DIFFERENT WAR, ANALOGOUS LIE

Last week the New York Times ran two apologies for its pro-war
reporting on Iraq. One, by top editor Bill Keller, was sanctimonious
and protective of writer Judith Miller, who should have been fired
faster than you can say "Jayson Blair" for retailing false information
about weapons of mass destruction.

How long until we get an apology from the Times for beating the drums
for the War on Drugs? The U.S. government's search for the harmfulness
of marijuana has involved more personnel and more sophisticated
technology and has cost many more billions of dollars than the search
for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction -and has turned up just as little.

The Times publishes WOD disinformation every day. It's ubiquitous,
pervasive, a set of assumptions woven into the fabric of stories. For
example, on May 31 the Times ran a 40+-inch feature story about a high
school basketball star, JamesOn Curry, who sold marijuana to an
undercover cop posing as a fellow student. Curry's scholarship offer
to the University of North Carolina was withdrawn, but he got one from
Oklahoma State. Sportswriter Ira Berkow wrings a tale of redemption
from these facts. He leads with a detailed account (from the
law-enforcement perspective) of Curry's arrest and
prosecution:

"On the February morning after he scored 47 points for Eastern
Alamance High School, adding to his record as the highest-scoring prep
basketball player in North Carolina state history, JamesOn Curry was
called to the principal's office, where sheriff's deputies placed him
and several other students in handcuffs and took them away.

"Several months earlier, Curry, then 17 and the pride of Alamance
County, was captured on videotape selling marijuana to an undercover
police officer posing as a student in a vehicle in the school parking
lot, according to the public information officer for the Alamance
County sheriff. The officer carried a backpack that contained a hidden
camera and a microphone.

"The officer, who had also purchased marijuana from Curry in a school
bathroom, was part of the county's five-month investigation and sting
operation. The sweep netted 60 students in the 6 schools in the
Alamance-Burlington district, including three of Curry's teammates,
the district attorney said. Curry's take on the two drug deals was
$95, the district attorney said.

"When Curry pleaded guilty in April to six felony drug counts, Judge
Kenneth C. Titus suspended his sentence, placed him on probation for
36 months and ordered him to perform 200 hours of community service."
[This leniency was due to Curry's college prospects, i.e., hoops
prowess; other kids did time.]

The University of North Carolina had recruited Curry and gotten his
parents to sign a letter of intent after his sophomore year in high
school. Former "Tarheel" coach Matt Doherty told Curry that the
commitment would be honored "as long as you don't rob a bank, or
something." Explaining why North Carolina withdrew the offer, current
coach Roy Williams says, "Well, he did rob a bank, or something."

Berkow looks at things psychologically (A.J. Liebling's least favorite
trait in a sportswriter), He describes Coach Williams's father, a drinker,
as "a disruptive force during Williams's youth." He quotes Williams: "I've
had a distant relationship with my father for most of my life. And I equate
drugs like marijuana the way I do alcohol." Sic and double sic.

Berkow quotes a high school teacher named John Moon who wants to
"strangle" his former pupil. "Every day I think about all the warnings
and advice JamesOn got about staying out of trouble," says the
disappointed Moon, "and I wonder what more I could have done to
prevent this."

For openers, Mr. Moon, you could have protested the penetration of
your school by runty narcs conducting "sting" operations which
invariably involve entrapment. You and fellow faculty members could
have organized to get the cops off campus and deal yourselves with any
problems stemming from drug use by students. And if you felt so
paternal towards JamesOn Curry ("If I had a son I would have wanted
him to be JamesOn") you should have told him the facts about marijuana
in a non-hysterical way and encouraged him to wait until his body and
personality were more fully developed.

Curry has been accepted at Oklahoma State. Berkow's angle is that OSU
coach Eddie Sutton himself "was given a second chance" in life.
"Sutton had previously coached at Kentucky, which was placed on
probation for a recruiting violation under his watch" but OSU hired
him. So Sutton got a second chance, and now he's a paragon of
forgiveness, even allowing one so tainted as JamesOn Curry -a 6' 3"
guard who happens to have broken records set by Michael Jordan-to
play for Oklahoma State.

