Weekend Petitioning Report:
Thanks to the hundreds of petitioners who made last weekend such a great success! Big thanks to Matt from Grand Rapids Greens, who arranged petitioning at the art festival, and a special thanks to J.P. Denoyer, who (as usual) set the standard for successful petitioning technique. He had three clipboards going, and a 7 foot tall sign which drew people to him. We will announce the winner of last weekend's contest after all entries are received and counted (June 10 deadline). Wayne County NORML (George) turned in over 4,000 signatures from last weekend too, and Amanda is really tearing it up in cartown!! Bonner is getting lots of involvement in Western Michigan, Greg F is pulling in the sigs, and Mike Dooley is working hard getting us airtime and exposure in Kalamazoo! Way to go everyone! You should all be proud of the example you set! So many of you out there do all these things, and I can never thank you all, but I know that people you are active don't do it for the thanks or the recognition-but because you know you are right! According to all reports we are over 67,000 signatures so far. This is a good pace so early in the campaign, but we will want to pick up the pace aduring these next two months. Petition everyday during your normal routine, and encourage others to circulate petitions. Carry extra petitions and instructions with you. Find them in printable form at the www.PRAyes.com website.
Don't forgeet the big contest for June! June is a big month, but July is bigger. We will need to take every advantage of these months or face the consequences. Also, please send donations now! We have an aggressive campaign going, and it takes more money than any of us have individually. We still have over $10,000 in mailings waiting to be sent when we can get stamps, and we have lots of printing to pay for. Please send anything you can today, payable to PRAyes Committee, 255 N Center - Suite 1, Saginaw, MI 48603. We need your help today! You can't afford not to! If each person sent in $20 this week, we could pay our bills, finish our mailing program, and print materials for July's big events. Send more if you can, but at least send $20 or the equivalent in stamps now!
See June Events and June Contest details on Website: http://198.109.165.99/ballot2000/PRAyesBody/where_to_petition.htm
Don't forget to check out the events above and go petition there!
The Drug-War Lover
By Ernest Drucker, Ph.D. and Allan Rosenfield, M.D., MPH
May 22, 2001
New York City
We were astonished to read in the Wall Street Journal (May 15, OpEd) that William Bennett, drug czar for the first President Bush, now believes that "the drug war worked once," and because we have new faces in Washington and a tough drug czar, that "it can again." In no other area but American drug policy can we see such vast errors of fact and such specious arguments applied to a matter of such genuine public concern -- and given such credence in an authoritative publication.
Bennett contends that the "most intense period of anti-drug activities"(from 1980 to 1992) yielded "a 50% reduction in illicit drug use." But hefails to mention that this decline was mainly for marijuana (which accountsfor over 90 % of illicit drug use) and began in 1975 when a NationalCommission was calling for decriminalization and several states had all butlegalized the drug.
Further, the early 1980s was also the period when cocaine first made its large scale appearance in the US, its use growing steadily throughout thefirst six years of the Reagan presidency in the face of huge increases inenforcement. This enforcement and the advent of harsh mandatory sentencingresulted in a doubling of the population incarcerated for drug offenses.
Cocaine use only began to turn around after Len Bias' death and a growing awareness of how hazardous heavy use of pure cocaine could be. Yet, despite the unprecedented rise in cocaine seizures and prosecutions, by1986 over 6% of Americans (age 12 or over) reported use of the drug in the past month. If that figure is much lower today (about 2%), we attribute that change to the all too evident horrors of crack, and its particularly vicious market conditions visible in every affected community. So it is no surprise that researchers in New York's Bedford-Stuyvesant (with walls full of memorials to the dead) find virtually no crack use among the teens today although there are plenty of other drugs to take its place.
And throughout the last two decades, when heroin use has been largely unchanged (at about 1 million regular users), there has been a steady rise in heroin overdose deaths to over 10,000 a year suggesting that harsh policies have simply made this dangerous drug more so, even as it produced a noticeable jump in youthful use as the drug became "chic" again despite all the adverse publicity and enforcement activity.
And, as the war on drugs is a world war, increased US interdiction seems only to have succeeded in creating new producer nations (such as Mexico andsome states of the former Soviet Union) that have entered the marketplace to spread heroin use to scores of poorer nations that had never even heard of the drug 20 years ago. We now happily support the Taliban in return for an end (however temporary) to their poppy prodcution, and count that as agreat victory. Even the Rand Corporation has concluded that interdiction is a waste of taxpayers dollars as the purity of drugs has inceased and the price declined.
These facts don't seem to matter to Bennett who, bending a line from ArthurMiller, claims that "attention was not paid" by the Clinton administrationand that this period of "malign neglect" resulted in "a national cynicism about drug use" and increased rates of illicit drug use by youth.
But the Clinton administration can hardly be accused of "neglecting" the drug wars: between 1992 and 2000 the prison population doubled once again. This rise was driven by drug prosecutions, disproportionately applied to minorities, reaching an historic 2 million behind bars by the year 2000-- the highest incarceration rate in the world. Drug arrests in the US
only began to decline last year as states balked at the expense of new prison construction. Many overseas now look at the US war on drugs as the creation of a vast "American Gulag" and as a major human rights issue:groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have begun todocument this offense for which we as a nation will one day be held to account.
