WASTED LIVES

Marijuana Arrests Are Skyrocketing. The War On Drugs Has Increasingly
Turned On Casual Pot Smokers: College Students, Petty Dealers And Even The
Seriously Ill. A Few Nascent Grass-Roots Organizations Hope To Change That.

About one morning a month is really, really bad. For 38-year-old John
Precup of Mansfield, first diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 15 years ago,
just the act of waking up can be a frightening adventure in pain and
suffering. Most days he gets up feeling pretty much normal, but on those
mornings he doesn't, it's ugly.

"I wake up sick as a dog, huffing, gagging, trying not to puke," he
relates. "I never know when to expect it, but when it hits, it's pretty
scary." Precup keeps two things by his bedside: a bucket, for when the
nausea overcomes him, and a loaded pipe. Three or four puffs of marijuana,
he says, and the change is almost immediate. Like magic, the retching and
wooziness fades and his shaky equilibrium is restored.

The pot even gives him back his appetite; without it he loses all desire to
eat and starts shedding weight at an alarming rate. When initially
hospitalized back in '86, John remembers, he lost 15 pounds in 10 days
before discovering the miraculous power of marijuana. Even now, on his
rough mornings, he can't even hold down a sip of water until he's fired up
a bowl, rendering the anti-nausea pills his doctor prescribes effectively
useless.

"When I first tried the marijuana, I felt hunger for the first time since I
felt sick. It was amazing. From that day forward, I've been a convert," he
states, proudly pointing out that his weight's been stable ever since. In
fact, though his disease has progressed to where he needs a walker around
the house and a wheelchair outside it, with the marijuana at hand to
control his symptoms, he considers himself to be in "pretty good health
overall."

But the very drug that has given John Precup back his well-being has also
made him a criminal in the eyes of the state of Ohio.

"I've never gone to jail myself, thank God," he says, "but I know plenty of
people who have." It's a state of affairs that leaves him frustrated and
outraged. Alcohol and tobacco are legal despite the harm they cause, while
pot, with its medicinal and recreational properties, remains strictly
illegal. In his eyes, this smacks of blatant hypocrisy. And it hits many
other Americans that way, too.

From seriously ill patients who swear that marijuana is the only drug that
effectively controls their symptoms, to college students stripped of
financial aid for smoking a joint, to unlucky smokers and petty dealers
caught up in the ever-expanding dragnet of our criminal justice system,
America's relentless war on pot damages countless lives.

Drug War, Race War

In 2000, 734,498 people were arrested across the United States for
marijuana offenses, the largest yearly total in our nation's history, and
more than twice the number busted in 1992. Fully 88 percent of those
arrests were for simple possession, rather than manufacture or sale. Or to
put it another way, new people are getting picked up at the rate of more
than one every 45 seconds, and at any given time, 60,000 Americans are
jailed on pot charges, more than one-quarter of those for possession.

Unsurprisingly, minorities are hit the hardest by this culture of
criminalization. Blacks and Hispanics comprise 20 percent of the pot
smokers in the U.S., but make up 58 percent of the marijuana offenders
sentenced under federal law in 1997. "The system chews up blacks and other
minorities at much greater rates," confirms Allan St. Pierre, executive
director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
(NORML) in Washington, D.C., who points to a study based on government data
that compares racial differences in pot busts around the country.

Shockingly, Cuyahoga County turned out to have the third-worst disparity
between black and white possession arrest rates in 1995 when comparing core
urban counties. Blacks were 5.6 times more likely to get arrested for pot
possession than whites, more than double the national average of 2.5 times.
And when adding non-core metro counties into the mix, Lake County had the
worst racial disparity of the hundreds of counties included -- blacks there
were arrested at nearly 20 times the rate of whites. As St. Pierre puts it,
"It's the rust belt, running from Albany to Detroit, that comes out hottest
as far as racial profiling goes."

In 2000, More People Were Busted For Pot Than At Any Other Time In U.S.
History.

All of this arresting and jailing costs money, a lot of money. NORML
research claims that marijuana prohibition costs American taxpayers
somewhere between $7.5 and $10 billion each year just for enforcement.
Furthermore, they found that after California decriminalized pot in 1976,
that state alone saved $95.8 million annually on average.