The New York Times devoted two-thirds of a page (with photos of Curry
and the two coaches) to a story that ostensibly described contrasting
responses to a high school hoopster's pot bust. But the contrast was
merely tactical; both Roy Williams and Eddie Sutton agree that Curry's
crime was very grave indeed. A truly contrasting perspective could
have been provided by a defense lawyer or supporter of Curry's who
questioned the nature of the "sting," or whether the students should
have gotten warnings before their humiliating arrest, or whether the
punishment fit the crime. But Berkow of the Times didn't go there. By
telling us that "the officer carried a backpack that contained a
hidden camera and a microphone," etc., he implies that the "sting" was
legit. They almost never are.

To repeat: Eddie Sutton's "forgiveness" of JamesOn Curry is a
non-story because it's so obviously in his self-interest. The real
story involves the nature of Curry's crime: marijuana use.
(Traffickers on his level are, as most district attorneys know, simply
users trying to afford their own stash.) Many of the greatest and most
durable players in the history of the National Basketball Association
used marijuana. In 1999, according to NYT reporter Selena Roberts,
some 70% of the players in the league were using. The implications are
obvious -it's not a debilitating drug, for openers. But the Times's
top brass pulled Roberts off THE story and never let her or anyone
else go near it again.

Rough analogy: Judith Miller is to Bill Keller as Lynndie England is
to Don Rumsfeld.

"DRAGONFLY" RESISTS ORDER TO CLOSE

"Effective June 1, 2004, the Dragonfly Alternative Healing Clinic is
directed to cease operation," said the letter to owner Ken Estes from
the City of Oakland, which arrived at the end of the day on Friday,
May 27. A three-day week-end was coming up. Estes told his staff to
tell all customers that the Dragonfly would remain open for business.

When the staff opened the doors at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, June 1, there
must have been 50 people waiting to get in. Estes, 46, in a wheelchair
(he was in a motorcycle accident at 18 and is quadriplegic) expressed
defiance: "If the Oakland police want to act like the federal
government and start arresting people, they can start with me. My
staff is ready to go to jail, too."

The confrontation was created by the Oakland City Council when it
voted in February to limit the number of cannabis dispensaries to four
(no more than three downtown). Assistant City Manager Larry Carroll
got the job of deciding which of the eight or nine extant clubs
deserved legal recognition, based on "capacity, capitalization,
complaint history and any other factorS necessary to the peace order
and welfare of the public." In the end Carroll seems to have made
longevity a key criit, taught others
how to cultivate, established relationships with dispensaries or
started their own in the boondocks. Bryan Epis deserves thanks, not
imprisonment.

And if ever there was a setting where cannabis use should be
encouraged for harm-reduction purposes, it's Chico, site of a campus
that perennial ranks among America's top "party schools." C-Notes has
it on good authority that the local police are beginning to
acknowledge that increased use of cannabis at Chico State has led to a
reduction in alcohol-related problems.

OAKLAND DOUBLECROSSES ITSELF

A week after an assistant city manager permitted four of eight or nine
thriving downtown cannabis clubs to remain in business, the city
manager herself has notified two of the winners -The Bulldog and the
Third Floor-that they'll have to close or move because they're within
1,000 feet of a school. As recounted by Dale Gieringer of Cal-NORML:
"When Bulldog manager Richard Lee went to pay [$20,000] for his
license, he was informed that there had been a mistake, and that the
city had decided to enforce a restriction banning clubs within 1000
feet of each other, but that Lee could get a license for his other
club, SR71, on 17th street. The City Manager's office was unclear on
its rationale for changing its policy, which was made without public
consultation.

"The City Manager's decision effectively cuts the heart out of
Oaksterdam, which has been a thriving center for medical cannabis
patients, with five clubs conveniently located within one block of the
19th Street BART station. Four of these are now to be closed with only
one (CARE, at Telegraph and 19th) remaining open.

"This decision makes no sense. Oaksterdam is the most BART-accessible
center for medical marijuana patients in the Bay Area. Not only does
it serve tens of thousands of patients, but it is a unique cultural
and economic asset, attracting jobs, money and visitors to the community."

C-Notes is living proof, having dropped about $200 at the Hat Guys,
$150 at Best Music, and $150 at the Bibliophile over the years. And
about $24 on jerk chicken at a Jamaican-Nigerian hole-in-the wall on
TelegraphS Ishmael Reed's poignant book Blues City describes the
tragic uprooting of the blues clubs on 7th Street by Oakland's elite.
And here they go again.