class C. The council said it
should, although the change did not take place until January 2004.
The delay in implementing the change meant that for some time the
formal legal position was out of line with police practice.

[snip]

Meanwhile, the evidence of a link between cannabis and psychosis
among a minority of users was growing stronger. That meant that no
sooner had cannabis been downgraded in the eyes of the law than most
credible authorities began to warn it was considerably more dangerous
than previously thought. That evidence led this newspaper, in March,
to renounce its campaign to decriminalise cannabis. We felt the
evidence forced us to choose between our campaigns for better
understanding of mental health issues and our liberal instinct.

[snip]

Today, we report a further complication. One of the arguments for
reclassifying cannabis as less serious was that users did not tend to
steal to pay for their habit. But disturbing new research suggests
otherwise. Our own investigations suggest cannabis use is high and
rising among young offenders, and an academic study in Sheffield
suggests one in four young offenders has stolen to pay for cannabis.

[snip]

In July, Jacqui Smith, the new Home Secretary, began the third big
review of government policy towards illegal drugs in recent years.
Let us hope she achieves the clarity, the effective policing and the
priority for treatment that eluded her predecessors.

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n1065.a01.html

International News

COMMENT: (18-21)

An Australian House inquest into "illicit drug use" turned into a
field day for demagogues after liberal MPs called for seizing the
children of "drug-using parents" (including cannabis users). The
committee also recommended scrapping any "harm minimisation policy",
replacing it with additional punishments. Labour MPs, shut out from
the inquiry, complained of "outright hostility because their expert
views did not accord with the personal beliefs or political aims of"
the Liberal MPs leading the bandwagon. A rather lucid editorial
appeared in the Canberra Times last week ("Punitive Response No Help
On Drugs"), which cut through the rhetoric. Concluded the Times, the
"demand for a rethink on drug rehabilitation is recognised for what
it is - an unreasonably harsh and punitive approach that is more
likely to drive drug-users underground."

Canadian Prime Minister Harper's right-wing government conducted a
poll to see if their plans to do what authoritarian governments
always do (expand police and prisons) was supported by the common
people. The results of the government poll are in, and the poll
results tell us (says the government), that the people want more
government police and they don't really mind if the police commit
crimes, if they are fighting drug "trafficking". Civil liberties
experts "wondered if the Conservative government was preparing
legislation giving police greater powers and was using the survey to
create the need for new laws."

And from New Zealand this week, the MP who wanted to ban the drug
dihydrogen monoxide. It isn't the first time a sitting New Zealand
MP set their sights on the substance. True, dihydrogen monoxide can
be abused. Some succumb to crystal dihydrogen monoxide's
life-stopping power. Seeking thrills, children can and do lose their
lives to a literal sea of dihydrogen monoxide. What can government
do? When an Auckland resident demanded answers from Otago MP Jacqui
Dean, she knew what to do: ban it. But what was to be the Triumph of
Government instead turned out to be an embarrassment for the sitting
MP, when it was revealed that the "drug" called "dihydrogen monoxide"
was really just another name for water. Ms Dean had fallen for an old
hoax: renaming water, while accurately describing its dangers.

(18) SEIZE DRUG ADDICTS' CHILDREN, SAY LIBERALS

Pubdate: Fri, 14 Sep 2007
Source: Advertiser, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2007 Advertiser Newspapers Ltd
Author: Laura Anderson

CHILDREN of drug-addicted parents should be adopted out if their
parents can't "sort themselves out", a parliamentary committee has recommended.

Liberal MPs on a House of Representatives committee inquiry into
illicit drug use have called for a hardline approach to drug policy,
including dumping the Government's "harm minimisation policy".

[snip]

Ms Bishop said the tough approach to child protection had resulted
from stories of "appalling neglect and abuse" of children of
drug-using parents. The committee recommends adoption be established
as the "default" care option for children aged five and under, where
child protection authorities had identified illicit drug use by the parents.

[snip]

Labor MPs on the committee, in a dissenting report, raised concerns
about how the inquiry had been conducted.

Some witnesses had experienced "outright hostility because their
expert views did not accord with the personal beliefs or political
aims of those questioning them", they said.

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n1066.a06.html

(19) PUNITIVE RESPONSE NO HELP ON DRUGS

Pubdate: Sat, 15 Sep 2007
Source: Canberra Times (Australia)
Copyright: 2007 Canberra Times

Liberal backbencher Bronwyn Bishop is well known for her conservative
social views and the forthright manner in which she expresses
them. In August 2005, she called for a ban on Muslim headscarves in
public schools, and last year she told a federal Young Liberal
convention that burning or violating the Australian flag should be
made a federal offence.