Despite -- or perhaps because of -- this budding arrest-and-incarceration
industry, the American public increasingly rejects criminalizing pot
smoking. Sixty million Americans are estimated to have tried marijuana, and
a national poll this November found that 61 percent of likely voters oppose
arresting and jailing nonviolent marijuana offenders. Plus, an annual
national Gallup poll recently showed a jump to 36 percent support for overt
legalization, after hovering for years around 25 percent. "Now that
support's passed the 33 percent mark, it's just a matter of time," John
Hartman of Northcoast NORML, the organization's local chapter, predicts
optimistically.

Campus Backlash

Ohio State junior Russ Selkirk had a rude political awakening. In many
ways, the 20-year-old, who hails from a Cincinnati suburb, comes across as
a typically bright, articulate college kid. But now there's an overlay of
serious, anti-drug-war activism atop his friendly, fun-loving demeanor.
Indeed, his politicization epitomizes the mushrooming backlash against the
U.S. government's harsh decision to bring the drug war directly into the
lives of university students. Since the 1998 passage of the Higher
Education Act Amendments, federal financial aid is denied to many college
kids, like Russ, convicted of pot possession and other drug offenses.

At home during his freshman year, Russ went out with a friend for a little
typical aimless cruising. Parked outside a local bar, it seemed a good time
to kick back and smoke a bowl. All of a sudden, they were surprised by a
knock on the window, and turned to see an undercover cop, badge in hand. He
searched them and their vehicle, but all he found were a few leftover pot
flakes in a cellophane wrapper and their pipe, which contained marijuana
residue.

At the time, it didn't seem like that big a deal. Russ wasn't even arrested
- -- after issuing a citation, the officer cut him loose (of course, his
parents found out, which was not so cool). A few weeks later, Russ appeared
in court, where he pled no contest and got a fairly standard first
possession sentence: he was fined $250, put on six months' probation,
ordered to perform 20 hours of community service and had his license
suspended, also for six months.

He still felt he hadn't done anything wrong. "To me, what I was convicted
of was not a crime," he contends. "There was no violent act, and no one was
hurt." Nevertheless, he was glad the whole unpleasant incident would soon
be behind him. "I was sure as soon as I completed my probation, I'd be in
the clear," he remembers.

Jump forward four months to spring 2000, when Russ sat down with his mother
to fill out his financial aid application. That's when they saw the
question about drug-offense convictions. He didn't know about the law at
the time, and though he answered truthfully, he still hoped to get the
$4,500 in federal loans he needed.

It was only later, when his request was denied, that he learned the true
cost of his arrest. He had a hard time believing it. Logically, it didn't
make sense to him. "This law doesn't counteract drug use; it just took
money from my mom and dad for my mistake," he says. But unlike many others,
Russ was lucky: his parents scraped together the funds to keep him in school.

Unfortunately, Russ is just one of many. This year, 36,809 college students
will lose at least some of their financial aid for the next academic year.
According to the law, students lose federal aid for one year from the date
of a first possession conviction, for two years for a distribution rap, and
longer for second and third offenses. Last year was the first that the
federal government fully enforced the act. Before then, those who left the
conviction question blank still had their aid applications processed. It
was a good thing, too -- in 1999, more than 279,000 applicants didn't answer.

This Year, 36,809 College Students Will Lose Their Financial Aid.

That this is a misdirected policy of the drug war is an "obvious
no-brainer" to Shawn Heller, the national director of Students for a
Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), an organization formed three years ago in
response to the act. As the law's stipulations have gone into effect, it
has generated an explosion of resistance. SSDP already boasts 200 chapters
of up to 300 members each, 30 of which are at high schools; and 400 more
are in the process of forming. "This is the biggest movement on campus
right now; nothing else comes even close," says Heller.

Their collective power may already be making its influence felt. About 100
campus governments have formally called for the act's repeal, including
Ohio State's, as have major newspapers like The Washington Post . Even new
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) head Asa Hutchinson has expressed
doubts about it, Heller reports. And the push for the act's repeal -- it's
up for recertification next year -- is prompting a spillover of student
interest in other drug-war issues. At the SSDP's last annual meeting,
attendees called for the replacement of heavy-handed zero-tolerance
policies with a more compassionate harm-reduction model emphasizing
education and treatment, and committed themselves to spurring public
attention on the controversial U.S. involvement in Colombia's civil war.