Yet Bennett "look[s] forward to re-engaging in the war on drugs." This brand of militant moralism once gave us alcohol prohibition, but today the stakes are much higher. Combined with its studied ignorance of the history of drug epidemics and denial of the full consequences of our policies, the war on drugs is now the real threat. It undermines our attempts to control the harms produced by drug use and impedes the development of more effective mechanisms for the social control of drug use in the realm of civil society as we have done for alcohol and are now doing for tobacco.
As drug production and drug use burgeon in developing countries around theworld, where AIDS lurks in every dirty syringe, we are reminded of Thucydides' observation that "those who love war do not know it." But those of us in public health know that moral crusades and war are not the answer to such pressing global problems.
______________________________________________________
Ernest Drucker Ph.D. is Professor of Epidemiology and Social Medicine and Professor of Psychiatry at Montefiore Medical Center / Albert EinsteinCollege of Medicine; and Editor in Chief of the international journal,Addiction Research and Theory.
Allan Rosenfield MD, MPH is De Lamar Professor and Dean of the MailmanSchool of Public Health , Columbia University.
SUPREME COURT RULING DOES NOT BAR STATE MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROGRAM;
BUT WARNING GIVEN ON POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES
Denver-In a joint statement with Governor Owens, Attorney General Ken
Salazar announced today that his office has completed its analysis of the
impact of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in United States v. Oakland
Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative on Colorado's state medical marijuana
program.
The specific question analyzed was whether the State may implement the
registry program required by the Colorado constitutional amendment in
light of the recent United States Supreme Court ruling in United States
v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative.
The attorney general's office concluded that, a) the Supreme Court's
ruling does not invalidate Colorado's state law; and b) the ruling does
not prevent the State from moving forward to meet the requirements of
Colorado's constitutional amendment concerning the medical use of
marijuana.
Salazar noted that he personally opposed passage of the medical marijuana
initiative last year for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the
initiative could not legalize marijuana use under federal law, as the
U.S. Supreme Court has now confirmed.
"All Colorado citizens must understand that possession, manufacture and
distribution of marijuana by any person or organization, even for purposes
of medical treatment, continues to constitute a violation of the federal
Controlled Substances Act," Attorney General Salazar warned. "'Medical
necessity' is not a defense to the federal prohibition notwithstanding the
state's law to the contrary."
In a letter to Acting U.S. Attorney Richard Spriggs, Governor Bill Owens
and Attorney General Salazar asked the United States Attorney to enforce
federal law. In a separate letter to Dr. Richard Allen, president of the
Colorado Medical Society, Governor Owens and Attorney General Salazar
warned that physicians face the risk of potential federal prosecution if
they participate in the program.
CANNABIS DECRIMINALISATION GAINING GROUND IN EUROPE
There has been a clear tendency in many European countries to ease drug
policy: many countries have effectively decriminalised the use of cannabis,
and some have even stopped prosecuting users of hard drugs.
The pioneer in liberal drug policy is The Netherlands, where cannabis
products have been openly available since the 1970s. Today adults can buy
marijuana and hashish at special "coffee shops" without fear of prosecution.
To the surprise of many anti-drug activists, the number of drug-related
deaths in the Netherlands is one of the lowest in Europe. So the classical
gateway theory, according to which the use of cannabis leads to hard drugs,
does not seem to hold true - at least not among the Dutch.
According to a study by the Trimbos Institute - the Netherlands Institute
of Mental Health and Addiction, the decriminalisation of cannabis has not
led to great popularity of the drug among young people. Whereas in Britain,
41% of 15-year-olds Britain have tried cannabis, the equivalent figure in
The Netherlands is 24%.
Belgium lifted the ban on personal use of cannabis at the beginning of this
year. Sale and the possession of large amounts of the drug remain illegal,
and no Dutch-style coffee shops will be popping up on Belgian city streets.
In the view of the Belgian Ministry of Health, there is no reason to treat
cannabis any differently from alcohol or tobacco.
Switzerland also plans to legalise both the use and small-scale sale of
cannabis. Many shops are already selling drug-grade hemp, ostensibly for
other purposes. Cannabis would be rather difficult to uproot from
Switzerland, as about one in every four young Swiss already smoke marijuana
or hashish.
Switzerland has had one of Europe's most liberal drug policies. Heroin
addicts considered incurable are given free heroin in supervised
conditions. However, in 1998 Switzerland rejected an initiative that would
have legalised all drugs.
Italy and Spain have permitted the use of all drugs for a long time. The
most recent country to take a more moderate approach toward drugs is
Portugal, where new legislation comes into effect in July.
There has been talk in Denmark of following the Dutch example. It is
already standard police practice not to confiscate drugs found on an
addict. The practical logic behind this approach is that taking the =
drugs
away would force the addict to commit more crimes to get a new dose.
Practice in Greece seems quite bizarre from the Finnish point of view: the
use of cannabis can bring a more severe sentence than taking heroin.
According to this reasoning, a heroin addict has a greater physical need
for the drug than a cannabis user, and therefore deserves greater leniency.
Generally, the trend in Europe is to cure drug addicts of their addictions
through treatment.
