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Wayward Bill DrugSense Alert - Syndicated Columnist Supports LegalizationA SYNDICATED COLUMNIST SUPPORTS LEGALIZATION ********************************************************************** DrugSense FOCUS Alert #406 - Wednesday, 1 July 2009 You may not agree with everything syndicated columnist George Monbiot wrote below. The point he makes that is worthy of this FOCUS Alert is that decriminalization is not the answer - full legalization is. The referenced reports are worth reading. World Drug Report 2009 http://drugsense.org/url/dhSmEL2y The WHO report http://www.tdpf.org.uk/WHOleaked.pdf A Comparison of the Cost - effectiveness of the Prohibition and Regulation of Drugs http://drugsense.org/url/l4lH1McU It is possible that MAP's Newshawks will find more newspapers that print the syndicated column in the days ahead. If so they will appear here http://www.mapinc.org/author/George+Monbiot If you would like to help with newshawking please see both http://www.mapinc.org/newshawk and http://www.mapinc.org/hawk.htm ********************************************************************** Note: Also printed in the Canberra Times (Australia) http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n667/a12.html Pubdate: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 Source: Guardian, The (UK) Copyright: 2009 Guardian News and Media Limited Author: George Monbiot YES, ADDICTS NEED HELP. BUT ALL YOU CASUAL COCAINE USERS WANT LOCKING UP I Know People Who Drink Fair-Trade Tea and Coffee, Shop Locally and Snort Drugs at Parties. They Are Disgusting Hypocrites It looked like the first drop of rain in the desert of drugs policy. Last week Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN office on drugs and crime, said what millions of liberal-minded people have been waiting to hear. "Law enforcement should shift its focus from drug users to drug traffickers ... people who take drugs need medical help, not criminal retribution." Drug production should remain illegal, possession and use should be decriminalised. Guardian readers toasted him with bumpers of peppermint tea, and, perhaps, a celebratory spliff. I didn't. I believe that informed adults should be allowed to inflict whatever suffering they wish on themselves. But we are not entitled to harm other people. I know people who drink fair-trade tea and coffee, shop locally and take cocaine at parties. They are revolting hypocrites. Every year cocaine causes some 20,000 deaths in Colombia and displaces several hundred thousand people from their homes. Children are blown up by landmines; indigenous people are enslaved; villagers are tortured and killed; rainforests are razed. You'd cause less human suffering if instead of discreetly retiring to the toilet at a media drinks party, you went into the street and mugged someone. But the counter-cultural association appears to insulate people from ethical questions. If commissioning murder, torture, slavery, civil war, corruption and deforestation is not a crime, what is? I am talking about elective drug use, not addiction. I cannot find comparative figures for the United Kingdom, but in the United States casual users of cocaine outnumber addicts by about 12 to one. I agree that addicts should be helped, not prosecuted. I would like to see a revival of the British programme that was killed by a tabloid witch-hunt in 1971: until then all heroin addicts were entitled to clean, legal supplies administered by doctors. Cocaine addicts should be offered residential detox. But, at the risk of alienating most of the readership of this newspaper, I maintain that while cocaine remains illegal, casual users should remain subject to criminal law. Decriminalisation of the products of crime expands the market for this criminal trade. We have a choice of two consistent policies. The first is to sustain global prohibition, while helping addicts and prosecuting casual users. This means that the drugs trade will remain the preserve of criminal gangs. It will keep spreading crime and instability around the world, and ensure that narcotics are still cut with contaminants. As Nick Davies argued during his investigation of drugs policy for the Guardian, major seizures raise the price of drugs. Demand among addicts is inelastic, so higher prices mean that they must find more money to buy them. The more drugs the police capture and destroy, the more robberies and muggings addicts will commit. The other possible policy is to legalise and regulate the global trade. This would undercut the criminal networks and guarantee unadulterated supplies to consumers. There might even be a market for certified fair-trade cocaine. Costa's new report begins by rejecting this option. If it did otherwise, he would no longer be executive director of the UN office on drugs and crime. The report argues that "any reduction in the cost of drug control ... will be offset by much higher expenditure on public health (due to the surge of drug consumption)". It admits that tobacco and alcohol kill more people than illegal drugs, but claims that this is only because fewer illegal drugs are consumed. Strangely however, it fails to supply any evidence to support the claim that narcotics are dangerous. Nor does it distinguish between the effects of drugs themselves and the effects of the adulteration and disease caused by their prohibition. Why not? Perhaps because the evidence would torpedo the rest of the report. A couple of weeks ago, Ben Goldacre drew attention to the largest study on cocaine ever undertaken, completed by the World Health Organisation in 1995. I've just read it, and this is what it says. "Health problems from the use of legal substances, particularly alcohol and tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine use. Few experts describe cocaine as invariably harmful to health. Cocaine-related problems are widely perceived to be more common and more severe for intensive, high-dosage users and very rare and much less severe for occasional, low-dosage users ... occasional cocaine use does not typically lead to severe or even minor physical or social problems." This study was suppressed by the WHO after threats of an economic embargo by the Clinton government. Drugs policy in most nations is a matter of religion, not science. The same goes for heroin. The biggest study of opiate use ever conducted (at Philadelphia general hospital) found that addicts suffered no physical harm, even though some of them had been taking heroin for 20 years. The devastating health effects of heroin use are caused by adulterants and the lifestyles of people forced to live outside the law. Like cocaine, heroin is addictive; but unlike cocaine, the only consequence of its addiction appears to be ... addiction. Costa's half-measure, in other words, gives us the worst of both worlds: more murder, more destruction, more muggings, more adulteration. Another way of putting it is this: you will, if Costa's proposal is adopted, be permitted without fear of prosecution to inject yourself with heroin cut with drain cleaner and brick dust, sold illegally and soaked in blood; but not with clean and legal supplies. His report does raise one good argument, however. At present the trade in class A drugs is concentrated in the rich nations. If it were legalised, we could cope. The use of drugs is likely to rise, but governments could use the extra taxes to help people tackle addiction. But because the wholesale price would collapse with legalisation, these drugs would for the first time become widely available in poorer nations, which are easier for companies to exploit (as tobacco and alcohol firms have found) and which are less able to regulate, raise taxes or pick up the pieces. The widespread use of cocaine or heroin in the poor world could cause serious social problems: I've seen, for example, how a weaker drug khat seems to dominate life in Somali-speaking regions of Africa. "The universal ban on illicit drugs," the UN argues, "provides a great deal of protection to developing countries". So Costa's office has produced a study comparing the global costs of prohibition with the global costs of legalisation, allowing us to see whether the current policy (murder, corruption, war, adulteration) causes less misery than the alternative (widespread addiction in poorer nations)? The hell it has. Even to raise the possibility of such research would be to invite the testerics in Congress to shut off the UN's funding. The drug charity Transform has addressed this question, but only for the UK, where the results are clear-cut: prohibition is the worse option. As far as I can discover, no one has attempted a global study. Until that happens, Costa's opinions on this issue are worth as much as mine or anyone else's: nothing at all. ********************************************************************** PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post copies of your letters to the sent letter list ( sentlte@mapinc.org ) if you are subscribed. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches. To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form Suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides ********************************************************************** Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org === . DrugSense provides many services at no charge, but they are not free to produce. Your contributions make DrugSense and its Media Awareness Project (MAP) happen. Please donate today. Our secure Web server at http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm accepts credit cards and Paypal. Or, mail your check or money order to: . DrugSense 14252 Culver Drive #328 Irvine, CA 92604-0326. (800) 266 5759 . DrugSense is a 501c(3) non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness about the expensive, ineffective, and destructive "War on Drugs." Donations are tax deductible to the extent provided by law. A Message From President Barack Obama
Colorado vs California - Who Will Be First To Legalize Commercial (Hemp), Medical, & Recreational Marijuana...??? - Act to Remove Federal Penalties for Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Now In The House Of Representatives...!!!Hey Now Kidz,
I know that I haven't been doing much personal writing here at my good ole blog. Yes I have been involved with my cause at Facebook. "The Green Blizzard!" But today I do want to address who I think will be the first in the union to go marijuana green...!!!