It's all part and parcel of a growing awareness of the fundamental flaws of
the drug war on the part of today's youth, Heller argues. "We're the
D.A.R.E. [Drug Abuse Resistance Education] generation that grew up hearing
all this propaganda that criminalization is the only just response to drug
use, but we're realizing that's just not true, and are starting to ask
tough questions about the ramifications of altering our drug policies," he
says, adding that SSDP plans to hold a mass gathering near Columbus in May.
"This could blow up into something big."

Calling Dr. Doobie

Eleanor Ahrens tells a horror story that sounds like the plot of a
Nightmare on Elm Street movie. The 47-year-old Ravenna resident suffers a
potpourri of ailments, including migraines, chronic seizures, severe
anxiety disorder, allergies and asthma. More than 25 years of shifting
medical diagnoses left her dependent on a pharmaceutical cocktail of
anti-convulsive agents, painkillers and anti-depressants. With her body
addicted, her finances on the brink of ruin and her conditions worse than
ever, she finally decided mainstream treatments had failed her.

In desperation, she turned to pot. The effect was nothing short of
extraordinary. Just about all of her symptoms -- the anxiety, pain,
headaches, and her increasingly dangerous seizures -- were almost totally
eliminated. "It struck me then," she says, "that one of the purest and most
natural forms of medicine there is was being taken from the people of this
country." Soon she was growing her own.

For the first time in years, all was well, but then came the fateful knock
on her door in 1994. Back then she was naive, she remembers. "I led the
cops right to the plants, because I thought they'd realize there was
nothing going on here, that I was just growing them for medical purposes."

At first, they didn't arrest her, but nearly two years later Eleanor
testified before the Ohio legislature in defense of the "compassionate use"
clause, which made medical necessity an accepted legal defense in state
marijuana cases (the Voinivich administration had it repealed in 1997).
Suddenly, the cops were back, and this time they had the handcuffs out. "I
caused quite an uproar with my testimony, and the police in this community
were not happy about it," she relates.

"My world fell apart," Eleanor continues. She pled no contest to several
felony distribution charges -- though she never sold any of her pot, she
vehemently insists -- and faced 18 months in Marysville. After further
byzantine legal twists and turns, and with the newfound assistance of Joe
Jacobs, the attorney for Northcoast NORML, she was finally ordered into six
months of intensive, in-patient drug rehab. It wasn't prison, but neither
was it ideal. "The other recovering addicts laughed because no one had ever
been admitted for just marijuana before. It was kind of a joke," she says.

"It's Frustrating That Politicians Are So Out Of Touch With Their Own
Constituents."

But her medical condition was no laughing matter. Denied access to pot, the
side effects of her return to prescription medications grew increasingly
serious. She first gained 40, then lost 60, pounds. Physically, she felt
terrible, and her eyelids started to twitch uncontrollably. At one point,
she was admitted for a three-week hospital stay. Her condition slipped so
badly, she was released from treatment months early. "Emotionally, I was
anxiety-ridden. I was back to the same old thing," she recalls.

A few months ago, Eleanor finally got some very good news. After extensive
testing, doctors at the Cleveland Clinic finally figured out what was
really wrong with her. It turns out she suffers from basilar artery
migraines, which over the years have caused severe damage in her ears and
arthritis in her neck. The condition is so rare it was only recognized in
the 1970s, though it is now known that episodes of the illness are often
triggered by foods, dyes and chemical preservatives. It's nice to finally
know, she says, but adds that "cannabis, for me, is still the safest and
most effective treatment available."

Looking back on her legal ordeal, Eleanor feels she's been through five
years of needless hell, which turned her life topsy-turvy and cost her tens
of thousands of dollars. She has recently separated from her husband, a
development she blames on her legal ordeal, and has now been diagnosed with
post-traumatic stress disorder.

Eleanor's spirit has not been broken, however. As with Precup, her
experiences have boosted her zeal to push for a medical marijuana law in
Ohio. Last February, along with a handful of others, they formed the Ohio
Patient Network, a grass-roots group dedicated to educating the public
about the medical marijuana issue and pressing state legislators to pass
such a bill. At present, OPN has grown to include more than 100 active
members, with more joining every week.