Although there is more tolerance toward the use of drugs, there was a sharp
increase in arrests for drug-related crimes in nearly all EU countries in
the 1980s.
There are quite a few unresolved questions in the debate over drug
legalisation.
One of these is how the use of drugs can be permitted while continuing to
criminalise the trade. It is also feared that the legalisation of drug use
would attract more criminal elements onto the market. Portugal's change in
policy has caused concern in Finland, where it is feared that the
implementation of the Schengen Treaty will allow drugs to move more freely
throughout the zone.
Legalisation advocates speak about the rights of the individual: if no
crime is involved in the acquisition of a drug, and the user harms nobody
else, the state should not have any right to interfere. This is the way of
t hinking that is gaining ground in Canada where authorities feel that it
is not their business to interfere with the right of their citizens to grow
hemp.
The counter-argument is that the state has the responsibility to protect
its citizens from the consequences of their own actions, by mandating the
use of seat belts and motorcycle helmets. It has also been argued that the
state has the right to use the law to promote public health as a way of
saving on health care expenditure.
Proponents of drug legalisation also argue that by legalising drugs, the
state could better control the trade, use, and purity of the drugs, while
getting tax revenues.
Opponents counter this argument by saying that state-run drug sales would
not eliminate illegal drug dealers who would produce impure drugs at a
lower price.
Analogies have also been made between the present drug prohibition and the
attempts at alcohol prohibition of both the United States and Finland.
These laws made smugglers rich while failing to make the people sober.
Although drunkenness certainly was not eliminated, at least the number of
alcoholics and cases of cirrhosis of the liver declined during prohibition.
THE WRONG MESSAGE
Losing the war on drugs
Politicians love to brush off uncomfortable issues with a clever sound bite. Toss out the right line and you can walk away whistling.
Few issues are as uncomfortable for Canadian politicians as the subject of illegal drugs, and few questions harder to answer than "why is prohibition a better policy than legalization?" So politicians use a standard brush-off line: If drugs were legalized, that would mean the government approved of drug use. And that would be "the wrong message."
It's a great spin line, but it's both stupid and offensive. It deliberately ignores the reality of governance in a liberal society. In no other area would anyone suggest that by permitting an activity, the government actively endorses and supports it.
Some theocracies punish adultery as a crime. Canada's government does not. Does that mean the Canadian government endorses adultery? Is our government "sending the wrong message" because this act goes unpunished?
Consider suicide. It was once a crime in Canada for a person to attempt to kill himself. That law was scrapped. When the government legalized suicide, did it "send the message" that it wanted Canadians to give suicide a try?
It would be absurd to say so, bizarre to think it. Yet this is exactly the logic politicians routinely use to dismiss calls for any form of drug legalization.
But it's particularly offensive because there really is a "wrong message" being sent. These same politicians are sending it, every day that the government tells us what drugs we may or may not consume.
Like other Western nations, Canada is, in the broadest and oldest sense, a liberal society. The state will not dictate the "correct" way to live. We are free to make decisions about our own lives, no matter how different our choices may be from those of our neighbours. This is what allows a Christian to live in peace with a Jew, Muslim, or atheist. It is what allows French to live with English, yuppie with slacker, vegetarian interior decorator with aboriginal subsistence hunter. Diversity and tolerance are rare things in human history, and must be cherished.
To cherish them, we must understand what supports them. The 19th-century philosopher J. S. Mill identified what that is and called it "the harm principle." It is the idea that people should be free to do what they choose provided their actions don't harm others. No government has the moral right to forbid our private choices, or force its choices on us.=20
Drug prohibition is a direct violation of the "harm principle." By criminalizing drugs, governments say that we are, in fact, children who can be told not to touch things the state deems bad for us. Governments can respect the harm principle by restricting a person's drug use only when it risks harming someone else: Alcohol, for example, is legal to possess and use, but driving under its influence is not. That, however, is not what drug prohibition does. Prohibition bans everything -- even smoking a joint in your own bedroom with the blinds drawn.
In doing so, prohibition "sends a message." It says, bluntly, that government can decide what is best for you and punish you if you disagree.
Abraham Lincoln found that message intolerable. In his era, all drugs were legal but there were calls to criminalize alcohol. Lincoln was offended. "Prohibition," he said, "goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." (And Canada's government, too, we might add.)(MarijuanaNews note: The Lincoln quote is apocryphal. He probably did not really say that, but he should have.)
The principles of freedom are the same now as they were in the days of Lincoln, Mill and the Fathers of Confederation. So too is the offensive statement governments make about freedom when they forbid adults from deciding for themselves what to consume. That's the real "wrong message" we're hearing about drugs. Anything else is a brush-off line from a politician who just wants to walk away whistling.
Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It - Judge James Gray
Judge Jim Gray, author of " Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It", will be on the O'Reilly factor this Wed. Jun 6th: jgray@superior.co.orange.ca.us Just a note Judge James Gray will be interviewed about his new book this coming Wednesday, June 6 on "The O'Reilly Factor," which will be telecast on the Fox News Channel (FNC) that day at both 5pm and 8pm Pacific Daylight Time. I would be interested in a re-cap from you after the show. These minutes are hard to come by, and any thoughts about how they can be used for maximum impact would be appreciated.