 In today's Denver Daily News is a blurb about the return of medical marijuana in Colorado to a licensed caregiver. I am going to have type this verbatim because they haven't linked their Friday edition yet.
Medical Marijuana Returned
Attorney Robert J.Corry and his client Travis Sanford, picked up a jar of medical marijuana from the Denver Police Department yesterday Sanford is a registered caregiver with the state of Colorado who had been charged with the marijuana. All criminal charges against him were dropped, and the Denver County Court ordered the return of the marijuana.
This wouldn't have gone down this way in California or most other medical marijuana states.
We (Colorado) are also the only state to have a city and county (Denver) if you are 21+ years of age where less than an ounce of weed is legal. Although the Mayor and Chief of Police in Denver insist on enforcing the state law. $100 + costs for less than an ounce of pot. To countermand the government status quo the citizens passed an initiative making it the least enforcable law in the city and county of Denver.
So who would you say is most likely to make the first move toward legalization, Colorado or California? I say my state...Colorado...!!!
More marijuana...!!!
Yesterday Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, along with co-sponsors Ron Paul (R-TX); Maurice Hinchey (D-NY); Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA); and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), reintroduced legislation to limit the federal government's authority to arrest and prosecute minor marijuana offenders.
The measure, entitled an "Act to Remove Federal Penalties for Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults," would eliminate federal penalties for the personal possession of up to 100 grams (three and one-half ounces) of cannabis and for the not-for-profit transfer of up to one ounce of pot - making the prosecutions of these offenses strictly a state matter.
Under federal law, defendants found guilty of possessing small amounts of cannabis for their own personal use face up to one year imprisonment and a $1,000 fine.
Passage of this act would provide state lawmakers the choice to maintain their current penalties for minor marijuana offenses or eliminate them completely.
Lawmakers would also have the option to explore legal alternatives to tax and regulate the adult use and distribution of cannabis free from federal interference.
I am urging you to contact your state's elected Congresional House of Representatives representatives by writing them a letter asking them to either co-sponsor, endorse, and/or vote for this milestone legislature.
Here is the link to get the name of your state's representatives and how to contact them:
It's your choice whether via snail mail (the best), email, or telephone. The reason snail mail is the best because it gives them something tangible to respond to and it also let's you do a telephone follow-up.
Get inspired, once one domino falls then the cascade begins. Help End Marijuana Prohibition! Legalize, Regulate, and Tax commercial (hemp), medical, & recreational marijuana!
This doable folks....
Wayward Bill Marijuana Policy Project Alert - Barney Frank Steps Up To The Plate Again
National Partnership for Women & Families - Women's Health Policy Report
Brave New Foundation - Afghanistan
I Play With Dolls - Denver Roller Dolls
Marijuana Policy Project Alert - Marijuana Medical Dispensaries In Rhode Island
A Message From President Barack Obama - Health Care Reform Wayward Bill. --
Last year, millions of Americans came together for a great purpose.  Folks like you assembled a grassroots movement that shocked the political establishment and changed the course of our nation. When Washington insiders counted us out, we put it all on the line and changed our democracy from the bottom up. But that's not why we did it. The pundits told us it was impossible -- that the donations working people could afford and the hours volunteers could give would never loosen the vise grip of big money and powerful special interests. We proved them wrong. But as important as that was, that's not why we did it. Today, spiraling health care costs are pushing our families and businesses to the brink of ruin, while millions of Americans go without the care they desperately need. Fixing this broken system will be enormously difficult. But we can succeed. The chance to make fundamental change like this in people's daily lives -- that is why we did it. The campaign to pass real health care reform in 2009 is the biggest test of our movement since the election. Once again, victory is far from certain. Our opposition will be fierce, and they have been down this road before. To prevail, we must once more build a coast-to-coast operation ready to knock on doors, deploy volunteers, get out the facts, and show the world how real change happens in America. And just like before, I cannot do it without your support. So I'm asking you to remember all that you gave over the last two years to get us here -- all the time, resources, and faith you invested as a down payment to earn us our place at this crossroads in history. All that you've done has led up to this -- and whether or not our country takes the next crucial step depends on what you do right now. Please donate whatever you can afford to support the campaign for real health care reform in 2009. It doesn't matter how much you can give, as long as you give what you can. Millions of families on the brink are counting on us to do just that. I know we can deliver. Thank you, so much, for getting us this far. And thank you for standing up once again to take us the rest of the way. Sincerely, President Barack Obama  The Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act of 2009 - Write Your CongresspersonHey Now Kidz,
Write your congressperson:
 http://capwiz.com/norml2/issues/alert/?alertid=13532281 Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, along with a bipartisan coalition of co-sponsors, is seeking to strengthen legal protections for state-authorized medical marijuana patients. The Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act of 2009 would ensure that medical cannabis patients in states that have approved its use will no longer have to fear arrest or prosecution from federal law enforcement agencies. Thirteen states -- Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington -- have enacted laws protecting medical marijuana patients from state prosecution. Yet in all of these states, patients and providers still face the risk of federal sanction -- even when their actions are fully compliant with state law. It is time that we allowed our unique federalist system to work the way it was intended. Patients and their state representatives should have the authority to enact laws permitting the medical use of cannabis -- free from federal interference. Previous versions of The Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act were introduced in both the 108th and 109th Congress, but failed to receive a public hearing or a committee vote. Please write your members of Congress today and tell them to stop targeting and prosecuting medical marijuana patients and providers. For your convenience, a prewritten letter will be e-mailed to your member of Congress when you enter your contact information below. Thank you for assisting NORML's federal law reform efforts. To win marijuana reform, one must participate....!!!! Wayward Bill Mile High Music Festival Volunteer OpportunitiesHey Now,
I have the ability to see what people are googling to get here. I have had quite a few requests for volunteer opportunities at the Mile High Music Festival. Although I do have access to numerous volunteer opportunities throughout the Metro-Denver area the Mile High Music Festival is not one of them. However I took your opportunity seeking to the next level and emailed the festival. Here's their response:
 June 12, 2009
Hi Wayward Bill, Thanks for your interest in volunteering at our festival! We truly appreciate it. Any potential volunteer opportunities will be posted to the website when and if they arise. Please stay tuned to www.milehighmusicfestival.com for all festival information. Sign up for our newsletter to stay current: http://milehighmusicfestival.com/newsletter-signup. Best, Mile High Music Festival
Well that's the skinny.... Stay tuned! Wayward Bill Grateful Dad's Day - Gift Ideas - Rare Video Footage of Jerry Garcia Interview 1984Dear Grateful Dead Forum Members,
