THIS JUST IN

(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

WEEKLY NEWS IN REVIEW

Domestic News- Policy

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]

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(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]

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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]

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(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]

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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]

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(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

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