"Judge Gray's thorough and scholarly work, based as it is on his personal experience, should help considerably to improve our impossible drug laws. [His] book drives a stake through the heart of the failed War on Drugs and gives us options to hope for in the battles to come." -Walter Cronkite
"However harmful the ingestion of drugs are to their users, the attempt to prohibit drugs has made matters far worse, threatening our basic rights to life, liberty and property. That is Judge Gray's thesis in this important book and he cites overwhelming evidence to support it. His proposals to improve the situation do not go as far as I would like, but they are all feasible and in the right direction. If adopted, they would produce a major improvement." -Milton Friedman, Hoover Institution
"The war on drugs cannot be a war on discussion of this problem. We can fight drug use and abuse and still explore viable options. Judge Gray illuminates options and in the process will promote necessary discussion of them." -George P. Shultz, Distinguished Fellow, Hoover Institution and author of the Turmoil and Triumph: My Years as Secretary of State
"It's all here! A stinging indictment of today's drug strategies and a rallying cry around new strategies for tomorrow."
-Gary E. Johnson, Governor of New Mexico
"This book is a powerful indictment of our failed war on drugs. Jim Gray not only communicates the devastation wrought by a war he witnessed from the frontlines as a trial judge and federal prosecutor, but he displays in these pages the moral courage it takes to cry out that the emperor wears no clothes." -Arianna Huffington, syndicated columnist and author of How to Overthrow the Government
Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed And What We Can Do About It - A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs: In addition to the comments from the author, who is a veteran trial judge in Southern California, the views, observations and experiences of more than 40 judges and justices nationwide are cited in this documented indictment of the failure of our laws of Drug Prohibition. But the book also brings hope, because viable options to our present failed policy are set forth with specificity, and shown where they are being employed successfully in other countries.
Part I: Introduction - Presents a short background of the author and the factors that compelled him to speak out publicly about our failed drug laws, and guarantees that anyone who reads the book with an open mind will reach the same conclusion.
Part II: Our Drug Laws Have Failed
1. Past and Present
An Historical Perspective - Provides a history of why the United passed its laws of drug prohibition. Embarrassingly enough, those reasons have nothing to do with public health or public safety, but were instead based upon racism (the protection of white women from being led astray by minority men) and empire building.
Emergence of the Prison-Industrial Complex - Provides disturbing statistics about the growth of prisons and the prison population in the United States as a direct result of our laws of drug prohibition, which is unmatched by any other country in the world.
2. Increased Harm to Communities
Communities Awash in Illicit Drugs - Demonstrates how illicit drugs are freely available for adults as well as children in our communities. We cannot even keep these drugs out of our prisons, so how can we reasonably expect to keep them out of our neighborhoops?
Violence and Corruption
Domestic - Documents example after example about how the drug money, more than the drugs themselves, is responsible for unacceptably high incidences of violence and corruption in the United States.
Foreign - Documents how drug money from the United States has almost completely corrupted the governments of such countries as Colombia, Peru and Bolivia, and is doing the same thing to Mexico. And the violence that these drug monies have caused is overwhelming, and unnecessary.
3. Erosion of Protections of the Bill of Rights - The War on Drugs has been the biggest cause of the loss of our civil liberties in the history of our country. This chapter sets forth the status of these important constitutional protections when the author graduated from law school in 1971, and then traces how drug cases decided by the United States Supreme Court since that time have severely and probably permanently reduced those protections, and continuing to do so.
4. Increased Harm to Drug Users
Demonization - By "demonizing" or dehumanizing people who use and abuse drugs, we have been able to perpetuate this failed system. This chapter shows how that has been accomplished.
Deterioration of Health - As a practical matter, the War on Drugs has at the same time increased the risk of contagious diseases like hepatitus and AIDS for drug users, and deprived them of medical attention for their conditions. This has, of course, also enabled these diseases to be passed on to people who do not use drugs.
5. Increased Harm for the Future
Conspiracy Theories - The incarceration of disproportionate numbers of minorities, the involvement of law enforcement and other government officials with domestic and foreign thugs in an effort to be informed about and reduce national and international drug trafficking, and the enormous amounts of money involved in these transactions have directly spawned large numbers of conspiracy theories about our government's involvement in drug trafficking itself. Even if these theories are not true, the fact that many people believe them undercuts the legitimacy of our government, and the desire of many people to cooperate with it.
Government Policy: Don't Discuss It! - A major part of our present policy is effectively to keep people from questioning it, and this has been amazingly successful. This end has been accomplished by labeling anyone who even suggests any alternatives to our policy as a drug "legalizer," which connotes, for example, that that person does not feel that these drugs are particularly dangerous, or concerned if our children "purchase cocaine in a vending machine across the street from their junior high schools."
Part III: Options
6. Increased Zero Tolerance - Even though our policy of Zero Tolerance has not worked, it could always be increased. And so, this chapter suggests specific ideas about how we could more fully implement this failed policy. Many of these ideas have actually been advocated by some of our government officials. However, the quote attributed to President Clinton about the definition of insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results," overrides the author's view of the suggestions made in this chapter.