School is out, my daughter Grace is getting married in a week, and the Dead did a Spring tour this year! There's a lot going on, and those who keep their ears real close to the grapevine I'm sure already know all there is to know, but I'll try to keep the rest of you in the loop as best as I can. Fathers Day gifts http://www.gdforum.com/cgi-bin/shopper?keywords=fathers_day&search=action Many of you have already gotten your orders in, and they should be in by tomorrow to make sure UPS can deliver by the 19th, but if you get your order in before Monday, I'll make sure you get it, even if I have to upgrade the freight at my expense. ***** Bob Dylan's Latest CD http://www.gdforum.com/store/music/CD-Dylan_Together.html In what is no secret, and yet at the same time is not widely being reported, Robert Hunter co-wrote the lyrics to all but one of the songs on this new album. Dylan is in what I call his "late Picasso phase" where the mere power of his presence takes ownership of almost anything. It's a fun head game to listen to the lyrics and try to imagine if a turn of phrase seems more Dylanesque or Hunteresque, at least for some of us lyrics geeks! ***** Mark Karan's solo album to be released Walk Through The Fire http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0029WGIK8/gdforumcom-20 Mark has come out the other end of his struggle with cancer, and sounds real strong here. There are 12 listed tracks, and the 13th is an alternate take of "Leave a Light On." Profits from the title track go to the Oral Cancer Foundation. Check it out tracks: Annie Don't Lie Leave a Light On Bait the Hook Walk Through the Fire Love In Vain Rock Your Papa Memphis Radio Time Will Tell Love Song I Think It's Gonna Rain Fools In Love Easy Wind Leave a Light On ***** Reviews of the Spring Dead tour http://gdforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=939.0 I know there are plenty of reviews already, but if you'd like to share your thoughts with the GDF board, please consider it. ***** Incredible Archival Interview http://denniselsas.com/archives.htm passed along by Dennis McNally: Legendary NY DJ Dennis Elsas has just posted a 1984 video of his interview with Jerry Garcia with a story celebrating the Grateful Dead's "20th anniversary". This piece hasn't been seen since it originally aired. He's also posted a classic 1971 memo outlining the details of a WNEW-FM live broadcast of a NY Dead show. Peace, Geoff Gould GDForum webmaster http://gdforum.com/home.html AOL keyword: aol://4344:635.deadtop.4523331.494870589 ***** Just a reminder that these live CD's are in stock: ***** To Terrapin: Hartford, May 28, 1977 | Grateful Dead http://www.gdforum.com/cgi-bin/shopper?preadd=action&key=CD-GD-HARTFORD77 This is the first release of these performances. ***** Winterland 1973 Box Set http://www.gdforum.com/store/music/winterland73.html This set has been available for a while near $100, and now is available to all WEA retailers, so we can offer this at a good discount, if you don't already have it. Please note this is a special order; we will let you know if it's immediately shippable or not. ***** Guitar News http://www.ggould.com/newguitar.html It's done! ***** The Green Bag, unprinted, at the GDF Store http://www.gdforum.com/cgi-bin/shopper?preadd=action&key=GREENBAG We are one of the few places to offer lots of less than 50 of these environmentally-conscious shopping bags. ****** Below are some of the links I've collected to help find things in the store: I have created quantity discounts to encourage you to pile more stuff in the shopping carts to take away: over $100, 10% discount over $150, 15% discount over $200, 20% discount Other useful sales links: http://www.gdforum.com/store/blowout.html new stuff: http://www.gdforum.com/cgi-bin/shopper?keywords=new_stuff&search=action close outs and collectibles: http://www.gdforum.com/cgi-bin/shopper?keywords=closeout&search=action A Grateful Dead Tale - The Stories of Jerry Moore - As Told By Tahoe JimboHey Now Kidz,
I am going to share a story as told by my friend Tahoe Jimbo.
A story of lost and found, of music and friends.....of the continued family called Grateful Dead Heads...!!!
 "He Was A Friend Of Mine"
I lived through the dawning of the Internet Age of Grateful Dead tape trading. I participated through our amazement that we could be so immediately in contact with other traders (by the thousands), all sharing lists and arranging trades instantaneously - so unlike "the good old days" - to the full explosion of high speed sharing which brought the real need for a trading community to its end.
 While living through all of that, I built up a cassette tape collection (then CD collection) numbering in the thousands, and all the while enjoyed not only collecting the tapes, but collecting the stories. Hearing about the old days, talking to people, sharing long e-mails - this was an even more precious gift than the tapes themselves.  One of the ongoing stories was the one titled, "Jerry Moore." I call it a story, because he was no more than that to me (and pretty much my entire circle of trading partners). Yes, there were people who could referencing knowing him way back when. But after getting online in 1997, despite my own ever-widening circle, Jerry Moore was "lost." Did he die? Had he fallen off the grid? Did someone last hear that he was battling heroin and had sold off all his tapes to pay rent? Had someone seen him retreat into a forest cave to live among the rocks? Quite literally, all of these stories were floating around, and the only thing that stitched them all together was the fact that Moore was "lost" to us; "us" being the world of obsessed tapers trying to digitally archive all the old master tapes we could find. Often were the times I pined over how very absent Jerry Moore was from our world. And so he grew mythical. And so I found myself in possession of tape copies of many of his recordings not even knowing they were his. Tapes of 10/01/76, 11/04/77, and God knows how many others, all were more often simply "AUD - taper unknown." And this in the age of digital communication. That all changed for me one day in 2002, when an East Coast taper I knew quietly let me in on the fact that he was acquainted with Moore himself - an old friend, and that Jerry was interested in archiving what was literally a closet full of his masters, complete with a TARDIS-like quality of holding far more music than could conceivably fit inside. A small group of us became MooresBoys, a Yahoo Group devoted to making trips to Jerry's place to help deal with the closet, and then go through the careful Analog>DAT transfers, followed by digital editing into the final drafts that would go into mass circulation. Living half a country away from the closet, I only performed my tasks on the DAT>SHN/FLAC mastering side of the equation (though Jerry did send me his actual tapes from 10/02/76 - Jesus! He had taped the holiest of 1976 grails ever - 10/02/76!!), so I never got out to meet him in person. But that didn't stop the stories. Jerry wrote. He wrote a great deal. He wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote. We conversed in e-mail over a multi-year period back then where I was blessed to learn a seemingly endless wealth of knowledge around the life and times of Jerry Moore, the taper. Stories of how he fashioned a telescoping golf ball retrieval tool into his mic stand of choice in the 70's. Stories of how his very first recording, Grateful Dead 06/10/73 was so disappointing to his ears that he recorded over it a month or two later with a sweet recording of the New Riders. Stories of cajoling other concert goers to record with his gear because his seats sucked (07/29/74). Stories of avoiding roadies. Stories on top of stories, back and forth in e-mail. Reading Jerry Moore is sort of like reading James Joyce or Camus, or Aristotle, or Edward Albee. He wrote thickly. He loved words, perhaps more than music. And he loved vetting out the truth in people and their actions, as much as he loved the details around nearly every facet of what it took for him to do all that taping. I always had to read his e-mails more than once to make sure I was *getting* what he was saying, sometime afraid I was catching the complete opposite meaning in his prose. And I loved that about Jerry. An example, from the very last e-mail exchange we had between us. He begins an answer to my question related to the appearance of other old tapers more recently on the Internet scene: odd? yes and noah.
seems obvious.
then again,
hmmm.
real world answer? okay.