She is also well-known as a strident anti-drugs campaigner.

[snip]

Among the most controversial of the recommendations is that the
infant children of illicit drug-users be put up for adoption, that
Centrelink direct drug-using parents to spend their welfare payments
only on food and essentials, and that what are disparagingly called
"drug industry elites" that is, treatment services, counsellors and
research organisations should only receive taxpayer funding if they
abandon the philosophy of harm minimisation in favour of zero tolerance.

[snip]

During its deliberations, the House of Representatives committee
heard similarly harrowing stories of the accidental death and
ill-treatment of children whose parents were drug-users, and while
forcing parents to give up custody of their children might seem like
a justifiable response to such neglect, there are many people who
fear that implementing such a regime will only discourage parents
from seeking treatment.

Many experts who made submissions or were called before the committee
are unhappy with its methods and findings.

[snip]

It is to be hoped that Bishop's demand for a rethink on drug
rehabilitation is recognised for what it is an unreasonably harsh and
punitive approach that is more likely to drive drug-users underground
than to Naltrexone clinics and that the minister for Families and
Community Services, Mal Brough, gives it the response it deserves.

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n1068.a06.html

(20) CANADIANS WANT CRIME CRACKDOWN, POLL FINDS

Pubdate: Wed, 19 Sep 2007
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2007 The Vancouver Sun
Author: Jack Aubry, CanWest News Service

Civil Libertarian Wonders If Ottawa Is Using The Survey To Justify Its Plans

OTTAWA -- Canadians want a crackdown on organized crime and
overwhelmingly support police officers breaking the law to infiltrate
gangs, a new federal government poll indicates.

The national survey, conducted for the Department of Public Safety,
also reveals that a majority of Canadians believe organized crime is
"as serious" a threat to Canada as terrorism, with seven of 10
wanting improvements in the federal government's current level of
effort to combat it.

A remarkable 48 per cent of Canadians responded that organized crime
had an impact on them personally and identified drug trafficking as
the crime with the highest level of correlation to the criminal
activity. And more than half (54 per cent) agree that members of
motorcycle gangs should be prosecuted based on participation alone,
regardless of whether they have committed a crime.

[snip]

But Alan Borovoy, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties
Association, wondered if the Conservative government was preparing
legislation giving police greater powers and was using the survey to
create the need for new laws. He warned that the issue is not as
black and white as presented by the survey, and that police already
have sweeping powers to battle crime.

[snip]

"In the past, they've argued for these powers at a time when you were
reading in the newspapers about police conducting busts here and
busts there, and busting up that ring and this ring, and you start to
wonder, if they are doing so well with all these powers, where is the
argument for anything new?" said Borovoy.

"So they may want to legislate and they have a survey now that
demands that they legislate. This is a marvellous way to run a country."

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n1078.a05.html

(21) MP TRIES TO BAN WATER

Pubdate: Sun, 16 Sep 2007
Source: New Zealand Herald (New Zealand)
Copyright: 2007 New Zealand Herald

Otago MP Jacqui Dean felt like a bit of a "wally" yesterday, after it
was revealed she tried to ban North Otago's most precious commodity - water.

Mrs Dean has confirmed she was caught in a hoax by an online blogger
asking for her help in banning dihydrogen monoxide - which, it turns
out, is the chemical name for ordinary H20.

[snip]

A letter, signed by Mrs Dean, was sent to Associate Health Minister
Jim Anderton last month, asking if the Expert Advisory Committee on
Drugs had a view on banning the "drug".

A Blogspot.com blogger, Michael Earley, of Auckland, published the
original letter to Mrs Dean yesterday.

On Tuesday's first reading of the Misuse of Drugs (Classification of
BZP) Amendment Bill, Mr Anderton took the opportunity to rub Mrs
Dean's nose in it.

Mrs Dean responded with a note across the house that said "touchi -
you got me".

[snip]

Mr Anderton said he would not be banning dihydrogen monoxide or
asking for the experts to consider it.

He responded saying: "Thank you for your letter of 23 August, 2007
about your constituent call for the ban on dihydrogen monoxide, (but)
dihydrogen monoxide is water," he said.

[snip]

It is not the first time MPs have had a brush with the hoax.

In 2001, a staff member in Green MP Sue Kedgley's office responded to
a request for support saying she would be "absolutely supportive of
the campaign to ban this toxic substance".

[snip]

Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v07.n1067.a04.html

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