7. Education - This is seen by virtually everyone as being the key to reducing the harm that has and will be caused by the presence of these dangerous and sometimes addicting drugs in our communities. However, it is essential that our education be truthful. Truthful education has been quite successful in reducing smoking in our country, even though it is not illegal for adults to use or possess tobacco. The same would be true for these other presently illicit drugs.
8. Drug Treatment
Rehabilitation - Various non-medicalized rehabilitation programs are discussed in this chapter: both voluntary and involuntary, public and private. And since a RAND Corporation study found that treatment programs are seven times more effective than incarceration, why are they not being more fully used?
Medicalization
Needle Exchange Programs - These programs allow the exchange of a dirty syringe and needle for a clean one, with no money changing hands and no questions asked. That is all. And numbers of studies have shown that they reduce the transmission of dangerous diseases like AIDS and hepatitus, and do not increase drug usage. Many countries in Western Europe have had wonderful successes with these programs.
Drug Substitution Programs - These programs substitute one drug (such as methadone) for a drug addict's drug of choice (such as heroin), and are quite effective for some people, somewhat successful for others, and generally ineffective for many more. But the federal government's micro-managing of these programs is reducing their effectiveness for almost everyone.=20
Drug Maintenance Programs - Under the strict care and control of a medical doctor, many drug-addicted people in Switzerland are using prescription dosages of heroin that neither result in them getting a "rush," nor in them going through withdrawal. It simply "maintains" these people so that they have been able to function quite well in their everyday lives. And after establishing a relationship with these doctors based upon trust and positive results, an encouraging number of these addicted people have moved on to programs of drug abstinence.
9. De-Profitization of Drugs
Legalization - This approach involves the legal sale and possession of drugs, using the protections of the civil justice system for problems of the quality and labeling of the drugs, and leaves the criminal justice system to address the conduct of the people who use drugs. The chapter suggests that we "legalize" hemp, which would be worthless to smoke or otherwise use for mind-altering purposes, but has enormous potential for manufactured products such as paper, plywood, lacquer, etc. Otherwise, the author views legalization as not being a desirable option.
Decriminalization - Holland is utilizing this option, which allows people to possess and use small amounts of drugs, and as long as they stay within very well known limits, the police are instructed to leave them alone. As a result, the use of drugs in Holland is appreciably less than in the United States. As a former Drug Czar in Holland said, "We succeeded in making pot boring."
Regulated Distribution - This option entails bringing these dangerous and sometimes addicting drugs back under the law, and envisions a system much like what is now being used for alcohol and tobacco. But tighter! No transferring of any kind to children, no advertising of any kind, no sales or special prices, no trade names, only brown packaging, etc. Then the criminal justice system would be used to hold people accountable for their conduct. Since the conclusion is inescapable that these drugs are here to stay, we are faced with the choice of having the drugs either with drug lords or without them.
10. Federalism - This option would allow each state to pass and enforce laws that it believes are best suited for its people. The United States was founded upon this concept, and this would enable different options to be tried and refined. The federal government would be restricted to assisting each state enforce its chosen laws, just as it was upon the repeal of Alcohol Prohibition.
Part IV: What We Can Do About It - What can just one person do about this critical problem? This chapter sets forth specific suggestions. And the answer is, quite a bit.
Appendix A: Resolution - Provides a resolution for drug policy reform that people can sign and send to their elected officials. It has already been signed by thousands of prominent and not-so-prominent people nationwide. And it will have positive results.
Appendix B: Government Commission Reports and Other Public Inquiries - Summarizes numbers of prominent neutral studies for the last hundred years from the United States, Canada and Great Britain, all of which say that we should move away from our present policy of incarceration of people for using drugs.
http://www.judgejimgray.com/ for excertps of this book
According to Judge Morris Hoffman, the Denver drug courts have failed to
achieve even their own immediate objectives. Once the courts wereinstituted, police began arresting much greater numbers of much more minoroffenders. The ones with serious drug problems fail treatment and go toprison. Consequently the number of drug offenders going to prison hassharply increased. Read: http://www.drugsense.org/temp/HoffmanXNorthCarolina.Law.Review.doc
April 20, 2001
New Drug Czar in Michigan
Ex-prosecutor to lead state anti-drug office
A Grosse Pointe Farms attorney has been named the new director of the state's Office of Drug Control Policy.
Craig Yaldoo will begin his new job Monday. He is a former assistant Wayne County prosecutor and director of the office's community outreach programs.
The drug-control office prints anti-drug literature and funds police and community programs.
Gov. John Engler said of his appointee: "With an extensive background in criminal prosecution and community outreach activities, Craig Yaldoo has the qualities needed to serve with distinction as Michigan's new drug czar. He knows firsthand the damage drugs inflict on the user and on society, and he will take a tough approach in dealing with this scourge."
Yaldoo is chairman of the board of Alliance for a Safer, Greater Detroit and is the secretary of the Detroit Urban League.
"Craig brings a wealth of experience and leadership to this important position," Michigan Department of Community Health Director James Haveman Jr. said in a statement. Yaldoo succeeds Darnell Jackson, who was appointed by Engler to the 70th District Court.