It was not the first time he played on my name like that, and, of course, the e-mail went on and on from there. It pains me deeply that there will be no more e-mails going on and on from Jerry Moore. I will miss him terribly. I have him to thank for elevating my joys in tape trading to their very highest, and that had nothing to do with the actual tapes he made, but just by being a friend of mine - just by turning from myth into a person with great stories. So, the giant Internet tubes that changed our community forever get a big tip of the hat today. We can all remember and relive Jerry Moore's master cassesttes so easily now. He is certainly forever part of our living history in music. Just a few of his recordings have made it here onto the guide so far. So many more to come. 09/07/73 Nassau Coliseum - Uniondale, NY
06/23/74 Jai-Alai Fronton - Miami, FL
08/04/74 Civic Convention Hall Auditorium – Philadelphia, PA
04/23/77 Springfield Civic Center Arena, Springfield, MA
05/08/77 Love, Peace, and Happiness!
Jimbo
I am listening to the 09/07/73 Nassau Coliseum. A very tasty 24 song show. I added the Grateful Dead graphics and the venues to Jimbo show date links to help you better pick which tidbit of the Grateful Dead performances you would like to either download or stream, enjoy.....!!!!
This hot doo-doo Maynard.....!!!!
Wayward Bill
Update: 06/11/2009 12:13p MDT
From: tahoe jimbo
Hey Now! I don't take credit for things I didn't write, that is a re-print from my favorite Deadhead blog, The Grateful Dead Listening Guide, not only is Icepetal a terrific writer, but he does a series of podcasts I reccomend you check him out and add a link http://deadlistening.blogspot.com/ . You will be enlightened, how ever many years you have been a deadhead... tj420 DrugSense Alert ~ FREE THE WEED! ~ FUCK THE DEA!THE DRUG WAR OPINIONS IN THE LOS ANGELES TIMES ********************************************************************** DrugSense FOCUS Alert #405 - Sunday, 7 June 2009 Today the Los Angeles Times printed the three OPEDs below which focus on marijuana and the war on drugs. The Sunday edition of the Times has a circulation of over a million copies, exceeded on Sunday only by the New York Times. The Times' home delivery area extends from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border - a 45,000-square-mile area larger than the state of Ohio. Your letters to the editor could focus on many points, but the letters most likely to be printed will contain no more than two or three. Printed letters typically run 150 words or less. You may send letters to the newspaper by either using their webform at http://www.latimes.com/services/site/la-comment-oped-cf,0,86410.customform or by e-mail to letters@latimes.com ********************************************************************** DECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA The War on Drugs Has Caused Too Much Collateral Damage: Even the Ill Face Stigmatization by Using an Alternative to Harsh Pharmaceuticals. By Marie Myung-Ok Lee I'm on the phone getting a recipe for hashish butter. Not from my dealer but from Lester Grinspoon, a physician and emeritus professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. And not for a party but for my 9-year-old son, who has autism, anxiety and digestive problems, all of which are helped by the analgesic and psychoactive properties of marijuana. I wouldn't be giving it to my child if I didn't think it was safe. I came to marijuana while searching for a safer alternative to the powerful antipsychotic drugs, such as Risperdal, that are typically prescribed for children with autism and other behavioral disorders. There have been few studies on the long-term effects of these drugs on a growing child's brain, and in particular autism, a disorder whose biochemical mechanisms are poorly understood. But there is much documentation of the risks, which has caused the Food and Drug Administration to require the highest-level "black box" warnings of possible side effects that include permanent Parkinson's disease-like tremors, metabolic disorders and death. A panel of federal drug experts in 2008 urged physicians to use caution when prescribing these medicines to children, as they are the most susceptible to side effects. We live in Rhode Island, one of more than a dozen states -- including California -- with medical marijuana laws. That makes giving our son cannabis for a medical condition legal. But we are limited in its use. We cannot take it on a plane on a visit to his grandmother in Minnesota. Even though we are not breaking the law, I still wonder what my neighbors would think if they knew we were giving our son what most people only think of as an illegal "recreational" drug. Marijuana has always carried that illicit tang of danger -- "reefer madness" and foreign drug cartels. But in 1988, Drug Enforcement Administration Judge Francis L. Young, after two years of hearings, deemed marijuana "one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. .. In strict medical terms, marijuana is far safer than many foods we commonly consume." Beyond helping people like my son, the reasons to legalize cannabis on a federal level are manifold. Anecdotal evidence from patients already attests to its pain-relieving properties, and the benefits in quelling chemotherapy-induced nausea and wasting syndrome are well documented. Future studies may find even more important medical uses. Including marijuana in the war on drugs has only proved foolhardy -- and costly. By keeping marijuana illegal and prices high, illicit drug money from the U.S. sustains the murderous narco-traffickers in Mexico and elsewhere. In fact, after seeing how proximity to marijuana growers affected the small Mexican village of Alamos, where my husband spent much of his childhood, I was adamant about never entering into that economy of violence. Because Rhode Island has no California-like medical marijuana dispensaries, the patient must apply for a medical marijuana license and then find a way to procure the cannabis. We floundered on our own until we finally connected with a local horticultural school graduate who agreed to provide our son's organic marijuana. But given the seedy underbelly of the illegal drug trade, combined with the current economic collapse, even our grower has to be mindful of not exposing himself to robbery. Legalizing marijuana not only removes the incentives for this underground economy, it would allow for regulation and taxation of the product, just like cigarettes and alcohol. The potential for abuse is there, as it is with any substance, but toxicology studies have not even been able to establish a lethal dose at typical-use levels. In fact, in 1988, Young of the DEA further stated that "it is estimated that ... a smoker would theoretically have to consume ... nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about 15 minutes to induce a lethal response." Nor is it physically addicting, unlike your daily Starbucks, as anyone who has suffered from a caffeine withdrawal headache can attest. Although it has been demonized for years, marijuana hasn't been illegal in the U.S. for that long. The cannabis plant became criminalized on a federal level in 1937, largely because of the efforts of one man, Harry Anslinger, commissioner of the then newly formed Bureau of Narcotics, largely through sensationalistic stories of murder and mayhem conducted supposedly under the influence of cannabis. Cannabis was still listed in the U.S. Pharmacopeia, or USP, until 1941 as a household drug useful for treating headaches, depression, menstrual cramps and toothaches, and drug companies worked to develop a stronger strain. In 1938, a skeptical Fiorello LaGuardia, mayor of New York, appointed a committee to conduct the first in-depth study of marijuana's actual effects. It found that, despite the government's fervent claims, marijuana did not cause insanity or act as a gateway drug. It also found no scientific reason for its criminalization. In 1972, President Nixon's Shafer Commission similarly concluded that cannabis should be re-legalized. Both recommendations were ignored, and since then billions of dollars have been spent enforcing the ban. Public policy analyst Jon Gettman, author of the 2007 report, "Lost Revenues and Other Costs of Marijuana Laws," estimated marijuana-related annual costs of law enforcement at $10.7 billion. I was heartened to hear California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent call for the U.S. to at least look at other nations' experiences with legalizing marijuana -- and to open a debate. And given the real security threats the nation faces, U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr.'s announcement that the federal government would no longer conduct raids on legal medicinal marijuana dispensaries was a prudent move. Decriminalizing marijuana is the logical next step. Marie Myung-Ok Lee teaches at Brown University and is working on a novel about medical malpractice. ********************************************************************** THE PRICE OF LEGALIZING POT IS TOO HIGH Deterrence Is Preferable to Encouraging Marijuana Use, Which Would Follow Alcohol and Tobacco in Soaring Costs to Society. By Kevin A. Sabet Last month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reignited a heated debate when he called for a civilized discussion on the merits of marijuana legalization. Indeed, the governor was responding to new public opinion polls showing greater interest in the policy idea -- and with the mounting problems associated with the drug trade in Mexico and here at home, it is hard to blame anyone for suggesting that we at least consider all potential policy solutions. One major justification for legalization remains tempting: the money. Unfortunately, however, the financial costs of marijuana legalization would never outweigh its benefits. Yes, the marijuana market seems like an attractive target for taxation -- Abt Associates, a research firm, estimates that the industry is worth roughly $10 billion a year -- and California could certainly use a chunk of that cash to offset its budget woes in the current economic climate. What is rarely discussed, however, is that the likely increase in marijuana prevalence resulting from legalization would probably increase the already high costs of marijuana use in society. Accidents would increase, healthcare costs would rise and productivity would suffer. Legal alcohol serves as a good example: The $8 billion in tax revenue generated from that widely used drug does little to offset the nearly $200 billion in social costs attributed to its use. In fact, both of our