They are buoyed by some encouraging developments. In 1999, a major National
Academy of Sciences report concluded marijuana "appears to be suitable" for
several medical conditions like "chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting,
or the wasting caused by AIDS," and admitted that "marijuana might provide
relief" for "patients with debilitating symptoms." Just last month, the DEA
announced it would allow several medical marijuana studies to proceed, the
first such authorizations in close to 20 years.

Still, the government is clearly lagging behind the public on this issue. A
recent national poll revealed that fully 67 percent of Americans now oppose
using federal law enforcement agencies to close medical patient cannabis
cooperatives springing up in the nine states that currently allow medical
marijuana use. The DEA has enforced high-profile closures recently in Los
Angeles and San Francisco, despite California's breakthrough medical
marijuana ballot initiative, the infamous Prop. 215, on the books since 1996.

Nevertheless, Ohio activists know they have a long struggle ahead of them.
While the public is supportive, politicians generally are not. Thus far,
Hawaii is the only state to enact a medical marijuana law legislatively (as
opposed to by ballot initiative), and Precup admits that while he and
fellow OPN activists have lobbied dozens of legislators, to this point,
they haven't been "taken seriously." As for a ballot initiative, Kenny
Schweickart, a leader of OPN's sister group, For a Better Ohio (FBO),
launched a shoestring petition campaign in 1998, using volunteers to net
more than 50,000 signatures -- though that was well short of the number
required for inclusion on the ballot.

They haven't lost heart, however. Precup says that OPN and FBO will
continue to grow, and as they become more established their political clout
will grow as well. "It's frustrating that the politicians are so
out-of-touch with their own constituents," he admits, "but I am sure we
have right on our side, and I'm encouraged by the growing public awareness
of what's at stake."

Punishing God's Flower Children

In Ohio, possession of small amounts of marijuana is not supposed to result
in jail time; less than 200 grams is considered a minor misdemeanor. But
recent statutory changes and disingenuous legal interpretations have
afforded gung-ho local prosecutors new opportunities to circumvent the
spirit of the law, potentially turning low-key possession wrist-slaps into
stiff prison sentences.

In Cuyahoga County, even possession of far less than 200 grams can now
conceivably send you up the river. Local dealers often bag up their pot in
sealed $10 "dime" bags, so a smoker who buys $40 worth is given four such
bags, usually wrapped up together in a larger, outer bag. But now,
prosecutors are sometimes charging those caught with several dimes bundled
together with "preparation for sale," a felony, rather than with minor
misdemeanor possession, even when there's no indication they're dealers and
the total amount of marijuana is very small.

Attorney Bradley Greene, a lawyer with Friedman and Gilbert, noticed the
shift several months ago, when he was defending a 19-year-old Cleveland
woman who was caught with six dimes bundled together. "There was no
evidence she prepared the drugs that way herself," Greene explains.
"There's a huge distinction between smokers and sellers, but now they can
classify practically everyone as a dealer."

NORML's Hartman says the change has been in effect since 1997, when the
Ohio legislature closed a supposed "loophole" in the law. Prior to that
time, those caught with small amounts of pot, even if they had sold a
little, were thought to not deserve the much harsher trafficking penalties.
But that assumption is a thing of the past, Hartman says, and as a result,
even casual smokers run real risks if they're caught with several bags in
their possession.

Of course, drug dealers, even the penny-ante variety, have always run the
risk of a trip to the pokey. Take the case of Ron Gilbert. His life partner
Mimi vividly remembers the day in August 1999 the cops came banging on her
door and took him away for selling a few ounces of what she defiantly
refers to as "one of God's flowers."

"Now They Can Classify Practically Everyone As A Dealer."

Together 13 years, they were living a quiet but fulfilling life at their
place outside Warren. Ron built a thriving landscaping business from
scratch, and served his community by organizing regular community clothing
drives. He was a founding member of the Trumbull Peace Council, which is
now defunct without him, Mimi says.

And yes, she concedes, Ron dealt a little pot, an ounce or two here and
there, mostly to friends. "Ron never hurt a soul in his life," Mimi
contends. "You've got drunk drivers out there who kill people, yet Ron was
treated like the devil incarnate" -- all because he sold four ounces of
weed to a guy who turned out to be a crack dealer looking to get on the
cops' good side, she claims. As a result, in March 2000, Ron got 22 months
in the pen.