Nevada Defies Feds, US Supreme Court with Medical Marijuana Bill
Legislators Cite Duty to Move Forward as a Sovereign State
CARSON CITY, NEVADA, June 4 - Despite federal lawsprohibiting the medical use of marijuana upheld in a May 14th UnitedStates Supreme Court decision, the Nevada Legislature decided todayto go ahead with a bill that will not only enact the medicalmarijuana law approved by voters last election, but will also loosenNevada's current law on possession of marijuana in general.A preamble added to the bill, AB 453, acknowledges federalopposition to medical marijuana but states that Nevada as "asovereign state has the duty to carry out the will of the people."AB 453 received Senate approval this weekend and Assembly approvaltoday. It will now go before Governor Kenny Guinn for hissignature. Dan Hart of Nevadans for Medical Rights said, "Today thestate of Nevada has taken up the charge of voters to move ahead onthe issue of medical marijuana regardless of federal policy." Hecontinued, "We've said all along that the Supreme Court's ruling wassimply a reiteration of federal law with regards to medicalmarijuana, and that it did not preclude state governments fromsetting their own medical marijuana laws. This is a major victoryfor patients in Nevada and in all states with laws allowing for themedical use of marijuana."
If the governor signs the bill as expected, patients inNevada will be able to grow as many as seven marijuana plants intheir homes. The Nevada School of Medicine will be required to"aggressively" seek federal approval of a medical marijuanadistribution program in which both usable marijuana and marijuanaseeds will be made available to patients. Also, the possession of upto an ounce of marijuana by anyone in the state of Nevada will nolonger be a felony.
###
FACT SHEET ON NEVADA BILL AB 453
Medical Marijuana Implementation, Research, Distribution
History: Nevada voters twice approved Question 9, aconstitutional amendment legalizing the medical use of marijuana,most recently in November 2000 with 65% voting in favor. Theamendment required the legislature to create implementing legislationfor the licensing of patients and their caregivers authorized to growand possess marijuana, and also required legislators to specify ameans of legal distribution of medical marijuana.
AB 453 ELEMENTS:
Strong preamble language: "S [T]he State of Nevada as a sovereignstate has the duty to carry out the will of the people of this stateand to regulate the health, medical practices and well-being of thosepeople in a manner that respects their personal decisions concerningthe relief of suffering through the medical use of marijuana."
Patient/caregiver registry system: The state departments of motorvehicles and agriculture will jointly operate a confidentiallicensing system for medical marijuana-using patients and theircaregivers. Patients must have approval from a Nevada physician, andmay designate a caregiver. Each would receive credentials from theDepartment of Motor Vehicles, which could be used to avoid amarijuana arrest.
Permits cultivation and possession by patients, caregivers: Licensedpatients and caregivers may cultivate up to seven marijuana plants,three flowering at any one time, and may possess up to one ounce ofusable marijuana without penalty.
State research and distribution programs: The state Department ofAgriculture is ordered to "aggressively" and "vigorously pursue"federal approval to establish a distribution program for both usablemarijuana and marijuana seeds. The University of Nevada School ofMedicine must join the department in seeking approval for generalstudies of marijuana's medical uses.
De-felonization of non-medical marijuana possession: A separateprovision reclassifies the possession of marijuana as a misdemeanorfor the first three offenses. It also gives judges wider discretionfor sentencing on later offenses.
* Notes from the Detroit Electronic Music Fest [DEMF] (May 26, 28th)
There were 10-20 PRA circulators active (on May 26th & 28th) at the DEMF from various chapter of NORML and other organizations. I worked 2 6-hour shifts and averaged about 1 signiture every 2 minutes and 6 seconds. The following reference to PRA appeared in the Metro Section of the Detroit News (05/27/01):
"Jen Peterson, 23, sported pink sunglasses and a necklace of mock marijuana leaves distributed by backers of a legalization vote. "It's like Woodstock" said the Clinton Township mother, who brought her 4-year-old son." (Page 1C)
Source: Wall Street JournaWebsite: http://www.wsj.coAuthor: David Ban
Super-Wealthy Threesome Fund Growing War on the War on Drugs
DAVID BANK
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
As the pendulum on drug policy swings away from harsher penalties antoward expanded treatment programs, it is getting a big shove from aunusual trio of rich men: billionaires George Soros and Peter Lewis ancentimillionaire John Sperling.
Opposed to locking up nonviolent drug users, the three have financed string of state-ballot-box victories on what until recently seemed aunpromising electoral battlefield -- getting softer on the possession omarijuana and other illegal drugs. Now, after a breakthrough win lasNovember in California, they are moving to expand their war on the war odrugs by backing new initiatives elsewhere under the banner of "treatmennot jail."
Next month, the three men are expected to approve a multimillion-dollaplan to mount ballot-initiative campaigns in 2002 in the politically cruciastates of Florida, Ohio and Michigan. The ballot measures are modeled oCalifornia's Proposition 36, which last fall produced a voter mandate tprevent state judges from sending people to prison after their first osecond conviction for drug use or possession. Instead, those nonviolenoffenders will be directed into treatment programs.
Since 1996, when the wealthy trio decided to make reining in the drug war joint cause, they have spent more than $20 million on a state-by-statcampaign to chip away at the hard-line policies of the past 15 years. Thmoney has built a formidable political machine that has already won ballofights in nine states, including Colorado, Nevada, Oregon and California.