two already legal drugs -- alcohol and tobacco -- offer chilling illustrations of how an open market fuels greater harms. They are cheap and easy to obtain. Commercialization glamorizes their use and furthers their social acceptance. High profits make aggressive marketing worthwhile for sellers. Addiction is simply the price of doing business. Would marijuana use rise in a legal market for the drug? Admittedly, marijuana is not very difficult to obtain currently, but a legal market would make getting the drug that much easier. Tobacco and alcohol are used regularly by 30% and 65% of the population, respectively, while all illegal drugs combined are used by about 6% of Americans. In the Netherlands, where marijuana is de facto legalized, lifetime use "increased consistently and sharply" after this policy shift triggered commercialization, tripling among young adults, according to data analysis from the Rand Corp. We might expect a similar or worse result here in America's ad-driven culture. An honest debate on marijuana policy also carefully considers the costs of our current approach. Arrest rates for marijuana are relatively high, reaching about 800,000 last year. Though these numbers are technically recorded under the category of "possession," the story that is seldom told is that hardly any of these possession arrests result in jail time (that is why former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani made headlines when he aggressively arrested public marijuana users and detained them for 12 to 24 hours in the 1990s). One of the most astute minds in the field of drug policy, Carnegie Mellon's Jonathan Caulkins, formerly the co-director of Rand's drug policy research center, found that more than 85% of people in prison for all drug-law violations were clearly involved in drug distribution, and that the records of most of the remaining prisoners had at least some suggestion of distribution involvement (many prisoners plea down from more serious charges to possession in exchange for information about the drug trade). Only about half a percent of the total prison population was there for marijuana possession, he found. He noted that this figure was consistent with other mainstream estimates but not with estimates from the Marijuana Policy Project (a legalization interest group), which, according to Caulkins, "naively ... assumes that all inmates convicted of possession were not involved in trafficking." Caulkins concluded that "an implication of the new figure is that marijuana decriminalization would have almost no impact on prison populations." This is not meant to imply that marijuana arrests do not have costs, but rather, that these concerns have been highly exaggerated. Finally, legalizing marijuana would in no way ensure that the most vicious drug-related problems -- violence, economic-related crime, street gang activity -- would disappear. Most of those problems stem from the cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine markets. Marijuana's share of the black market is modest (the cocaine market is three times larger), and the money that is spent on the drug is spread over so many users and distributors that few are working with amounts that motivate or encourage high levels of crime. Moving beyond the simplistic and unrealistic option of legalization, what can we do to reduce marijuana use and the costly harms it brings? Increasing the ferocity of enforcement isn't the answer, but increasing its potential for effectiveness through deterrent methods might be. Programs like Project HOPE in Hawaii, which perform regular, random drug testing on probationers and others and implement reliable, swift (but short) sanctions for positive screens, have shown remarkable success. Innovative solutions, grounded in sound research on prevention, treatment and enforcement, present the shortest route out of marijuana-related costs. But an open market for the stuff? That doesn't pass the giggle test. Kevin A. Sabet worked at the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the Clinton and Bush administrations. He is currently a consultant in private practice. ********************************************************************** LAWYERS, GUNS AND MONEY: THREE REASONS TO END THE DRUG WAR Legalizing Marijuana Would Add to State Coffers, Empty Prisons and Reduce Violence. By Brian O'Dea In 1986 and 1987, I was one of the "masterminds" behind the importation and sale of about 75 tons of pot from Southeast Asia in the United States. It was the culmination of a 20-year career as a drug smuggler, a deal that netted more than $180 million wholesale. All that government saw, of course, was the sales tax when we spent our illegally gotten gains. Oh sure, there were some forfeitures once our organization was finally rounded up some years later. But had rational minds prevailed over the last 70-plus years, government would have reaped huge benefits -- in direct sales taxes -- from groups such as ours. Rather than accept the fact that an estimated 30 million pot-smoking Americans cannot possibly be criminals, our society has seen fit to waste almost $1 trillion on its "war on drugs." Not only has that approach not worked, the entire situation has been exacerbated by it. A cascade of bad outcomes follows a policy of prohibition. The worst may be the dangerous, bloody criminal activity it promotes. In my day, guns weren't automatically part of the picture, but they are now. The illegal drug trade is the currency that funds and inspires a vast, violent and well-armed gangster class. You've heard the news from Mexico. Since the government there has tried to rein in the drug cartels, 10,000 people have been killed. Last month in the state of Michoacan, Mexican security forces arrested 27 elected officials who are under investigation for their ties to narco-trafficking. In Toronto -- where I live some months out of the year -- police in April arrested 125 people in a sweep that netted AK-47s, sawed-off shotguns, 34 handguns and large quantities of cocaine, marijuana and Ecstasy. In April in Los Angeles County, 400 law enforcement personnel conducted a "gang sweep" that officials said "dismantled" a dangerous gang that sold methamphetamine, Vicodin, marijuana and cocaine. It took a year of law enforcement's time to put the cast together, and the gang was responsible for at least one killing over the last year. Take away the currency of illegal drugs and you take away the guns, the violence and the associated corruption. Columnist Steve Lopez wrote about a judge in this newspaper: "I'm sitting in Costa Mesa with a silver-haired gent who once ran for Congress as a Republican and used to lock up drug dealers as a federal prosecutor, a man who served as an Orange County judge for 25 years. And what are we talking about? He's begging me to tell you we need to legalize drugs in America." Another Republican, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, said in early May that he was willing to at least begin a debate on our policies about marijuana. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) calculates that taxing marijuana use alone would bring in $1 billion a year in cash-strapped California. Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper, in whose jurisdiction I was sentenced to 10 years in prison, supports legalizing marijuana and other illicit drugs. "It's time to accept drug use as a right of adult Americans, treat drug abuse as a public health problem and end the madness of an unwinnable war," he wrote in these pages in 2005. Stamper is an advisory board member of LEAP -- Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. According to LEAP, "After nearly four decades of fueling the U.S. policy of a war on drugs with over a trillion tax dollars and 37 million arrests for nonviolent drug offenses, our confined population has quadrupled, making building prisons the fastest-growing industry in the United States." More than 2.2 million of our citizens are incarcerated on drug charges, and every year we arrest 1.9 million more, guaranteeing those prisons will be busting at their seams. Every year, the war on drugs cost U.S. taxpayers $69 billion. It is time we stopped treating drug addiction, a medical condition, with law enforcement. It's time to repatriate the vast quantities of money that are being hidden, removed from the country and going untaxed, and it's time we keep those same vast sums from funding violent crime. It's time to end modern prohibition. It didn't work for alcohol; it isn't working for drugs. Brian O'Dea, one of the biggest marijuana smugglers in U.S. history, is also a reformed addict and a former drug counselor. He is now a film and television producer and the author of the just-published "High: Confessions of an International Drug Smuggler." ********************************************************************** PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post copies of your letters to the sent letter list ( sentlte@mapinc.org ) if you are subscribed. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches. To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form Suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides ********************************************************************** Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org === . DrugSense provides many services at no charge, but they are not free to produce. Your contributions make DrugSense and its Media Awareness Project (MAP) happen. Please donate today. Our secure Web server at http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm accepts credit cards and Paypal. Or, mail your check or money order to: . DrugSense 14252 Culver Drive #328 Irvine, CA 92604-0326. (800) 266 5759 . DrugSense is a 501c(3) non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness about the expensive, ineffective, and destructive "War on Drugs." Donations are tax deductible to the extent provided by law. Mile High Music Fest July 18 & 19, Denver Colorado, New Lineup Additions KBCO Mile High Music Festival new lineup additions. We're adding more bands to the lineup as the Summer goes on - The most recent additions are: Big Head Todd & The Monsters Thievery Corporation DeVotchKa Lukas Nelson & The Promise of the Real. Single Day VIP Tickets are also now available. Tickets on sale now More information New Riders Of The Purple Safe - Live Broadcast/Webcast Today On WFUV.org
John Sinclair - How I Came To Marijuana ActivismHey Now Kidz,
Although I have never met John Sinclair, he and his causes, Yippie connections, and a healthy dose of believing that marijuana should be legal brought me to marijuana activism in 1969.