Though he'll be released in a few weeks, Ron's absence has already been
devastating. The landscaping business collapsed without him. Even worse,
the authorities confiscated more than $20,000 from the business account,
the entirety of the family's savings, even though Mimi charges that "we
have records to show where every single penny in that account came from."

Mimi was emotionally and financially devastated, though she eventually
found work with John Hartman, the Northcoast NORML head who also owns three
area NORML stores. He gave her a job at his Warren shop.

Hartman says stories like Ron's are all too common. While he believes the
average smoker in Ohio is no longer likely to be locked up anymore, a lot
of people still get arrested, and the prisons remain packed with small-time
growers and sellers. "Remember, 200 grams is not really a whole lot of
cultivated marijuana, just a few plants," he says.

Eleanor Ahrens, for one, discovered that the hard way. Possession of more
than 200 grams, even for personal use, can and often does result in serious
charges that carry substantial prison terms. John Precup tells the
revealing story of a fellow OPN member in Toledo who was turned in by a
neighbor for growing two large plants on his property. Because of the
plants' weight, he was charged with felony marijuana distribution, in spite
of the fact that he possessed none of the accoutrements of dealing, like a
scale or bags. He also happens to be a quadriplegic.

There are some signs of incipient change in Ohio, however, most notably the
ongoing attempt by For a Better Ohio to pass a citywide ballot initiative
in Columbus that aims to eliminate criminal sanctions for all marijuana
misdemeanors. According to Kenny Schweickart, a recent poll showed 48
percent support for FBO's initiative, indicating a real chance of passage
if it does get before the voters in May.

Not so long ago, efforts to reform marijuana laws remained the exclusive
province of Deadheads, libertarians and others outside the political and
cultural mainstream. Sure, all sorts of people smoked marijuana in large
numbers, but most were content to do so privately, behind closed doors,
choosing political quiescence in exchange for personal privacy and freedom.
But that's a tradeoff that's becoming increasingly difficult to maintain,
as the self-perpetuating drug war sends its tentacles deeper into the
social fabric.

The government's intrusion is having an effect, as the personal stories of
blighted lives and pointless suffering related above suggest. However,
rather than wiping out pot use, the ongoing campaign to criminalize and
stigmatize pot smokers is having an opposite effect. A growing chorus of
committed, organized activists have not only made inroads in educating the
public about the corrosive social impact of marijuana prohibition, but also
are learning how to use the idiosyncrasies of the political system, most
notably the grass-roots power of the ballot initiative, to press for
significant change. Every day, between 400 and 700 people contact the
national NORML office in Washington alone, says Allan St. Pierre.

But St. Pierre readily admits that much work remains to be done. "It's the
people who are most affected by bad public policy who must be most invested
in changing the law," he argues. "A big part of that is the victim or
consumer stepping forward to talk to tens of millions to say why they want
the laws changed. At some point, that's what will lead to major change."

[the below was shown on the newspaper's website only]

VISIT THESE RELATED LINKS:

1) High school drug use trends:

http://www.nida.nih.gov/Infofax/HSYouthtrends.html

2) General news regarding pot-related issues:

http://www.cannabisnews.com

3) National NORML website:

http://www.norml.org

4) Northcoast NORML:

http://www.northcoastnorml.com

5) Ohio Patient Network:

http://www.ohiopatient.net

6) For a Better Ohio:

http://www.ohiohemp.org/home.html

7) Report on national marijuana arrests (Marijuana Policy Project):

http://www.mpp.org/arrests/fas61699.html

8) U.S. pot arrests by county:

http://www.norml.org/facts/arrestreport/ArrestReportDoc.htm

9) Racial disparities in pot busts by county:

http://www.norml.org/facts/arrestreport/racereport/RaceReportSummary_pg1.htm

10) Legal help for Ohioans facing marijuana charges:

http://www.norml.org/legal/nlc.state.html

11) Students for a Sensible Drug Policy:

http://www.ssdp.org/

12) Government Targeting of pregnant pot smokers:

http://advocatesforpregnantwomen.org/

13) Zogby Poll showing opposition to U.S. marijuana policies:

http://www.norml.org/news/zogby.shtml