Most of the initiatives so far have focused on two narrow issues: allowinthe medical use of marijuana and curbing police authority to seize money anproperty from alleged drug criminals before conviction.
Last year's California victory, and one in 1996 in Arizona, made deepechanges in the legal system. For the last two decades, California has lethe nation in the rate at which it locks up people convicted of druoffenses. By 1999, the state was putting away 134 people for every 100,000
residents, a rate 60% higher than New York's and twice that of Texas.
But Proposition 36 -- approved 61% to 38%, and set to take effect July 1 --
is expected to keep as many as 36,000 new convicts and parole violators ouof California prisons each year. That could cause the state's prisoadmissions for drug offenses to fall for the first time in more than twdecades.
The funders' political operatives say their private polling tells theinitiatives pushing treatment instead of jail can win in all three of thstates they are targeting next year. The well-heeled activists are trying tprove that nationwide, "the public is ahead of the politicians" on drupolicy, as Mr. Soros's chief adviser on the issue, Ethan Nadelmann, puts it.
How far ahead even Mr. Nadelmann hesitates to guess. Still, after twdecades in which drug abuse was generally met with tougher law enforcement,
the debate seems to be swinging toward curbing extreme punishment anidentifying effective means of treatment.
When President Bush earlier this month nominated as his drug czar thhawkish John P. Walters, he strikingly used the occasion to stress his plato expand treatment programs, even while reiterating his support for jaitime for drug offenders. "We've got to make sure that those who are hookeon drugs are treated," Mr. Bush said after the announcement.
Positions long considered untouchable by politicians are suddenly part othe mainstream debate. New York's Republican governor, George Pataki, iJanuary proposed moderating his state's severe drug-sentencing laws. Thaprompted Democratic state legislators to push for more-aggressivreductions, and compromise legislation is expected to win approval.
In New Mexico, GOP Gov. Gary Johnson is pressing a long-shot campaign fothe legalization of marijuana. And Hawaii last year became the first statin which lawmakers, rather than voters, approved the medical use omarijuana.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that the federaprohibition on marijuana doesn't have an exception for medicinal use, buthe ruling won't necessarily block states from allowing such use. States anlocalities, not federal authorities, do the vast majority of drug-laenforcement.
The troika's political operatives have targeted their initiative campaigncautiously. So far, they are steering clear of legalization initiatives,
even of marijuana. They note that polls going back to the 1970s show thpublic is about evenly divided over whether marijuana use should be punishecriminally, with support for such punishment rising slightly in recenyears.
Last year, the trio opted not to back a ballot measure pushed by locapro-marijuana activists in Alaska that would have effectively legalized thdrug there. The initiative failed. Ten states, including California, havdecriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, treating thoffense as an infraction punishable by a small fine.
While there isn't a popular groundswell for broader legalization, there ievidence of popular unease about the way the war on drugs has been fought. A
nationwide poll released last month by the Pew Research Center for Peopland the Press, for example, found that a 52%-to-35% majority of adultbelieve drug use should be treated as a "disease," not a crime.
"The public has a very different view of first- or second-time users versuhabitual users -- and especially versus dealers," asserts Bill Zimmerman,
the California political consultant who has run most of the group'campaigns. "Voters see themselves and their family members and friends abeing potentially in this category."
Changing the Debat
Even foes of the trio's campaign concede it is adroitly capitalizing opublic uncertainty. Many of the initiatives "would never have made it to thballot without their funding," says Herbert Kleber, director of thsubstance-abuse division of Columbia University's medical school, whconsiders the threat of punishment a crucial ingredient of effectivtreatment. "I can't think of another situation where a few individuals havso dominated and changed the nature of a debate."
Mr. Soros, a 70-year-old financier whose fortune is estimated by Forbemagazine at $5 billion, began in the early 1990s to support organizationtrying to change U.S. drug laws. In 1994, Mr. Nadelmann, a former assistanprofessor of public policy at Princeton University, started advising Mr.
Soros on the topic and now heads the Lindesmith Center/Drug PolicFoundation, a spinoff from Mr. Soros's main foundation in New York.
"The core vision" of the Soros campaign "is that people shouldn't bpunished for what they put in their bodies, absent harm to others," says Mr.
Nadelmann. All three of the donors say they have at least dabbled witmarijuana. Mr. Soros, whose office referred all questions about the drucampaigns to Mr. Nadelmann, has said he has tried it and enjoyed it, but hsaid in 1997 he hadn't used the drug in many years.
Mr. Lewis, 67, is chairman of Progressive Insurance Inc. in Cleveland, thnation's fifth-largest auto insurer. He holds a nearly 13% stake iProgressive, worth at least $1.15 billion. After funding a 1995 poll by thAmerican Civil Liberties Union on attitudes toward marijuana use, he met Mr.
Soros to discuss the issue. "I have seen it for quite a while as purpatriotism to try to change a policy that is sillier than prohibition," Mr.
Lewis says.