I had older friends student types that hipped me to various things happening in our times, being the 1960s.
First it was marijuana, November 23, 1963. The day after John F. Kennedy was assassinated I had two beat girls who were students on my paper route which covered much of the off campus student rentals. They took pity on me because I was all tore up over the President being killed. I use to stop and have a cigarette with them but that day was different. The turned me on to pot. Age 12. Their friendship turned me on to other like minded individuals and the next thing you know I develop leftist leanings. Age 14. I was cutting my teeth on Ramparts magazine, the Berkeley Barb, LA Free Press, the SF Oracle. All available from my older college friends and at the first head shop in my hood. I also had a job at that pipe, paper, poster store. No paraphernalia laws then age didn't matter.
As the world became polarized against the Vietnam war by the age of 16 I was involved with the Democratic Party in my hometown. Youngstown, Ohio. My enthusiasm got me sent to Chicago in 1968 as a 17 year old page for the Ohio delegation on the floor of the Democratic National Convention. Enter ultra-left politics.
I saw from the windows of my hotel and watched on TV the street theater that Mayor Daley meted out to the participants of the "Festival of Life." So did the rest of America. It was during this time that I became aware of John Sinclair and the White Panther Party. I was handed a handbill advertising him speaking and the MC5 playing in Lincoln Park. I went and got my first taste of mob politics. I was hooked.
A year later (1969) John Sinclair got 10 years for two joints. I by then had picked up Yippie & White Panther ideals and from afar (500 miles) I championed John Sinclair. My first cause celebre. My foray into marijuana activism.
Check out this YouTube on John Sinclair, read Guitar Army if you can, and then realize that not much has changed in the prosecution and incarceration of marijuana users even with medical marijuana laws and decriminalization of weed.
Today's John Sinclairs are fortunate to have the world wide web to broadcast their plight. There are just too many cases today to have the likes of John Lennon plugging a single case like John Sinclair's. Just way too many.....
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was!
Please help end marijuana prohibition!
Wayward Bill DrugSense Alert - Heroin In The HeartlandHEROIN IN THE HEARTLAND ********************************************************************** DrugSense FOCUS Alert #404 - Sunday, 31 May 2009 For the New York Times to publish the major article below and leave out so much that could have been included is a shame. The Sunday edition of the New York Times is the most widely read Sunday newspaper in the United States. Your letters to the editor could focus on many points, but the letters most likely to be printed will contain no more than two or three. Just a few examples: If the drug treatment industry, drug courts, and needle exchange programs were encouraged - perhaps even required and provided with the needed funding - to provide users with anti-overdose kits and teach their use countless lives could be saved. The kits contain Naloxone. Naloxone works to block the effects of morphine, codeine, heroin, methadone, oxycontin, percocet, hydrocodone, fentanyl and hydromorphone. People can't overdose on Naloxone, the generic form of the brand-name drug, Narcan. If it's injected into someone who hasn't taken any opiates, it runs through the body as harmlessly as saline solution. The two immigrants are victims also. Draconian sentences as if they were drug kingpins is just another example of a drug war gone wild. If the DEA did not get between doctors and patients then pain management would be more effective. Less patients would turn to street drugs for relief. To focus on the drug cartels is simply blame shifting. Our drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, has called for "a complete public-health model for dealing with addiction." If that is to happen your support for the change from past policies is needed, not only through your letters but also by your contacts with our elected representatives. Some of the links to MAP archived articles now and in the future related to this topic include the following: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Naloxone http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment) http://www.mapinc.org/find?132 (Heroin Overdose) http://www.mapinc.org/find?131 (Heroin Maintenance) http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites) http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange) http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction) ********************************************************************** Pubdate: Sun, 31 May 2009 Source: New York Times (NY) Page: A1, Front Page Copyright: 2009 The New York Times Company Contact: letters@nytimes.com Author: Randal C. Archibold IN HEARTLAND DEATH, TRACES OF HEROIN'S SPREAD GROVE CITY, Ohio -- For five hours, Dana Smith huddled stunned and bewildered in her suburban living room while the body of her son Arthur Eisel IV, 31, lay slumped in an upstairs bathroom, next to a hypodermic needle. Family and friends streamed in. Detectives scurried about. For Mrs. Smith, the cold realization set in that her oldest son Artie -- quiet, shy, car enthusiast, football and softball fanatic -- was dead of a heroin overdose. The death was the end of a particular horror for Mrs. Smith, whose two other children, Mr. Eisel's younger brothers, also fell into heroin addiction "like dominoes," she said, and still struggle with it. To the federal government, which prosecuted the heroin dealers for Mr. Eisel's death, it was a stark illustration of how Mexican drug cartels have pushed heroin sales beyond major cities into America's suburban and rural byways, some of which had seen little heroin before. In Ohio, for instance, heroin-related deaths spread into 18 new counties from 2004 to 2007, the latest year for which statistics are available. Their numbers rose to 546 in that period, from 376 for 2000 to 2003. Federal officials now consider the cartels the greatest organized crime threat to the United States. Officials say the groups are taking over heroin distribution from Colombians and Dominicans and making new inroads across the country, pushing a powerful form of heroin grown and processed in Mexico known as "black tar" for its dark color and sticky texture. Their operations often piggyback on a growing and struggling Mexican immigrant population. In a case that provides a window into how this works, two illegal immigrant dealers pleaded guilty to manslaughter last year in Mr. Eisel's death, in a rare federal manslaughter prosecution from a drug overdose. Investigators determined that the two immigrants, Jose Manuel Cazeras-Contreras, 30, and Victor Delgadillo Parra, 23, began distributing heroin when they were unable to find jobs. Mr. Parra, in an interview from prison, where he was sentenced to spend 16 1/2 years, said he was afraid of being arrested at first, but took the job to support his wife and son, as well as relatives in Mexico. "I was living a hard life here in the United States," Mr. Parra said. "And I didn't have any other job I was going to go to." Another man in the drug ring, who was not directly connected to the death and therefore not charged with manslaughter, was recruited off the streets of Mexico and smuggled into the country expressly to peddle drugs in Ohio, the government said. Fat on profits made largely in the United States, drug traffickers in Mexico are engaged there in a bloody war among themselves and with the government, which began a crackdown on them three years ago. Since then the violence, including assaults on the police and the army, has left more than 10,000 people dead. But on this side of the border, the traffickers continue to expand their reach. Drug Enforcement Administration officials say that Ohio is of particular concern because of the crisscrossing network of freeways here that make it well suited as a transshipment point. Anthony C. Marotta, who heads the agency's Columbus office, said heroin tied to the Columbus-area dealers had been cropping up in nearby states like Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia and as far away as the Baltimore area. The case of Arthur Eisel and the men arrested for selling him heroin shows how the traffickers pushed their product and how in Mr. Eisel, already addicted to expensive pain killers because of a back injury, they found a ready customer for heroin, which was cheaper. Investigators say that Arthur Eisel was not alone in switching from a prescription painkiller to heroin. It gives a similar, euphoric high at a fraction of the cost, $10 to $20 for a "balloon" -- one dose, usually a gram or less -- as opposed to upwards of $60 for a typical prescription pill dose on the street. The traffickers found a ripe market in Grove City, a suburb of Columbus, as they have elsewhere in the nation. Drug seizures ebb and flow over the years, but the amount of heroin confiscated nationwide has been arcing up since the mid-90s, going from 370 kilograms in 1998 nationwide to about 600 kilograms -- roughly $150 million worth of heroin -- last year, though officials believe it is a small fraction of what is available on the street. The share of heroin-related prosecutions among federal drug cases in this region has also been climbing, reaching 15 percent of cases last year compared with 4 percent a decade ago. The numbers here are small in comparison with other populous states like New York, California or Texas, which have always been centers of drug use. But the growth here has prompted much soul-searching. Mr. Marotta said he had been alarmed recently to see dealing in the parking lot of a supermarket in Dublin, a quiet, upscale suburb of Columbus, where he was shopping. Paul Coleman, the director of Maryhaven, the largest rehabilitation center in the region, said the percentage of patients reporting opiates, principally heroin, as their preferred drug -- whether it is smoked, inhaled or injected -- grew to 68 percent last year from 38 percent in 2002. Mr. Coleman said he believed that the trend reflected an increased supply of heroin. Mike G., who is undergoing treatment at Maryhaven and asked that his last name be withheld for fear enemies on the street would find him there, said, "In some places it is like going to pick up beer." A Fatal Link The group linked to the Mexican cartel that sold Arthur Eisel his fatal dose was just one of at least 10 trafficking organizations, known by the authorities as cells, operating in central Ohio, said Tim Reagan, a D.E.A. agent who investigated the case as part of the Southwest Border Task Force, a group of Ohio law enforcement officials focused on drugs coming from Mexico. Each cell consists of a handful of people who distribute the drug after it is smuggled across the Southwest border, 1,500 miles away. Many cell members, like Mr. Parra and Mr. Contreras, have roots in Nayarit, a state on the Pacific Coast of Mexico. Mexican authorities say that growers in Nayarit are using a highly productive form of the poppy from Colombia and processing the heroin in laboratories scattered around Tepic, Nayarit's capital, despite efforts to kill the plants through fumigation. The cells take orders over disposable mobile phones, making it hard for the police to trace them or their calls. They use a system of "dispatchers" and "runners" to take orders and deliver the drug. Members of the cells typically stay in an area for only four or five months before replacements arrive. The drugs are sold at rendezvous points, usually in shopping center parking lots, in an effort to blend in with the bustle. The men convicted in the Eisel case told the authorities similar stories. Mr. Contreras, the dispatcher in the case, told federal authorities that he had crossed the border illegally and lived in Oregon for several years before moving to Columbus in 2007 on the promise of a job as an auto mechanic. But that job never materialized. In a letter to The New York Times, he said he had worked a variety of other jobs but had hit an unemployment streak that left him without a car or a house for his wife and two young children. Desperate for work, he said he found an acquaintance in Columbus who promised him easy money for distributing heroin. "Since I spoke English and Spanish, they proposed that I answer the phone only," Mr. Contreras wrote. "I didn't touch the drug or see it. I was only answering the phone. I was with them for three months, and that was when they caught me." He said he never imagined that anyone could die from the heroin, "since I have used the drug and nothing ever happened to me." Mr. Parra said he illegally crossed the border in 2005 and settled in California, working in the kitchen of a seafood restaurant for several months. When that work and other jobs dried up, friends suggested he come to Ohio for work. But when he arrived, Mr. Parra said, he learned that the work would be helping to distribute heroin. At turns repentant and defiant, Mr. Parra said he felt sorry for the family of Mr. Eisel but did not fully accept responsibility for his death and wondered aloud if the government was making an example of him. "It was never my intention for someone to die," Mr. Parra said, "but neither did I put a syringe or something in somebody so that they could inject the drug," adding, "I am serving as an example" to discourage other dealers. Jose Garcia Morales, a third man who was arrested in the case but was not prosecuted for the death of Mr. Eisel, was recruited off the streets of Nayarit's capital, according to a memorandum his lawyer prepared for the court in urging a lenient sentence. The document describes how the ring arranged for the payment of a "coyote," or human smuggler, to bring Mr. Morales across the border. Then, he piled into the back of a Ryder truck, was driven to Columbus and, over a two-week training period, was taught to deliver heroin by other drug traffickers already established there. "Mr. Morales was promised that he would make a lot of money," the document said. "In reality, when he was paid, if it all, he generally received between $400 and $500 a week, a place to sleep, and occasionally some food. As expected, Mr. Morales sent much of the money he earned back to his family in Mexico." Connecting the distribution rings to the cartel leadership in Mexico has proved difficult. Those arrested here typically say they fear for the safety of their families in Mexico if word gets back that they have been too cooperative. "If they are caught, they are terrified what will happen to their families, and for good reason," said David M. DeVillers, a federal prosecutor here who has handled several drug cases. "They want to do the prison time." The authorities say that local arrests rarely make a difference. New dealers pop up within weeks. "It's like sweeping sunshine off the roof," Mr. Marotta of the D.E.A. said. Shared Addictions Standing before a federal judge last summer as he faced the prospect of 20 years in prison on manslaughter charges in Mr. Eisel's death, Mr. Contreras begged for forgiveness. "I truly did not intend to do any damage to their family," said Mr. Contreras, 30, before the judge handed down a 15-year sentence. "I have two children, and I would not like something like this to happen to my sons." Dana Smith listened, horrified. At home, her two younger sons were still struggling with addiction. Arthur had been, in her eyes, a typical suburban child, shy around girls, a devotee of the radio host Howard Stern, a member of a local softball league, popular with the children of friends. He eventually found work as a bank clerk and rented an apartment with one of his brothers, Robby. Robby Eisel, who is undergoing treatment at a residential center in Columbus, said the progression from prescription medicine to heroin was easy "because the heroin is everywhere around here." When Arthur Eisel injured his back in a car accident in 2005, he started taking prescription medication, Percocet and OxyContin, for chronic pain, under a doctor's supervision. Robby Eisel said he had been taking similar medications after he broke his arm on the job as a maintenance worker at a golf course. Soon, all three brothers were acquiring OxyContin illegally and sharing it. When supplies dried up and their dealer suggested heroin, they tried it and quickly developed an addiction. Mrs. Smith said she struggled to comprehend what took hold of her sons. She works as a clerk at a courthouse and had seen the regular parade of drug addicts and offenders come through. But one day in 2007, she heard the name of two of her boys, Arthur and Robby, announced in arraignment court. They had broken into a store. "It was devastating," she said. More horrors came. She would find needles in pillow cases, in coats, under living room chairs. She watched her sons writhe in agony from head and bone pain and diarrhea as they experienced withdrawal trying to beat the addiction