Mr. Lewis, who spends much of his time in tropical climes aboard converted tugboat called the Lone Ranger, says his personal use of marijuanhas influenced his political activity. Last year, in New Zealand, he waarrested for possession of hashish and marijuana. Authorities there releasehim after he made a donation to a local drug-rehabilitation center, he says.
"My personal experience lets me understand and have a view of the relativeffects of some of these substances," he says.
The three anti-drug-war funders first warily came together for the 1996
election. Mr. Sperling, a humanities professor-turned-entrepreneur, had jusbecome a wealthy man as a result of the successful 1994 initial publioffering of Apollo Group Inc. Apollo Group is parent of the for-profiUniversity of Phoenix, which he had founded 21 years earlier. Today, his 18%
stake in Apollo Group is worth more than $515 million.
Since the mid-1980s, Mr. Sperling says, he had collected newspapeclippings about the increasingly punitive drug war, concluding that it was waste of money and lives. He used marijuana himself in the late 1970s, whehe underwent radiation treatment for prostate cancer. In an autobiographpublished last year, he recounted his recuperation on a Hawaiian beach: "I
was able to lie in the shade, listen to the surf and smoke enough marijuanto mask the burning completely." Now 80 years old, he says his use omarijuana doesn't figure significantly in his political activities.
Within weeks of the Apollo Group IPO, Mr. Sperling hired Sam Vagenas, aArizona campaign consultant, to look into ballot-box strategies. Mr. Vagenastealthily got the 1996 Arizona initiative on the ballot before it attracteany press coverage or organized opposition. For political cover, Messrs.
Vagenas and Sperling obtained endorsements from Barry Goldwater, the ex-U.S.
senator and conservative libertarian from Arizona, who has since died, anformer Sen. Dennis DeConcini, an Arizona Democrat known for hipro-enforcement views. Mr. DeConcini's brother, Dino, serves on the board oApollo Group.
Mr. Vagenas worded the initiative in a way that opponents say wadishonest. He introduced the measure with a clause that would lengtheprison sentences for certain violent drug offenders. At first glance, voter might easily have thought the whole initiative was another get-tougmove, when in fact, its main thrust was to curb incarceration. "That's jusgood politics," says Mr. Vagenas. Subsequent initiatives in other statehave used more direct language.
Word of Mr. Sperling's activities wasn't warmly received in the Soros camp.
Mr. Nadelmann sympathized with Mr. Sperling's goals but worried the Arizoninitiative would be defeated and set back lower-key public-education effortthe Soros-sponsored team was coordinating.
For the same reason, Mr. Nadelmann was fretting about a separate campaigfor a medical-marijuana initiative by local activists in California, whicalso appeared headed for an embarrassing failure. In the end, Mr. Nadelmanbrokered a compromise: Messrs. Soros and Sperling, joined by Mr. Lewis,
would underwrite the Arizona initiative and simultaneously go to the rescuof the one in California.
Both initiatives succeeded, emboldening the threesome. "It was the firstime the drug-reform movement had shown it could play ball and win in threal world of politics," says Mr. Nadelmann.
'Very Clever'
Critics say the funders' entire campaign is a disingenuous effort tpromote drug use. "They've been very clever," says retired Gen. BarrMcCaffrey, who served as President Clinton's drug czar. "You cannot haveffective drug prevention or drug treatment unless there is high sociadisapproval of drug use. And disapproval has to be backed up by it beinagainst the law to possess, use or sell drugs." Whether they admit it, onot, he says, the wealthy trio "are trying to normalize drug use iAmerica."
Undaunted by such criticism, the troika geared up for the 1998 electiocycle, agreeing to chip in as much as $3 million apiece for initiatives iseven states and Washington, D.C.
The arrival of big money changed the dynamics of drug politics, to thchagrin not just of enforcers like Gen. McCaffrey, but also of some locaactivists. In several states and in Washington, D.C., the trio paid fosignature-gathering efforts for medical-marijuana initiatives that competewith measures backed by local groups. The bad blood lingers in Washington,
where Mr. Zimmerman in 1998 unsuccessfully tried to mount an initiative thacompeted with a measure backed by local members of the AIDS-activism grouACT/UP.
The local activists, concerned about AIDS patients' privacy, objected to provision of the Soros-backed alternative that created a central registry omedical-marijuana users. Wayne Turner, who ran the local campaign, says othe outsiders: "Soros and his funders, they just wanted to win. From ouperspective, it was better to have local people and real patients fightinfor our lives." The local measure ultimately was blocked by Congress.
These days, Mr. Zimmerman, whose office is in Santa Monica, Calif., icareful to praise the local activists for their political spadework, but hsays they should step aside when an election is on the line. "You don't wansomeone with a Rastafarian hairdo and a tie-dyed T-shirt representing youideas," he says.
Following the victories in 1998, the three funders met at Mr. Soros'
country estate outside New York City. They agreed to increase theicontributions to more than $3 million each for 2000.
Last fall's victories in California and four other states were tempered iMassachusetts, where the funders learned that the public's sympathy for druusers doesn't extend to dealers. The trio backed an initiative in thgenerally liberal New England state that included the diversion to treatmenof some small-scale dealers who could show they sold drugs to feed theiaddiction. The measure was barely defeated, 52% to 48%.
Write to David Bank at david.bank@wsj.co