at home. Mrs. Smith said she sometimes feels pangs of guilt and wonders if she could have done more to help Arthur break the addiction. She concedes that she gave him food, a place to stay and sometimes even money when his stupor made clear what he was up to. "I was an enabler," she said quietly. "I was his mother." At one point, she called a private rehabilitation facility in Florida, hoping to get all of her sons in treatment. But she was told the facility did not accept siblings. "Which one has it the worst?" she recalled a counselor there asking. The question still gnaws at her. "How do you choose which one of your children to save?" Mrs. Smith asks now. She decided at the time that she could not choose and sent none of them to Florida. Regret and Resolve Arthur Eisel went through a revolving door of treatment centers in the Columbus area in the months before his death. He would get free of the drug, seemingly set on a positive path only to relapse and fall into it again. But, his family said, he did not appear to be using heavily in the weeks before his death. The night before he died, he and his brother Ryan paid their mother a visit, watching television there until late in the evening. At work the next morning, Mrs. Smith got the kind of call parents dread. She remembers hearing Ryan say, "His lips are blue." Mrs. Smith spent the next months in a state of shock. She said she does not remember much. As it turned out, investigators had already been trailing the ring that sold Arthur his fatal dose. That work, in addition to confidential informants whose testimony would have allowed investigators to trace Mr. Eisel's dose to Mr. Parra and Mr. Contreras, emboldened prosecutors to charge them with manslaughter and other crimes. Prosecutors asked Mrs. Smith to go to the sentencing hearings and make a statement. She stood feet from the men accused of killing her son and listened to their words of regret. "Part of my heart goes out to their families," she said in a recent interview. "But something has got to be done to stop this." ********************************************************************** PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post copies of your letters to the sent letter list ( sentlte@mapinc.org ) if you are subscribed. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches. To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form Suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides ********************************************************************** Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org === . DrugSense provides many services at no charge, but they are not free to produce. Your contributions make DrugSense and its Media Awareness Project (MAP) happen. Please donate today. Our secure Web server at http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm accepts credit cards and Paypal. Or, mail your check or money order to: . DrugSense 14252 Culver Drive #328 Irvine, CA 92604-0326. (800) 266 5759 . DrugSense is a 501c(3) non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness about the expensive, ineffective, and destructive "War on Drugs." Donations are tax deductible to the extent provided by law. The Cause Position..."The Green Blizzard"...My Position...!!! TGIF All We Need Is A Bag Of Weed....TGIF Kidz,
How's dat for a Phreaky Phriday Phun Phlick...we all need a bag of weed cuz it's Phriday and that means phattys!
Chosing to be a leader takes your time and effort. I recently discovered that by creating a cause at Facebook that you can mass email the people who believe in your cause. Mine being "The Green Blizzard!"
What a terrific teaching tool. And believe me, I know that my followers are not clinging to my everyword. That would be ideal but a not. However by using the Fshare option I reach out to those who are not so inclined to be part of my cause. The multiplication factor is awesome when you can expand your audience with the stroke of the mouse....
Here's my missive at "The Green Blizzard" today....
Happy Phriday Phriends,
Every once and awhile I need to reiterate what "The Green Blizzard" is about. First this cause is meant to be proactive and not something you've clicked on to. This cause is all about coalition, my cause, your cause, because we all want to see the end of prohibition of commercial (hemp), medical, and recreational marijuana. When re-legalization happens the powers that be will work out how it's going to be, then we can lobby for whatever positions our cause or causes represent. Let's just work together to make the first domino fall. The Green Blizzard Position Statement: There is no proof that marijuana has killed or harmed anyone, and should no longer be prohibited! There is 13 States that now have medical marijuana laws, and there are Government studies that show marijuana has medical values, and should no longer be prohibited! Marijuana is a proven source of energy. With the U.S. in need of new energy, Marijuana (hemp) should no longer be prohibited! Marijuana has a cash value! With our economy at an almost all-time low, and unemployment reaching a all-time high, marijuana should no longer be prohibited! (Cause positions borrowed from 420 petition - USMJParty.com) "The Green Blizzard": "The Green Blizzard" is a letter writing advocacy initiative. Get your friends together, roll a few phattys. Take a box of #10 envelopes and draw cannabis culture art on them (Green themed). Address them to your local, state, and federal representatives. The purpose of the green theme envelope is to give the appearance of money flowing into the government. Take and stuff your envelopes with a letter with this message: Dear_____ This envelope represents with postage approximately 50¢. Fifty cents that could have been revenue from marijuana. I urge you to sponsor, support, and/or endorse the Legalization, Regulation, and Taxation of commercial (hemp), medical, and recreational marijuana. Please help end marijuana prohibition. Sincerely, This is meant to be a fun creative campaign. Good luck and happy coloring....Encourage other's to do the same, follow up your mail by calling your representatives and reading them the cause positions. Enough envelopes flowing into the inbox of Amerikan government will get people talking and possibly working toward re-legalization of all types of marijuana. My Position: When I set up this cause I took my experience with four elements of the marijuana re-legalization movement. 1. I am a Yippie! I draw upon the revolutionary moment that challenges the insanity with insanity. Takes one to know one attitude. Hence the "Green" themed envelopes. It a technical form of Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman throwing dollars off the mezzanine of the NY Stock Exchange. Disruption with thought. Every Groucho Marx moment counts. 2. The Marijuana Policy Project. They represent what I consider the perfect ideals in the re-legalization of commercial (hemp), medical, and recreational marijuana through: Legalization Regulation Taxation I also designated them as the cause beneficiary because of they're global and their mission statement. 3. S.A.F.E.R./Sensible Colorado They were the first lobbies in the world to organize and hold a marijuana activist seminar and boot camp. I am following their lesson plan at "The Green Blizzard" to do as exactly as I am doing now. Teaching you how to be marijuana activists or better marijuana activists. Why these two lobbies. Does saying that I live in the only city in Amerika that has legalized recreational marijuana satisfy that point. We did it here and I want to pass that power along. 4. United State Marijuana Party I am a member. If you want re-legalization of commercial (hemp), medical, and recreational marijuana you have to have representation that represents you and your ideals. Enough said! Combined I believe that I have put together a good overall blueprint toward re-legalization of commercial (hemp), medical, and recreational marijuana with an in your face letter campaign. Lime Green Jello Creme Pie with postage...splat...!!! I don't say that my idea is no better or no less than anyone Else's plan. Some are lobbies, some are petitions, others are case specific. All I say is that right or wrong, agree or not agree if you are in the mix to re-legalize marijuana stick together we will get there and then we can figure out the specifics. When cracking a hard nut sometimes you have to get inventive, "DO IT!" Turn On, Tune In, Get Active, Wayward Bill Yippie US Marijuana Party |
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